The Deconstructed Globe

A little bird just whispered in my ear that the Syrian Government is in the final stages of securing a Reconciliation plan for East Aleppo.

There are a few details to be resolved, but it appears that fighters who wish to continue fighting will be bused out of town, and civilians allowed to leave in safety so that the field will be clear for a final battle with foreigners and those determined to stand to the end.

Apparently there is also a deal on the table in the UN Security Council to rescue the foreign fighters of Al Nusra/Al Qaeda/Fatah Al Sham -.

I reached Aleppo yesterday (Tuesday) safely after a long trip. I just wanted to tell you so, no need for worries.
My father’s health is not so good. . . .

On the way, we saw many liberated towns.  However they were completely empty of people. The inhabitants had fled those areas after they were occupied by terrorists and never came back after they wre liberated   In Aleppo destroyed buildings are a pity to sight and heart. But it’s busy with people around and close by. The closer I came to home, the more memories came back to me. People have found alternative solutions for almost everything.

If corruption was 2-fold prior to the crisis, it’s 200 fold today.  Unfortunately this is a very bad personal experience and not a thing I’m proud of.

Sounds in the background of bombing, shelling, …etc. Not much, but they are at all times, day and night. All are from Syrian army against the others, as I’ve been told. It seems the terrorists carried out a big attack a few hours prior to my arriving, maybe a tunnel filled with explosives or something like that.

What is being reported right now

The reporting on the conflict in Yemen, even within the peace and justice movement, has shifted significantly over the course of the Saudi bombing campaign.    The beginning is getting lost in the chaotic and politically fraught present.  Not surprisingly, all the latent factions in Yemen’s unstable past are now …

The United States relationship with Saudi Arabia is, on the surface, a mystery.   Saudi Arabia has been a U.S. proxy and a protectorate for nearly 100 years, yet it remains a very foreign  entity, which consistently engages in activities uncomfortable for US public sensibilities.   Wahabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia, deeply meshed with the government, is the narrowest and most radical fundamentalism in the Muslim world.   Strict social limitations on women and a particularly harsh form of Sharia law are maintained by the Saudi regime.

Despite the fact that the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was largely financed in Saudi Arabia, and 19 out of 21 hijackers were Saudi nationals, U.S. officials quitely flew a number of Saudi officials and some members of  the bin Laden family out of the country while the airspace was still technically closed.  In fact, Saudi Arabia is the single most generous financier of al Qaeda across the globe to this day.   Currently, the United States is supporting a barbaric Saudi bombing campaign against neighboring Yemen that has tkilled large numbers of civlians, destroyed much of the infrastructure and created severe shortages of food, water and medicine.

The Saudi regime, like Netanyahu in Israel, is dismayed by the Obama plan to reintegrate Iran with the global community through a comprehensive nuclear agreement.   And rightly so.

“Reconciliation” is what I called my presentation in Syracuse on Tuesday, August 30, the first related to my recent participation in the US Peace Council Fact Finding Peace Delegation to Syria. There was a pretty good audience of 30-40 people, and they were very positive towards the presentation and asked a lot of questions. There is so much potential for unity in Syria if only the people could be allowed to resolve their own problems without becoming pawns in a global power struggle.

Wilton Vought made a video of the talk where he integrated my slides in with my words so it is very easy to follow what I am talking about, and also covered a good part of the Q&A. See what you think.

I plan to write a piece soon that looks at some of the fluid facts on the ground in relation to the plans and ideas that I talk about in this presentation. JB’

Recently the Pentagon admitted to killing two Syrian children in a drone attack last fall when they bombed a group of al Qaeda fighters  in the suburbs of the Syrian city of Aleppo. . .

But, it isn’t a surprise that some children were killed in Syria in a drone strike.  In fact, children are regularly killed in U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and wherever.   In 2013, due to a lot of negative attention brought by  Internatonal Human Rights NGOs an the United Nations on drone killings in Pakistan and Yemen, President Obama produced a document that set standards limiting drone strikes where civilians might be present.    Last year, after declaring war on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, he waived those limits.   Soon thereafter, these children were killed by a U.S. drone strike in Syria.   The picture is actually of some other children killed by drone strikes in Syria,  Now, there is once again discussion of placing limits on drone strikes.

A factual and logical investigation by Paul Larudee of the situation in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp that has developed over the years into a largely (but not entirely) Palestinian suburb of Damascus.The situation in Yarmouk is confusing, and the forces at play are very complex, but Paul, who speaks some Arabic, and has spent time in the region forming relationships and talking to local people, does an excellent job of unwinding the twisted thread.