position:lieutenant general

En passant par les Émirats (à l’occasion des « sabotages » à Fujairah…) je découvre le tout nouveau Ministère des possibilités et ses quatre départements, dont celui du Prix comportemental, avec un système permettant de gagner des #bons_points monnayables.

Saif Bin Zayed chairs Ministry of Possibilities’ first meeting
▻https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/saif-bin-zayed-chairs-ministry-of-possibilities-first-meeting-1.63957800

https://imagevars.gulfnews.com/2019/05/15/WAM-190515-SAIF--Read-Only-_16abbd28f49_medium.jpg

Dubai: Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, yesterday chaired the first meeting for the Department of Behavioural Award of the Ministry of Possibilities, which was launched to bring about a radical change in the current government work systems.

During the meeting, Shaikh Saif approved the department’s action plans for the next phase, which includes setting a list of behaviours affecting society, and identifying incentives to stimulate good behaviour, in addition to developing a smart application to reach out to all segments of society.

Shaikh Saif stressed that the UAE is pressing ahead with enhancing its success to improve the quality of life under the leadership of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the creative initiatives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

He stressed the ministry’s department of behavioural rewards is a pioneering initiative launched to promote positive behaviour among all members of the society, its institutions and to invest the positive potential of the UAE society within an institutional framework.
[…]
Last April, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid launched the Ministry of Possibilities as the world’s first virtual ministry to apply design-thinking and experimentation to develop proactive and disruptive solutions to tackle critical issues, bringing together federal and local government teams and the private sector.

The first phase of the ministry’s work will include several national programmes in the form of four departments which are:
• Department of Anticipatory Services — it aims to redefine customer experience in all areas and provides anticipatory services to the public,
• Department of Behavioural Rewards — it aims to develop an approach for incentivising positive behaviour through a point-based rewards system that can be used in payments for government services,
• Department of UAE Talent — it aims to create a nurturing environment to empower Emiratis to be part of the country’s development and future design,
• Department of Government Procurement — it aims to make government procurement faster and more accessible, especially for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Calling a coup a coup? Egypt’s African Union bid to make inroads in Sudan | MadaMasr
▻https://madamasr.com/en/2019/04/22/feature/politics/calling-a-coup-a-coup-egypts-african-union-bid-to-make-inroads-in-sudan

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While the head of the transitional military council that has ruled Sudan since ousting former President Omar al-Bashir announced a “readiness” to hand over power to a civilian government last night, negotiations to usher in the transition to civilian rule in Sudan are at a “deadlock,” sources in the opposition tell Mada Masr.

Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who sits atop the transitional council, took to television late on Sunday night to announce the military’s willingness to hand over the “reins of government” as early as tomorrow, provided that political forces reached a consensus among themselves and put forth a government they could agree upon.

Burhan’s speech was roundly rejected by leading member of the opposition Freedom and Change Coalition Wagdi Salih, who spoke at a rally in front of the military headquarters shortly after the lieutenant general’s address, announcing that the opposition would suspend talks with the military council.

“We were supposed to have a meeting with the military council yesterday to inform them of the choices for the civilian sovereign council, but the council, which is a continuation of the ruling regime, revealed its dark side. The council told us they want to discuss our proposal among another 100 proposals from political parties,” Salih told protesters.

Sunday’s televised exchange played out against the backdrop of a flurry of meetings held on Saturday, when the African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki met with the military and opposition in Khartoum.

Pentagon Warns Syria’s Assad against Attacking Washington Allies | Asharq AL-awsat
▻https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1287576/pentagon-warns-syria%E2%80%99s-assad-against-attacking-washington-allies

The Pentagon on Thursday warned Head of Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad not to carry out an offensive against Kurdish and Arab forces backed by the Washington that control the country’s north-east.

Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, director of the joint staff, said during a press conference on Thursday: “Any interested party in Syria should understand that attacking US Forces or our coalition partners will be a bad policy.”

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White later stated that US is in Syria only to fight ISIS.

She added that the “US did not want to get involved in Syria’s civil war.”

Assad told Russian broadcaster RT in an interview that the “only problem left in Syria is the SDF.”

Assad said there were only “two options" to deal with SDF.

“The first one: we started now opening doors for negotiations. Because the majority of them are Syrians."

Otherwise, "we’re going to resort... to liberating those areas by force,” he added.

SDF continue to fight against ISIS in part of oil-rich province of Deir Al Zour.

Je vois passer ceci. Quelques reprises (dont Jerusalem Post), mais qui toutes se contentent de cette unique source. Avec de grosses pincettes donc… Jordan’s King arrests brothers and cousin in suspected Saudi-led coup | Al Sura English
▻http://al-sura.com/jordans-king-arrests-brothers-and-cousin-in-suspected-saudi-led-coup

King Abdullah spared no time in arresting both his brothers and cousin; Prince Faisal bin Hussein, Prince Ali bin Hussein and Prince Talal bin Muhammad after Jordanian intelligence services alerted the King that there was communication between the brothers and cousin and Saudi and Emirati leaders; Mohammad bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed. The shock house arrest of the King’s siblings comes as the Middle East faces a renewed ‘revolutionary’ movement in several countries. Leadership among the MENA states has looked towards Saudi Arabia for explanations for it’s belligerency towards the governments despite showing good working relations otherwise. Long standing allegiances with Qatar were seemingly thrown aside in moments when Saudi Arabia launched an economic blockade against long time ally Qatar. Many blame Saudi Arabia’s young Mohammad bin Salman for these poor choices in relations.

Lieutenant General Hegazy II: Egypt’s new chief-of-staff | MadaMasr
▻https://www.madamasr.com/en/2017/10/28/feature/politics/the-new-hegazy-at-the-head-of-egypts-military

Mohamed Farid Hegazy was installed as the Armed Forces chief-of-staff on Saturday night, replacing the military’s former top official Mahmoud Hegazy, who will now take up a role as a presidential advisor on strategic planning and crisis management, according to a statement issued by the Armed Forces spokesperson.

The change in the military’s leadership coincides with a reshuffle in the Interior Ministry that saw several prominent leaders depart from office. Although the reshuffle in the Interior Ministry seems a clear response to the attack in the Western Desert near the Wahat Road, 135 km outside of Giza, the reasons behind the change in military leadership are less clear.

Burning Raqqa | HuffPost
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/burning-raqqa-syria-civilians_us_597a0924e4b02a8434b4a2a7

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/597a0af6210000a134fc8f59.jpeg?ops=1910_1000

But on June 5th, as the families were waiting to cross the river to escape the impending U.S.-backed offensive, coalition warplanes launched a barrage of airstrikes targeting the boats, reportedly massacring as many as 21 civilians. The coalition acknowledges launching 35 airstrikes that destroyed 68 boats between June 4th and June 6th, according to the journalistic outlet Airwars. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend later boasted about the tactic, telling the New York Times: “We shoot every boat we find.”

Hundreds died in Rohingya camps on Thai-Malaysia border
▻http://www.atimes.com/article/hundreds-died-rohingya-camps-thai-malaysia-border

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More details have emerged about Thailand’s ugly trade in people now that a marathon trial has ended in Bangkok with 62 people convicted of human trafficking and other serious crimes.

Camps set up by traffickers in the jungle on the Thai-Malaysian border to hold Rohingya and other ‘boat people’ existed for many years prior to government crackdown in mid-2015 that curtailed the brutal trade, a key activist group has said.

Freeland, a Bangkok-based non-government group that fights wildlife trafficking and human slavery, worked with Thai police to identify key figures in the smuggling networks that were rounded up and put on trial.

The group said on Friday it “believes that more than 500 people died in the camps where the people in this particular trafficking chain were held, and that the camps were probably there for at least five years or more”.

It also had “digital forensics experts” able to help police access vital data on mobile phones found on drivers and in cars stopped with smuggled Rohingya on board. Data on the phones indicated “the precise route the drivers had taken on multiple occasions… [and] filled in pieces of the trafficking supply chain, and ultimately uncovered the location of some holding camps.”

The data also allegedly led to bank transfers to a senior military officer convicted of trafficking, Lieutenant General Manas Kongpaen. Manas, who was sentenced to 27 years jail, was involved in the notorious ‘pushbacks’ affair in December 2008 and January 2009, when vessels carrying hundreds of Rohingya were towed back into the Andaman Sea and set adrift.

NATO Ratchets Up Missile Defense Despite Russian Criticism - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/world/europe/nato-russia-poland.html

NATO’s European missile defense system goes live on Thursday when a base in Romania becomes operational. The next day, Poland is scheduled to break ground on its NATO missile-defense base.

The decision by the United States and its allies in Eastern Europe to proceed with ballistic missile defense in the face of increasingly loud Russian criticism is an important stage in the alliance’s new stance toward Moscow.

Those deployments will be coupled this spring with major military exercises in Poland and the Baltics, with significant American participation and a beefed-up rapid reaction force of up to 5,000 troops.

Altogether, said Derek Chollet, a former United States assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, “There will be a quite robust display of military power in Europe and allied resolve, and hopefully Moscow will see it for what it is, an alliance improving its capabilities.”
[…]
Talk of “strategic partnership” is gone; instead, there are calls to abandon the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, which spoke of shared values and a commitment to peace. There is less emphasis on finding “common ground” with Russia than on setting clear limits.

The intention in Warsaw is to move from “reassurance” of eastern NATO allies to “deterrence” of Russia. That means more troops and equipment, longer deployments, bigger exercises and a “persistent” presence of NATO and American troops in countries like Poland and the Baltics.
[…]
How will Russia react? President Vladimir V. Putin views NATO as encircling Russia to limit its influence. Moscow argues that the only possible target of NATO’s missile defenses is Russia, now that Iran has agreed to limit its nuclear program.

Bye bye #Breedlove !

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SHAPE | U.S. Army General Scaparrotti - 18th #SACEUR
▻https://www.shape.nato.int/2016/us-army-general-scaparrotti-18th-saceur

NATO’s 18th Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, assumes command of Allied Command Operations (ACO) from General Philip M. Breedlove at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) today.
 
Military members and civilians from across the 28-nations attended the ceremony, highlighting the continuing unity and solidarity of the military alliance at SHAPE, which celebrated its 65th anniversary in April.

Hello #Scaparrotti !

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SHAPE | Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)
▻https://www.shape.nato.int/saceur-2

General Curtis M. Scaparrotti is a native of Logan, Ohio, graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1978 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
 
A career infantry officer, General Scaparrotti most recently served as Commander, United States Command / Combined Forces Command / United States Forces Korea. Before that he was the Director Joint Staff. Prior to his tour with the Joint Staff, General Scaparrotti served as Commander, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command and Deputy Commander, U.S. Forces – Afghanistan the Commanding General of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and the Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division.

The secret US army study that targets Moscow – POLITICO
▻http://www.politico.eu/article/the-secret-us-army-study-that-targets-moscow

Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster has a shaven head and gung-ho manner that only add to his reputation as the U.S. Army’s leading warrior-intellectual, one who often quotes famed Prussian general and military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz. A decade ago, McMaster fought a pitched battle inside the Pentagon for a new concept of warfare to address the threat from Islamist terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq and other trouble spots. Now, his new mission is more focused.

Target: Moscow.

POLITICO has learned that, following the stunning success of Russia’s quasi-secret incursion into Ukraine, McMaster is quietly overseeing a high-level government panel intended to figure out how the Army should adapt to this Russian wake-up call. Partly, it is a tacit admission of failure on the part of the Army — and the U.S. government more broadly.

“It is clear that while our Army was engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia studied U.S. capabilities and vulnerabilities and embarked on an ambitious and largely successful modernization effort,” McMaster told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. “In Ukraine, for example, the combination of unmanned aerial systems and offensive cyber and advanced electronic warfare capabilities depict a high degree of technological sophistication.”

In Ukraine, a rapidly mobilized Russian-supplied rebel army with surprisingly lethal tanks, artillery and anti-tank weapons has unleashed swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles and cyberattacks that shut down battlefield communications and even GPS.
[…]
McMaster’s response is the Russia New Generation Warfare Study, whose government participants have already made several unpublicized trips to the front lines in Ukraine. The high-level but low-profile effort is intended to ignite a wholesale rethinking — and possibly even a redesign — of the Army in the event it has to confront the Russians in Eastern Europe.

It is expected to have profound impact on what the U.S. Army will look like in the coming years, the types of equipment it buys and how its units train. Some of the early lessons will be road tested in a major war game planned for June in Poland. Says retired Army Chief of Staff General Gordon Sullivan: “That is all designed to demonstrate that we are in the game.”

Et donc, contraints de démontrer que si, si, #still_in_the_game

Traduction de l’arabe à l’anglais d’un article dans al-Raï d’Elijah Magnier, commentateur qui me semble mériter d’être lu :
▻https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/02/06/finishing-off-isisdaesh-is-not-a-priority-for-the-west
"Finishing off Daesh is not a priority for the West"

When Anbar and Ninoy tribes raided the city of Mosul back in June 2014, these tribes, followed by ISIS, claimed the victory to itself and overshadowed the influence of the tribes. Iraq was governed by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who threw the Americans out of Iraq, and opened the doors of cooperation with Iran, so much so that almost every deal between the Prime minister, government cabinet, as well as the major and minor political parties and blocks, whether Sunni, Shi’a, or Kurds, were sketched and brokered in Tehran and Beirut.
Washington stood by as armed opposition against Baghdad grew, especially ISIS. It wanted ISIS to sow the seeds of destruction in Syria and Iraq; these allegations were confirmed by retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a report he had submitted to the US administration back in 2012.
There is no doubt that Iran’s increasing influence in the region harms US interests, and the interests of other regional players. The US moved to contain ISIS but not to destroy it, when it headed towards the oil rich city of Kirkuk, and the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where regional and international interests are present, in the form of military cooperation, and oil extraction contracts, it is also used by the CIA as a launching base for its operations in the region.
From this we can conclude that destroying ISIS would harm US interests because there would be no military excuse to be there, and hence Tehran would regain control of Iraq. Baghdad under Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi is convinced that the US can provide aerial and technological assistance for the Iraqi intellegence community, thus enabling security forces to strike ISIS where it hurts. Iran has been able to use the call of Seyyed Ali Al-Sistani to form the Popular Mobilization Forces enabling Tehran to regain a foothold in Iraq, by forming an alternative to the current security forces, and offering an alternative to Haider Al-Abadi that can challenge him in the future.

Le même avait déjà expliqué pourquoi le régime ne se concentrait pas encore sur Daesh :
For Assad defeating al-Qaeda and its allies, rather than ISIS, is a top priority : ISIS is a “marionette”.
►https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/why-defeating-al-qaeda-and-its-allies-is-a-top-priority-for-assa

Seymour Hersh’s bizarre new conspiracy theory about the US and Syria, explained
▻http://www.vox.com/2015/12/21/10634002/seymour-hersh-syria-joint-chiefs

The fatal flaw at the heart of the story

Hersh alleges that the mastermind of this entire conspiracy was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, whom Hersh says was horrified by Obama’s plan to arm Syrian rebels and sought to aid Assad. This claim is difficult to believe: While in office, Dempsey famously and publicly clashed with Obama over Syria because Dempsey wanted to do more to arm Syrian rebels. Contemporaneous accounts of arguments within the White House support this, with Dempsey arguing the US should more robustly arm Syrian rebels, and Obama arguing for less.

Yet Hersh claims, with no evidence, that Dempsey was so opposed to arming Syrian rebels that he would commit an apparent act of treason to subvert those plans. Hersh makes no effort to reconcile this seemingly fatal contradiction, and indeed it is not clear Hersh is even aware that Dempsey is known for supporting rather than opposing efforts to arm the Syrian rebels.

Le nouveau document de Seymour M. Hersh: Military to Military: US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war
►http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey.’ The assessment was bleak: there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’

‘Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,’ the former JCS adviser said. ‘The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration’s policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Germany, Israel and Russia were in contact with the Syrian army, and able to exercise some influence over Assad’s decisions – it was through them that US intelligence would be shared. Each had its reasons for co-operating with Assad: Germany feared what might happen among its own population of six million Muslims if Islamic State expanded; Israel was concerned with border security; Russia had an alliance of very long standing with Syria, and was worried by the threat to its only naval base on the Mediterranean, at Tartus. ‘We weren’t intent on deviating from Obama’s stated policies,’ the adviser said. ‘But sharing our assessments via the military-to-military relationships with other countries could prove productive. It was clear that Assad needed better tactical intelligence and operational advice. The JCS concluded that if those needs were met, the overall fight against Islamist terrorism would be enhanced. Obama didn’t know, but Obama doesn’t know what the JCS does in every circumstance and that’s true of all presidents.’

Once the flow of US intelligence began, Germany, Israel and Russia started passing on information about the whereabouts and intent of radical jihadist groups to the Syrian army; in return, Syria provided information about its own capabilities and intentions. There was no direct contact between the US and the Syrian military; instead, the adviser said, ‘we provided the information – including long-range analyses on Syria’s future put together by contractors or one of our war colleges – and these countries could do with it what they chose, including sharing it with Assad.

[…]

The military’s indirect pathway to Assad disappeared with Dempsey’s retirement in September. His replacement as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Joseph Dunford, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in July, two months before assuming office. ‘If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia,’ Dunford said. ‘If you look at their behaviour, it’s nothing short of alarming.’ In October, as chairman, Dunford dismissed the Russian bombing efforts in Syria, telling the same committee that Russia ‘is not fighting’ IS. He added that America must ‘work with Turkish partners to secure the northern border of Syria’ and ‘do all we can to enable vetted Syrian opposition forces’ – i.e. the ‘moderates’ – to fight the extremists.

Obama now has a more compliant Pentagon. There will be no more indirect challenges from the military leadership to his policy of disdain for Assad and support for Erdoğan.

ISIS jihadists reportedly kidnap up to 500 children in Iraq
▻http://rt.com/news/263617-islamic-state-kidnapped-children

In the eastern governorate of Diyala, IS “has recruited about 100 children under the age of 16,” said provincial Police Chief Lieutenant General Kasim Al-Saidi. “They are going to brainwash these kids into being suicide bombers,” AA cited Al-Saidi as saying.

The general believes that after getting some basic military training at terrorist camps, the youngsters could be dispatched to other regions under IS control, including Syria.

In neighboring Syria, Islamic State jihadists recruited at least 400 children during a three-month period in the winter of 2014/2015, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported in March. These children, dubbed ’Cubs of the Caliphate,’ received military and religious training.

Au rayon « nos valeurs » – opposées aux fondamentalistes qui mènent des guerres barbares au nom d’une lecture littérale de la religion : nos amis les Américains…

Extrait de America Right or Wrong - An Anatomy of American Nationalism, d’Anatol Lieven

The link between millenarianism and radical nationalism was exemplified by Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, a Pentecostalist believer appointed in 2003 as deputy under-secretary of defense for intelligence. A minor scandal developed in that year when the content of some talks Boykin had given to U.S. evangelical church groups made their way into the national media. (President Bush eventually condemned General Boykin’s statements, but did not dismiss him from his post—one which, it may be noted, later involved a measure of responsibility for the intelligence-gathering strategy which contributed to the abuses of Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.)

 Among other things, General Boykin declared that America is a “Christian nation” and that George Bush had been elevated to the presidency by a miracle—an idea with which many Democrats would agree, but not quite as Boykin meant it. Of judgments by the U.S. Supreme Court of which he disapproved, Boykin said, “Don’t you worry about what these courts say. Our God reigns supreme.” He informed his listeners that in examining photographs of Mogadishu, where he served as a special forces officer, he found an unexplained black mark, which he explained as a manifestation of evil; and that on 9/11 terrorists actually took over two more planes, but they were "thwarted by the hand of God."129

 America’s enemy in the war against terrorism, he said, is Satan, and Satan will be defeated only “if we come against him in the name of Jesus.” Most famously, Boykin said, of a Somali warlord, “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” This last was widely described as “crude machismo,” which it may have been, but it was also a straight biblical reference, to the victorious contests of Hebrew Prophets with the priests of Baal.130 Similar statements concerning Islam have emanated from several leaders of the Christian Right like Franklin Graham (son of Billy), Jerry Falwell and the Reverend Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.131

 Concerning the United States itself, leading officials of the Bush administration made no secret of their belief that the American state rests on essentially religious foundations, that “the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator,” in Ashcroft’s words.132 Even Vice President Dick Cheney sent a Christmas card in 2003 with a message asking, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"133

 Boykin’s remarks indicate two salient features of this sector of American society, as discussed above. The first is their intense nationalism. As for the English and Scottish Puritans of the seventeenth century, from whom they derive their religious culture—as indeed for the Israelites of the Old Testament—their God is essentially a tribal God, a Cromwellian “God of Warre” who fights for them against Amelekites, Irish papists, Red Indians, Mexicans, Spaniards, Germans, Japanese, Communists, Russians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Muslims and any other enemy who comes along.

The second is that their religion-based culture is to a very great extent premodern and definitely pre-Enlightenment. A comparison of Boykin with his equivalents in other contemporary Western armed forces is instructive. A great many French, British and Russian officers would feel more comfortable in the nineteenth century and some surviving aristocratic elements in the eighteenth. British officers in particular sometimes have an affection for horses which trembles on the brink of impropriety. However, the golden ages which they yearn for are still post-Enlightenment. Unlike General Boykin, they would not feel at home in Cromwell’s New Model Army. The extent of this ideologically premodern sector in the United States is greater than almost anywhere else in the developed world—except for Northern Ireland. This kind of religious nationalism is fueled both by religious moralism and by a paranoia fed in turn by a feeling of cultural embattlement. In the words of Richard Hofstadter: "Since what is at stake is always a conflict between good and evil, the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to the finish. Nothing but total victory will do. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and utterly unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated....This demand for unqualified victories leads to the formulation of hopelessly demanding and unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s frustration."134

L’Ukraine est sauvée: McCain a un plan qu’il est bon! Citing Bin Laden-backed Mujahideen, McCain Makes Worst Argument Ever to Arm Ukrainian Military
▻https://www.districtsentinel.com/citing-bin-laden-backed-mujahideen-mccain-makes-worst-argument-eve

Incensed by the lieutenant general’s analysis, McCain pointed to the 1980’s Soviet war in Afghanistan as a success story of what happens when the US commits weapons in a proxy war against the Russians.

“I’m sure that the Russians had a significant advantage when they invaded Afghanistan. I’m sure that throughout history when we’ve helped people who’ve been invaded and oppressed and when we haven’t, [we’ve seen] what the consequences have been.”

In the case of Afghanistan, the consequences, which have been widely and exhaustively reported, were the rise of the Taliban and decades of war, and over 13 years of a US military campaign against the very same people that the Pentagon covertly armed in the 1980’s—militants who included Osama Bin Laden himself.

(via Angry Arab)

Iraqi army general killed in shelling near #Baghdad
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/iraqi-army-general-killed-shelling-near-baghdad

Shelling west of Baghdad killed the commander of the Iraqi army’s 6th division on Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s security spokesman said. Major General Najm Abdullah Sudan “was killed by hostile shelling in Ibrahim bin Ali,” Lieutenant General Qassem Atta told AFP by text message. Ibrahim bin Ali lies in the Abu Ghraib area, just west of Baghdad, near where security forces have been locked in a months-long standoff with militants who have seized control of the city of Fallujah. read more

#Iraq

Norway’s new Arctic giant spyship | Barentsobserver

▻http://barentsobserver.com/en/security/2014/03/norways-new-arctic-giant-spyship-17-03

This is the first photo of what is to be the most important military intelligence vessel for NATO in the Barents- and Arctic Seas.

By Thomas Nilsen March 17, 2014

▻http://barentsobserver.com/sites/barentsobserver.com/files/styles/grid_8/public/main/articles/marjata.jpg?itok=PCkcN4qC

“This is an important project to ensure Norway’s interests in the North. Control with the development there is strategically important for Norway,” says Head of the Norwegian Military Intelligence Lieutenant General Kjell Grandhagen.

#norvège #surveillance #contrôle #espionnage #bateau_espion

Iraqi #rebels capture northern town following massive assault
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/iraqi-rebels-capture-northern-town-following-massive-assault

Militants took control of a village in northern #Iraq on Friday after staging a coordinated pre-dawn assault and setting off a massive suicide truck bomb, two officials said. The blast in the village of #Sarha killed two senior police officers, but the overall toll was not immediately clear, according to Lieutenant General Abdelamir al-Zaidi, head of a northern Iraq security command, and Shallal Abdul, mayor of the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu. read more

#militants #suicide_attack #Top_News

Les réseaux de l’islamophobie aux Etats-Unis

CAIR Report : Islamophobia Network Funded with $119 Million 2008 to 2011

▻http://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/12149-cair-report-islamophobia-network-funded-with-119-million-2008-to-2011.ht

Muslim civil rights group identifies 37 organizations dedicated to promoting anti-Islam prejudice

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 9/19/13) — The nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today released a report, “Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States,” which reveals that anti-Islam groups received more than $119 million in funding between 2008 and 2011.

The new report by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also identifies 37 organizations dedicated to promoting anti-Islam prejudice in America. CAIR’s second report on the subject more fully identifies the “Islamophobia network” in the United States and exposes its funding.

[NOTE: CAIR today also distributed an ISLAM-OPED commentary, “The Reality of Islamophobia in America,” which states that, “Like racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and other issues, Islamophobia exists.” That commentary is available upon request for publication by media outlets nationwide.]

“This report sheds light on the groups promoting Islamophobia in our society and reveals to the reader the impact those groups have on our nation’s discourse about Islam, pluralism and the future of the protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution,” said Corey Saylor, who directs CAIR’s department to monitor and combat Islamophobia.

CAIR’s findings include:

The U.S.-based Islamophobia network’s “inner core” is currently comprised of at least 37 groups whose primary purpose is to promote prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims. An additional 32 groups whose primary purpose does not appear to include promoting prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims, but whose work regularly demonstrates or supports Islamophobic themes, make up the network’s “outer core.”
The inner core of the U.S.-based Islamophobia network enjoyed access to at least $119,662,719 in total revenue between 2008 and 2011. Groups in the inner core are often tightly linked with each other. Key players in the network benefitted from large salaries as they encouraged the American public to fear Islam.
In 2011 and 2012, 78 bills or amendments designed to marginalize Muslims and vilify Islamic religious practices were introduced in the legislatures of 29 states and the U.S. Congress. Sixty-two of these bills contained language that was extracted from David Yerushalmi’s American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) model legislation. While the bias motive behind the bills is clear, the presence of an actual problem that needed to be solved was not — even to the legislators introducing the measures. In at least 11 states, mainstream Republican leaders introduced or supported anti-Muslim legislation.
Subject matter experts perceive a small but welcome decline in Islamophobia in America during the period covered by this report. In 2012, CAIR rates Islamophobia as a 5.9 on a scale of one to 10, with one representing an America free of Islamophobia and 10 being the worst possible situation for Muslims. In 2010, CAIR rated the state of Islamophobia in America as a 6.4.

The decline makes particular sense given that the 2010 rating interviews were conducted in September and October of 2010. This period was the height of the national controversy over Park 51, aka “the Ground Zero Mosque.” The controversy’s proximity to the 2010 mid-term election made it a campaign issue. It was also right at the time of the planned burning of Qurans by Florida Pastor Terry Jones. This period in 2010 can be seen as the Islamophobia network’s greatest penetration into mainstream discourse to date. 
There were 51 recorded anti-mosque acts during the period covered by this report, 29 in 2012 and 22 in 2011. Two notable spikes in anti-mosque acts occurred in 2011-2012: May 2011 (7 acts), likely related to the killing of Osama bin Laden, and August 2012 (10 acts), probably all in reaction to the massacre of six Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist in Oak Creek, Wis. By comparison, in June 2010, CAIR published “CAIR: Who we are,” a review of 1,999 CAIR press releases and action alerts spanning 1994-2008. In that report we noted: “Since 1994, CAIR has detailed at least 64 acts of destruction and defilement of Islamic places of worship—including shootings, vandalism, arson, and bombings.”
CAIR’s report also notes that anti-Muslim trainers serving law enforcement and military personnel were dealt a significant blow in late 2011 and that Islamophobic rhetoric remains socially acceptable.

In 2011, after significant pressure from CAIR and other organizations that included crucial reporting by Wired.com’s Spencer Ackerman, federal authorities initiated steps to remove biased and inaccurate material about Islam from law enforcement training materials. Studies and a lack of consequences for most candidates for public office who engage in anti-Muslim rhetoric reveal an unfortunate societal tolerance for prejudicial speech directed at Muslim.

CAIR names individuals, institutions and groups that were at the center of promoting Islamophobia in America during the period covered by the report.

The “worst” list includes:

Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin (retired)
Zuhdi Jasser and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Herman Cain
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)
David Yerushalmi
Former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.)
Walid Shoebat and the Forum for Middle East Understanding
State legislators who sponsored anti-Islam legislation
The Clarion Fund
David Caton and the Florida Family Association
Lowe’s

#islamophobie

Commander of EUCOM Ends Visit in Israel | Israel Defense Forces
►http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/09/26/commander-of-the-us-european-command-ends-visit-in-israel

The commander of the US European Command (EUCOM), Admiral James Stavridis, departed Israel today, concluding a two-day work visit as a guest of the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz. During the course of his visit, Admiral Stavridis conducted work meetings with senior officers and toured a number of facilities throughout the country, including a site of an “Iron Dome” battery, an advanced mobile air-defense system developed with extensive US aid.

EUCOM, the United States Combatant Command responsible for nearly all of Europe, parts of Asia and the Middle East, and the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean, also heads many aspects of the military cooperation between Israel and the United States. One specific example of this cooperation is active missile defense.

This is the Admiral’s third visit to Israel and his first in the current year. The visit took place as part of the annual schedule of joint training and learning between EUCOM and the IDF.