Assad syria
see syria
see putin
see tulsi gabbardMET 2X ASK orphans 2 girls how know assad?
see arab spring 1 AGW DROUGHT
disinfo
...“The idea behind the Hawley/Rubio scam is this. They are smart enough to know the rebranded neoconservatism of Nikki Haley and Crenshaw has no legs. Also smart enough to know free-market libertarianism has no legs,” Beattie wrote.
In a deleted March 7, 2022, tweet, Beattie cast doubt that then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons during the country’s civil war in a tweet attacking Rubio’s warning that any chemical, biological or nuclear attacks in Ukraine would be attributable to Russia.
“I bet Rubio still thinks Assad gassed his own people,” Beattie wrote, responding to Rubio.
active measures
Reddit · r/ActiveMeasures
1 month ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/1ignriz/what_darren_beattie_has_said_about_russia_and/)
Meet project "Good Old USA" the now unsealed DoJ file on the Russian influence in the US to sway opinion on the war in Ukraine. r/ActiveMeasures ...
@adamscochran.bsky.social on Bluesky
Adam Cochran@adamscochran.bsky.social
eg us is ponzi scheme // musk on ssn
The campaign, done with the direct oversight of President Putin, spent years creating fake versions of US news sites, sharing fake stories on social media, and being social media reply-guys with isolationist, anti-Ukraine, and anti-West commentary.
Fake versions of news sites like Fox News were used to spread stories on Facebook and Twitter as "fact" while a network of commentators were encouraged to tell you that "the official media will never tell you what's happening" or to "dig deeper"
...
To spread their narratives, Russia created thousands of seemingly US accounts but also created and *bought* popular news accounts on Facebook and Twitter that focused on sharing "breaking news" sharing mostly legit news spreading propaganda among results.
·
5/31 On these fake sites they wrote extensive thought pieces, pointing to a "weak US", "domestic immigration problems" and an "unwinnable war in Ukraine" They were tasked with spreading the idea of isolationism in the US versus global policy....
Adam Cochran@adamscochran.bsky.social
·
6/31 They were directed to write comments, pretending to be American, denouncing the current party in power and the President (Biden), claiming the economy is deteriorating, being nostalgic for the good old day, and blaming "globalism" and "neoliberalism"
---
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Worldwide fascism is being accelerated by the one thing few people want to talk about
Thom Hartmann
August 22, 2023
This article was paid for by AlterNet subscribers.
The government of the Netherlands fell this summer. The issue that tipped it over the edge was immigration driven by climate change. If Putin wanted to destroy democracy in Europe (and he does), back in 2015 he couldn’t have picked a better strategy. Odds are, though, he was just trying to protect his deepwater ports; it wasn’t until the crisis developed that he realized how he could exploit it to overthrow liberal democracies in the EU. The way it’s played out gives us a glimpse into our future — and the future of democratic republics all across the world — as the global climate emergency and the refugee crisis associated with it grows more severe over the next few years.
The current rise-of-rightwing-fascism crisis building in Europe began in 2010 and started with global climate change.
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The fall of that year saw unusually severe rainfall across the wheat-growing parts of Canada, cutting that nation’s wheat harvest, along with drought across Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and China. A La Nina caused crop failures in Argentina and Peru. Worldwide prices of staple foods, particularly wheat, exploded.
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On December 17 of that year a street vendor in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire to protest the high cost of the wheat he needed to make the foods he and his peers sold, and the harassment of police against their protests. It sparked what we referred to then as the Arab Spring, that lasted through most of 2011.
The steady warming and drought in that area, though, never let up and the desert in North Africa relentlessly continued to eat up millions of acres of food-producing land, particularly across Syria. By 2015 it had pushed over a million Syrian subsistence farmers off their land — that had desertified — and into Syria’s cities, particularly Damascus and Aleppo.
Northern Africa became the world’s number one food importer, and the prices kept rising relentlessly.
Newly homeless, hungry, and destitute, these Syrian farmers began demonstrations in the streets demanding food, shelter, and employment or “welfare” payments from the Syrian government.
Bashar Assad, being a psychopathic dictator, ordered his troops to fire live ammunition into the crowds in 2012 and 2013, and soon a full-blown revolt was on: “rebels” seized Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, in early 2013.
Syria was also the base for Russia’s Mediterranean fleet, with multiple deep-water ports that Putin believed were critical to his nation’s military defense. By 2015 he had a dozen battleships there, along with submarines and other warships.
He had to prevent the Assad government from falling or risk an “Arab Spring democracy” emerging — as happened for a short while in Tunisia and Egypt — that might align itself with the West and kick Russia out.
Making a long story short, Putin bombed the crap out of Syria on Assad’s behalf, virtually leveling the city of Aleppo, killing hundreds of civilians.
It was one of the worst war crimes of this century, almost as deadly as George W. Bush’s brutal and criminal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of climate and war refugees fled the country, joining Bush’s wars’ fugitives making their way into Europe by any means possible.
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Thus began Europe’s refugee crisis, which just helped bring down Holland’s government. In two weeks, it may well cause the rightwing fascist-aligned anti-immigrant People’s Party to come to power in the Spanish elections on July 23.
As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted in a 2021 report:
“By the end of 2016, nearly5.2 million refugees and migrants reached European shores,undertaking treacherous journeys from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries torn apart by war and persecution.”
This flood of brown-skinned Muslims fleeing African and Middle Eastern climate change and wars into Europe over the past decade is why Italy and Sweden now have rightwing leaders; why Viktor Orbán was able to gain and hold power in Hungary with his promise to “build a wall” along Hungary’s southern border (a promise he kept); and why rightwing parties are today growing so rapidly in Germany, Greece, Norway, Austria, Belgium and France.
The legacy of five centuries of racist imperialism across four continents has been that wealth and safety from the ravages of climate change are concentrated in mostly White-run nations, while vulnerability to desertification and poverty are concentrated in mostly Brown- and Black-run nations.
When Russia intervened in British politics to tear apart the EU, their trolls’ main Facebook pitch for Brexit was that “those [Brown and Black] people” the EU had let in were now making their way to the UK.
While every country in the world can accept refugees in small numbers without crisis, when “other people” begin showing up in large numbers the response by every nation in history typically tends toward rightwing nationalism and xenophobia, an obsession with borders, and demands for racial, cultural, and religious “purity.”
Here in North America we’re seeing a similar dynamic. Reagan so severely destabilized Central America and Venezuela with his sanctions, illegal Iran-Contra program, and support for rightwing death squads that those nations never recovered. In the years since, climate change has bit these weakened governments deep, forcing millions of subsistence farmers — just like in Syria but here mostly from hard-hit Guatemala — off land that once grew crops but is now, just a few years later, scrub desert.
Exploiting the climate refugee crisis on America’s southern border, Republican politicians have spent the years since Obama’s election in 2008 falsely claiming that Democrats had thrown the border “open,” producing thousands of news stories that have been used by coyotes — human traffickers — to draw even more refugees toward the United States.
Compounding that, Trump launched his 2016 campaign on keeping Brown people out of the United States, and today racism and xenophobia form the foundation of most Republican political campaigns (when they aren’t hating on queer people or women).
The result of these trends has been a worldwide shift to the right. As Freedom House noted in a 2022 report, over 60 countries experienced “declines” in democracy the previous year; only about 20 percent of people worldwide now live in “free” nations:
“Global freedom faces a dire threat. … Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same. …
“The global order is nearing a tipping point, and if democracy’s defenders do not work together to help guarantee freedom for all people, the authoritarian model will prevail.”
So far, the western world’s refugee crisis has been mostly driven by massive policy errors and outright war crimes: Russia’s response to the Syrian farmers, the US invasion and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and American meddling in Central America and Venezuela.
But all have been either triggered or exacerbated by the worldwide climate emergency. And, as we can see from this summer’s weather worldwide, that emergency is building at a rate far more rapid than even alarmist climate scientists were predicting just a decade ago.
Recent projections show that within just the next two decades as many as three billion people could be fleeing areas that will soon only marginally support human life.
As equatorial regions become uninhabitable, the mostly darker-skinned people living there will be migrating north and south into areas controlled by lighter-skinned people in numbers that will make today’s Syrian, Iraq, and Afghan refugee crisis look like a statistical blip.
It will put worldwide white supremacist and Nazi movements into hyperdrive.
In addition to acting immediately to mitigate climate change and green the world’s economy, the free nations of the world must harden our democracies against reactive rightwing violence- and hate-based racist political movements.
That will also require radically reducing the Supreme Court-gifted political power of big money here in America — particularly from the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it has created — and returning that power and wealth to the hard-hit majority. The Democratic Party in America is increasingly committed to this, but Republicans and the dozens of billionaires in their camp are prepared to spend heretofore unimaginable sums to keep climate deniers and race-baiters in office.
We also must help those nations most hard-hit by the warming — caused largely by our carbon pollution — to deal with their own refugees internally, lest they irrecoverably destabilize first their own governments and then ours.
To paraphrase JFK, we are not helpless before this task.
But it will require western and American media and political systems to take on these three crises — climate change, the refugees it produces, and politicians who demagogue the issue while blocking forward progress — now.
We are quite literally out of time.
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https://www.alternet.org/far-right-culture-wars/
Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling for an American “divorce.”
She apparently sees herself as a modern-day John C. Calhoun, a demagogue who serves the interests of the white oligarch class and, in turn, receives their support, and the power and wealth that come with it.
She's started a secession propaganda campaign much like Calhoun and his buddies did when he left the White House as VP in 1833, the same year England outlawed slavery on British-territory plantations and talk of abolition in the US kicked into high gear.
It took Calhoun and his fellow traitors about 25 years to convince enough people in the South to go to war against America and try to replace our democracy with a fascist, race-based oligarchy.
But today—with electronic media providing instant communication and AR15s being much more efficient killing machines than the Confederacy had available—the heirs to Calhoun's sedition apparently think they can pull it off in a much shorter time.
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Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie recently suggested the tipping point, the second American Civil War, will come when:
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“[T]hirty to forty percent could agree that [the American government] was legitimate tyranny and it needed to be thrown off."
He then openly argued that American fascists should be sufficiently well-armed to take on the US Marines. Finishing that sentence, Massey—who tweeted a Christmas picture of his family (including his young children) each cradling an assault weapon—added:
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“They [those trying to bring down the American government] need to have sufficient [fire]power without asking for extra permission. It should be right there and completely available to them in their living room in order to effect the change [of our form of government].”
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Make no mistake about it: this is sedition. It's anti-American. It's pro-fascist.
Yesterday on my radio/TV program, Congressman Mark Pocan said Greene's comments were “almost treasonous. "I'd drop the “almost.”
Greene even said out loud the part Republicans have been trying to not get caught saying for several decades now: she doesn't think Democrats should be allowed to vote if they live in Red states.
When a resolution came to the House floor last week condemning Putin's ally, Syrian dictator Assad, the only two “no" votes came from Greene and Massey.
Dictatorship good, democracy bad.
It's an old, old song for America that dates back to the 1840s.
Keep in mind that the Civil War wasn't just about slavery: it was primarily about preserving the wealth of the Southern oligarchs. While slavery was the source of their wealth, morbidly rich planters had so overtaken the political system of the South that it ceased to be anything close to a democracy—even for white people—by the 1840s.
That decade of the 1840s, in fact, was a key turning point for the effort to end democracy altogether in America. In just the ten years from 1840 to 1850, over 800,000 enslaved people were brought into the deep South.
Poor whites suddenly found themselves without work and pay generally collapsed across the region, while the plantation owner class became fabulously rich. It led to an internal abolition movement in the South, as white workers who didn't own slaves desperately tried to regain opportunities in the workplace.
As Southern abolitionist Hinton Helper wrote in his 1857 book The Impending Crisis of the South:
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“The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of the blacks, but they are also the oracle and arbiters of non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is merely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy and degradation is purposely and fiendishly perpetuated.”
The book became one of the biggest bestsellers in American history(even though you could go to prison for owning it in the South where it was banned), and sparked such a political crisis in 1860 that the House of Representatives was unable to elect a Speaker for almost two months. Sound familiar?
Abraham Lincoln didn't even advocate ending slavery until well into the Civil War: he was too busy fighting against Southern oligarchs who were hell-bent on ending democracy in America and replacing it with a white supremacist oligarchy. Lincoln's goal in responding militarily to Southern succession wasn't to free enslaved African Americans, it was to keep the country together and try to restore some semblance of democracy to the South.
On Aug. 22, 1862 (the Emancipation Proclamation would come exactly one month later), after more than a year of war, Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Tribune pointing this out:
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”
Here we are again, and once more the issue that's got working-class white people riled up is the intersection of economics end race.
Republicans pass laws against Critical Race Theory, teaching Black history, and complain about “woke" and “BLM," but at its core it's all about distracting white people from their being ripped off by a white oligarchic class that promotes racial hatred to deflect anger from themselves.
As Marjorie Taylor Greene is essentially pointing out, just like in 1860.
The genesis of today's discontent began in the 1980s with the Reagan Revolution, as the Reagan/Bush administration opened America to “free trade" with the early stages of what became the World Trade Organization and negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which Bill Clinton signed on January 1, 1994.
Like the middle-class working white people in the South—who'd been about a third of that region's population prior to the 1840s when all those slaves were imported—the four decades since Reaganism began here have also seen the collapse of white working-class income and wealth.
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When Reagan came into office in 1980 about two-thirds of white Americans were solidly in the middle class: today that number is around 45 percent and it requires two people working full time to pull even that off.
Meanwhile, the rich have gotten fabulously richer. Several of America's billionaires are today richer than any person has ever been in history. Richer than the pharaohs.Richer than the ancient kings of Europe. Rich enough to shoot themselves into outer space with their pocket change.
And where did that money come from? Just like the plantation owners in 1850, it came from rigging the system.
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The past 42 years have seen over $50 trillion in wealth stolen from the homes and pockets of working-class people and deposited into the money bins of the morbidly rich through GOP tax-cut and union-busting policies.
In the past 42 years over 60,000 factories and 15 million well-paying union jobs have been shipped to Mexico and China, leaving working class whites (among others) literally out in the cold.
Just like in the 1850s, that's an explosive transition. And just like in the 1850s, it has brought out oligarch-funded political demagogues to tell white working-class people that their problems are all caused by Black people and their “woke" allies, and therefore the nation must divide itself.
Greene, Massey, and the rest of the sedition caucus in Congress are playing with fire. The people they're trying to crank up on behalf of America's rightwing oligarchs have already tried to murder the Governor of Michigan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Vice President of the United States.
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As The Washington Post's Philip Bump noted this week:
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“Over the past decade, 96 percent of incidents in which extremists killed someone were committed by people motivated by right-wing ideologies.”
The number of people murdered for political purposes over the past 25 years by SDS or Antifa or other anti-fascist or “left wing" ideologues? Zero.
And in promoting bloodshed in 2023 America, the seditionists among us aren't even subtle. Last December 10th, Greene told a Young Republican group in New York:
“I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that [January 6th insurrection and effort to murder Vice President Pence], we would have won. Not to mention, it would've been armed."
Pitting Americans against each other by race, geography, or even politics when simultaneously invoking bloodshed as a justified outcome is as anti-American as it gets.
It's why the 14th Amendment says:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
If the seditionists within today's Republican Party had any goal other than to tear America apart and create an apartheid state run by and for the oligarchs who fund their campaigns and lifestyles, they'd be telling us about it right now. But are they?
Do they have anything to offer the working class of America?....
an 2 23
its first hearing isn’t until Thursday but already Chairman Jim Jordan‘s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is being mocked after the list of witnesses was released.
NBC News’ Garrett Haake reports testifying before the committee on Thursday will be ex-Democratic Congresswoman **Tulsi Gabbard**, **U.S. Senator Ron Johnson** (R-WI), **U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley** (R-IA), and former FBI special agent Nicole Parker.
Gabbard left the Democratic Party and is now an independent and a Fox News contributor. In 2019, Hillary Clinton suggested she was a Russian asset being groomed for a third-party presidential run. She sued the former Democratic presidential nominee and former U.S. Secretary of State but later dropped the defamation lawsuit.
Also, Gabbard “shared false information,” Forbes reported last year, “about U.S. involvement in Ukraine biological laboratories … giving credence to an unfounded Russian-backed conspiracy theory the U.S. has warned could serve as justification for Russia to use biological and chemical weapons against Ukraine.”
Sen. Johnson, who narrowly won re-election after being among the top promoters of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie,” is a conspiracy theorist who uses his Senate seat to spread false information about COVID and a host of other crises.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza branded Johnson the “Senate’s leading conspiracy theorist” just one year ago. The Washington Post reported last May that Sen. Johnson “expressed openness” to “a fervent anti-vaccination” commentator’s “idea that maybe the coronavirus vaccines are a conduit for deliberately giving people AIDS.”
Sen. Grassley has come under fire for his racist remarks about COVID-19, dangerously false claims about the IRS, and apparent falsehoods about the January 6 insurrection and its participants.
Last year The American Independent reported Grassley told a constituent “what you said is accurate.” According to The Independent, the constituent said during a town hall: “Knowing that the FBI and Capitol Police were complicit in Jan. 6, what have you done to get the political prisoners being held in gulag conditions out on bail?”
Some were quick to mock Chairman Jordan’s choice of witnesses to testify before his subcommittee’s first hearing.
“Johnson actively pushed the WI legislature & the VP to overturn the election. Tulsi used her perch in Congress to secretly meet with Assad & whitewash his war crimes. so in a sense, they are indeed experts on weaponizing gov’t.,” mocked former Hillary Clinton foreign policy spokesperson Jesse Lehrich.
Jim Manley, a top aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, described the panel as “low energy.”
NBC News Justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly pre-deflated Parker’s possible contributions, citing her as saying: “’I was never asked to participate in anything that was political,’ Nicole Parker said in one of her Fox News hits (Hannity, specifically).”
Even CNN did not hide its skepticism, beginning its reporting with this line: “The GOP-led House select subcommittee on so-called weaponization of the federal government will draw upon a prominent ex-Democrat, two of their Republican Senate colleagues, and a former FBI agent in their first public hearing to discuss how they believe the government has been weaponized against conservatives, multiple sources familiar with the plans tell CNN.”
==
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https://astutenews.com/2018/06/mapping-erik-princes-private-mercenary-empire/
OPINION
Mapping Erik Prince’s Private Mercenary Empire
June 3, 2018
Erik Prince, the brain behind the infamous private military firm Blackwater, is now in China training security forces.
Prince is partially responsible for modernizing the private army for the post 9/11 world, outsourcing militaries to cheap, specialized labor pools and skirting traditional regulations meant to ensure accountability for armed forces.
His journey from hiring mercenaries to help bolster the U.S. occupation in Iraq to China is long, dizzying and includes stops around the world to train Colombian mercenaries to help make a private army for the U.A.E.and outfitting crop duster planes with missiles to be fired at Armenians.
He has become a global figure, roaming between conflicts zones to sell various governments his expertise on private armies.
To document his journey thus far, Al Bawaba has compiled a partial list of countries/regions in or for which he has done business.
United States
Prince’s trip around the world starts in the United States.
Born in an affluent Michigan family, his family maintained deep ties to the Republican establishment and several conservative, religious organizations like American Values. His sister, Betsy DeVos, married into one of the most influence political families in the Midwest, the DeVos’s, and began helping to run the Republican party machine in Michigan.
That marriage, which tied the Prince and DeVos family together, has given Erik unprecedented political access into the federal government. His list of close allies including Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist. His sister gives him a direct line of access to Trump himself.
Erik became a Navy SEAL and then established his own private military firm in 1997, Blackwater.
Once the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Blackwater received billions in contracts from the U.S. government to help supplement the official mission with private boots on the ground, relatively free from accountability or laws from any particular government.
Iraq
Blackwater’s activities in Iraq are infamous and account for Prince’s self-imposed exile from the United States.
Apart from harassing Iraqi civilians and running them off of roads with their armored personnel carriers, they also indiscriminately gunned down 14 innocent people in Baghdad in 2007, drawing an investigation and heavy criticism from media outlets around the world.
The incident stands as a cautionary tale for when mercenary groups such as Blackwater are able to operate without sufficient legal or logistical oversight. Facing a wave of scrutiny, Prince left Blackwater and the firm changed its name twice (to Xe and then Academi) to escape the heat.
Many thought they had seen the end of Erik Prince, but he resurfaced later at the helm of a different private military company.
U.A.E.
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A satellite image of the camp in the U.A.E. built to train Prince’s 800-member mercenary battalion ]
In 2011, Erik Prince was appointed by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to make a secret, private army. For this, he was paid $529 million.
In documents obtained by the New York Times, the mission of this privately commissioned battalion included “intelligence gathering, urban combat, the securing of nuclear and radioactive materials, humanitarian missions and special operations ‘to destroy enemy personnel and equipment,’ and crown-control.
Prince hired Colombians and nationals of other countries thousands of miles away to fill his ranks from two reasons. First, Prince was looking to pay them as little as possible. Second, they weren’t Muslims. Prince surmised that Muslims could not be trusted to kill other Muslims.
A few years later in 2015, Saudi Arabia began its military intervention in Yemen and recruited a host of other Arab nations to join its coalition. Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, business partner to Erik Prince, Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, signed up for the cause in order to destroy any creeping Iranian influence in the war-torn nation.
Yemen
Erik Prince and his U.A.E. private military firm helped recruit and train over 1,000 soldiers from Latin American countries. Then, their bodies started appearing on battlefields in Yemen.
A single missile reportedly killed 45 mercenaries from the U.A.E.
Prince’s initial battalion of 800 soldiers had blossomed into almost 2,000 specialized troops hired mostly from Latin America to do the U.A.E.’s business.
Although officials say Erik Prince’s formal business role with the U.A.E. had ended several years before the intervention into Yemen, his corporate blueprint to partially outsource the U.A.E.’s military is doubtlessly still in use.
The U.A.E. keeping and even expanding Prince’s blueprint for a private, outsourced army demonstrates just how influencial he and his mercenary business model has become.
Azerbaijan
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A militarily-modified crop duster, called the T-Bird (LASA Engineering)]
After his stint in the U.A.E., Prince began doing more business with Chinese executives at the Frontier Services Group (FSG), which he heads.
On this new enterprise, Prince said it “is not a patriotic endeavor,” rather, it is intended “to build a great business and make some money doing it.”
Interestingly enough, Prince’s business with FSG took him to Azerbaijan, where he was paid by the government to help it deal with its Armenian problem. Armenians are concentrated into Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, which seceded from Azerbaijan and formed a semi-recognized, de facto state.
Azerbaijan called on Erik Prince and FSG to help it keep watch on the Nagorno-Karabakh region, also called the Republic of Artsakh. In response. Prince wanted to show the government two crop duster planes meant for agricultural use but refitted for military purposes. The planes were meant to be outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance technology and were supposedly able to fire missiles.
They never made it to Azerbaijan after an investigation shut the sale down.
This is because the deal may have broken several laws. The Washington Post found that “executives were concerned that the company might be skirting U.S. law — known as International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) — requiring Americans to obtain special permits before defense-related technology can be transferred to foreign countries.”
In response to this controversial arms trade, all but two Americans on the FSG executive board quit due to concerns that he was not serving U.S. interests. This has freed Prince to deal more closely with the Chinese.
Eastern Africa
FSG’s ‘focus region’ (Frontier Services Group)]
FSG’s public focus is on providing security and logistical help to eastern African countries such as South Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and the DRC.
“When you want logistics done in Africa, you call DHL,” said Sean McFate, a former military contractor in Africa and current expert on mercenaries at the Atlantic Council. “When you want muscle, you call Erik Prince.”
One of FSG’s ventures appears to help oust the extremist militant group, Al Shabaab, from southwest Somalia—an area it has largely controlled for years. “We have brought together strong international business leaders to team-up with talented Somali entrepreneurs to make development in South West Somalia a reality,” an FSG statement reads.
“The project will include an integrated solution of air-land-sea logistics capabilities and advanced security management.”
China
FSG’s headquarters is in Hong Kong, and though it publicly states that its focus is on eastern Africa, FSG is now reported to be doing domestic work on behalf of the Chinese government.
FSG is partially owned by CITIC, a Chinese-government own investment firm. CITIC is slowly taking more and more control of FSG and is reportedly already the dominant shareholder, meaning it has greater power than Prince to determine the company’s vision and business deals.
“The Chinese are gradually taking more control” of the company. CITIC is now playing a larger role as Frontier’s dominant shareholder, said Xin who heads the International Security Defense College that trains security personnel and is overseen by FSG.
“Prince’s share is decreasing. The Chinese are in charge, so it won’t matter.”
One of FSG’s most recent missions has been to train thousands of security personnel in China’s northwest Xinjiang province, where millions of ethnically Turkic Muslims called Uyghurs live.
Uyghurs are routinely targeted by the state due to continuous attempts by some to break away from China and form an independent state.
Thousands of Uyghurs are part of an extremist group called the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), whose leaders are hiding in Pakistan and whose members have a heavy presence in Syria fighting against the Syrian regime.
Human Rights Watch accused the Chinese government of “deploying a predictive policing program,” using massive surveillance technology and a web of high-tech surveillance cameras and compulsory data collection.
They’ve also reportedly sent thousands of Uyghurs to Chinese ‘re-education’ camps.
The Mercenary Prince
This list only details a few of Erik Prince’s ventures, and does not include an attempt by Prince to send thousands of mercenaries into Afghanistan and reform the political structure of the entire country to essentially be a colony for the United States.
However, Prince has transformed battlefields everywhere and fundamentally altered the way governments construct security apparatuses.
Iran is heavily reliant on outsourced Afghani mercenaries to be cannon fodder in the war in Syria. Russia is supplementing its own intervention into Syria with mercenaries hired by the state-backed Wagner Group who also sends troops to Ukraine. To beat back the nascent extremist group Boko Haram, Nigeria hired private, Apartheid-era security forces from South Africa to do the job.
Thanks to Erik Prince, outsourcing military and intelligence labor is now the norm.
Currently Prince appears to be under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, thanks to meetings he had arranged with a close aide to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Kirill Dmitriev in the Seychelles Islands, a place its own government explains is “the kind of place where you can have a good time away from the media.” The meeting was allegedley to set up a backchannel between Trump and Russia in order to facilitate clandestine communications.
McFate told Al Bawaba that Prince’s use of mercenaries allows countries to enter into and escalate conflicts without having to report it to their citizens; his tactic gives governments “plausible deniability” to anything that the mercenaries do.
According to Dr. P.J. Brendese, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and expert on democratic accountability, private military firms “have greater independence to exercise their own prerogatives and ‘we the people’ don’t get a say. That’s the most dangerous thing, because they’re profiting–their motivation it not God and country; their motive is money.”
By Ty Joplin
Source: Al Bawaba
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/11/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-drive-to-build-private-air-force
see 2020 update below
==
ECHO PAPA EXPOSED
Inside Erik Prince’s Treacherous Drive to Build a Private Air Force
Jeremy Scahill, Matthew ColeJeremy Scahill, Matthew Cole
April 11 2016,
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/assad-henchmens-russian-refuge/
Global Witness estimates that prominent members of the powerful Makhlouf family, cousins of dictator Bashar al-Assad, own at least US$40 million worth of property across two Moscow skyscrapers. Some of the same family members have been key in maintaining al-Assad’s grip on power.
>
Several Makhlouf family members, close cousins and accomplices of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, have purchased tens of millions of dollars’ worth of properties in Moscow’s prestigious skyscraper district.
Headed by al-Assad’s uncle, Mohammed Makhlouf, the Makhloufs are considered to be Syria’s richest and second most important family. Before 2011, they controlled 60 percent of the Syrian economy, ostensibly acquired through years of corruption and intimidation.
Discussion has grown about the Makhloufs fortunes suffering in Syria’s war-time political realities because of new players on the scene. However the Makhloufs have almost all been sanctioned by the European Union and United States for their various roles in al-Assad’s campaign of violence against his own people.
Our exposé of the Makhloufs’ properties is rare supporting evidence that lends substance to rumours of regime money being funnelled out of Syria throughout the war. Information about the regime’s assets and finances is notoriously scarce due to the terror fostered by al-Assad’s apparatus at home and abroad.
Our investigation further shows that the loans secured against some of the properties could be for the purposes of laundering money from Syria into Moscow. This opens the possibility that the money could then be moved into other jurisdictions, such as the EU, where members of the family are sanctioned....
==
Climate, not conflict, drove many Syrian refugees to Lebanon
Hussein A. Amery, Colorado School of Mines
Both drought and violence drove many Syrians out of their homes; even if the war ends, the continuing difficulty of farming will make it hard for them to return.
==
‘Inside Syria’s Secret Prisons’: A harrowing account of how Assad’s torture machine crushed dissent
===
gleick:
ailure, water shortages, and water mismanagement, have played an important role in contributing to the deterioration of social structures and spurring violence (Femia and Werrell 2013; FAO 2012; Mhanna 2013). In particular, the combination of very severe drought, persistent multiyear crop failures, and the related economic deterioration led to very significant dislocation and migration of rural communities to the cities. These factors further contributed to urban unemployment and economic dislocations and social unrest. As early as 2008, a diplomatic cable from the U.S. embassy in Damascus, Syria, to the State Department
==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War
Syrian Civil War (Arabic: الحرب الأهلية السورية, Al-ḥarb al-ʼahliyyah as-sūriyyah) is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria fought between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by President Bashar al-Assad, along with its allies, and various forces opposing both the government and each other in varying combinations.[112]
The unrest in Syria, part of a wider wave of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, grew out of discontent with the Assad government and escalated to an armed conflict after protests calling for his removal were violently suppressed.[113][114] The war is being fought by several factions: the Syrian government and its international allies, a loose alliance of Sunni Arab rebel groups (including the Free Syrian Army), the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Salafi jihadist groups (including al-Nusra Front) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with a number of countries in the region and beyond being either directly involved or providing support to one or another faction.
...
Upon Hafez al-Assad's death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad was elected as President of Syria. Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, a Sunni Muslim born and educated in Britain,[123] initially inspired hopes for democratic reforms. The Damascus Spring, a period of social and political debate, took place between July 2000 and August 2001.[124] The Damascus Spring largely ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience.[125] In the opinion of his critics, Bashar al-Assad had failed to deliver on promised reforms.[126] President Bashar Al-Assad maintains that no 'moderate opposition' to his rule exists, and that all opposition forces are jihadists intent on destroying his secular leadership. In an April 2017 interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List he reasserted his view that terrorist groups operating in Syria are 'linked to the agendas of foreign countries'.[127]
...
socioeconomic background
Socioeconomic inequality increased significantly after free market policies were initiated by Hafez al-Assad in his later years, and it accelerated after Bashar al-Assad came to power. With an emphasis on the service sector, these policies benefited a minority of the nation's population, mostly people who had connections with the government, and members of the Sunni merchant class of Damascus and Aleppo.[136] In 2010, Syria's nominal GDP per capita was only $2,834, comparable to Sub-Saharan African countries such as Nigeria and far lower than its neighbors such as Lebanon, with an annual growth rate of 3.39%, below most other developing countries.[137]
The country also faced particularly high youth unemployment rates.[138] At the start of the war, discontent against the government was strongest in Syria's poor areas, predominantly among conservative Sunnis.[136] These included cities with high poverty rates, such as Daraa and Homs, and the poorer districts of large cities.
drought; This coincided with the most intense drought ever recorded in Syria, which lasted from 2006 to 2011 and resulted in widespread crop failure, an increase in food prices and a mass migration of farming families to urban centers.[139] This migration strained infrastructure already burdened by the influx of some 1.5 million refugees from the Iraq War.[140] The drought has been linked to anthropogenic global warming.[141][142] Adequate water supply continues to be an issue in the ongoing civil war and it is frequently the target of military action.[143]
Human rights
Main articles: Human rights in Syria and Human rights violations during the Syrian Civil War
The human rights situation in Syria has long been the subject of harsh critique from global organizations.[144] The rights of free expression, association and assembly were strictly controlled in Syria even before the uprising.[145] The country was under emergency rule from 1963 until 2011 and public gatherings of more than five people were banned.[146] Security forces had sweeping powers of arrest and detention.[147]
Authorities have harassed and imprisoned human rights activists and other critics of the government, who were often detained indefinitely and tortured while under prison-like conditions.[145] Women and ethnic minoritiesfaced discrimination in the public sector.[145] Thousands of Syrian Kurds were denied citizenship in 1962 and their descendants were labeled "foreigners".[148] A number of riots in 2004 prompted increased tension in Syrian Kurdistan,[149] and there have been occasional clashes between Kurdish protesters and security forces ever since.
Despite hopes for democratic change with the 2000 Damascus Spring, Bashar al-Assad was widely regarded as having failed to implement any improvements. A Human Rights Watch report issued just before the beginning of the 2011 uprising stated that he had failed to substantially improve the state of human rights since taking power.[150]
*## Timeline
See also: Timeline of the Syrian Civil War and Cities and towns during the Syrian Civil War
Anti-Assad protests in Baniyas, April 2011
Civil uprising (March–July 2011)
Main article:Civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War
See also: Arab Spring
The protests began on 15 March 2011, when protesters marched in the capital of Damascus, demanding democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners. Security forces retaliated by opening fire on the protesters,[151] and according to witnesses who spoke to the BBC, the government forces detained six.[152] The protest was triggered by the arrest of a boy and his friends by the government for writing in graffiti, "The people want the fall of the government", in the city of Daraa.[151][153] A 13-year-old boy, Hamza al-Khateeb, was tortured and killed.[154] The government claims that the boys weren't attacked, and that Qatar incited the majority of the protests.[155] Writer and analyst Louai al-Hussein, referencing the Arab Spring ongoing at that time, wrote that "Syria is now on the map of countries in the region with an uprising".[153] On 20 March, the protesters burned down a Ba'ath Party headquarters and "other buildings". The ensuing clashes claimed the lives of seven police officers[156] and 15 protesters.[157] Ten days later in a speech, President Bashar al-Assad blamed "foreign conspirators" pushing Israeli propaganda for the protests.[158]
Pro-Assad demonstration inLatakia, June 2011
Significant armed resistance against the state security took place on 4 June 2011 in Jisr al-Shugur. Unverified reports claim that a portion of the security forces in Jisr defected after secret police and intelligence officers executed soldiers who had refused to fire on civilians.[163] Later, more protesters in Syria took up arms, and more soldiers defected to protect protesters.Until 7 April, the protesters predominantly demanded democratic reforms, release of political prisoners, an increase in freedoms, abolition of the emergency law and an end to corruption. After 8 April, the emphasis in demonstration slogans shifted slowly towards a call to overthrow the Assad government. Protests spread. On Friday 8 April, they occurred simultaneously in ten cities. By Friday 22 April, protests occurred in twenty cities. By the end of May 2011, 1,000 civilians[159] and 150 soldiers and policemen[160] had been killed and thousands detained;[161] among the arrested were many students, liberal activists and human rights advocates.[162]
Early armed insurgency (July 2011 – April 2012)
Main article: Early insurgency phase of the Syrian Civil War
See also: List of Syrian defectors
...*
==
Syria - Arab Spring: A Research & Study Guide * الربيع العربي ...
guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31688&p=200753
1.
From Arab Spring to chemical attacks: A timeline of the Syrian conflict ...
https://www.nbcnews.com/.../arab-spring-chemical-attacks-timeline-syrian-conflict-n8...
1.
Syrian Civil War - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War
1.
Arab Spring · Civil uprising phase · Northwestern Syria campaign · Syrian opposition
===
How a Seed Bank, Almost Lost in Syria's War, Could Help Feed a ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/climate/syria-seed-bank.html
Oct 13, 2017 - TERBOL, Lebanon — Ali Shehadeh, a seed hunter, opened the folders with the greatest of care. Inside each was a carefully dried and pressed seed pod: a sweet clover from Egypt, a wild wheat found only in northern Syria, an ancient variety of bread wheat. He had thousands of these folders stacked ...
Svalbard global seed vault has its seeds returned by Syria | WIRED UK
www.wired.co.uk/article/svalbard-seed-bank-syria
2.
Syria Just Made a Major Seed Bank Deposit | Smart News | Smithsonian
www.smithsonianmag.com/.../why-scientists-just-made-major-seed-bank-deposit-180...
2.
In the midst of war, this Syrian seed bank is still going | Grist
grist.org/article/in-the-midst-of-war-this-syrian-seed-bank-is-still-going/
1.
Syrian Civil War Prompts First Withdrawal From Doomsday Seed Vault ...
https://www.npr.org/.../syrian-civil-war-prompts-first-withdrawal-from-doomsday-seed-...
Sep 23, 2015 - Researchers in the Middle East have requested the first-ever withdrawal from the "final backup" seed bank because of destruction caused by the Syrian civil war.
Syrian seed bank gets new home away from war : Nature News ...
https://www.nature.com/news/syrian-seed-bank-gets-new-home-away-from-war-1.20725
Oct 5, 2016 - A major seed bank in Aleppo, Syria, holds genes that might help researchers breed crops to survive climate change. But the conflict tearing the country apart has rendered the bank largely inaccessible for the past four years. Now an effort to duplicate its seed collection at more-accessible locations is ...
===
==
A report by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found that a claim that recent airstrikes in Syria were a “false flag” operation -- an operation that either didn't really occur or that were conducted by a party other than the Syrian government -- which went viral among the "alt-right" actually originated with a Syrian propaganda outlet that supports the current regime and spread to a series of pro-Kremlin conspiracy websites and fake news purveyors before being promoted by “alt-right” figures including Infowars’ Alex Jones and Mike Cernovich.
The report showed that key claims, quotes, and images that were initially reported by Al-Masdar, the outlet that supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, were used in reports on pro-Kremlin sites, fake news sites, and on Infowars.
In addition, the report noted that, after the "false flag" claim was promoted by Jones and Cernovich, Twitter accounts that appear to be bots accelerated the use of hashtags about the attack, which led to the hashtag #SyriaHoax going viral. The report concluded, “The Syrian regime’s reaction to the chemical attack is no surprise,” but “what is noteworthy is the way in which the regime’s response … was translated rapidly and directly into coverage on alt-right websites, most obviously Infowars.” From the report:
The chemical attack came at dawn, local time, on April 4. It was widely reported and provoked outrage and condemnation, triggering immediate calls for an investigation. Photographs and videos from the scene showed hideous images of dead children and footage of rescuers, including the White Helmets group, washing down victims.
The same day, website Al-Masdar News, which supports the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, published an article claiming that the story was a “false flag” operation.
[...]
Over the next two days, the al-Masdar piece was picked up by a number of pro-Kremlin and anti-Western sites.
It was reproduced verbatim by at least three conspiracy sites: globalresearch.ca, informationclearinghouse.info and The Lifeboat News. A number of pro-Kremlin sites known for their use of false reporting quoted it at length. These included The Duran and The Russophile (also known as Russia News Now), together with conspiracy site Investment Watch Blog.
A third group of sites wrote their own reports, but very largely followed the Al-Masdar arguments. These included 21st Century Wire and Before It’s News, both of which ran a video repeating the claims and using the same imagery.
[...]
The most influential pickup came on April 5, when US-based conspiracy site Infowars ran its version of the story. Infowars is a highly influential site among the “alt-right” movement in the US; its leading light, Alex Jones, has over 600,000 Twitter followers.
[...]
The Syrian regime’s reaction to the chemical attack is no surprise. It has consistently denied all accusations of atrocities, and accused its critics of false claims, as documented in the Atlantic Council’s report “Breaking Aleppo”.
What is noteworthy is the way in which the regime’s response, launched on a site which has repeatedly amplified Assad’s messaging, was translated rapidly and directly into coverage on alt-right websites, most obviously Infowars.
Conspiracy website Infowars and its proprietor, Alex Jones, have heavily praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months, with Jones previously bragging about praise from “top Putin advisers” and even Putin himself in regards to his pro-Trump coverage. Jones also claims to have “talked to folks very close to the president” about Trump’s Syria policy. Both Jones and Cernovich, a member of the so-called “alt-right,” have helped popularize numerous conspiracy theories, including the “Pizzagate” story that falsely claimed an underground child sex trafficking ring was run out of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
In March, the FBI opened an investigationinto Russian operatives’ use of “bots” to push pro-Trump news from far-right outlets to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and the Senate Intelligence Committee opened an investigation into Russia’s use of fake news to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Before It’s News, one of the pro-Trump propaganda outlets mentioned in the report, and a site that Media Matters has identified as a fake news purveyor, has denied any connection between Trump and the Russian government.
==
*In response to demonstrations, the Syrian army has detained and tortured its own citizens, and killed roughly 10,000 civilians (a charge Assad has denied). Journalists either are barred from the country or, if they do enter, are harassed by the government.
Human Rights watch said, “The crackdown has escalated into indiscriminate military assaults on residential areas and has led to a dire humanitarian situation.”
That behavior hasn’t stopped two public relations firms—one in the U.S. and another in Great Britain—from working with Al-Assad and his wife, Asma.
According to a report in The New York Times, the Assad family “paid the Washington public relations firm Brown Lloyd James $5,000 a month to act as a liaison between Vogue and the first lady.”
A flattering profile of Asma appeared in Vogue in March 2011, around the time the government began its brutal crackdown. (Joan Juliet Buck, the author of the story, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour have since distanced themselves from the piece, which was recently pulled from the magazine’s website.)
Positive stories about Asma and the Assad family appeared in a variety of other publications, including The Huffington Post. The coverage began after Asma Assad reached out to Bell Pottinger—a London-based PR firm that’s no stranger to working with controversial regimes—in 2006, theTimes reported:*
*“Tim Bell, a co-founder of the firm and a former media adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said Mrs. Assad contacted the firm after several first ladies, including Laura Bush, began to hold annual meetings and conferences.
“‘She wanted to be a part of that club,” he said in a phone interview.
“Bell Pottinger did not set up interviews for Mrs. Assad directly, but advised her on how to set up a communications office in Damascus to help shape her image.”*
An expert on Syria told the Times that Assad was especially appealing to media outlets because, “He speaks English, and his wife is hot.”
Arthur Yann, the vice president of PR at the Public Relations Society of America, said ethical communication is not about the client, but rather the way in which the client behaves, and the manner in which that behavior is portrayed.
“The image of Syria that Brown Lloyd James is passing off on the world stands in stark contrast to media reports of atrocities committed against Syrian citizens and of repressive treatment toward foreign journalists,” he told PR Daily.
If Brown Lloyd James and Bell Pottinger were truly concerned with improving Syria’s image, they would use their influence to stop the country’s abuses, Yann said.
The Assad family is not the only questionable client of Brown Lloyd James. Its current and former client roster reads like a rogue’s gallery. It includes Assad, deceased Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi, and a purported Iranian terrorist group.
Brown Lloyd James and Bell Pottinger are among at least a handful of PR firms in the U.S. and U.K. that have worked with despots. Others include Potomac Square Group, Qorvis Communications,Ruder Finn, and Monitor Group, which have grabbed headlines for working with Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and The Maldives.
So why do PR firms represent leaders who are known to brutalize his people?
“PR firms work with these thugs because these thugs have lots of money, secured either from legalized theft in their own nations (for example, owning the public utilities or through U.S. aid to their countries), which they siphon off,” said Fraser Seitel, a partner at Emerald Partners. “Firms like Brown Lloyd James, which worked for Syria, take the money, justify the work by citing 'democratizing efforts,' and hope they don't get nailed. When they are, as in the case of the Times' article, they generally, again as with the Times' piece, have 'no comment.'”
Matt Ragas, an assistant professor in the college of communication at DePaul University in Chicago, said firms that represent tyrannical governments will “continue to be an ugly blemish on the profession” because it supports the stereotype of “spin doctors.”
“I tell my students that you're only as good as your reputation in this business,” Ragas said. “Choose your clients and partners wisely. They say a lot about you and what you do or don't believe in.
“What great brand or aspiring great brand wants to partner with a public relations professional that plays it fast and loose in the principles department? We can't say we value building and protecting reputations and then do something opposite in our client decisions.”
Ragas also took issue with the counterargument that PR professionals are like attorneys: Every side of an issue deserves representation.
“Where this argument unravels is when you knowingly represent an entity that has clearly behaved illegally and acted unethically,” Ragas said. “And it's not a valid excuse to just ‘look the other way’ and say, well, I didn't know about that until later when the tide turns.”
Last August, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) condemned PR agencies that work with tyrants. In a piece for *The Hill*, former PRSA president Rosanna Fiske said these firms are, in effect, “counseling enemies of global democracy.”
==
Ask yourself this question: If a foreign government known for subjugating its people approached you with a lucrative PR contract, what would you say? What if your boss asked you to work on a similar account? Would you say no—even quit?
*If you would choose to work with one of these governments, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America Rosanna Fiske has a message for you: You are, in effect, “counseling enemies of global democracy.”
“In trying to improve tyrants’ images and reputations, these firms are damaging America’s international reputation,” Fiske writes in a blog post for The Hill. “And with the S&P downgrade, the U.S. can ill afford another reputational hit.”
Agencies such asBrown Lloyd James, Bell Pottinger, Potomac Square Group, Qorvis Communications, and Monitor Group have grabbed headlines for working with Libya, Syria, and Bahrain.
Fiske acknowledges that “everyone has the right to have his voice and perspective heard in the global marketplace of ideas.” But, she continues, “For U.S. PR firms to represent dictatorships that do not afford that same freedom to their own people is disingenuous to America’s liberties and its reputation as a marketplace for dissenting ideas."
Many of the firms in questions, she adds, “have either disclosed or ended their relationship(s) with various authoritarian regimes.”
Read Fiske’s full column here.
Do you think there’s anything defensible about working with despots?*
==
August 15, 2011, 04:28 pm
Destroying America's reputation by rebuilding Libya's
By Rosanna Fiske, chair and CEO of Public Relations Society of America
Stuck in the middle is the high-brow Monitor Group, made up of Harvard academics and former diplomats. The firm has received fervent public backlash after its work to enhance the reputation of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was exposed in March by The Boston Globe. The company acknowledged in July that it erred in representing Libya and other repressive governments in the past.
In each case, these respected firms, made up of some of the world’s foremost reputation-management experts, were engaging in image-cleansing, reputation-building activities that most Americans consider repugnant. As a public relations professional, I find their work to be not the best representation of my profession.
They were, in effect, counseling enemies of global democracy; ruthless despots who cut down their own people to save whatever feeble remnants of their legacies may remain. When asked to explain their questionable work, most offer a ham-handed response to the effect of: “We’re just the messengers.” This explanation is an insult to all who value transparent and ethical communications from governments and private businesses alike.
In trying to improve tyrants’ images and reputations, these firms are damaging America’s international reputation. And with the S&P downgrade, the U.S. can ill afford another reputational hit.
American consultancies providing counsel to foreign governments is nothing new. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was created in 1938, in part, to handle these sorts of arrangements.
What is novel, however, is the brazenness of some firms to eschew ethical public relations and communications standards by representing undemocratic nations or individuals that the U.S. is either at war with (Libya), or which do not afford their own people the most basic of democratic freedoms of expression (Libya, Bahrain, Syria).
Ethical public relations places an emphasis on counseling reputable organizations and individuals in developing and maintaining beneficial relationships with concerned stakeholders. The Libyan, Syrian and Bahraini governments have not shown the slightest inclination to cultivate this type of cooperative relationship. Yet all three have seduced American public relations firms into working on their behalf.
One has to question what the attraction is. Is it all for the allure of working with a big-name client and the money?
Efforts to “enhance international appreciation of Libya and positive news coverage of the country,” as the Monitor Group engaged in, or to secure a fawning Vogue magazine profile of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad, as Brown Lloyd James reportedly accomplished (Vogue eventually removed the profile from its website after heavy international protest from readers.), do little to build Americans’ trust in these governments. Most disturbingly, the work insults the very freedoms that allow these firms to engage in such questionable services in the first place.
Yes, everyone has the right to have his voice and perspective heard in the global marketplace of ideas. But for U.S. PR firms to represent dictatorships that do not afford that same freedom to their own people is disingenuous to America’s liberties and its reputation as a marketplace for dissenting ideas.
To be fair, many of the firms in question have either disclosed or ended their relationship(s) with various authoritarian regimes.
But there remain far too many opaque and questionable consulting services being offered at a time when America increasingly finds itself under attack by groups and governments who take offense with our freedoms.
These firms are adding to the damage already done to America’s fragile reputation. And the consequences will surely be far more destructive for the United States than the hefty client billings these firms will put back into the American economy.
**Rosanna Fiske** is chair and CEO of the **Public Relations Society of America**.
==
Syria’s Assads Turned to West for Glossy P.R.
By BILL CARTER and AMY CHOZICKJUNE 10, 2012
For some journalists, Syria has been one of the least hospitable countries in the Middle East, a place where reporters — if they can get in — are routinely harassed and threatened as they try to uncover the repression that has propped up the Assad government for decades.
For other journalists, Syria has until recently been a country led by the cultivated, English-speaking President Bashar al-Assad who, along with his beautiful British-born wife, Asma, was helping usher in a new era of openness and prosperity.
That second impression is no accident. With the help of high-priced public relations advisers who had worked in the Clinton, Bush and Thatcher administrations, the president and his family have sought over the past five years to portray themselves in the Western media as accessible, progressive and even glamorous.
As the Syrian conflict escalates, President Bashar al-Assad leans ever more heavily on his religious base for support. These supporters rallied in Damascus in 2002.Syrian Alawites Divided by Assad’s Response to UnrestJUNE 9, 2012
The Lede Blog: Barbara Walters Admits She Aided Assad's Press AdviserJUNE 5, 2012
Magazines and online outlets have published complimentary features about the family, often focusing on fashion and celebrity. In March 2011, just as Mr. Assad and his security forces initiated a brutal crackdown on political opponents that has led to the death of an estimated 10,000 Syrians, Vogue magazine ran a flattering profile of the first lady, describing her as walking “a determined swath cut through space with a flash of red soles,” a reference to her Christian Loubout in heels.
Photo
Barbara Walters questioned President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. Credit Rob Wallace/ABC
Fawning treatment of world leaders — particularly attractive Western-educated ones — is nothing new. But the Assads have been especially determined to burnish their image, and hired experts to do so. The family paid the Washington public relations firm Brown Lloyd James $5,000 a month to act as a liaison between Vogue and the first lady, according to the firm.
This web of politics and public relations ensnared Barbara Walters recently. After she conducted an aggressive interview with Mr. Assad on ABC News in December, she offered to provide recommendations for Sheherazad Jaafari, the president’s press aide and the daughter of the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, who was applying for a job at CNN and admission to Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
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Ms. Walters issued a statement on Tuesday expressing regret for her actions, which she called “a conflict.”
Ms. Jaafari, 22, who has been accepted by Columbia, had worked as an intern at Brown Lloyd James. Last year, she expressed her feelings about the Assad family in an e-mail to Mike Holtzman,a partner at the firm who, according to his online profile, advised the Clinton administration on trade issues and worked in the State Department during the Bush administration.
“I have always told you — this man is loved by his people,” Ms. Jaafari wrote in the e-mail, which was obtained by the British newspaper The Guardian. Mr. Holtzman replied: “I’m proud of you. Wish I were there to help.” Mr. Holtzman did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
The Assads were in many ways ripe for celebrity treatment by the news media. The president, who was trained as an ophthalmologist, received part of his education in Britain, where he met his wife, a Briton of Syrian descent who grew up in London and worked as an investment banker in New York.
Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who once worked for a charity sponsored by Mrs. Assad, summed up the appeal the Assads had for some news outlets: “He speaks English, and his wife is hot.”
The campaign to make the ruling family the face of a more Westernized and open Syria began in 2006, when Mrs. Assad approached the public relations firm Bell Pottinger in London.
Tim Bell, a co-founder of the firm and a former media adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said Mrs. Assad contacted the firm after several first ladies, including Laura Bush, began to hold annual meetings and conferences.
“She wanted to be a part of that club,” he said in a phone interview.
Bell Pottinger did not set up interviews for Mrs. Assad directly, but advised her on how to set up a communications office in Damascus to help shape her image.
A few years later, positive articles began to appear. Paris Match called Mrs. Assad an “element of light in a country full of shadow zones” and the “eastern Diana.” French Elle counted her among the best-dressed women in world politics, and in 2009, The Huffington Post published an article and fashion slide show titled “Asma al-Assad: Syria’s First Lady and All-Natural Beauty.”
“She responded beautifully, because she speaks well and is beautiful,” said the Italian writer Gaia Servadio, who worked for Mrs. Assad in Damascus. She added that Mrs. Assad hoped the coverage would deflect some of the negative attention her country had received.
None of the articles about Mrs. Assad struck a nerve quite like the 3,200-word March 2011 profile in Vogue titled “A Rose in the Desert.” In it, the writer, Joan Juliet Buck, called Mrs. Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.”
In a phone interview, Ms. Buck said that shortly after the profile was published, she began “steadily speaking out against the Assad regime,” including in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN and elsewhere. In April, on National Public Radio, Ms. Buck said she regretted the headline that Vogue put on the article. But she said Mrs. Assad was “extremely thin and very well-dressed, and therefore qualified to be in Vogue.”
This spring, the magazine removed the article from its Web site. On Sunday, Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, issued a statement about the article saying, in part: “Like many at that time, we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society. Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue. The escalating atrocities in Syria are unconscionable and we deplore the actions of the Assad regime in the strongest possible terms.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 13 reporters have been killed in Syria since November, including Marie Colvin, a veteran war correspondent from Long Island. (Anthony Shadid of The New York Times died of an asthma attack during a clandestine reporting trip to Syria.) Syrian officials have denied targeting journalists, but state media outlets have said that foreign reporters killed in Syria “must be spies or have links to terrorist organizations.”
Ms. Walters, who has a lifetime of experience chasing and winning interviews with world leaders, said she spent six years establishing a relationship with the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, including once dining at his home.
The connection eventually paid off. “Assad decided he would do an interview; according to the ambassador, he had requests from all over the world,” Ms. Walters said in a telephone interview last week. “And he chose to do it with me, based on the recommendation of the ambassador, and also because I had been to Syria twice before and knew something of its background and history.”
Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said this kind of interview is highly sought after. “In a strange way, political leaders, presidents and prime ministers who are highly repressive and restrictive are good ‘gets’ for these types of interviews, precisely because there’s no fair media coverage in their countries,” he said.
Ms. Walters’ interview, broadcast in December, made worldwide news, with Mr. Assad issuing claims that he was not responsible for the Syrian military and that people were not being killed by his government.
Ms. Walters said, “I went to Syria and conducted what was a very tough and strong interview that President Assad did not like.”
But her offer of help to the ambassador’s daughter has cast a shadow on that interview. Two people close to Ms. Walters said she had reacted to a plea from Ms. Jaafari for help because Ms. Jaafari was being removed from her position as a media adviser to the Syrian president.
Mr. Tabler said that he didn’t “find it surprising what Walters did for her.” The issue, he said, was the timing.
“At that point, how many had been killed — 7,000?” he said. “This is an attractive young woman, and she speaks English. Maybe you help her with an introduction. To get beyond that is a little difficult to swallow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world/middleeast/syrian-conflict-cracks-carefully-polished-image-of-assad.html
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By Kevin Bogardus - 08/03/11 09:50 AM EDT
thehill
The Syrian government hired an international public-relations firm to help coordinate a Vogue magazine profile for Asma al-Assad, Syria’s first lady.
Brown Lloyd James agreed to a $5,000-per-month contract with the presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic in November 2010 to help with the interview and photo shoot for a glowing profile of al-Assad by the high-profile fashion magazine.
The piece has been criticized heavily due to its publication in Vogue’s March issue, which coincided with the Syrian government’s crackdown on anti-regime protesters.
The firm “liaised between the Office of the First Lady and the Vogue editorial team on the scheduling of interviews and photo shoots,” according to Department of Justice records. Brown Lloyd James also agreed to an extension of the contract for another $25,000, but its work for Syria has since ended, according to the firm.
“We look forward to an enduring and mutually beneficial relationship,” the firm wrote in its contract with the Syrian government.
In a statement to The Hill, Brown Lloyd James said its work for the Syrian government ended in December 2010.
“The $25,000 listed as a contract extension was for a separate project that was ultimately postponed,” Brown Lloyd James said in its statement. “This project was to support a cultural forum on Syria’s incredible antiquities. The limited scope of work would have been conducted solely in Damascus and did not affect a U.S. audience. We have not been engaged in any activity in Syria in a number of months.”
The PR firm’s work for Syria was successful, as Vogue published a profile of al-Assad under the title “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert,” along with a full-page photo of the Syrian first lady. But when the profile was first published online in February, it faced a wave of criticism from media and foreign-policy circles.
“The article does not once mention the protests currently under way in the Middle East, including scattered evidence of demonstrations in Syria,” wrote David Kenner, an associate editor for the magazine Foreign Policy, when the profile first went online. “Instead, the article focuses on Syrian first lady Asma Assad — the ‘freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,’ endowed with ‘[d]ark-brown eyes, wavy chin-length brown hair, long neck, an energetic grace.’ At a time when other Middle Eastern first ladies, notably Tunisia’s Leila Trabelsi, have been the target of protesters’ wrath, this may not be the wisest moment for Asma to flaunt her glamour.”
Links to the profile of al-Assad on the Vogue website have since gone dead, sending readers to an error page. A spokeswoman for the magazine did not return messages from The Hill asking for comment on the profile.
Brown Lloyd James said in its statement that its work on behalf of Syria came at a time when the country’s relationship with the United States was changing for the better.
“Our project in Syria, for example, hewed with U.S. efforts at rapprochement and normalization of relations, which were a major strategic priority to the U.S. at the time,” the firm said. “During the time of our activity, the U.S. was engaged in a thaw in relations, highlighted by the appointment of a U.S. ambassador to the country. By complementing the efforts of traditional diplomacy, our approach seeks to establish a deeper reservoir of good will and a strengthening of international relationships. We aim to start dialogues and exchanges and develop constituencies for normalization in each country.”
Syria has often run afoul of Western governments, due to its poor human-rights record and having been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department since 1979.
And like much of the Middle East this year, Syria has been rocked by anti-government protests that have swept away long-entrenched regimes. Al-Assad’s husband, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has beaten back the protests brutally with his country’s military.
The latest confrontation was in the Syrian city of Hama. Syrian forces attacked protesters there this past weekend, with press reports saying the military has been shelling the town and that more than 100 people have died so far.
That crackdown has been met with disapproval from Washington. In a statement Sunday, President Obama criticized the Syrian government for its treatment of the anti-regime protesters.
“I am appalled by the Syrian government’s use of violence and brutality against its own people. The reports out of Hama are horrifying and demonstrate the true character of the Syrian regime,” Obama said. “Once again, President Assad has shown that he is completely incapable and unwilling to respond to the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people. His use of torture, corruption and terror puts him on the wrong side of history and his people.”
The president added that the U.S. government would continue to pressure and isolate the Syrian regime. On Monday, Obama met with the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, and repeated his criticism of the Middle Eastern country in a White House statement.
Congress is also following up with more action against the Syrian regime.
On Tuesday, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said they would introduce legislation this week to toughen sanctions against Syria due to the government-led violence against protesters. Their bill would penalize companies that invest in, buy from or sell to Syria’s energy sector by blocking access to U.S. financial markets and federal government contracts for those firms.
“The United States should impose crippling sanctions in response to the murder of civilians by troops under the orders of Syrian President Assad,” Kirk said in a statement. “The Arab Spring will sweep away this dictatorship, hopefully with the help of American sanctions similar to those leveled against the Iranian regime.”
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wiki
Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد Baššār Ḥāfiẓ al-ʾAsad, [
](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:En-us-Bashar_Al-Assad_from_Syria_pronunciation_%28Voice_of_America%29.ogg "About this sound") pronunciation (:{help:(style="cursor:help"):}:·:{info:(style="cursor:help"):}:) Levantine pronunciation: [baʃˈʃaːr ˈħaːfezˤ elˈʔasad]; born 11 September 1965)[1] is the President of Syria, commander-in-chief of Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Ba'ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party's branch in Syria. In 2000 he succeeded Hafez al-Assad, his father, who had led Syria for 30 years until his death.
Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital, in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel was killed in a car crash, Bashar was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, taking charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, born Akhras. Assad was reconfirmed by the national electorate as President of Syria in 2000 and 2007, after the People's Council of Syria had voted to propose the incumbent uncontested each time.[2][3] The form of government Assad presides over is an authoritarian regime.[4] The Assad regime has described itself as secular,[5] while experts have contended that the regime exploits ethnic and sectarian tensions in the country to remain in power.[6][7][8] The regime's narrow sectarian base relying upon the Alawite minority has also been noted.[9]
Initially seen by the domestic and international community as a potential reformer,[10] this expectation ceased when Assad ordered mass crackdowns and military sieges on Arab Spring protesters, leading to the Syrian Civil War. The Syrian opposition, the United States, Canada, the European Union and the majority of theArab League have called for al-Assad's resignation from the presidency.[11][12]During the Syrian Civil War, Assad was personally implicated in war crimes andcrimes against humanity by the United Nations,[13] and was the top of a list of individuals indicted for the greatest responsibility in war crimes for prosecution by the International Criminal Court.[14] In November 2014, the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon announced that evidence would be brought against Assad.[15]In January 2015, it was reported that 200,000 political prisoners were in jail in Syria for opposing the Assad regime.[16][17] In late April 2014, Assad announced he would run for a third term in Syria's first multi-candidate direct presidential election in decades, amid serious concerns by the European Union, the United States and other countries regarding the legitimacy of this vote and the effect it would have on peace talks with the Syrian Opposition.[18][19] He was sworn in for his third seven-year term, on July 16, 2014, in the presidential palace in Damascus.[20]
Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Presidency
- 3 Syria under Bashar Assad's rule
- 4 Public and personal life
- 5 Gallery
- 6 Honours and awards
- 7 See also
- 8 References
- 9 Bibliography
- 10 Further reading
- 11 External links
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Human rights:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:
See also: Human rights in Syria
Human Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have detailed how the Assads regime's secret police routinely tortured, imprisoned, and killed political opponents, and those who speak out against the regime.[114][115] In addition some 600 Lebanese political prisoners are thought to be held in regime prisons since the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, with some held for as long as over 30 years.[116] Since 2006 it expanded the use of travel bans against dissidents. In that regard, Syria is the worst offender among Arab states.[117] The Syrian mukhabarat is Alawite dominated.[118]A 2007 law required internet cafes to record all the comments users post on chat forums.[110] Websites such as Wikipedia Arabic, YouTube and Facebook were blocked intermittently between 2008 and February 2011.[111][112][113]
In an interview with ABC News in 2007 he stated: "We don't have such [things as] political prisoners," yet The New York Times reported the arrest of 30 Syrian political dissidents who were organizing a joint opposition front in December 2007, with 3 members of this group considered to be opposition leaders being remanded in custody.[119]Foreign Policy magazine editorialized on his position in the wake of the 2011 protests:[120]
"During its decades of rule... the Assad family developed a strong political safety net by firmly integrating the military into the government. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, seized power after rising through the ranks of the Syrian armed forces, during which time he established a network of loyal Alawites by installing them in key posts. In fact, the military, ruling elite, and ruthless secret police are so intertwined that it is now impossible to separate the Assad government from the security establishment.... So... the government and its loyal forces have been able to deter all but the most resolute and fearless oppositional activists. In this respect, the situation in Syria is to a certain degree comparable to Saddam Hussein’s strong Sunni minority rule in Iraq."
In 2010, Syria banned face veils at universities.[121][122] Following the uprising against Assad rule in 2011, Assad partially relaxed the veil ban.[123]
War crimes:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:
The FBI has said that at least 10 European citizens were tortured by the Assad regime while detained during the Syrian Civil War, potentially leaving Assad open to prosecution by individual European countries for war crimes committed under his rule.[124]Stephen Rapp, the United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, has argued that Assad's crimes are the worst seen since those of Nazi Germany.[125] In March 2015, Rapp further stated that the case against Syrian President Bashar Assad is "much better" than those against Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia or Charles Taylor of Liberia, both of whom were indicted by international tribunals.[126]
In a February 2015 interview with the BBC, Assad described accusations that the Syrian Arab Air Force used barrel bombs as "childish", claiming that his forces have never used these types of bombs and responded with a joke about not using "cooking pots" either.[127] The BBC Middle East editor conducting the interview, Jeremy Bowen, later described Assad's claim regarding barrel bombs as "patently not true".[128] The Syrian Arab Air Force's use of barrel bombs is well documented.[129]
In March 2015 a report published by Physicians for Human Rights documented that the Assad regime was responsible for the vast majority of the deaths of 600 medical workers since the Syrian Civil War began; 88% of recorded attacks on hospitals and 97% of killings of medical workers were attributed to Assad's forces.[130]
For the last three years evidence compiled by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), made up of investigators and legal experts who formerly worked on war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and for the international criminal court, have cooperated with a team of 50 Syrian investigators to indict Bashar al-Assad and 24 senior members of his regime.[131]
Nadim Shehadi, the director of the The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies stated that “In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein was massacring his people and we were worried about the weapons inspectors [...] Bashar Assad did that too. He kept us busy with chemical weapons when he massacred his people”.[132] A 2015 report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights found that 49 of 56 major massacres displaying "obvious sectarian or ethnic cleansing traits" were carried out by the Assad regime.[133]
Foreign relations:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:
Assad opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a long-standing animosity between the Syrian and Iraqi governments. Assad used Syria's seat in one of rotating positions on theUnited Nations Security Council to try to prevent the invasion of Iraq.[137] Following the Iraq invasion by US and allied forces, Assad was accused of supporting the Shia insurgency in Iraq. A US general accused him of providing funding, logistics, and training to Iraqi and foreign Shia fundamentalists to launch attacks against U.S. and allied forces occupying Iraq.[138]
The United States, European Union, the March 14 Alliance, Israel, and France accuse Assad of providing practical support to militant groups active against Israel and against opposition political groups. The latter category would include most political parties other than Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.[135] According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Assad claimed the United States could benefit from the Syrian experience in fighting organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood at the Hama Massacre.[136]The Middle East Quarterly noted that "As in the case of Iraq, there are lingering questions of Syrian payments to French politicians. Many French politicians join associations and charitable boards both for financial and political gain."[134][clarification needed]
Assad argued that Syria's gradual withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, beginning in 2000, was precipitated as a result of the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Haririand ended in May 2005.[139]
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