The Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Russia’s Sochi on January 28-29 was aimed to boost the process for building a peaceful future for Syrian people in a war-devastated country and to define the country’s political compass for the next years. The Congress, sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey, gathered over 1,500 participants from various groups of Syrian society, including representatives from political parties, opposition groups and ethnic and confessional communities.
While the Congress itself did not aim to achieve the immediate political reconciliation over Syria, its main focus was to revive Geneva talks. According to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the forum was expected to “create conditions for staging fruitful Geneva process”.
Besides, the Congress was some kind of alert to boycotting countries and their procrastination to reinforce the 2254 UN Security Council Resolution for Peace Process in Syria, adopted in 2015. According to the resolution, the future of Syria should be determined by its people. However, the country has experienced forced intervention and external interference that prevented it from paving ways for a peaceful future ever since.
Ironically it may seem, the so-called peace process for Syria that has been joined by many countries pursuing different strategies including diametrically opposite approaches of Russia and the United States, became a fruitful soil for radically oriented groups that eroded the country’s sovereignty. The delay in reinforcing the 2254 UN Security Resolution by international community can lead to further monetization of Syria’s natural resources by terrorist organizations and cause major security threats for the entire international community.
Perhaps, the most important result of the Sochi Congress has been an agreement of all participants to consolidate their efforts in stabilizing the Syria’s future and to secure the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic. The concerns of the Syrian opposition claiming the Sochi Congress would, on the contrary, hazard the international peace process could not be more baseless since the Congress was supported by the UN, the main sponsor of the Geneva talks.
The news made hardly a ripple in the Turkish media, but a so-called Turkish-Armenian scholarship conference held on September 15-18, 2017 in Berlin had all the markings of a scandal. The conference, having the theme, “Past in the Present: European Approaches to the Armenian Genocide,” was the 10th in the series of “Workshop on Armenian-Turkish Studies” (WATS) held at different locations since its inception in 2010.
Primarily organized by the U.S.-based Middle East Studies Association (MESA), this year’s conference (WATS 2017) was held at the European Academy Berlin under the auspices of Dr. Martina Münch, a Minister of the State of Brandenburg. The co-organizers were the University of Michigan, University of Southern California (USC), and Lepsiushaus Potsdam.
The Pretense
The WATS series is magnanimously advertised as forums “where Turkish, Armenian and other historians could conduct an informed debate relating to the controversy surrounding the relocation of Ottoman Armenians during World War One.”
All that sounds good. The key words here are “controversy” and “debate.” Controversy on a historical topic should normally lead to debate, and the two words complement each other. The outcome of a debate may result in a stand-off, a compromise, and possibly accord.
This is how things should work out, especially in the academic world.
The Reality
But it turns out that lofty description for the WATS series is merely a PR front. For one thing, the institutions or universities that have organized and promoted the WATS conferences are those that advocate “Armenian genocide.” This is certainly the case with the organizers of WATS 2017.
In fact, the co-organizer Lepsiushaus Potsdam, a historical house where German Protestant missionary Johannes Lepsius (also known as the “Guardian Angel of the Armenians”) once lived, is now a museum in Potsdam, Germany, serving as a “Research Center for Genocide Studies.”
Obviously a mission well-suited for advancing the “Armenian genocide” cause! (Question: Has Lepsiushaus organized a conference on the 1904-1907 Namibian atrocities committed by German settlers in Namibia? The racial extermination and collective punishment brought upon the native population are sometimes known as the “First Genocide in the 20th Century.”
As for the other co-organizers, they are U.S.-based, and the positions of these institution on the 1915 events in Ottoman Anatolia are beyond dispute. They are die-hard proponents of “genocide.” In the U.S. the Armenian foundations are known for their “generosity” in advancing the “genocide” thesis, and a number of academic institutions reap rewards from this bounty. At the University of Michigan, for example, the Manoogian Foundation funds genocide advocacy under the banner of “Armenian Studies Program.”
Another foundation has enabled Prof. Taner Akçam, the “Prince Charming” of the Armenian lobby, to be awarded the “Robert Aram, Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies” at Clark University in Massachusetts – never mind Akçam’s unsavory past related to subversive activities and prison term in Turkey. Earlier, Prof. Akçam received financial support from the Zoryan Institute, and was the beneficiary of the “Cafesjian Family Foundation” when he was at the University of Minnesota.
The largess from Armenian foundations to fund genocide “studies” goes on.
Second, and not surprisingly, the attendees to the WATS conferences have been those researchers that support one way or another the “Armenian genocide” narrative. Academicians with Turkish names are particularly welcome in these conferences. In fact, they are the prized attendees. Researchers, Turkish or foreign, that do not subscribe to the Armenian narrative are treated as “persona non grata.” The net effect is that the conferences act like exclusive clubs.
Hypocrisy
Given these facts, it is sophistry or chicanery to talk of WATS conferences as forums to provide “an informed debate relating to the controversy” on the 1915 events in Ottoman Anatolia. Such language is pure deception. There is no substantive debate in these conferences, and given the prevailing mindset, it is naive to expect any. The “Armenian genocide” narrative is treated as a historical truth, not as a controversy, and the overarching debate is nonexistent.
In fact, the title of this year’s conference, bearing the phrase “Armenian genocide,” drops all the pretense of being anything other than a doctrinaire posture on the 1915 events in Ottoman Anatolia.
What all this amounts to is hypocrisy – in fact contemptible hypocrisy, given that it takes place in an academic environment and violates what true academic scholarship stands for. The august corridors of the academia can sometimes be deafeningly numbing if prejudice and cushy incentives take over and the mind is grievously frozen.
Inconvenient Truths
The no-debate, doctrinaire stance on the Armenian issue stands in direct contradiction with an inconvenient truth: the 2013 and 2015 positions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the 2016 position of France’s Constitutional Council. These high judicial authorities in Europe have underscored the fact that “Armenian genocide” is controversial among scholars.
The doctrinaire stance is also in conflict with the position of a large number of Turkish and foreign researchers that do not subscribe to the Armenian narrative.
Another “inconvenient truth” is that the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide explicitly requires that any determination as to the crime of genocide must be made by a competent tribunal – a requirement the proponents of “Armenian genocide” would rather – and in fact do not – talk about. The claim of “Armenian genocide” by parliaments, politicians, establishments such as MESA, etc., runs counter the edicts of this Convention. This is what the ECHR and France’s Constitutional Court have ruled.
But then, as far as the Armenian side, why bother with such “details” when a well-funded, well-organized propaganda does a wonderful job to peddle the Armenian version of history!
The Armenian propaganda in the West has been so effective that it has given rise to what this author has called the “Settled History Syndrome,” an affliction in the Western media that accepts Armenian allegations as a fact without questioning the veracity of these allegations – in utter contempt of anti-genocide scholars, and more recently, also the judicial positions of high courts in Europe.
An Audacious Complaint
All the above aside, what made this year’s WATS conference all the more egregious was a letter sent by MESA President Prof. Beth Baron and MESA Executive Director Dr. Amy W. Newhall to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım of Turkey. Dated September 15, 2017, and copied to few other high Turkish officials as well as a number of EU, Council of Europe and UN officials, the MESA directors had the audacity to complain and express “deep concern” about Turkey-based scholars being allegedly prevented from attending the Berlin conference – while also preaching the virtues of “academic freedom” and “freedom of expression.”
But on the other hand, the same MESA officers didn’t have any compunction about limiting the conference to their hand-picked scholars.
The MESA letter led to angry protests from some circles in Turkey, including Dr. Doğu Perinçek, given that the efforts of some Turkish researchers opposing the “genocide” thesis, and wanting to participate in the conference, were rebuffed by the conference administrators.
The United States continue expanding their presence in the Central Asia as part of the program «The Great Central Asia». As President Trump announced his new policy on Afghanistan earlier this week, the US Administration have started looking towards Tajikistan, the key region on the Central Asia which has a longer border with Afghanistan.
Boosted earlier in 2016 by the Secretary of State John Kerry, the cooperation between the United States and the Central Asia in trade, economic development, the anti-terrorism fight is likely to be particularly focused on making stronger ties with Tajikistan as the US Embassy in Dushanbe have lobbied the military and technical aid agreement between the United States and Tajikistan. The $100 billion agreement for a period of 5 years, from 2018 to 2023, has already been approved by Tajikistan authorities, according to the head of the Tajik Border Security Forces col. Avzalov.
As part of the agreement, the US Embassy in Tajikistan with support of «AT Communication US» will implement a new operation control system designed by «HARRIS» to the Tajik Border Security Forces. The system is designed according to the C4ICR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) standard which is used by NATO. The system will also let the United States track Tajik military actions online by integration with the communication channels of the Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The stronger ties the bigger funding. The United States have decreased their military and technical financing around the world from $1 billion to $800 million since the start of 2017, while Tajikistan continues to receive larger funding than any other country in the region.
However, by integrating the NATO control system to its Military Tajikistan will no longer be able to be a part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization which uses the Russian operation and control technologies while further strengthening of the US-Tajikistan relations may cause tension for Tajikistan authorities both with the Central Asian countries and Moscow. Finally, the initiative courageously taken by the Tajik Border Security Forces may have negative results considering the authoritative and self-dependent course of the President Emomali Rahmon.
Trump and his aides sow confusion by sending mixed signals on foreign affairs
The inside track on Washington politics. President Trump seemed to contradict his State Department’s message on Sunday’s referendum in Turkey by congratulating its president on the result. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By David Nakamura and Karen DeYoung By David Nakamura and Karen DeYoung
Politics
April 19 at 7:26 PM
As he nears his 100th day in office, President Trump’s efforts to appear decisive and unequivocal in his responses to fast-moving global crises have been undercut by confusing and conflicting messages from within his administration.
Over the past two weeks, policy pronouncements from senior Trump aides have often been at odds with one another — such as whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power as part of a negotiated resolution to end that nation’s civil war.
In other cases, formal White House written statements have conflicted with those from government agencies, even on the same day. For example, Monday brought disparate U.S. reactions — supportive from Trump, chiding from the State Department — to the Turkish referendum this week that strengthened President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian rule.
Even when there is unanimity in the messaging — such as Trump’s boast, based on Pentagon statements, that a U.S. Navy “armada” was headed toward the Korean Peninsula — the administration was forced into the embarrassing admission a few days later that the strike group was, in fact, sailing in the opposite direction.
Where the USS Carl Vinson really was
On April 8, the Carl Vinson strike group was ordered to sail north from Singapore toward the Western Pacific, according to the U.S. Pacific Command. But a week later, the Navy published photos showing it was actually sailing in the opposite direction through the Sunda Strait near Indonesia. Where the USS Carl Vinson actually was (The Washington Post)
[Trump administration defends how it described ship movements amid North Korean tensions]
Although every administration experiences growing pains, the recent succession of mixed signals over key national security issues has stood out, painting a picture to some of an administration that has not fully developed its policies or a broader international agenda and whose key agencies are not communicating with one another — or the White House. It is a situation that has led foreign diplomats and congressional lawmakers to express uncertainty about the administration’s goals and about who is speaking on its behalf.
Former national security officials who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents emphasized that the Trump administration has been hampered by a president who has been slow to appoint hundreds of mid-level managers at Cabinet agencies, including the Pentagon and the State Department, and who has at times expressed disdain for the traditional interagency decision-making process.
The result is that the normally meticulous care that goes into formulating and coordinating U.S. government policy positions or even simple statements is often absent. Institutional memory is lacking, these former officials said, and mistakes and contradictions easily slip through the cracks.
“Part of it reflects the fact that these departments are not staffed, and they’re not operating at capacity or at speed,” said Stephen J. Hadley, who served as President George W. Bush’s national security adviser. “These Cabinet secretaries are kind of home alone, working with people that they really don’t know. They don’t have their own people in place, their policies in place, or processes in place yet.”
Inside Trump’s National Security Council, the agency charged with coordinating foreign policy decision-making and consistent messaging, the disarray has been palpable. Trump’s first choice for his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was forced out amid revelations that he had misled senior officials, including Vice President Pence, about his communications with Russian officials before Trump took office.
Beyond his difficulties with the Russia issue, Flynn was unable, in the few weeks that he presided over the NSC staff, to establish a smooth decision-making process that could rationalize the often widely disparate views of Trump’s key White House advisers and new Cabinet members. His replacement, H.R. McMaster, moved quickly to consolidate power by pushing out Trump’s senior strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who had initially been awarded a seat on the NSC “principals committee.”
McMaster has sought, with incomplete success, to exert more control over staffing and to establish a more disciplined process in place of what had been a largely ad hoc system. In the wake of Trump’s decision to authorize missile strikes on a Syrian airfield as retribution for the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, McMaster said that the administration had held several NSC meetings, including with Trump aboard Air Force One and at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, to develop and coordinate the military operation.
Yet those efforts were to some degree undermined when senior officials went on the Sunday political talk shows after the strikes and offered conflicting statements on Assad’s future. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the administration’s top goal was defeating the Islamic State, while Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said no resolution to the Syrian civil war was possible with Assad in power.
“Public diplomacy is a huge tool, presenting a united front, presenting a shared vision of how you approach global affairs — everything from the use of military force to sanctions,” said Jennifer Psaki, who served as the White House communications director and as a State Department spokeswoman under President Barack Obama. “When you have officials stating conflicting viewpoints, you’re sending a confusing message — not just to people in this country and to Congress, but confusing and conflicting messages to partners and allies around the world.”
Trump aides disputed the suggestion the administration was speaking with more than one voice. Michael Anton, the director of strategic communications at the NSC, said there was “nothing inconsistent” about the White House’s Syria policy.
“Defeating ISIS has always been the paramount goal, and nobody ever envisioned a long-term future for Assad,” Anton said, using an acronym for the terrorist group. He emphasized that there is “communication at every level, every day” among policy experts and among the communication staffs at the various agencies and the White House.
Most of the public statements made by the agencies are vetted through Anton’s office before they are released, he said.
But there is no permanent spokesman at either State or the Pentagon, making it difficult to keep up with the deluge of requests from reporters. Anton has three aides, while Obama’s NSC had up to seven people in the same division, according to former Obama aides.
This week, the Trump White House appeared to be on a different page than the State Department in the wake of the Turkish referendum that greatly expanded Erdogan’s powers. While the State Department emphasized the United States’ interest in Turkey’s “democratic development” and the importance of the “rule of law and a diverse and free media,” the White House statement said Trump had called to congratulate Erdogan and discuss their shared goal of defeating the Islamic State.
Anton said the statements were not in conflict, citing a “tension in U.S. policy goals.”
U.S. and Turkish officials said Trump and Erdogan planned to meet in person before a NATO summit scheduled for May 29-30 in Brussels.
“You want to keep a NATO ally, a partner in the strategic fight against ISIS,” he said. “You also have a national interest in democracy in Turkey. . . . Sometimes foreign policy requires making difficult choices and balancing interests that are in tension.”
[Trump plans to meet the Turkish president next month]
While some analysts spoke approvingly of a “good cop, bad cop” approach, none seemed sure whether that is what the administration had intended.
Outside experts said there were budding signs of maturation within the administration. They cited the decision-making process on the Syrian strikes and the glitch-free summit between Trump and Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago.
While 100 days is a traditional milestone at which the progress of a new administration is assessed, it is the wrong measure for the Trump insurgency, which promised to upend traditional ways of doing government business, Hadley said.
“There is a shakedown cruise for every administration,” he said. “This one is going to be longer and bumpier, precisely because of how they came to power. . . . The question is how it will look after the first 150 days or maybe 200.”
Former officials and foreign policy analysts viewed some of the administration’s policy reversals — including its renewed support for NATO and tougher tone on Russia — as the natural evolution from inexperience and lack of knowledge to confrontations with reality.
Still, events of the past week have raised concerns about consequences in a volatile world, where such missteps can be costly.
The administration’s erroneous statements about the location and direction of the USS Carl Vinson — an aircraft carrier that officials said was dispatched to the Korean Peninsula last week as a show of force against North Korea’s belligerence — were widely viewed as a simple “screw-up,” in the words of several former officials.
[ZHE] In the latest undercover video from Project Veritas, investigators uncovered a group of protesters known as the DC Anti-fascist Coalition plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by deploying butyric acid (aka “stink bombs”) at the National Press Club during the Deploraball event scheduled for January 19th.
In a dose of irony, the planning meeting for the attack was held at Com*t P*ng Pong, the DC pizza restaurant that recently gained infamy as the location of the P*zzagate controversy.
Apparently “Plan A” of the disaffected agitators was to set off “stink bombs” in the ventilation systems of the building hosting the “Deploraball.”
“I was thinking of things that ruin, that would ruin the evening, ruin their outfits or otherwise make it impossible to continue with their plans. Make sure they get nothing accomplished.”
“Yeah, if you had…a pint of butyric acid, I don’t care how big the building is, it’s closing…And this stuff is very efficient, it’s very very smelly, lasts a long time a little of it goes a long way.”
“If you get it into the HVAC system it will get into the whole building.”
Meanwhile, “Plan B” entailed an effort to simultaneously set off the sprinkler systems throughout the building which had the “added benefit” of sending party goers “outside in the freezing cold.”
“I’m trying to think through how to get all the sprinklers to go off at once. There’s usually a piece of like fusible metal or a piece of glass with liquid in it that will blow”
“And the added benefit, everybody is going to walk outside in the freezing cold.”
Because of the nature of the threats, Project Veritas notes that they notified the FBI, Secret Service and DC Metro Police of the content of this video prior to its release.
With that, here is the full video:
Project Veritas:
In this video, Project Veritas investigators uncover a group known as the DC Anti-fascist Coalition plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by deploying butyric acid at the National Press Club during the Deploraball event scheduled for January 19th.
The meeting, captured on hidden camera, was held at Comet Ping Pong, a DC pizza restaurant that is better known as the location of the Pizzagate controversy. The coalition members discuss the steps they would need to take to halt the Deploraball event. Project Veritas notified the FBI, Secret Service and DC Metro Police of the content of this video prior to its release.
The UK ex-spy said to be behind accusations of Russian hacking in favour of Donald Trump in the US is “some runaway crook from the MI6”, Russia’s foreign minister says.
Sergei Lavrov said Russia did not have to prove it was not behind the hacking.
Ex-UK spy Christopher Steele is said to have prepared memos published last week alleging Mr Trump’s election team colluded with Russia which also had salacious videos of his private life.
Mr Trump says the claims are “fake”.
Mr Steele, who runs a London-based intelligence firm, was highly regarded by his bosses when he worked for the British foreign spy agency MI6, sources have told the BBC.
He has been widely named as the author of a series of memos – which have been published as a dossier in some US media.
The claims – how and why?
How did Trump ‘compromise’ claims come to light?
Trump’s briefing a theatre of the absurd
The allegations claim Russia has damaging information about the US president-elect’s business interests, and salacious video evidence of his private life, including claims of using prostitutes at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow.
US intelligence agencies considered the claims relevant enough to brief both Mr Trump and President Barack Obama.
Mr Trump accused US intelligence of leaking the content from a classified briefing – a claim denied by James Clapper, director of National Intelligence.
Asked by a German journalist during a news conference in Moscow, the Russian foreign minister said he was not going to prove why the allegations were “not true”.
“I thought that the presumption of innocence was in force in Germany as in other countries. So you prove it,” Mr Lavrov said.
“These are convulsions of those who realise that their time is running out,” Mr Lavrov said. “That is why various fakes are being fabricated.”
The hacking scandal dominated the US election campaign, with US spy agencies concluding Russia was behind the hacking and release of Democratic Party emails intended to damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
The Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Russia’s Sochi on January 28-29 was aimed to boost the process for building a peaceful future for Syrian people in a war-devastated country and to define the country’s political compass for the next years. The Congress, sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey, gathered over 1,500 participants from various groups of Syrian society, including representatives from political parties, opposition groups and ethnic and confessional communities.
Perhaps, the most important result of the Sochi Congress has been an agreement of all participants to consolidate their efforts in stabilizing the Syria’s future and to secure the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic. The concerns of the Syrian opposition claiming the Sochi Congress would, on the contrary, hazard the international peace process could not be more baseless since the Congress was supported by the UN, the main sponsor of the Geneva talks.
