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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Jan-2014
11-Jan-14 World View -- Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels

Web Log - January, 2014

11-Jan-14 World View -- Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels

Christians cheer as Central African Republic president resigns

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels
Christians cheer as Central African Republic president resigns
Israel announces plans for 1,800 new West Bank settlement homes
U.S. sends troops to Somalia

Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels

Syrian citizens pray over the coffins wrapped by Syrian flags for the victims who were killed on Thursday by a car bomb (AP)

Syrian citizens pray over the coffins wrapped by Syrian flags for the victims who were killed on Thursday by a car bomb (AP)

Nearly 500 people have been killed in northern Syria in the last week because of fighting among supposedly anti-Assad militias. The army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad was not even involved in this fighting.

As we recently described in detail, there are three groups of anti-Assad militants in Syria: The "moderate" Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the Islamic Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra, consisting of Syrian citizens who are salafists, and the al-Qaeda linked jihadists in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria/Sham/theLevant (ISIS or ISIL), consisting of many foreign fighters who have been drawn to the region by both the Syria conflict and the deterioration of Iraq since the Americans withdrew.

It's thought that the SNC and Jabhat al-Nusra are on the same side, fighting al-Qaeda. This view has been supported by Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu:

"What I say is that some circles are trying to show al-Assad as less evil than al-Qaeda.
The al-Assad regime has not fought al-Qaeda yet. The Free Syrian Army is fighting both regime forces and al-Qaeda. The existence of al-Qaeda creates an area of legitimacy for the regime and the pressures of the regime create [one] for al-Qaeda. Thus they benefit and support each other.
If the al-Assad regime had not applied such intense pressure during the past two years, no groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) could have emerged."

The argument that al-Assad and ISIS are helping each other politically is obviously true, as al-Assad and Russia use ISIS as a club in the international community to support al-Assad's genocidal atrocities on his own people. What hasn't been proven is that al-Assad is militarily aiding al-Qaeda against the two Syrian anti-Assad groups.

However, Debka's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber) says that al-Assad has a long history of supporting al-Qaeda militarily:

It was recalled in some US intelligence quarters how key members of the Assad family made their fortunes from hosting the Al Qaeda networks which funneled combatants and arms from Syria into Iraq to fight US forces in 2004, a year after the American invasion, and again in 2005.
Leading figures in this episode were Gen. Assef Shawqat, Assad's brother-in-law, deputy Defense Minister until he was assassinated in July 2012; and Rami Makhlouf, tycoon and Assad's maternal cousin.
The networks they harbored smuggled al Qaeda terrorists into Iraq as they poured into Syria from the Gulf, other parts of the Mid East, and from Muslim population centers in the West.
Is Assad at his old double game?
US Secretary of State at the time Colin Powell traveled to Damascus to tax Bashar Assad with double-dealing and sabotaging the American war effort. He came away furious over Assad's denials and on the plane taking him back to Washington, Powell told reporters that the Syrian ruler had lied in his teeth several times in their interview.
Those US veteran watchers of the Iraqi and Syrian scenes, recalling their stealthy interaction, saw a rat in the ease with which Assad and his security agencies have allowed Al-Baghdadi's legions to move out of Syria to Iraq in recent weeks.
They suspect that the Syrian president, becoming worried by the Obama administration's rapprochement with Tehran, betrayed both their interests in Iraq by opening the door to al Qaeda's access, exactly as he did a decade ago.
At the same time, fresh intelligence reached Washington about another double game, whereby Iran and al Maliki are suspected of deliberately overstating Al Qaeda's battle successes, as a pretext for cracking down on the very Iraqi Sunnis, who collaborated with Washington during America's 2003-2012 US presence in the country."

Arab News / AP and Hurriyet (Ankara) and Debka

Christians cheer as Central African Republic president resigns

Christians in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic (CAR), filled the streets and cheered wildly at the news that the country's president, Michel Djotodia, had announced his resignation, under pressure from France and others in the international community. Djotodia, a Muslim, became president last March in a coup that ousted president François Bozize, a Christian.

Following the coup, Muslims formed Seleka brigades and began going door to door and killing Christians. Millions of Christians across the country have been forced to flee their homes, and some groups of Christians have been forming anti-Seleka revenge militias. Thus, Christians are hoping that the reversal of the event that triggered the massacre will now cause things to go back to the way they were, when Muslims and Christians lived together in love and harmony. Although Christian neighborhoods were rocking with celebrations, Muslim neighborhoods were eerily silent, according to reports.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the resignation of Djotodia will make little difference, and the hope of a return to the old days is a pipe dream. The violent, visceral attacks by the Muslims on the Christians were triggered by the Djotodia coup, but they could only have occurred because of hatreds bottled up for years or decades, presumably based on anger and resentment by the Muslim minority at discrimination by the Christian majority.

As I've written many times, it's a basic principle of Generational Dynamics that even in a dictatorship, major policies and events are determined by masses of people, entire generations of people, and not by politicians. Thus, Hitler was not the cause of WW II. What politicians say or do is irrelevant, except insofar as their actions reflect the attitudes of the people that they represent, and so politicians can neither cause nor prevent the great events of history. Djotodia could neither have caused nor prevented bloody slaughter that's unfolding, just as no politician could have caused or prevented the bloody slaughter in Rwanda in 1994.

CAR's last generational crisis war was the 1928-1931 Kongo-Wara Rebellion ("War of the Hoe Handle"), targeting the French colonialists. The way that this works is that a generational crisis war is so horrific that the survivors make it their life's work to make sure that nothing similar ever happens to their children or grandchildren. However, once those survivor generations are gone, then all you have left are younger generations with no personal memories of the last war, and no personal inhibitions against their ultra-nationalist drives. After that, a new generational crisis war breaks out, and we're seeing the beginnings of it now. AP and Reuters

Israel announces plans for 1,800 new West Bank settlement homes

As expected, Israel on Friday announced plans to build 1,800 new West Bank Jewish settlement homes. The announcement was expected after Israel's recent release from jail of twenty-six Palestinian prisoners who committed terrorist acts prior to the 1994 Oslo accords, as part of the deal for Israeli-Palestinian "peace talks." Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is thought to have been forced to announce the settlement plans as part of a deal with Israeli politicians who opposed the prisoner release.

According to Saeb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator:

"The new settlement construction plan is a message from Netanyahu to [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry not to come back to the region to continue his efforts in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Every time Kerry has stepped up his efforts, returning to the region, Netanyahu has stepped up his efforts to destroy the peace process. Netanyahu is determined to destroy the two-state solution."

AFP

U.S. sends troops to Somalia

The Obama administration has reversed two decades of U.S. policy that effectively prohibited military "boots on the ground" in Somalia, after the "Black Hawk Down" disaster in 1993. The U.S. military secretly deployed about two dozen troops to Somalia in October, to serve as trainers and advisers. Drones from a U.S. base in neighboring Djibouti conduct surveillance missions and occasional airstrikes, but except for occasion use of special forces, this is the first introduction of American troops on the ground. Washington Post

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Jan-14 World View -- Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (11-Jan-2014) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Jan-2014 11-Jan-14 World View -- Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels

Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels

Christians cheer as Central African Republic president resigns

Israel announces plans for 1,800 new West Bank settlement homes

U.S. sends troops to Somalia

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Jan-2014
11-Jan-14 World View -- Syria's president al-Assad collaborates with al-Qaeda against Syria rebels