Tag: military intervention in Syria

AMERICA’S WAR-HORSE HARLOTS (by Cem Ryan)

AMERICA’S WAR-HORSE HARLOTS

Stoop, Romans, Stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords; Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And waving our red weapons o’er our heads, Let’s all cry, “Peace, freedom, and liberty !”
Julius Caesar, Act III, i

According to experts if you really, really want to get rid of a neighbor—“bump off” is the professional term—call the mafia. But if you’re a down-at-the-heels fast fading super power, broke and bewildered, and need to continue the Arab Spring fairy tale about having the Arabs choose America-friendly democracies that sprout like orange groves throughout the Middle East, these same experts unanimously suggest you call Turkey. Just dial 011-90-ALLAHSBOYS. Oerators are standing by to answer your calls.

ALLAH’S BOYS specialize in duplicity: double-talking, double-dealing, and double-facing. Once upon a time not so very long ago “peace at home, peace in the world” was a national motto in Turkey. Now, thanks to ALLAH’S BOYS, there is no peace anywhere. And even more recently, ALLAH’S BOYS declared a foreign policy aphorism: “zero problems with our neighbors.” Now Turkey has nothing but problems and zero genuine neighbors, despite the weak-knee scribbling of the government-controlled propaganda press.

So since America needs to oust the leadership of Syria, Turkey is their international gangster of choice. Need to secure the oil pipeline forever? Want to protect Israel’s borders, even though expansionist Israel has never declared them? Call Turkey. This amnesiac country can forget the “van minit” fiasco at Davos in approximately one minute, if the price is right. It’s so terribly easy. All it takes is money.

Yes, ALLAH’S BOYS will do the sneaky, dirty work, especially on their brother Muslims, very democratic, these boys. After all, ALLAH’S BOYS are CIA creatures. Remember the “our boys did it!” exclamation from the 1980 CIA-induced Turkish military coup? ALLAH’S BOYS are the bad seed Islamo-fascist children of that catastrophe. True masters of disaster who have raped their own country through privatization, just like the juntas did in South America. Inside Turkey environmental disaster prevails. Forests are destroyed, rivers contaminated by stupid self-serving plans. “No river shall run in vain,” says the head ALLAH’S BOY, meaning that all running waterways will somehow, somewhere generate electricity. Forget nature. Turkey’s once thriving agriculture is nearly barren, its seed imported from Israel. The uneducated voting base of ALLAH’S BOYS remains bedazzled and uneducated. With no economic plan for the future, ALLAH’S BOYS encourages them to have at least 3-5 children. It needs the votes. The once proud Turkish Army has been purged, its senior ranks now stuffed with government toadies. The recent military disasters related to America’s drone-fiascos attest to its incompetence; it has yet to explain or otherwise account for the grievous loss of Turkish lives. Hundreds, thousands—one loses count—of democratic dissenters are in jails throughout the land. Everyone is wire-tapped. Public-space cameras abound. Fascist style police control the streets. Every public assembly of citizens turns into a police riot. Democratic constitutional protections no longer exist. The judicial system is thoroughly politicized. Art, music, cinema, theater, writing, all is subject to censure or fine or destruction. And political thievery an institutional art form.

All this and more is what America’s favorite adopted sons, ALLAH’S BOYS, have brought to their own country. ALLAH’S BOYS knows how to do two things very well, destroy and make money. And America truly loves what this motley crew has done for now the US is paying them big war-bucks for a new, disastrous adventure in the name so-called democracy. Now the Arab world is experiencing democracy a la Turka, as prepared in America, as delivered by ALLAH’S BOYS and their CIA handlers.

It all happened so quickly, like love at first sight. Only two years ago the capo of ALLAH’S BOYS wondered out loud about “what business does NATO have in Libya?” This was shortly after he had accepted the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Award. But then a breeze blew past his bristled upper lip bringing the smell of cordite, carrion, and chaos, followed by a little bird carrying a wad of large denomination American dollars. Twitter. Twitter. And ALLAH’S BOYS suddenly learned how to make money from war. And suddenly Muammar became a big-time loser and the Turks were bombing Libya along with the rest of NATO. And for the last 15 months ALLAH’S BOYS have been provoking Syria. In collusion with the CIA, automatic weapons, tanks, rockets, all the toys of war, have been given to the so-called Friends of Syria mercenaries. These unsavory characters bear a painful resemblance to the US-financed gangsters who toppled Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square in 2003 and, to Hillary Clinton’s great glee, sodomized and disemboweled Gaddafi last year. And now the murderers from the infamous Blackwater gang are in southern Turkey. Such is the way ALLAH’S BOYS (and the CIA) operate. Money. Money. Money.

But now they have provoked Syria too much. A Turkish jet, violating Syrian air space, coming in low and fast, got dropped into the sea. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin fiasco? The concocted incident that “validated” America’s disastrous war in Viet Nam? This is the same lying subterfuge played on the world stage, courtesy of the CIA and America’s puppet show provided by ALLAH’S BOYS. And now ALLAH’S BOYS cry murder most foul their own self-provoked crisis. And of course their American handlers echo the outrage. Make no mistake about this: they, ALLAH’S BOYS and America, are the real murderers of the two downed Turkish pilots. Along with the incompetent military commanders who approved this mission of provocation. But indeed they all found out that, Yes, Syria does indeed have an air defense capability. How stupidly negligent can one be? Ah, but the money is good.

As they used to say about Mexico and America, can be said about Syria: “Poor Syria. So far from God. So close to Turkey.” And to think Bashar Assad, a physician trained in England and president of Syria, and his stylish wife, Esma, British and college-educated, were feted in Ankara not too long ago. His wife dazzled in comparison to the fashion-retard covered wives of ALLAH’S BOYS. Then, Turkey and Syria were on great terms. The border was open. No visas or passports necessary. Trade was booming between Hatay in southern Turkey and Syria. But then that same little bird flew in the window at Ankara. And suddenly the room was full of money. And suddenly it became War! War! War! And American war bucks galore filled the Turkish air. And the ever capacious, ever open pockets of the Turkish government became happy pockets indeed.

The Turkish media lackeys bang their pathetic war drums. ALLAH’S BOYS cry wah-wah-wah to NATO, the UN and any other agency who cares to listen. It’s known as the alibi-cover up scam, also known as “protesting too much.” But the BOYS have America’s melodramatic outrage to revel in, and “endless support” according to the hapless American ambassador. So now Turkey can add its bloody hand to the millions of its Muslim “brothers and sisters” killed and displaced in Iraq and Afghanistan. What a bloody bunch! What a collection of phonies! What a dishonorable gang!

There is no honor in war. Just examine the photographs of the destroyed Iraqi children. Where are your children, ALLAH’S BOYS? There surely is no honor in America’s endless, hopeless, murderous wars. And there is nothing but treachery and greed among America’s War-Horse whores, these dogs of war who wave their red weapons over their heads crying “PEACE! FREEDOM! LIBERTY!” when they really mean MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! Killers all.

And all this carnage under the aegis of the Nobel Peace Prize winning American president.

The shame is boundless, the rape obscene.

Cem Ryan
13 July 2012

PS: See the websites of West Point Graduates Against The War and Service Academy Graduates Against The War for further details about America’s war crimes and its war criminals.

http://www.brighteningglance.org/americarsquos-war-horse-harlots-29-june-2012.html

Money makes the world go around…

Joel Grey, CABARET

Money, money, money, money

Money, money, money, money

Money, money, money, money, money

_____________________________________________________

THE DESTROYED CHILDREN OF IRAQ

WAR IS A CRIME!

STOP THE WAR CRIMINALS!

July 13, 2012
Turkish journalists missing in Syria finally phone home

By By Ivan Watson and Yesim Comert, CNN

May 7, 2012 — Updated 0201 GMT (1001 HKT)

Turkish journalist Adem Ozkose (left) and Hamit Coskun went missing while filming a documentary.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

One of two missing Turkish journalists calls home

Adem Ozkose said he was fine, his father tells CNN

Ozkose and camerman Hamit Coskun went missing March 9

They were filming a documentary when they disappeared

Editor’s note: Read this report in Arabic.

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) — One of two Turkish journalists missing in Syria called home Saturday, ending nearly two months of speculation about their well-being but failing to clear up questions about who is holding them or when they might be freed.

“For two months we didn’t even know whether they were alive or dead so we had so many concerns and worries. Now at least that has lifted,” journalist Adem Ozkose’s father, Mustafa Ozkose, told CNN. “We are so happy that it is impossible to explain in words.”

Ozkose, a reporter for the Turkish publications Gercek Hayat and freelance camerman Hamit Coskun went missing while filming a documentary.

They were last heard from March 9, as they were traveling through Syria’s troubled Idlib province on their way back to neighboring Turkey, Mustafa Ozkese said.

Mustafa Ozkose said his son had less than three minutes Saturday to talk to his wife and ask about the welfare of his three children.

“He said he was fine. He said that he missed his children,” Mustafa Ozkose said.

Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish Islamist charity group widely known by its Turkish acronym IHH, said it mediated the call.

“As a result of negotiations that have been on going, an IHH diplomatic delegation was able to visit Adem Ozkose and Hamit Coskun where they were in Damascus and managed to have both Adem and Hamit make calls to their families,” said Serkan Nergis, an IHH spokesman.

“This was a very positive step,” he said.

A spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry told CNN he had no official information about who is holding the men. Syrian officials have not answered formal requests by Turkey about whether the journalists were in government custody.

Turkey withdrew its ambassador and diplomats from Damascus last March, as relations drastically deteriorated between the countries.

IHH officials declined to give details about who is holding the two Turkish journalists in Damascus or what condition the men were in.

“This is a very sensitive process,” Nergis told CNN. “For now we cannot give further information about the two journalists’ whereabouts or the process itself.”

But Nergis did say that the negotiations have been conducted in conjunction with Iran, which is a close ally of the Syrian government.

In an April 23 statement, the group said it had worked with Iranian and Syrian counterparts to broker the release of two elderly Iranians who had been held by members of the Syrian opposition.

At the time, IHH publicly argued that the release of the Iranians would hopefully lead to the safe return of Ozkose and Coskun to Turkey.

Throughout the anti-government uprising and bloody regime crackdown that have left more than 9,000 people dead, the Syrian government has for the most part prevented foreign journalists from freely entering the country.

Turkish citizens do not need visas to travel to Syria. Nonetheless, the Syrian government has detained and deported a number of Turkish journalists who tried to work in the country. One group of reporters did not even make it past the airport before being sent back home.

The tight restrictions have prompted numerous news organizations, including CNN, to smuggle reporters into Syria.

According to a six-point peace plan brokered last month by the United Nations, Damascus pledged to allow foreign journalists into Syria. However, news organizations, including CNN, are still being denied visas into the country.

CNN’s Anna Ozbek contributed to this report.

via Turkish journalists missing in Syria finally phone home – CNN.com.

May 7, 2012
Turkish Foreign Ministry says no military shipments from Turkey to Syria

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has dismissed speculation that some Turkish companies are selling weapons materials to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and that Turkish officials are “turning a blind eye” to the practice, Today’s Zaman reported.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Turkish diplomat on Tuesday deemed such claims “absurd and baseless,” citing Turkey’s strong stance against the current regime in Syria and tight border-controls due to a trade embargo on the country.

On Monday, Britain’s Times reported, with information from intelligence sources, that Syria is obtaining material from Turkey to use in its weapons industry. One Middle Eastern intelligence source, the daily claimed, said the Turkish government does not openly encourage the trade between Turkey and Syria; however, some officials are turning a blind eye to it.

According to the report, three Turkish companies are providing materials and equipment to a Syrian government research institute that develops vehicle armor and ammunition for the Syrian police and army. The institute, Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), is under US and EU sanctions. The daily also reported that the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) is providing research assistance to the SSRC.

TÜBİTAK claimed on Tuesday in a written statement that a memorandum of cooperation in 2008 with SSRC has not yet been abolished, but no cooperation took place. SSRC has been subjected to US sanctions since 2005 for its links to Iran and North Korea and for providing arms to the militant Shiite group Hezbollah. The EU also blacklisted the institute in December because of its links with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

In January, Turkey intercepted four Iranian trucks carrying raw materials used in the making of ballistic missiles. In September, Turkey announced it would increase inspections of cross-border traffic in order to block arms deliveries to Syria, a move that was immediately met by the Syrian regime’s suspension of a free-trade agreement between Turkey and Syria dating back to 2006. While Turkey is abiding by UN sanctions, it has also imposed its own sanctions on the Assad regime, including an economic and arms embargo.

via Turkish Foreign Ministry says no military shipments from Turkey to Syria – Trend.

March 4, 2012
Amanpour: we need people like Marie Colvin & Arwa Damon to humanize what’s happening in Syria

Amanpour: we need people like Marie Colvin & Arwa Damon to humanize what’s happening in Syria

CNN chief international correspondent and ABC global affairs anchor Christiane Amanpour and Hoover Institution Fouad Ajami, discuss the increasing humanitarian crisis in Syria with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Amanpour stresses how critical independent reporting is to the mobilization of humanitarian aid for civilians during crises like the on-going struggle inside Syria, and the earlier war inside the former Yugoslavia.

ANDERSON COOPER 360° airs weeknights at 8:00pm and 10:00pm ET on CNN and CNN International.

via Amanpour: we need people like Marie Colvin & Arwa Damon to humanize what’s happening in Syria – CNN Press Room – CNN.com Blogs.

February 24, 2012
Why Turkey is increasing pressure on Assad
By Fadi Hakura, Special to CNN

February 10, 2012 — Updated 1023 GMT (1823 HKT)

A member of the Free Syrian Army takes position in Al-Qsair, southwest of the flashpoint city Homs, on January 27.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Fadi Hakura says Turkey has abandoned its friendship with Syria in wake of violence

He says the change in position is unsurprising, given Turkey’s lack of strategic links to Syria

He says Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan lost no time in siding with Syria’s anti-Assad masses
Editor’s note: Fadi Hakura is the associate fellow and manager of the Turkey Project at the London-based think-tank Chatham House. He has written and lectured extensively on Turkey’s political, economic and foreign policy and the relationship between the European Union and Turkey.

(CNN) — Syria is heading to an “intolerable situation” according to Turkey’s hyperactive Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country is at the forefront of global efforts to engineer the downfall of the Bashar Al-Assad leadership.

Less than two years ago, relations were diametrically different.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered Assad a close friend and paraded Syria as the epitome of its much vaunted but now defunct “zero problems with the neighbors” policy to encourage rapprochement with Middle Eastern nations. Trade across their 850-kilometer border blossomed tenfold, security cooperation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — a militant Kurdish group conducting a violent separatist campaign in Turkey — flourished and mutual visa restrictions were lifted.

Fadi Hakura

This transformation in ties should not be surprising in retrospect. For Turkey and Syria never enjoyed a strategic relationship as much as a convergence of interests triggered by the Iraq war in 2003 to stymie an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq. Similarly, both leaderships found common cause against Israel. Their relationship was merely tactical and psychological bereft of common values.

Then the eruption of the Arab awakening upended the stability in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and eventually Syria thereby unleashing long simmering sectarian tensions to the surface. Assad’s security and intelligence forces dominated by fellow minority Alawites (a syncretic and mystical offshoot of Shia Islam) confronted a largely Sunni popular revolt.

Syria’s declining circle of friends

Men, women and children trapped in Syria

Syria’s accidental President al-Assad

Erdogan, a devout Sunni Muslim, did not hesitate to side with the anti-Assad masses. Gone are the days where Turkey defended Iranian nuclear endeavors and cooperated closely with it on Iraq. In its stead, Turkey patched once frosty relations with Washington jointly calling on Assad to resign, solidified the partnership with Gulf Arab countries and adopted a more muscular and robust approach towards Iran.

Washington’s cooperation with regional players such as Turkey is a good example of what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coined “smart power” in play to avoid committing scarce resources in money and soldiers as it disengages from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Turkey’s anti-Assad inclination stems from its sectarian sympathies with the Syrian protesters, its desire to project Turkish influence in the Middle East and to restrain the regional ambitions of rival Iran. On the other hand, the U.S. seeks to degrade the Iranian nuclear program and to guarantee the security of Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

Despite the toughening rhetoric against Damascus, there is no hiding the fact that Turkey’s choices are severely limited. Russia and China will thwart further U.N. initiatives, the Arab League looks exhausted, and the positions of the pro-Assad and anti-Assad alliances are entrenched.

At the heart of stalemate is the future of the Assad dynasty. Turkey and its friends strongly favor regime change while Assad and his allies demand regime stability. How to square this conundrum is testing the limits of Turkish diplomacy.

One possibility — which is most favored by Turkey — is a negotiated solution. Ankara proposed on Wednesday an international conference to end the violence in Syria. Yet, it seems highly unlikely that procedural fixes will paper over clashing objectives. Negotiations require an abundance of goodwill and a willingness to compromise, two commodities in short supply.

That leaves the most risky option of a slippery slope to further escalation on the ground. Turkey is already hosting the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army of breakaway Syrian military personnel. Further measures could include unifying the hopelessly fragmented Syrian opposition and providing additional logistical and other support to Syrian armed groups.

Direct military intervention will pit Turkey against an angry Russia and a hostile Iran supplying collectively two-thirds of Turkey’s energy needs.
Fadi Hakura, Turkey analyst

Most perilous of all is Turkey unilaterally establishing a security zone or a safe haven on Syrian territory with the backing of the U.S., European powers and the Gulf Arabs but outside the U.N. purview. This would drag Turkey ever deeper into the Syrian quagmire that is descending into a sectarian civil war. After all, the turmoil in Syria can easily spill over into an ethnically and religiously diverse Turkey.

Direct military intervention will also pit Turkey against an angry Russia and a hostile Iran supplying collectively two-thirds of Turkey’s energy needs. Tehran is seething after Ankara agreed to host in September last year a sophisticated US early warning radar system under the NATO umbrella to neutralize the threat of long-range Iranian missiles.

Turkey is undoubtedly in a precarious and unenviable spot at the mercy of unpredictable and deteriorating regional circumstances. It is not in control of events but is being controlled by events. What the ultimate outcome will be is anyone’s guess.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Fadi Hakura
February 10, 2012
Pentagon plans US-backed war against Syria

By Chris Marsden
10 February 2012

The Pentagon has drawn up plans for military intervention in Syria.

A military strike would be coordinated with Turkey, the Gulf States and the NATO powers, according to reports that acknowledge such plans officially for the first time. The plan is described as an “internal review” by Pentagon Central Command, to allow President Barack Obama to maintain the pretense that the White House is still seeking a diplomatic solution.

This is considered vital, as military intervention would most likely be conducted through various Middle East proxies, which the US and NATO could then back with airpower. Turkey and the Arab League states, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, do not want to be seen for what they are: stooges of the US. Deniability for them therefore requires the US to conceal the full extent of its involvement.

In the February 6 Financial Times, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning for the US State Department, argued for “A little time… for continued diplomatic efforts aimed at shifting the allegiances of the Sunni merchant class in Damascus and Aleppo.”

As with the war against Libya last year, military intervention would again be justified citing the “responsibility to protect” civilians. But its real aim is regime change to install a Sunni government beholden to Washington, allied with the Gulf States, and hostile to Iran.

A State Department official told the UK’s Daily Telegraph that “the international community may be forced to ‘militarise’ the crisis in Syria” and that “the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy.”

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said, “We are, of course, looking at humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, and we have for some time.”

The Telegraph noted, “Any plan to supply aid or set up a buffer zone would involve a military dimension to protect aid convoys or vulnerable civilians.”

Leading US political figures have also been calling publicly for the arming of the Free Syrian Army, an exclusively Sunni force stationed in Turkey and backed and funded by Ankara, Riyadh and Doha. They include Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

The issue was discussed this week in Washington directly with the FSA, whose logistical coordinator, Sheikh Zuheir Abassi, took part in a video conference call Wednesday with a US national security think tank.

The US, France, Britain and Arab League are already operating outside the framework of the United Nations as a “Friends of Syria” coalition, in order to bypass the opposition of Russia and China to a Libya-style intervention.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are known to be arming the FSA and to have their own brigades and advisers on the ground, as they did in Libya.

According to the Israeli intelligence website Debka-File, both British and Qatari special operations units are already “operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus… Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation—in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people.”

But the Gulf States do not have the firepower required to overthrow the Assad regime. For that Turkey is the key player. Debka-File notes in the report that the presence of the British and Qatari troops “was seized on by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for the new plan he unveiled to parliament in Ankara Tuesday, Feb. 7. Treating the British-Qatari contingents as the first foreign foot wedged through the Syrian door, his plan hinges on consigning a new Turkish-Arab force to Homs through that door and under the protection of those contingents. Later, they would go to additional flashpoint cities.”

Turkey is publicly debating military intervention based on establishing “safe havens” and “humanitarian aid corridors,” with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visiting Washington this week after stating that Turkey’s doors are open to Syrian refugees.

Writing in the February 9 New Republic, Soner Cagaptay argues, “Washington’s reluctance to lead an operation may prove a blessing, leaving space for Turkey to take the reins… Turkey would support an air-based intervention to protect UN designated safe havens—as long as the mission is led by a ‘regional force,’ composed of both Turkish and Arab militaries. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who are funding the opposition, should be happy to work with their new ally in Ankara to protect the safe havens; Washington and European powers could then remotely back the operation, facilitating its success.”

The aim of isolating Iran has become the stated aim of US and Israeli officials, backed by a media campaign prominently involving the liberal press, mixing anti-Iranian sentiment with humanitarian hyperbole professing concern with the fate of Syria’s people.

Efraim Halevy, a former Israeli national security adviser and director of the security service Mossad from 1998 to 2002, wrote in the February 7 New York Times describing Syria as “Iran’s Achilles’ Heel.”

He writes, “Iran’s foothold in Syria enables the mullahs in Tehran to pursue their reckless and violent regional policies—and its presence there must be ended … Once this is achieved, the entire balance of forces in the region would undergo a sea change.”

The New York Times’ British counterpart, The Guardian, entrusts Simon Tisdall with the task of endorsing such anti-Iranian sentiment. He cites favourably Hillary Clinton’s ridiculing of Assad’s claims of foreign intervention in support of the opposition as being “Sadly… fully justified.” Rather, he insists, “The foreign power most actively involved inside Syria is not the US or Britain, France or Turkey. Neither is it Russia, Saudi Arabia nor its Gulf allies. It is Iran—and it is fighting fiercely to maintain the status quo.”

The appalling consequences of an American war against Syria would dwarf those of its Libyan adventure. Syria is only the ante-chamber of a campaign for regime change in Iran and its targeting poses ever more clearly conflict with Russia and possibly China.

Moscow last month sent three warships, including an aircraft carrier, to its only Mediterranean naval base, the Syrian port of Tartus. This followed its blocking of the US, France and UK-backed Arab-League resolution, meant to pave the way for intervention, with the dispatch of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Damascus for talks with Assad, Tuesday, in a further show of solidarity. Lavrov was accompanied by Mikhail Fradkov, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Office.

Of greater significance still were comments made the following day by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, linking efforts to overthrow Assad with a direct Western threat to the stability of Russia through its support for opposition protests there. “A cult of violence has been coming to the fore in international affairs in the past decade,” he said. “This cannot fail to cause concern… and we must not allow anything like this in our country.”

February 10, 2012