Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
COMMENT: There is an old saw that goes: “Let’s you and him fight!” We noted in a previous post that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia–the head of Saudi intelligence–was directing the program of aid to the Syrian rebels. We also noted that Bandar is so close to the Bush family that he has been nicknamed “Bandar Bush.”
In this post, never lose sight of the presence of Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qaeda/Islamist elements, apparently dominating the Syrian rebels, in spite of official denials.
A major advocate of the disastrous U.S. involvement in Iraq, Bandar had been implicated in major intrigues for decades, including 9/11, the Iran-Contra scandal, and a slush fund scandal, in which he is being represented by former FBI director Louis Freeh.
A report attributed to German intelligence (BND) alleges that the Syrian regime did indeed launch the chemical weapons attack that is the foundation for proposed U.S. military action against that country’s armed forces. (See text excerpts below.)
In a post from last year, Germany Watch (which feeds along the right side of the front page of this website) notes the presence off of the Syrian coast of a German electronic intelligence ship, gathering information on battlefield communications in the war. (See text excerpts below.)
In addition to Russian allegations that it was, in fact, the rebels who used the chemical weapons, a website run by a Palestinian/American alleges that the aforementioned Prince Bandar had equipped the rebels with the chemical weapons, which may have been accidentally detonated. (“Vanfield” noted the editorial bias of this site, when he posted the comment containing the article.) (See text excerpts below.)
A number of things come to mind:
- Might we be seeing a “Curveball II” scenario, here? Might BND be ginning up an incident to trap Obama and the U.S. after Obama broke the cardinal street rule of not writing “a check with his mouth that his ass can’t cover?”
- In addition to the BND-controlled “Curveball,” the Niger/yellowcake uranium gambit lured the U.S. into the Iraq quagmire. The genesis of that disinformation was the SISMI–the Italian intelligence service inextricably linked with the milieu of the P‑2 Lodge, the strategy of tension and the heirs to Mussolini.
- We should note in this context, that, as set forth in our discussions with Russ Baker, George W. Bush was talking about invading Iraq in the late 1990’s. The point here is that gaming the U.S. position vis a vis Iraq required as much guile as setting out a pot of honey in front of a marauding bear. The BND and other fascist elements that appear to have laid a trap had an easy task in front of them.
- We feel that a meeting at the Mont Pelerin resort in Switzerland may well have been a planning session to lure the U.S. into war in Iraq.
- Additional U.S. military action in that benighted part of the world will benefit Underground Reich/German interests in a number of ways including further weakening the U.S. economy, further weakening U.S. diplomatic credibility, further undermining American popular support for President Obama, further undermining U.S. relations with Russia and (perhaps) setting the stage for some sort of reprisal that will further damage this country.
- In a recent post by German-Foreign-Policy.com (which also feeds along the right-hand side of the front page of this website), the fallout from the ginned-up intelligence in the Iraq war is seen in Germany as having damaged not only the U.S./British “special relationship” but the British-French alliance as well. Both developments clearly advance strategic policy of the Underground Reich and Germany. (See text excerpts below.)
- At some point in the future, we may analyze this imbroglio against the background of earth island geo-politics, the “turn to the brotherhood,” the Arab Spring and other considerations. It is more than a little interesting that Prince Bandar allegedly offered to keep the upcoming Olympics in Moscow free of terrorism and indicated that they controlled the Chechen rebels. Part of the earth island geo-politics we will discuss concerns the Boston Marathon bombings, which track back to the entire Caucasus jihadist dynamic at play here.
“What Links The Arab Spring, Dr David Kelly, & German Intelligence?”; Germany Watch; 8/27/2012.
EXCERPT: With the recent developments in Syria, it is interesting to first note an article from the German press, in order to give our explanation a reference point.
Officially of course, the US and UK governments have no love for Syria’s Assad. But they are also aware that many of the Syrian rebels are Islamic extremists, hence there is a balancing act between avoiding the worst of two bad choices. This why the US was sketchy about arming the rebels like they did in Libya — Assad is not quite the mad dog that Gaddafi was, and hence may be the lesser of two evils (the alternative being a Muslim Brotherhood/Jihadist Syria).
The Germans though, are making no such distinctions. In the German press article, published pretty much verbatim in the three main German newspapers, were these little gems;
“A German newspaper has reported that a spy ship from the German intelligence agency is helping Syrian rebels. According to a report on Sunday in the paper Bild am Sonntag, the ship is equipped to detect troop movements as far as 600 kilometers (372.8 miles) inland. The paper says the information thus obtained is being passed by the German foreign intelligence agency BND to United States and British intelligence services. These in turn are handing it on to Syrian rebels, the report says.”
The report quotes a US intelligence agent as saying: “No Western intelligence service has as good sources in Syria as the BND does.” (They never wondered why??)
A member of the BND told the newspaper that the intelligence service was “proud of the important contribution [it] is making to the overthrow of the Assad regime.” . . . .
EXCERPT: A Hezbollah official said in a phone call intercepted by German intelligence that President Bashar al-Assad had made a mistake in ordering a poison gas attack last month, suggesting the Syrian leader’s culpability, participants at a security briefing for German lawmakers said.
According to participants at a confidential meeting on Monday, attended by Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, the head of the BND foreign intelligence agency told the lawmakers its indications of Assad’s responsibility for the Aug 21 incident included an intercepted phone call believed to be between a high ranking member of the Hezbollah Lebanese Shi’ite militant group and the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
In the phone call, the Hezbollah official says Assad’s order for the attack was a mistake and that he was losing his nerve, the participants reported the BND briefing as saying. Both Iran and Hezbollah support Assad. . . .
EXCERPT: . . . However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the deadly gas attack.
“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”
Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.
Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.
“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
“When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material,” he said.
“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.
Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault.
The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders added that health workers aiding 3,600 patients also reported experiencing similar symptoms, including frothing at the mouth, respiratory distress, convulsions and blurry vision. The group has not been able to independently verify the information.
More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government.
Saudi involvement
In a recent article for Business Insider, reporter Geoffrey Ingersoll highlighted Saudi Prince Bandar’s role in the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war. Many observers believe Bandar, with his close ties to Washington, has been at the very heart of the push for war by the U.S. against Assad.
Ingersoll referred to an article in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks alleging that Bandar offered Russian President Vladimir Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad.
“Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” Ingersoll wrote.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Bandar allegedly told the Russians. . . .
“The Rivals’ Alliances”; German-Foreign-Policy.com; 2013/09/02.
EXCERPT: Berlin has reacted to the UK parliament’s decision not to participate in an attack on Syria with an about-face in its own foreign policy. Up until Thursday, the German government and the opposition had been unanimously proclaiming that the use chemical weapons near Damascus must have “consequences” and emphasizing their approval of the British prime minster’s belligerency. Now the German government is declaring that it is not considering “a military strike,” while the opposition is professing that “a military intervention would be a mistake.” This about-face must be seen in the context of the strategic leeway in Europe, resulting from the new situation, which only concerns Syria at a secondary level. As the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) notes, the British parliament’s decision has not only “damaged the special relationship with the United States,” it also provides Germany new political advantages. Moreover, “the British-French security and defense policy alliance has been weakened,” thereby strengthening Germany’s position. In spite of its about-face in foreign policy, bellicose positions are still remnant in Berlin. For example, the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, declared that the West should not “from the outset” exclude any option — including participation in a war.
No Dissociation
Germany has reacted to the UK parliament’s decision not to participate in an attack on Syria with a rapid about-face in its own foreign policy. Following her telephone conversation with the British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday, the German chancellor declared that both had agreed that the “Syrian regime” should not hope “to be able to continue this kind of internationally illegal warfare without punishment:” An international reaction is “inevitable.”[1] On Thursday the SPD’s candidate for the chancellery, Peer Steinbrück, stated that he shared the government’s position that “a serious violation of international legal norms,” such as the use of poison gas cannot be ignored: “We cannot dissociate ourselves one from another, just because we are in an election campaign.”[2] This was the situation up to London’s Lower House’s decision to refuse military aggression against Syria by a vote of 285 — 272. This is not binding for the British government, however de facto Prime Minister Cameron can no longer implement his war plans as he had intended.
New Accent
In Berlin, the reaction Friday morning was what the press politely referred to as a new “accent,” [3] and a cross-party consensus. Whereas the chancellor stuck to her formulations that there must be “consequences” for using chemical weapons, thereby maintaining verbal continuity and all options open, the Minister of Foreign Affairs declared that Germany would, under no conditions, take part in an attack on Syria. He spoke in the name of the “entire German government.” “We are not considering military means,” confirmed a spokesperson for the government.[4] The SPD chancellor candidate chimed in almost in unison: “I would like to make it clear that I, and the SPD, consider a military intervention to be a mistake, because we cannot see how this would help the people of Syria.” Berlin’s foreign policy consensus has been maintained, even though the opposition has a greater margin of maneuver and can formulate more offensively than the German government.
Damaged “Special Relationship”
London’s change of course, imposed by the British parliament, provides Berlin an opportunity that only concerns Syria at a secondary level. According to a position statement by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the British Lower House’s “No” expresses “the doubts the parliamentarians have,” about whether an attack on Syria is appropriate and expedient, while extending “far beyond the motivations and consequences (...) of the Syria policy.” On the one hand, hesitation about using military means has grown, not only within British public opinion, but also at the political level since the failure of the Iraq war. On the other, the growing parliamentary control will have an effect. “Great Britain has relinquished its claim of being able to step into the international ring above its ‘weight class,’ as well as a portion of its role as the junior partner of the USA.” In effect, with Friday night’s decision, “the ‘special relationship’ with the USA (...) has been damaged; in Washington, the reliability of the British government has been put into question.” “The highest objective of British security policy — maintaining military and political relevance in US military interventions, to keep the USA as the protective power of Europe — is a failure.”[5]
Weakened British-French Alliance
And that is not all. According to the SWP, the British parliament’s decision also “weakened the French-British security and defense policy alliance.” The military alliance between London and Paris — formally concluded in November 2010 — (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[6]), which first openly went into action in the war on Libya, had been very critically scrutinized by German government advisors. The German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) pointed out that this alliance was a rival model to the German-French military cooperation within the EU. It has even been referred to as a new form of nascent opposition to German hegemony, as a “new Entente Cordiale” against Berlin.[7] Whereas London and Paris had recently been making joint preparations for war on Syria, France now stands “almost alone in Europe, with its willingness to use military force,” writes the SWP.[8] Berlin benefits most from the fact that Paris, having isolated itself, has pushed London “closer toward the European mainstream” — i.e. closer to the German position. . . .
The BND report on the Syrian chemical weapons incident has some interesting details. The report concludes that it was the Syrian regime that must have launched the small missile used in the attack, but it also suggests that the deadly nature of the attack might be due to an accidental overdose. A much lower level of sarin, intended just to scare, is presumed to have been used in past attacks and the deadliness of this latest attack could have been an accident. So was the sarin attack possibly a non-lethal chemical weapons attack gone horribly awry?:
That’s interesting that the BND allegedly only shares intelligence directly with France. So is the BND selling all that data to the NSA instead of sharing it?
It’s also interesting that diluted sarin was what UN investigator Carla del Ponte thought was used in the previous attack in March, except she thought the rebels used it. Considering del Ponte’s complicated past regarding investigations into Saudi-backed Muslim Brotherhood networks this is one bewildering situation:
Can they have it both ways?
Vf
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/09/201515/intercepts-caught-assad-rejecting.html#.Ui9MsD-nfRo
Posted on Monday, September 9, 2013
Intercepts caught Assad rejecting requests to use chemical weapons, German paper says
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Foreign Staff
BERLIN — Syrian President Bashar Assad has repeatedly rejected requests from his field commanders for approval to use chemical weapons, according to a report this weekend in a German newspaper.
The report in Bild am Sonntag, which is a widely read and influential national Sunday newspaper, reported that the head of the German Foreign Intelligence agency, Gerhard Schindler, last week told a select group of German lawmakers that intercepted communications had convinced German intelligence officials that Assad did not order or approve what is believed to be a sarin gas attack on Aug. 21 that killed hundreds of people in Damascus’ eastern suburbs.
The Obama administration has blamed the attack on Assad. The evidence against Assad was described over the weekend as common sense by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“The material was used in the eastern suburbs of Damascus that have been controlled by the opposition for some time,” he said. “It was delivered by rockets, rockets that we know the Assad regime has, and we have no indication that the opposition has.”
Russia has questioned that logic, announcing last week that in July it filed a 100-page long “technical and scientific” report on an alleged March 19 chemical weapons attack on a suburb of Aleppo that it says implicates rebel fighters.
A U.N. team dispatched to Syria to investigate the March 19 attack was sent to the scene of the Aug. 21 incident. The samples it collected are currently being analyzed in Europe at labs certified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international agency that monitors compliance with chemical weapons bans.
The German intelligence briefing to lawmakers described by Bild am Sonntag fits neither narrative precisely. The newspaper’s article said that on numerous occasions in recent months, the German intelligence ship named Oker, which is off the Syrian coast, has intercepted communications indicating that field officers have contacted the Syrian presidential palace seeking permission to use chemical weapons and have been turned down.
The article added that German intelligence does not believe Assad sanctioned the alleged attack on August 21.
Last week, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, also citing a briefing for German legislators, said that the Oker had intercepted a phone call between a commander from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and an official at an unidentified Iranian embassy saying that Assad had ordered the Aug. 21 chemical attack out of anger. The Hezbollah commander called the attack a “huge mistake,” Der Spiegel said. It was not clear if the two news accounts were based on the same or different briefings.
Assad told American journalist Charlie Rose in an interview to be broadcast in its entirety Monday night on PBS that “there has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people.”
Even if Assad didn’t approve the use of chemical weapons, he’d likely be held responsible for its use by a rogue unit within Syria’s security forces.
David Butter, a Syria expert with the British think tank Chatham House, called the German intelligence “an interesting distraction, but nothing more right now.”
“To build a case that Assad had no role in the use of chemical weapons, we’d need a lot more evidence,” he said. “And, of course, as head of state, if a war crime has been committed by his regime, he is ultimately responsible.”
The German intelligence report would seem to fit the European mood of the moment, however, that U.S. military action must wait for the results of the U.N. investigation. “What happened is all very murky,” Butler said. “Let’s wait for the United Nations investigation before talking about the next step.”
European foreign ministers on Saturday issued a statement calling the Aug. 21 attack a “war crime,” but said nothing should be done without U.N. approval. New opinion polls over the weekend in France, Germany and Great Britain showed strong disapproval of military action in Syria. The British poll, done for The Sunday Telegraph, indicated only 19 percent of the population backs the idea of military action with the United States, while 63 percent oppose it. The polls in France and Germany showed similar margins of opposition.
Meanwhile, a new tabulation of the dead from the Aug. 21 incident raised more questions about Obama administration officials’ account of what took place.
The Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, an anti-Assad group, said that it had been able to document 678 dead from the attacks, including 106 children and 157 women. The report said 51 of the dead, or 7 percent, were fighters from the Free Syrian Army, the designation used to describe rebels that are affiliated with the Supreme Military Council, which the U.S. backs.
The report said that the organization was certain that more than 1,600 died in the attack, but that it had not been able to confirm the higher number.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said 1,429 people died Aug. 21, included 426 children, but has not said how the United States obtained the figures. Other estimates have ranged from a low of “at least 281” by the French government to 502, including “tens” of rebel fighters and about 100 children, by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based group that tracks violence in Syria.
Email: mschofield@mcclatchydc.com Twitter: @mattschodcnews
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/09/201515/intercepts-caught-assad-rejecting.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/behind-the-news-in-israel-david-bedein/sanction-germany-supplier-of-wmd-technology-to-syria/2013/09/10/
Sanction Germany: Supplier of WMD Technology to Syria
These firms worked on contractual arrangements with clearance and confidentiality agreements signed with the US Department of Defense.
By: David Bedein Published: September 10th, 2013 Latest update: September 9th, 2013
Recent chemical warfare developments in Syria bring to mind the study, written by a US investigator, Kenneth Timmerman, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Cases of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya,” which was hand delivered to our agency in Jerusalem in late February 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, by Tilman Zulch, head of a German organization known as THE SOCIETY FOR THREATENED PEOPLES.
This study, later published in full by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in August 1992, documents how WMD technology for these four nations emanated from more than 80 German firms, all of whom exported such lethal substances through subsidiary companies outside of Germany, since German law forbid direct exports of such lethal substances from Germany itself. Many of these subsidiaries which exported WMD technology are prominent corporations in the US.
A case in point: Bayer AG, a German company, built a pesticide plant and continues to export lethal pesticide formulas through US subsidiary companies, with a packaging line for toxic substances and a toxic disposal unit.
Such items are essential to making powerful chemical weapons.
THE SOCIETY FOR THREATENED PEOPLES welcomed me, then in my capacity as correspondent for CNN Radio to come to Germany to cover this story, which I did in March 1991.
THE SOCIETY FOR THREATENED PEOPLES also welcomed me and attorney Jacob Golbert to cover a press conference in Bonn on Holocaust Remembrance Day in April 1991, with the participation of Israelis whose homes in Ramat Gan had been destroyed by Iraqi scud missiles which were produced by German firms during the Gulf War. Joining them were Kurdish victims of chemical warfare which were produced by German firms.
At the German Bundestag Parliament in Bonn, then- German opposition leader Rudolf Dessler told CNN radio that German firms circumvented the ban on Germany exporting such lethal substances through a loophole allowed German firms to establish subsidiaries in the US, in an arrangement that operated with the full consent of the German government.
These firms worked on contractual arrangements with clearance and confidentiality agreements signed with the US Department of Defense.
Golbert and I met with the US Consul in Bonn to get his reaction. He responded angrily that “Tilman Zulch interferes with American business”.
When the German Defense Minister was hosted in Israel by then-Defense minister Yitzhak Rabin March 1993, I asked at their joint press conference about the WMD technology emanated from more than 80 German firms, all of whom exported lethal substances from subsidiary companies outside of Germany.
Rabin asked the German minister not to answer the question.
Why, I have never found out.
Perhaps German submarine aid to Israel was the reason.
In August 2004, I asked at a press conference years in the White House about why the White House was not using the Timmerman report to prove the WMD capacity of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya. The response: What is the Timmerman report?
I called the Wiesenthal Center and asked that Timmerman be fed-exxed to the right people at the White House, which they did. However, follow up calls to the White House about the report was not responded to.
20 years after the Timmerman report was published no one asks how the Syrians received WMD capacity. Is this not the appropriate time to sanction corporations and nations that provided Syria with WMD capacity?
http://www.dw.de/germany-confirms-past-chemical-deliveries-to-syria/a‑17098815
Date 18.09.2013
Germany confirms past chemical deliveries to Syria
Germany approved deliveries of more than 100 tons of chemicals to Syria between 2002 and 2006 that can be used to make sarin gas, or for nonviolent civil purposes. Left- and right-leaning coalitions both did so.
U.N. chemical weapons experts prepare before collecting samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus’ suburb of Zamalka in this August 29, 2013 file photo. A report by U.N. chemical weapons experts will likely confirm that poison gas was used in an August 21 attack on Damascus suburbs that killed hundreds of people, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on September 13, 2013. France’s U.N. ambassador, Gerard Araud, told reporters that September 16, 2013 is the tentative date for Ban to present Sellstrom’s report to the Security Council and other U.N. member states.
The German government on Wednesday answered a formal request from the socialist Left party, confirming that successive German governments approved deliveries of chemicals to Syria that can be used to make sarin gas.
“The permits [for delivery of the chemicals] were granted after a thorough examination of all potential risks, including the dangers of misuse and redirection with a view to possible use in connection with chemical weapons,” the German economy ministry said in its response to the official request, adding no cause for concern was identified.
Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria, spoke to DW about the importance of finding a political solution to end the conflict, and misplaced comparisons with Rwanda and Iraq. (18.09.2013)
The chemicals delivered included hydrogen fluoride, ammonium bifluoride and sodium fluoride, among others, chemicals typically called “dual-use goods” because they have both civilian and military applications. The Left party, Germany’s most unswervingly pacifist party which has put up campaign posters saying “Hands off Syria” ahead of Sunday’s national elections, criticized Berlin’s decision to approve the deliveries.
“I cannot believe this at all. Germany delivered a total of more than 111 tons of chemicals to Syria that can be used to produce sarin – and this in a country that was known to have a chemical weapons program,” Left party weapons expert Jan van Aken, a former UN weapons inspector, told public broadcaster ARD on Wednesday.
The deliveries took place between 2002 and 2003 under Gerhard Schröder’s left-leaning Social Democrat and Green coalition and in 2005 and 2006 during Angela Merkel’s first term in a so-called grand coalition with her Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.
Sarin gas was used in an August 21 attack near Damascus, according to a UN weapons inspector report published on Monday. The UN team was not allowed to investigate culpability, but western countries have blamed forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Wednesday that the government in Berlin also believes the evidence points towards Assad’s regime. Syria, meanwhile, contends that the sarin gas was deployed by opposition fighters.
This is an excerpt.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/09/23/jews-germany-syria-and-poison-gas/
On trial now in Hamburg, Germany are businessmen charged with exporting to Iran nearly 100 German-produced specialized valves required for a plutonium reactor and arranging for 856 nuclear-usable valves to be sent from India to Iran in 2010 and 2011. Political scientist and historian Matthias Kuntzel attended the trial, apparently as the only outside person with an interest in the proceedings. The most striking part of Kuntzel’s report is NOT what was sold, nor the fact that companies routinely changed their names and mailing addresses to avoid investigation, but the attitude of German officials.
A customs official identified only as Stefan M. received periodic warnings and alerts from the United States about the possibility that German companies were selling embargoed items to Iran. These, he told the court, he promptly stuck in a drawer, because, “When I get a proliferation alert, my point of departure is always: this German firm is clean. BAFA [the German export control authority] works in the same way… their assumption is that the firms are credulous [credible?]… It would be counter-productive to assume per se that every German firm mentioned in an alert is involved in criminal activity.”
Kuntzel reports from the trial that in 2012, 136 preliminary investigations were initiated regarding breaches of German export regulations. “According to the Senior Customs Officer, three-quarters of these cases concern the Mullahs’ regime in Tehran,” he wrote.
As between the reflexive Jewish impulse to stop and/or punish the use of poison gas, particularly on civilian populations, and the deliberate, careful, legal German decision to sell hardware, software, and chemical components of weapons of mass destruction to murderous dictators, the Jewish reflex is not only understandable, but distinctly preferable.
Gee, I can’t find anything on line about this trial, but I guess that is par for this course.
Vf
Former German Footballer Dies in Syria
Burak Karan, a former soccer player for the German national team, was killed fighting along side of the Mujahideen (guerrilla fighters in Islamic countries, especially those who are fighting against non-Muslim forces ) in Syria, according to both Turkish and German sources.
Cowan, at the age of 26, left the world of football in 2008, and converted to Islam. During the Syrian civil war, he moved to Turkey with his wife and two small children. Shortly thereafter he crossed the border into Syria in order to join the rebels in their fight against the Assad regime.
The German paper, Der Spiegel, has reported that twenty German citizens have joined rebel forces operating in various sectors of Syria.
This doesn’t bode well for Syria or the rest of the world:
The assumption that “we’re way undercounting” might be correct. Hizb al Tahrir is pretty good at recruiting:
@Pterrafractyl–
For some perspective on Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, check out https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-395-tangled-webs-deep-politics-para-politics-and-proxy-war-in-the-middle-east/
Keep up the great work,
Dave
The civil war amongst the Syrian opposition is developing a new front:
No word yet on which side the heart-eating guy going to choose.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/04/us-germany-usa-spying-idUSKBN0F914M20140704
Germany arrests suspected double agent spying for U.S.: lawmakers
By Thorsten Severin
BERLIN Fri Jul 4, 2014 1:01pm EDT
(Reuters) — An employee of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the United States, two lawmakers with knowledge of the affair told Reuters on Friday.
The German Federal Prosecutor’s office said in a statement that a 31-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of being a foreign spy, but it gave no further details. Investigations were continuing, it said.
The case risks further straining ties with Washington, which were damaged by revelations last year of mass surveillance of German citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency, including the monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
The man, who is German, has admitted passing to an American contact details about a special German parliamentary committee set up to investigate the spying revelations made by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the politicians said.
Both lawmakers are members of the nine-person parliamentary control committee, whose meetings are confidential, and which is in charge of monitoring the work of German intelligence agencies.
The parliamentary committee investigating the NSA affair also holds some confidential meetings.
The German Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had invited the U.S. ambassador to come for talks regarding the matter, and asked him to help deliver a swift explanation.
“This was a man who had no direct contact with the investigative committee ... He was not a top agent,” said one of the members of parliament, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The suspect had offered his services to the United States voluntarily, the source said.
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said: “We don’t take the matter of spying for foreign intelligence agencies lightly.”
When asked whether Merkel had discussed the issue with President Barack Obama during a phone conversation on Thursday night, he merely said they had talked about foreign affairs.
The U.S. embassy in Berlin, the State Department in Washington and the White House all declined to comment.
Germany is particularly sensitive about surveillance because of abuses by the Stasi secret police in communist East Germany and by the Nazis. After the Snowden revelations, Berlin demanded that Washington agree to a “no-spy agreement” with its close ally, but the United States has been unwilling.
Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and the broadcasters WDR and NDR reported that the alleged spy was first detained on suspicion of contacting Russian intelligence agents. He then admitted he had worked with Americans.
Bild newspaper said in an advance copy of an article to be published on Saturday that the man had worked for two years as a double agent and had stolen 218 confidential documents.
He sold the documents, three of which related to the work of the committee in the Bundestag, for 25,000 euros ($34,100), Bild said, citing security sources.
Opposition lawmakers called for diplomatic consequences if the allegations should prove true.
The head of parliament’s committee investigating the NSA affair, Patrick Sensburg, said its members had long feared they might be targeted by foreign intelligence agents and had taken special measures.
(Additonal reporting by Washington bureau; Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
There are unconfirmed reports of heavy fighting in Grozny:
Uh oh.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11345324/Thousands-of-German-spies-at-risk-after-double-agent-stole-list-of-identities.html
Thousands of German spies at risk after double-agent stole list of identities
Double agent working for US, identified only as Markus R, may have sold top-secret details of 3,500 German intelligence officers posted abroad, according to Bild newspaper
By Justin Huggler, Berlin
2:21PM GMT 14 Jan 2015
Thousands of German spies posted around the world could be at risk after it emerged that a double agent unmasked last summer stole a list of their real identities and may have sold it.
The double agent, who has been identified only as Markus R under strict German privacy laws, obtained a top secret list of the real names, aliases and locations of 3,500 German intelligence officers posted abroad, according to a report in Bild newspaper.
But German intelligence sources sought to downplay the incident, briefing that the list in question was out of date and contained far fewer than 3,500 names, the DPA news agency reported.
The arrest of Markus R last summer caused a major diplomatic rift between Germany and the US, after it emerged he had acted as a double agent for the CIA.
He had also approached Russian intelligence and offered to sell them secret information, and there are fears he may have passed the list of German spies’ names to a hostile foreign agency.
An employee of the BND, Germany’s equivalent of MI6, Markus R worked in the registry section of its overseas operations department, where he had access to top secret documents including the identities of operatives posted abroad.
The stolen list, which is said to date from 2011, is believed to contain the real identities and aliases of BND officers posted under cover as diplomats to various embassies around the world, and of those working secretly in countries where the German military has missions abroad, including Afghanistan.
It is not clear whether Markus R passed it to any foreign intelligence agencies. It was found on a hard drive seized during a search of his home after his arrest last summer, which has only recently been properly evaluated.
Markus R’s unmasking was one of two spying scandals that badly shook US-German relations last summer, and saw Angela Merkel’s government ask the CIA station chief in Berlin to leave the country.
Markus R has reportedly confessed to passing the CIA more than 200 secret documents over a period of two years, in return for payments of €25,000 (£16,500).
He appears to have been motivated by money rather than ideology, and it is the possibility that he may have sold German spies’ real identities to a hostile foreign intelligence agency that will be of most concern now.
He was discovered after an email he sent the Russian Embassy in Berlin offering to sell secrets in exchange for cash was intercepted, and German investigators were stunned when he confessed he had been spying for the Americans.
They had even asked the CIA for help unmasking their own mole, convinced the man they were hunting was a Russian double agent, and had been surprised when there was no reply from the Americans.
The arrest came with US-German ties already strained by the revelation that the National Security Agency had spied on Mrs Merkel’s phone calls, and it was followed days later by the questioning of a second possible double agent, an official in Germany’s Defence Ministry who was suspected of at the time of passing secret information to the Americans.
Mrs Merkel’s government ordered surveillance of American and British intelligence gathering on German soil for the first time since 1945, and asked the CIA station chief to leave the country, a rare step between allies.
US-German relations have improved since then, but it was reported earlier this week that prosecutors now believe the case of Markus R is more serious than previously thought.
Prosecutors now believe he was recruited by the CIA a year and a half earlier than he has admitted, in 2010, and was paid €75,000 for passing secrets over a period of four years, according to Spiegel magazine.
It looks like chemical weapons are getting used on Syria again according to a series of new reports by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The Syrian government is suspected of using “one or more chemicals” in several incidents between March and May of 2015. Also, it looks like ISIS is using mustard gas:
“It raises the major question of where the sulfur mustard came from...Either they (IS) gained the ability to make it themselves, or it may have come from an undeclared stockpile overtaken by IS. Both are worrying options.”
The German parliament just overwhelming voted to approve the use of German forces for noncombat roles in Syria. So it’s worth noting that, BND issued a rather blunt warning about Saudi Arabia a couple days ago: According to a memo the BND distributed to the German press Saudi Arabia’s new leadership, including its new young defense minister who is jockeying to become king, is risking destabilizing the entire region in an attempt to assert itself as the new leader of the Arab world:
Ok, so it sounds like royal insecurities driven in part by concerns that the US won’t remain in the region as protection. But it’s also driven a desire by the new king, and his son who he wants to follow him as king and appointed the new defense minister, to project Saudi Arabia as the “the leader of the Arab world...with a strong military component and new regional alliances”. So the thrust of the memo appears to be tha the Saudis will become more militarily aggressive unless the US ramps up its military presence:
So is the lesson that if the US doesn’t commit itself to being the long-term military policeman of the region the Saudi regime will attempt to fill that vacuum? That appears to be the thrust of the memo which is a very interesting message to get independently pushed by the BND just days before Germany’s parliament votes on increasing Germany’s military participation in Syria.
It’s also interesting that the BND’s memo to the press appears to have really pissed off the foreign ministry:
As we might expect, Germany’s diplomats weren’t exactly enthusiastic about the content of the memo. At least not officially:
But you have to wonder if the message in the memo was simply “hey, Germany had better watch out and not get sucked into military commitments in a region that Saudi Arabia is poised to further destabilize.” Because there’s also an implied message in the memo to not just Germany’s leaders but the entire EU’s leadership: “If the US pulls back from the region, someone else had better step in to fill that role if the EU doesn’t want to see Saudi Arabia light the Middle East on fire in a fit of paranoia and chest-thumping.” At least, that’s one way to interpret the message.
It’s something to keep in mind as Europe continues to freak out over what to do with Middle Eastern refugees and the US public continues to sour on the idea of more wars in the Middle East. There’s no reason an EU with much bolder military ambitions couldn’t fill that vacuum if the US pulls back. Sure, there might be an abundance of reasons why the EU shouldn’t do that, but it could.