Syria

Call for inquiry on Australia's stance on Syria

Fri, 2015-08-14 00:22 by david macilwain

The Honourable Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop
David Macilwain,
Sandy Creek, Victoria
16th June 2015
Dear Minister Bishop,

While acknowledging your response to my letter of 10th October last year, which seriously challenged the accepted narrative on the situation in Syria and the Australian government’s position on it, I urge you now to reconsider the points I made in the light of recent developments, particularly in regard to the use of Chemical Weapons.

As I’m sure you are aware, a collaboration between Saudi and Turkish Intelligence agencies facilitated an invasion of NW Syria by thousands of ‘violent extremists’ in March, with the objective of overthrowing the Assad government. (#1) While the US may not have been directly party to this operation with the immediate supply of arms, the possession of new US-made TOW anti-tank missiles by the ‘Army of Conquest’ – Jaish al Fatah – was a critical factor in the violent recapture of towns and territory over which the Syrian Arab Army had control. The fall of Idlib to these mercenaries was well publicised in our media, though its illegal and aggressive nature was obscured by Opposition claims of fatalities from a ‘Chlorine’ attack on a nearby village by the Syrian army. (No credible evidence exists of the use of Chlorine or ‘barrel bombs’ by the army, just as no credible reason could be given for the government targeting Syrian civilians rather than the terrorists who are threatening the whole Syrian state.)

The failure of Australian mainstream media to acknowledge the nature of this renewed and extreme challenge to the Syrian state, and the failure to identify and condemn the countries responsible for financing and arming the ‘Army of Conquest’, was initially compounded by the concurrent focus on the ANZACs and the commemorations in Turkey. Far from this becoming an occasion to present the current resurgence of Erdogan’s ‘Ottoman empire’ in the light of history, the reality of Turkey’s active support for jihadist groups in Syria including Da’ish/IS passed unnoticed. Even though the army of conquest is dominated by Syria’s Al Qaeda – Jabhat an Nusra – which remains a proscribed terrorist organisation by Australia and her Western allies, both authorities and media seem unaware or unconcerned by its trail of death and destruction. Even An Nusra’s massive truck bomb attack on the National Hospital in Jisr al Shughour failed to interest our national broadcaster, no more the massacre of hundreds of soldiers and civilians as they later tried to escape the attackers.

Writing recently in the Independent, veteran journalist Robert Fisk related the accounts of soldiers recovering from the siege in the hospital in Lattakia, (#2) and confirmed that some of the mercenaries who invaded Jisr al Shughour were Turkish; from other reliable sources it appears that this army was composed mainly of Turks and Chechens.

The misreporting and failure to report on the nature of the threat facing Syrian society – by which I mean the majority of that society which supports the Syrian army and the Syrian president against the foreign-backed insurgency – has now assumed a far less benign role in the Syrian conflict; in the view of many the Western mainstream media have now become complicit with that insurgency, and in controlling the narrative that enables an illegal and criminal violation of Syrian sovereignty. As an example of this role – and one which could only be called ‘supportive propaganda’, both SBS and ABC recently aired programmes which presented the ‘violent extremists’ of Jabhat an Nusra in a relatively sympathetic light, and as fighters in a legitimate struggle against a despotic and violent regime. SBS Dateline screened an interview with a confessed local leader of Jabhat an Nusra in Idlib in which we heard his ‘spin’ on the Islamic state he hoped would soon replace the inclusive secular government of Bashar al Assad, and accompanied him into Aleppo to launch attacks on government-secured neighbourhoods.(#3) Meanwhile the ABC’s Background Briefing allowed us to hear the viewpoint of Australian jihadis going to fight in Syria, without any countervailing narrative from the Syrians they were going to fight. (#4) The ongoing unverified news reports claiming attacks ‘on markets and schools’ with ‘barrel bombs’ and Chlorine by the Syrian army, as well as opinion from some commentators that the Assad government was a greater threat than Islamic State, provided supportive commentary for the sectarian anti-Assad ravings of the ‘takfiris’.

Considering this background of misleading and false information about the nature of the Syrian conflict, I am frankly quite perplexed at the latest presentations from your government, and in particular the claims you made in Perth recently about the dangers of Da’ish obtaining Chemical Weapons. As reported by Seymour Hersh in his revealing report of December 2013 – ‘Whose Sarin?’- (#5) there was already detailed knowledge in the US intelligence community in May 2013 about the abilities of Jabhat an Nusra to use Sarin, as well as those of AQI, the forerunner of Da’ish. Hersh’s source – a ‘senior intelligence consultant’, reported on a top-secret cable forwarded to the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, David R Shedd, which ‘confirmed previous reports that An Nusra had the ability to acquire and use Sarin’. These followed from investigations of the apparent use of Chemical Weapons in Khan al Assal in March 2013, which had already been verified on the ground by the Russians. Ironically perhaps, it was to investigate this crime committed by ‘rebel groups’ that the UN finally brought its inspectors to Damascus in August at the insistence of the Syrian government.

Expanding on these reports in his second article published by the London Review of Books – ‘Obama, Erdogan and the Syrian Rebels’, with the subtitle ‘The Red line and the Rat line’, (#6) Hersh described the details of the thinking and actions of Turkish intelligence and the Erdogan ‘cabinet’, leaving no doubt about the role Turkey was playing in actively supporting the armed insurgency, both in assisting the supply of fighters and weapons in entering Syria from Turkey, and apparently in working with An Nusra to ‘set up’ the Sarin attack on Ghouta with the express purpose of pushing Obama over his ‘red line’ for military intervention. Following a recent application by Judicial Watch for Defence Department documents significant evidence of the ‘rat line’ from Benghazi to Syria has now confirmed Hersh’s report. (#7)

It is now clear that Erdogan has tired of waiting for the US to commit forces to actively overthrow the Assad government, despite Obama repeating his desire for this to happen; the current joint operation with Saudi Arabia, and Qatar has now taken the ‘intervention’ out of US hands. Not only that – another development so far also apparently ignored by Australia’s government and media threatens to radically escalate the situation into full-scale war. Following the renewed attack on Syria by Turkish/Saudi mercenaries which Tehran quite correctly interprets as a deliberate act of war by Turkey, Ayatollah Khamenei has now formally committed forces to assist the Syrian Arab Army in fighting the insurgency, and killing the terrorist forces or driving them back into Turkey and Jordan. Along with the problems in Iraq, the potential of this war to spread further into Lebanon is most serious; the insurgency already has a strong base of support from Saudi-aligned groups in Tripoli which are opposed by both Hezbollah and the Lebanese army.(#8)

Australia’s involvement in the fight against IS/Da’ish in Iraq which is formally at the invitation of the Baghdad government, ironically puts us on the same side as Iran as Iranian forces are now actively supporting both the Iraqi army and the Iraqi Shi’ite militias who fight with it to drive back Da’ish and restore security to the civilian population. This comes in contrast to US forces, who sought their ‘authorisation’ from the Kurdish regional government. The apparent failure of those US forces to observe and destroy the Islamic State convoy on its long journey across the open desert to reach Ramadi before its recent capture poses some serious questions about US objectives, both in Iraq and Syria. (#9) While Western media have barely asked these questions, military commanders, leaders and public in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran have already answered them. For these countries and their defence forces, who have to fight and die at the hands of the modern barbarians, distinctions between ‘Da’ish’, Jabhat an Nusra, the ‘Islamic Front’, or ‘the Army of Conquest’ are increasingly irrelevant. The pipeline of support for all these insurgents is the same and contains the same fuel – weapons supplied and paid for by members of the Western coalition, whether formal or implicit. And while we talk endlessly of the unstoppable march of the ‘Islamic State’, and how it reaps billions from ‘selling oil’, we ignore its Achilles heel – the umbilical connection that enables it to survive and fight in the barren deserts of Syria and Iraq. (#10)

I need hardly explain why I am making this application to you, and to the other recipients of this letter; it is clear that there must be a radical re-assessment of Australia’s role in the Syrian conflict, along with a debate on the legitimacy of the parties to it that we are currently supporting. While the deaths of Syrian soldiers and civilians do not affect us directly, policies are being pursued by the government on the basis of the conflict which do. We should also take note of the recent case in the UK where the government sought to prosecute a man who had been fighting with a ‘rebel group’ in Syria. The case was dropped when the defence argued that the rebel group was effectively also being supported by the UK government. (#11)

It is also clear that current developments will surely drag Australia into direct involvement in the Syrian conflict, and an obligation to join the fight not just against Da’ish but against the ‘Army of Conquest’ being supported by our ‘proxy allies’, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

In my opinion a full parliamentary enquiry examining Australia’s commitment to and role in this conflict is necessary and urgent. This should include the role played by our public broadcasters.
I look forward to your response.

Yours etc,
David Macilwain.

[Editor: No response had been received from Ms Bishop at time of publishing this letter on 14 August 2015]

References:

(#1) There were many reports, including in the NYT describing this Saudi-Turkish operation, which began with a visit by President Erdogan to Riyadh:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-saudi-arabia-agree-to-boost-support-to-syria-opposition.aspx?pageID=238&nID=79091&NewsCatID=510
See also Conn Hallinan’s overview:
http://fpif.org/the-dark-saudi-israeli-plot-to-tip-the-scales-in-syria/
(#2) Robert Fisk reports on the Jisr al Shughour hospital siege:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-syria-hospital-siege-thatturned-into-a-massacre-jisr-alshugour-breakout-was-less-of-a-victory-than-damascus-claims-10301084.html
(#3) SBS Dateline: Najieb Khaja meets former Australian preacher Abu Sulayman Muhajir, ‘leading figure in Jabhat an Nusra’, and provides a platform for his political viewpoint against Syria:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/story/western-jihadis-australian-speaks-out-syrias-frontline
(#4) ABC Background Briefing; Sara Dingle speaks to Australian supporters of ISIS, but also provides a platform for their false portrayals of Bashar al Assad and his government:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2015-03-22/6325498
(#5) Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on questions over the Sarin attack in Ghouta of August 21st 2013:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin
(#6) The Red line and the Rat line: (please note also the response in Letters from Richard Postol and Theodore Lloyd of MIT following the article)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
(#7) Defence department predictions for ISIS in 2012 obtained by Judicial Watch:
http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/
(#8) Alastair Crooke, former MI6 agent and specialist on ‘Political Islam’, on the coming war:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/syria-iraq-fractured_b_7471540.html?utm_hp_ref=tw%3ESunni
(#9) Sharmine Narwani with an Iraqi and ‘Resistance’ viewpoint on the US failure to combat ISIS:
http://rt.com/op-edge/262393-isis-us-coalition-syria-iraq/
(#10) Tony Cartalucci on IS ‘umbilical’:
http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/09/logistics-101-where-does-isis-get-its-guns/
(#11) Richard Norton Taylor on the collapse of the trial of Bherlin Gildo vs UK: (Gildo’s defence referred to evidence cited by Hersh in ‘the red line and rat line’, amongst other information showing Western collusion with terrorist groups including Jabhat an Nusra, which Gildo supported)
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/trial-swedish-man-accused-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo

Topic:

Why Syria is Winning: Advancing towards a Strategic Victory that will transform the Middle East? (Article by Prof. Tim Anderson)

Tue, 2015-08-11 23:54 by Sheila Newman

Syria is winning. Despite ongoing bloodshed and serious economic pressure, Syria is advancing steadily towards a military and strategic victory that will transform the Middle East. There is clear evidence that Washington’s plans – whether for ‘regime change’, for rendering the state dysfunctional or for dismembering the country on sectarian lines – have failed.

By Prof. Tim Anderson

Originally published on Global Research, August 10, 2015

Region: Middle East & North Africa

In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?

That failure will fatally wound the US dream, announced a decade ago by Bush junior, for a subservient ‘New Middle East’. Syria’s victory is a combination of coherent popular support for the national army, in face of a vicious sectarian Islamists (takfiris), firm backing by key allies, and fragmentation of the international forces lined up against them.

The economic hardships, including regular blackouts, are now worse but have not broken the Syrian people’s will to resist. The government ensures basic foods are affordable and maintains education, health, sports, cultural and other services. A string of formerly hostile states and UN agencies are resuming their relations with Syria. An improved security situation, the recent big power agreement with Iran and other favourable diplomatic moves are all signs that the Axis of Resistance has strengthened.

You wouldn’t know much of this by reading the western media, which has lied persistently about the character of the conflict and developments in the crisis. Key features of that deception have been to hide NATO’s backing for the takfiri groups, yet trumpet their advances and ignore the Syrian Army roll-backs. In fact, these western-backed terrorists have made no real strategic advance since a flood of foreign fighters helped them take parts of northern Aleppo, back in mid-2012.

In my second visit to Syria during the crisis, in July 2015, I could see how security had improved around the major cities. In my first visit in December 2013, although NATO’s throat-cutters had been ejected from much of Homs and Qsayr, they were in the ancient village of Maloula and along the Qalamoun Mountains, as well as attacking the road south to Sweida. This year we were able to travel freely by road from Sweida to Damascus to Homs to Latakia, with just one minor detour around Harasta. In late 2013 there was daily mortaring of eastern Damascus; this year it was far less common. The army seems to control 90% of the heavily populated areas.

Fact check one: there never were any ‘moderate rebels’. A genuine political reform movement was displaced by a Saudi-backed Islamist insurrection, through March-April 2011. In the first few months of the crisis, from Daraa to Homs, key armed groups like the Farouq brigade were extremists backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who practised public atrocities and blew up hospitals, using genocidal slogans and practising sectarian ethnic cleansing (1). Syrians these days call them all ‘Daesh’ (ISIL) or just ‘mercenaries’, not bothering too much with the different brand names. The recent statement by ‘moderate rebel’ leader Lamia Nahas that Syria’s ‘minorities are evil and must be disposed of’, just as Hitler and the Ottomans disposed of minorities (2), only underlines that fact. The character of the armed conflict has always been between a confrontation between an authoritarian but pluralist and socially inclusive state, and Saudi-style sectarian Islamists, acting as proxy armies for the big powers.

Fact check two: almost all the atrocities blamed on the Syrian Army have been committed by western-backed gangs, as part of their strategy to attract deeper western intervention. That includes the discredited chemical weapons claims (3) and the collateral damage claims of the so-called ‘barrel bombing’. US journalist Nir Rosen wrote back in 2012, ‘Every day the opposition gives a death toll, usually without any explanation … Many of those reported killed are in fact dead opposition fighters but … described in reports as innocent civilians killed by security forces’ (4). Those opposition reports are still relied on by partisan groups such as Amnesty International (US) and Human Rights Watch, to bolster the war propaganda. The Syrian Army has indeed executed captured terrorists, and the secret police continue to detain and mistreat those suspected of collaborating with those terrorists. But this is an army which enjoys very strong public support. The Islamist gangs, on the other hand, openly boast of their atrocities and have minimal public support.

Fact check three: while there is a terrorist ‘presence’ in large parts of Syria, neither Daesh/ISIL nor any other armed group ‘controls’ much of the populated Syrian territory. Western agencies (such as Janes and ISW) regularly confuse presence with control. Notwithstanding the Daesh/ISIL offensives in Daraa, Idlib and Eastern Homs, the heavily populated areas of Syria are under noticeably stronger army control than they were in 2013. Only a few areas have been held for months or years. In any sustained confrontation, the Army generally wins; but it is under pressure and not infrequently makes a tactical retreat, because it is fighting on dozens of fronts.

The Syrian Army has tightened its cordon around northern Aleppo, Douma and Harasta, and has had recent victories in Hasaka, Idlib and Daraa. With Hezbollah forces the Army has virtually eliminated Daesh/ISIL and its squabbling partners from the Qalamoun mountains, along the border with Lebanon.

Despite years of mass terrorism and western sanctions the Syrian state is functioning surprisingly well. In July 2015 our group visited large sports centres, schools and hospitals. Millions of Syrian children attend school and hundreds of thousands still study in mostly fee-free universities. Unemployment, shortages and power blackouts plague the country. Takfiri groups have targeted hospitals for demolition since 2011. They also regularly attack power plants, leading to government rationing of electricity, until the system is back up. There are serious shortages and widespread poverty but, despite the war, everyday life goes on.

For example, there was controversy in 2014 over building the ‘Uptown’ complex in New Sham, a large satellite city outside Damascus. The facility comprises restaurants, shops, sports facilities and, at the centre, children’s rides and other entertainment. ‘How could the state spend so much money on this, when so many people were suffering from the war?’ one side of the argument ran. On the other side it was said that life goes on and families have to live their lives. After Ramadan, during Eid, we saw thousands of families making use of this very child-friendly complex.

Security procedures have become ‘normal’. Frequent army checkpoints are met with remarkable patience. Syrians know they are for their security, especially against the car and truck bombs used by the Islamists. Soldiers are efficient but human, often exchanging friendly chat with the people. Most families have members in the Army and many have lost loved ones. Syrians do not endure curfews or cower from soldiers, as so many did under the US-backed fascist dictatorships of Chile and El Salvador, in the past.

In the north, the Mayor of Latakia told us that this province of 1.3 million now has over three million, having absorbed displaced people from Aleppo, Idlib and other northern areas affected by incursions of sectarian terrorists. Most are in free or subsidised government housing, with family and friends, renting or in small businesses. We saw one group of about 5,000, many from Hama, at Latakia’s large sports complex. In the south, Sweida has been hosting 130,000 displaced families from the Daraa area, doubling the population of that province. Yet Damascus holds the greater part of the six million internally displaced people and, with a little help from the UNHCR, the government and army are the main ones organising their care. The western media only tells you about the refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, facilities mostly controlled by the armed groups.

The ‘regime attacking civilians’ or ‘indiscriminately’ bombing civilian areas only has a basis in the Islamist propaganda on which much of the western media relies. The fact that, after three years, Syrian planes and artillery have not flattened hold-out areas like Jobar, Douma and parts of northern Aleppo, gives the lie to claims against the Army. You can be almost certain that the next time western media say ‘civilians’ are being killed by ‘indiscriminate’ Syrian government bombing, it is the Islamist sources themselves who are under attack.

This war is being fought on the ground, building to building, with many army casualties. Many Syrians we spoke to said they wished the government would indeed flatten these ghost towns, saying that the only civilians left there are the families of and collaborators with the extremist groups. The Syrian Government proceeds with greater caution.

Regional states see what is coming, and have begun to rebuild ties with Syria. Washington still pushes its chemical weapons lies (in face of the independent evidence), but lost its stomach for any major escalation back in late 2013, after the confrontation with Russia. There is still much sabre rattling (5), but it is noteworthy that Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), enemies of Syria just a little while back, are now normalising their diplomatic relations with Damascus.

The UAE, perhaps the most ‘flexible’ of the Gulf monarchies, but also linked by Vice President Joe Biden to support for Daesh/ISIL (6), has its own worries. It recently arrested dozens of Islamists over a plot to turn the absolutist monarchy into an absolutist caliphate (7). Egypt, back in military hands after a short-lived Muslim Brotherhood Government that wanted to join in the attacks on Syria, is now dealing with its own sectarian terrorism, from that same Brotherhood. The largest of Arab countries now defends the territorial integrity of Syria and backs (at least verbally) the Syrian campaigns against terrorism. Egyptian analyst Hassan Abou Taleb calls this message ‘a condemnation and rejection of Turkey’s unilateral moves’ against Syria (8).

The Erdogan Government tried to position Turkey at the head of a Muslim Brotherhood region, but has lost allies, is often at odds with its anti-Syrian partners and faces dissent at home. Washington has tried to use the separatist Kurds against both Baghdad and Damascus, while Turkey sees them as key enemies and the Saudi-backed Islamists slaughter them as ‘apostate’ Muslims. For their part, the Kurdish communities have enjoyed greater autonomy and acceptance under Iran and Syria.

Washington’s recent agreement with Iran is an important development, as the Islamic Republic remains the most important regional ally of secular Syria and a firm opponent of Saudi-style Islamists. Affirmation of Iran’s role in the region upsets the Saudis and Israel, but bodes well for Syria. All commentators see a diplomatic jockeying for position after the Iran deal and – despite Iran’s recent exclusion from a meeting between Russian, US and Saudi foreign ministers – there can be little doubt that Iran’s hand has been strengthened in regional affairs. An unusual meeting between Syria’s intelligence chief, Brigadier-General Ali Mamlouk, and the Saudi Defence Minister, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (9), also shows that the Syrian Government has resumed direct discussions with the major sponsor of terrorism in the region.

Syria is winning because the Syrian people have backed their army against sectarian provocations, mostly fighting their own battles against NATO and Gulf Monarchy sponsored multi-national terrorism. Syrians, including most devout Sunni Muslims, will never accept that head-chopping, vicious and sectarian perversion of Islam promoted by the Gulf monarchies.

Syria’s victory will have wider implications. It spells an end to Washington’s roller coaster of ‘regime change’ across the region, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya. Out of the death and misery caused by this dirty war we are seeing the emergence of a stronger ‘Axis of Resistance’. Syria’s victory will also be that of Iran and of the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah. Further, the conflict has helped built significant measures of cooperation with Iraq. The gradual incorporation of Baghdad into this Axis will seal the humiliating defeat of plans for a US-Israel-Saudi dominated ‘New Middle East’. This regional unity comes at a terrible cost, but it is coming, nonetheless.

References

(1) Tim Anderson (2015) ‘Daraa 2011: Syria’s Islamist Insurrection in Disguise’, Global Research, 5 June, online:http://www.globalresearch.ca/daraa-2011-syrias-islamist-insurrection-in-disguise/5460547

(2) The Angry Arab (2015) ‘This is what the candidate for Syria’s provisional (opposition) government wrote on Facebook: a holocaust’, 4 August, online: http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2015/08/this-is-what-candidate-for-syrias.html

(3) Tim Anderson (2015) ‘Chemical Fabrications: East Ghouta and Syria’s Missing Children’, Global Research, 12 April, online:http://www.globalresearch.ca/chemical-fabrications-east-ghouta-and-syrias-missing-children/5442334

(4) Nir Rosen (2012) ‘Q&A: Nir Rosen on Syria’s armed opposition’, Al Jazeera, 13 Feb, online: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221315020166516.html

(5) Press TV (2015) ‘Syria ‘should not interfere’ in militant ops by US-backed groups’, 3 August, online: http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/08/03/423141/us-syria-isis-isil-assad-josh-earnest

(6) Adam Taylor (2014) ‘Behind Biden’s gaffe lie real concerns about allies’ role in rise of the Islamic State’, Washington Post, 6 October, online: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/10/06/behind-bidens-gaffe-some-legitimate-concerns-about-americas-middle-east-allies/

(7) Bloomberg (2015) ‘U.A.E. to Prosecute 41 Accused of Trying to Establish Caliphate’, 2 August, online:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-02/u-a-e-to-prosecute-41-accused-of-trying-to-establish-caliphate

(8) Reuters (2015) Egypt defends Syria’s territorial unity after Turkey moves against IS’, 2 July, online: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/07/29/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-egypt-idUKKCN0Q31AY20150729

(9) Zeina Karam and Adam Schreck (2015) ‘Iran nuclear deal opens diplomatic channels for Syria’, AP, 6 August, online:http://news.yahoo.com/iran-nuclear-deal-opens-diplomatic-channels-syria-161740195.html

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Go back to where you came from show lacks credibility on Syrian refugees

Mon, 2015-08-10 14:28 by david macilwain

Although planned invited economic immigrants are far more numerous in Australia, the fuss about accepting or rejecting asylum seekers is so ridiculous when nothing is said about how the wars we support generate nearly all the refugees NATO shudders at the idea of.

I hadn’t been watching SBS latest 3 day Go Back To Where You Came From series, being put off by the obnoxious nationalism of people in the trailers. But I thought to just look at the final part on July 31, 2015. In fact I recorded it and watched a little the next day. I only saw the first 8 minutes, but that was enough to get the gist.

I don’t know who is responsible for SBS bias – unlike the ABC it pretends to be have no editorial control, so maybe this is just the default position.

So where were they going in the Middle East to see the place refugees came from? A refugee camp on the Turkish border, which looked to be in the zone that Turkey has infested with IS terrorists! And who was the refugee sample?

There was a flash back to their meeting in Melbourne with this refugee, who was a Palestinian! She wasn’t a Palestinian fleeing Israel’s ethnic cleansing though. As she related, "I went to buy groceries and there was a helicopter bombing our house."

So she fled to another place, where she was then hit by ISIS, and came to Australia.

But the party didn’t go to Yarmouk and Damascus – they went to the north west to meet the Kurds, who are battling against ‘the worst terrorist organisation in the world’.

This was yet another puff piece for the freedom and music loving Kurds, made before it looked like the Kurds may soon be joining the Syrian army to fight against Turkey and its proxies. And one of our good Aussies said that ‘I’d love to see 14,000 Kurds coming to take refuge in Australia’!

The voice-over, not by the guy who did the last series but by one who sounded like propaganda central, talked about the dangers from the ‘brutal Assad regime’ and from ISIS terrorists, and how this was the worst humanitarian crisis since WW2.

Syrians don't want to come here as refugees; they want Australia to stop supporting the war against their government

All this got me to thinking about the rift between refugee support and the Syrian crisis, and how it is that the people who are really suffering in Syria have no desire to come to Australia as refugees – all they want is for us to stop attacking their homes so they can live there in peace.

So it seems to me that if we actually want to help refugees – at least the ones from our battlefields, we should be putting the pressure on leaders to start working with the Syrian government and to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Israel and the US to go back to where they came from...!

But of course before ‘we’ do that ‘we’ are going to have to understand who are the bad guys in this conflict. (I’ve noticed incidentally that if ABC reporters find a ‘refugee’ in Europe or elsewhere, most of the time they will be ‘Syrian’. On the day I watched my recording of GBTWYCF, I noticed that when Cameron in Britain had said the ‘swarm’ of migrants should go back to West Africa, the ABC interviewed a random migrant in Calais who was.... Syrian!

Of course there is yet another devious agenda here – that Cameron wouldn’t be saying the migrants were mostly from Syria even if they were, because then it would be impossible to turn them away!

There’s a third problem – that migrants across Europe now all say they are from Syria, even when you can see they are Roma, or North African, or just homeless. It’s the best way to get sympathy and money. It was the same last year when we were in Greece, Lebanon, and France.

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This is what the Syrian uprising looks like from the kitchen window - (Article by Jos de Putter)

Mon, 2015-08-10 13:17 by Sheila Newman

Documentary, 10 july 2015. One morning in August 2012, renowned Syrian photographer Issa Touma saw young men lugging sandbags into his street. It turned out to be the start of the Syrian uprising in the city of Aleppo. Touma grabbed his camera and spent nine days holed up in his apartment, recording what was happening outside. The result? An unprecedented glimpse into a war that has been raging for three years now. This article originally published here: https://decorrespondent.nl/3043/The-war-outside-the-kitchen-window/155984180-82f330e7.

(Click on the picture to go to the original site to view the video.)

Late last year, Syrian photographer Issa Touma got the world's attention. Amid the violence of the civil war in Syria, he calmly organized a photo exhibition in his Le Pont gallery in Aleppo. Touma believes in art. "It’s the only way to respond to the barbarism," he says.

But the line between art and war reporting can be dangerously thin. When civil unrest broke out in August 2012, Touma's apartment in Aleppo turned out to be situated right on the frontlines of the conflict between rebels from the Free Syrian Army and Bashar al-Assad's government troops.

One summer morning Touma woke to see armed young men stacking sandbags and keeping watch beneath his window. He decided to capture the events on film and kept a video diary from day one. Most often filming from his window, Touma sometimes appears in the frame himself as he waters the plants on his balcony, watches television, or sends a distress call into the world to say that he has run out of food.

In the film, which documents the first nine says of the uprising, we see how the young fighters gradually give way to more heavily armed combatants. We see Touma's neighbors leave their homes, and we see how the Free Syrian Army is defeated.

Then the dreaded Islamist militants appear on the scene – big men, heavily armed, grim, wearing balaclavas. Their presence unmistakably signals the end of what could have been a democratic uprising. The filmmaker realizes that more than anyone else. "I don’t want to film any more," he sighs.

According to Issa Touma, the West is partly to blame for the Syrian uprising getting out of control. After all, the international community stood by and watched as forces from the Gulf States and the Muslim Brotherhood hijacked the revolution at an early stage. Now the world must live with the consequences.

9 Days - From my Window in Aleppo is an initiative of Dutch filmmakers Floor van der Meulen and Thomas Vroege. They compiled the footage captured by Issa Touma into this short film.

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US made willful decision to create ISIL: Ex-head of US Defense Intelligence Agency

Sat, 2015-08-08 22:48 by Sheila Newman

This story has since also been reported on 11 August on RT as US ex-intelligence chief on ISIS rise: It was 'a willful Washington decision'. The RT report includes three embedded video broadcasts.

The former director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has said that the rise of the ISIL terrorist group in Syria was a “willful decision” made by Washington.

An internal DIA study released recently shows Washington knew that the actions of “the West, (Persian) Gulf countries and Turkey” in Syria may create a Takfiri group like the ISIL.

Article originally published http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/08/08/423762/US-ISIL-Syria-terrorist-group with interview on news program on 8 August 2015.

Michael Flynn, the former head of the DIA, has described the study as important and confirmed its findings.

In an interview with Al Jazeera TV, he said he had studied a DIA memo in 2012 predicting the West’s backing of ISIL in Syria, adding it was very clear intelligence.

When the interviewer asked whether the administration turned a blind eye to his analysis, Flynn said, “I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.”

Asked if it was a willful decision to support an insurgency, he responded, “It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.”

He also said he had even argued against sponsoring foreign militants in Syria, noting the reason behind the rise of the ISIL was the US and its allies sponsoring terrorists in Syria to pressure Damascus.

Observers say that the US and its allies helped create and train the terrorist organizations to wreak havoc in Muslim countries.

The ISIL militants have seized large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq. They have been carrying out heinous crimes against all communities in both neighboring Arab states.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Flynn admitted that Washington was well aware of the chaos Iraq would face following its withdrawal in 2011.

US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq since early August 2014. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.

Since late September 2014, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

Topic:

Surviving in Aleppo, Syria, today under the 'rebel' attacks - July 2015

Fri, 2015-07-31 22:25 by Anonymous

ALEPPO, SYRIA, July 27, 2015: Three stories from our Syrian correspondent in Aleppo. First he writes about the difficulties a Syrian taxi-driver encounters in travelling from one part of Aleppo to another, through 'rebel' occupied territory. The writer then describes some of the moves and countermoves between Syrian Arab Army, defending Aleppo, and 'rebels', as the rebels try to blow parts of the city up. He then inventories a number of public buildings recently damaged or destroyed as a result of these battles in Aleppo. Finally, in the section entitled, "Socially", he describes how humans have been destroyed and deformed, amputated, kidnapped, impoverished, sold into prostitution, whilst others have made strange new careers in terrorism as 'rebel's. And how such rebels contaminate peoples' homes with human faeces in order to drive them out. Candobetter.net editor: Title changed to locate Aleppo and politics on 3 August 2015.

The following reports, written on a mobile phone, from Aleppo, in English that is not the writer's first language, have been edited in some parts for clarity.

Traveling to the other part of the city:

It wasn't me, but a friendly taxi driver we know, who wanted to visit his house in the other side [of Aleppo], where the terrorists and the so-called "rebels" are in control. He heard that Syrian jets had attacked the quarter and bombed a place close to his. He made his trip during the Eid vacation (17-19th of July) with his wife, for two days.

A trip that used to take 20-30 min from one part of the city to another, took something like seven hours, because they had to go around 25 miles away from the city to make a U-turn and come back from another area, passing many villages, and entering areas under the terrorists' control, till they reached the eastern part of Aleppo city, and finally their house.

They went in a bus. He didn't take his taxi car as terrorists might have taken it from him by force. He told me that the trip cost him and his wife $70-$100 over two days (transportation, eating ...etc). He complained because it was a lot of money for him, equal to 100-150 paid trips with his taxi; he might need a week of hard work to compensate that money.

The taxi driver and his wife retrieved most of their clothes, which were still there, thanks to the only two neighbors still living in the building, who protected their apartment. The remaining apartments and houses in the quarter had been robbed or damaged because they had been turned into nesting places for the terrorists.

Some numbers and details might not be that accurate, because of my poor memory, however I thought you might be interested to know of this. Many good people are still going from one part to the other [of Aleppo]. Many people who did not deserve it, were kicked out from their homes, and it wasn't their choice to stay over there or become refugees over here or somewhere else.

Visiting each side is still possible for people, but it's dangerous, and I won't do it, no matter what.

The Citadel

Editor Candobetter.net: To get an idea of what Aleppo's Citadel looked like before the war on Syria, go to Peter Aaron's architectural photography gallery.
As I understand it, on the 13th/14th of July, the Syrian army - which occupies the very strategic acropolis hill of the ancient citadel of Aleppo in the middle of the ancient walled city, which is under terrorist control - knew about a new tunnel that the terrorists were digging and filling with explosives, very close to the citadel's borders. So the Syrian army made a counter attack and forced the terrorists to leave that tunnel in a rush. The terrorists set fire to the explosives before they left, however, and that explosion was enough to destroy part of the ramparts of the citadel.

I'm wondering if the army hadn't known about that tunnel, and if terrorists had drilled a longer and deeper tunnel, and armed it with ten times more explosives, maybe the whole citadel would have been destroyed.

Recently I saw some new and clear digital images showing the area of the citadel to the old city via a friend of my friend. These pictures dated to a couple of days prior to the abovementioned attack. In the digital images the few buildings around the citadel had been damaged totally or partially. Khosrawiyya/Chusruviyya mosque, the first and oldest Ottoman mosque in Aleppo (built in 1544) had disappeared. Same for Carlton Hotel which occupied a century old building as an investment in millions of dollars. Eighty per cent of the municipal building where the Mayor used to work (perhaps 75 years old and about 12 stories high) had been destroyed.

A small mosque and religious school of the Memluk or Ayyoubid period (about 700-1,000 years old) had disappeared except for its gate and the little minaret above the gate. The Traditional/Turkish Bath of Yalbogha al-Nasseri (about 700-800 years old) was still there, but some of its big domes had collapsed. Another century-old building - that I remember sitting in for three or four hours 15 years ago, manually copying some information to use in my graduation project - had been damaged so badly, especially its beautiful double mirrored spiral stairs at the entrance, they have become history with no trace.

Those buildings were all destroyed by terrorists using the same technique, within the last 4 years of war in the city. They were destroyed by digging tunnels, or depending on ancient existing networks of tunnels under the whole old city of Aleppo, and filling them up with explosives, to bomb everything above them. Whilst such a huge explosion was taking place, terrorist troops would attack another target, mostly the citadel where the Syrian army is. They have so far failed to gain control of it, but they have done a lot of damage to the citadel in this time.

Although what I have described above is horrible, and I know about other famous areas (markets, bazaars, mosques and churches) that had been sabotaged or destroyed; I was pleased that way more area and buildings of the old city are still there, as I know them, and may be even better after they had been renovated and preserved in the last decade before the crisis. Maybe they are not that famous or such masterpieces, but they are still there untouched or scratched.

The war targeted Aleppo's symbols (and the same strategy has been used all over Syria, of course). Aleppo's Bazaar, which had been there since the 4th century AD, since the Hellenistic era, was a symbol, and it had been burned totally. It took a week of continuous burning, and the smell of the fire reached every corner in the city.

The Great / Umayyad Mosque was also a symbol. Its almost 1000-year-old minaret was destroyed by dynamite and its pulpit had been dismantled (mostly to Turkey). Several walls and sides of it had been completely destroyed, and the mosque has been returned to its original and oldest land use: an Agora (Plaza) in the Hellenistic era.

And so on for the rest of the lost places.

The last symbol left of Aleppo is the most famous one: the Citadel. I can see part of it from our balcony, but I can see it more clearly from the roof of our building. It's still there, resisting the "zombies" and their funding states. It had been injured a lot, but it's still there dominating the city scene. It's where they found the Storm God's Temple (around the 2nd millennium BC) a few years ago. It has faced many invaders, including Mongols and Crusaders. It had been damaged severely several times through history, but it had been rebuilt over and over again, as an immortal symbol to the inhabitants of one of the oldest continuous cities in history. I just wish not to witness its being totally destroyed, in the same way as its neighboring buildings mentioned above have been destroyed.

Socially

Aleppo city has shrunk to a fifth of its size, and has became very crowded with refugees who have fled from areas that have fallen into the hands of terrorists.

I walk everyday in the city. I see children and girls without limbs because of a mortar over here or shrapnel over there had hit them randomly and caused them a terrible accident and horrible memory to stay with them forever.

The girl who lost one leg is standing on the other and selling bread, while the little boy who lost one arm is selling chewing gum. Those are the "injured" people who appear in the news, in a one line report of the numbers, after each attack from the terrorists. "Injured" doesn't mean scratched or having a bleeding finger; it means someone lost his eyes or her limbs.

At night, some areas in Ramadan were still playing live music while audiences smoke their shisha and drank cold beverages. I admired the spirit of musicians over there, resisting all the harshness of the crisis.

On the other side, and because of the war and lack of income, many females are selling themselves for money. Prostitution has become so normal in Aleppo, with different ranks for each social level.

Every youth talks of immigrating and leaving the city. Everyone wants to leave for Europe, mostly to Sweden, which has accepted a lot of Syrian refugees so far. The usual trip starts from Syria to Turkey, then they go in boats to Greece, and that is a very dangerous trip because many lose their lives and sink in the sea. Once they reach Greece, they go into a long process, and end either in Germany or Sweden.

There is a new "market" for smuggling people to Europe illegally. Everyone is living on gossip that once they reach Sweden, the government will give them free houses and 500 Euros per person. I keep telling them that this amount of money might be a fortune in Syria, but it's not over there, and life is not that cheap. However, they just want to leave and work whatever over there, because they are worried about their children's future and safety.

What happened in Syria in general, and Aleppo in particular, is something like a great "shock," which people are still unable to believe.

Between 2006 and 2011 Turkey, Qatar, Saudi and most of Europe and the U.S. opened relations with Syria and funded many international investments in the country. History will have the final word if that act was a trap or a bribe or bad luck, to shower the people in unprecedented wealth, and then take it all back within few years, replacing that shower with mortars and shelling.

All of a sudden, malls began to spring up in big cities like mushrooms. Brand new cars including Porsche, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris became an ordinary sight in the streets. In my neighborhood and elsewhere, many new buildings replaced old ones. Many friends I know told me that they were distributing $20,000 or $25,000 as salaries for workers in factories and contractor firms per week! Work was amazing, everyone was happy, a lot of money, plenty of wealth, and marriages and having new kids became more than normal.

I remember when my mother and brother told me to leave America and come back to Syria in 2010 because it was booming over here.

My friend, who is an architect living in Germany, came back then to work on an architectural project for a Dutch firm in Damascus. It's like seeing the whole country and its people reach the peak of wealth, and then watching everything collapse as if it had been destroyed by an earthquake. Unbelievable tragedy.

My brother saw his previously wealthy friend selling little things (plastic, gums, etc) on the street in front of a mosque, and he couldn't believe it. His formerly rich friend told my brother that he had lost everything, and has a family to feed. His factory had been stolen and dismantled to Turkey; his land had been burned. His properties were either damaged or stolen, and he was bankrupted in no time.

Each day, there is new story, real tragedies, that reach my ears and heart. All of a sudden, everything ended.

Factories that cost $8 million and more had been stolen to Turkey, and one owner had a stroke and died because of such loss.

The worker who used to receive his salary from an architect or an investor, became a leader of a "rebellion" battalion, and now he can rape unlimited ladies and have millions of US dollars. He came back with his militia to destroy the work of this architect or that investor, out of God knows what... rage? Seeking a faster way to lust and more wealth? Revenge?

Another person I met yesterday, told me that he had been kidnapped and they asked for a huge ransom. This is what bankrupted him, after being very wealthy. He lost his factories as well, and trade, and now he is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure and heart troubles.

You see it in each person's eyes: a type of sparkle with a light smile, whilst remembering how they were so rich and wealthy, traveling to Europe three times a year for pleasure and tourism, having the best life ever over here in Syria, and having great dreams for their children and potential promises for building the country and modernizing their cities.... Then, all of a sudden, everything disappeared.

One old friend told me that his youngest two girls, who are four and six years old, didn't know what a sea and a mountain looked like until a couple of months ago, when he managed to take his family for a trip to the coast and mountains. They hadn't left their house for four or five years, and they had only seen mountains and sea in cartoons or illustrated tales.

A neighbor's girl (who is from my generation) came back to live with her parents with her three teenage girls after the terrorists occupied her house in another "infected" area in the city. They looted whatever they could, and before they left, they sabotaged and covered whole rooms and furniture with ....... shit!

Sabotaging can be done by burning or breaking furniture, but when someone sees his rooms, beloved furniture and family pictures stained with human shit, that is so disgusting and humiliating.

I actually heard such stories when I was still in America, but I thought it was an individual act, not a common strategic way in that sector of the city, to humiliate people and push them to leave their areas.

So, my neighbor's daughter sold her apartment and didn't want to see it again, and went back to live with her parents. Others have become refugees. Others have sold their daughters into prostitution... Stories upon stories, that break my heart, and I wonder how all that happened, and who planned for it.

Topic:

Palestinian statement supports Syrian Army and condemns foreign intervention and fighters - see inside

Wed, 2015-07-22 22:54 by Sheila Newman

"We do not pretend to tell Syrians what is right for Syria, just as Syria has respected the Palestinian right to liberate Palestine since the time of the Nakba. However, we declare that the enemies of Syria are the enemies of Palestine, and those who bear arms against the Syrian people and the Syrian army – regardless of their names and affiliations – are mere pawns that serve Israel and its project to divide and control the Arab region. The people who abduct, murder and slaughter in Syria are the enemies of the Arab nation, just like Israel, with which they share goals and criminal nature."

Candobetter.net Editor, Sheila Newman: The statement published in full in this article (which the reader may wish to sign) is the result of an international effort by many individuals to try to help stop the destruction of Syria and the creation of more refugees and stateless persons. It supports the Syrian government and expresses solidarity with the Syrian people. It identifies imperialist forces, including Israel, as trying to divide and reconquer the Arab nations. My understanding is that this statement arose in part out of the fact that Syria has resettled many Palestinians where other states refused, but that political opportunism has caused some Palestinian factions to undermine Syria. I am running this statement because it is anti-war and helps to define the position of Syria in contrast to the deforming lens that Australian and other European Press and governments apply continually. I do not support any anti-Jewish sentiment, but I acknowledge Israel's role in this problem, along with the roles of United States, NATO and Australia. Peace.

Statement of Palestinian groups and individuals in the occupied homeland, refugee camps and the diaspora about the global war on Syria

We are Palestinians and Palestinian organizations that declare our solidarity with the Syrian people in their historic struggle for survival, now in its fifth year. We are in a unique position to understand and appreciate the challenges facing our Syrian brothers and sisters, because we face the same challenges.

We understand what it means to have our lands and our property taken by foreign usurpers. We understand what it means for millions of our people to be driven out of their homes and to be unable to return. We understand what it means for our interests and our national rights to become the plaything of the most powerful nations on earth. We understand what it means to suffer and die in defense of our sovereignty and human rights.

We do not pretend to tell Syrians what is right for Syria, just as Syria has respected the Palestinian right to liberate Palestine since the time of the Nakba. However, we declare that the enemies of Syria are the enemies of Palestine, and those who bear arms against the Syrian people and the Syrian army – regardless of their names and affiliations – are mere pawns that serve Israel and its project to divide and control the Arab region. The people who abduct, murder and slaughter in Syria are the enemies of the Arab nation, just like Israel, with which they share goals and criminal nature.

We therefore reject violence and murder against the people and state of Syria, which has nothing to do with any just demands; rather it merely seeks to destroy the Syrian state. Any attack on Syria is an attack on the Arab nation, and a true national opposition is one that commits to its country’s principles and flies its flag, and that doesn’t receive orders from abroad.

The Palestinian and Syrian struggles are not religious struggles. We respect a state that guarantees freedom of religion without preference for any faith over any other. Dividing Arab communities into conflicting sects only serves the Israeli regime and allows it to implement its plots for the region.

While Palestinian refugees have suffered and are suffering in many places, Syria has welcomed them and granted them all the rights of Syrians except the right to vote. We are grateful for this policy of brotherhood/sisterhood and can do no less than to reciprocate with our solidarity for Syria in its time of greatest need. It is the least we can do.

The cynical and genocidal policies of NATO and its proxies in the Middle East have as their main policy to destroy the last remaining independent nations and forces that are not compromised by complicity with Zionist and imperialist forces. These nations and forces wish no harm to others, yet their mere existence is intolerable to Zionism and imperialism. It is our duty to stand with Syria and all nations and movements that resist the intruders and seek an independent course and policy for the benefit and interest of our own people and not to become puppets of foreign powers.

We therefore stand with Syria in its efforts to repel the foreign invaders and the countries that are creating, training, financing, arming and supporting the terrorist groups in Syria. We call for the expulsion of these groups back to their own countries, and for their supporters to devote their resources to improving the lives of their own citizens in their own countries rather than destroying the lives of our citizens in our countries. Like the alien and racist Zionist regime, these criminal countries and their leadership must be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for waging illegal wars against sovereign states and peoples, including Palestine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

More than 1000 Palestinians and Palestinian organizations from across the world have signed this statement, and we now welcome all persons and organizations [whether Palestinian by blood or by heart] to add their names. Just fill in below and submit. Thank you for your support.

Sign here : http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/2015/07/21/statement-of-palestinian-groups-and-individuals-in-the-occupied-homeland-refugee-camps-and-the-diaspora-about-the-global-war-on-syria/

Topic:

Warmongering UK Telegraph publishes 2012 footage-as-new, fans hatred of Bashar al-Assad government - by Robert Stuart

Mon, 2015-07-20 15:42 by admin

Would you be surprised to know that Australia supports financing motley militia gangs to fight the lawfully elected Bashar al-Assad Government of Syria on the basis of false documents in the mainstream media? Robert Stuart is an anti-war activist whose site records correspondence with the BBC and other mass media about broadcasts which seem to have contained false war documents or in other ways present documents in a faulty way. In this latest correspondence, Stuart complains to the UK Telegraph newspaper that it is recycling as new, the same old footage also recycled as if new by UK Television Channel 4 (the subject of another article here: "Complaint to UK Channel 4 of reuse and relabeling of old film for anti-Syrian propaganda purposes - by Robert Stuart"). We publish Stuart's letters here in order to help create a true record of what is really happening.

Robert Stuart

12:07 AM 19 July 2015

to inquiries

Bashar al-Assad's airmen laugh as they drop barrel bombs on fellow Syrians – The Telegraph, 20 May 2015

Dear Sir or Madam,

I wish to complain that the above print and web article breaches Clause 1 of IPSO's Editors' Code of Practice, relating to Accuracy.

The article refers to “New footage obtained by al-Jazeera” in the subheading and states in the first paragraph that "New footage has emerged showing Syrian aircrew using barrel bombs”.

The Telegraph includes the al Jazeera footage in the online version of its article. However the section of the video commencing at 1 minute 54 seconds, in which a crew member uses a cigarette to light the fuse on a long, slender munition which is then ejected overboard, appears at 4 minutes 32 seconds in this You Tube video which was published on 27 October 2012.

At least part of the al Jazeera footage was therefore over two and half years old – and possibly even older – at the time the Telegraph article was published.

Further statements in the Telegraph article suggest that the al Jazeera footage is contemporary:

- The inclusion of a quote from President Assad from February 2015 denying that his government uses “barrel bombs” indicates that the al Jazeera footage can be considered subsequent evidence countering this claim.

- Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is quoted saying of the al Jazeera footage: “It shows the casual and indiscriminate way in which Syrian regime forces are dropping these horrific weapons out of helicopters onto civilians below. For months we have seen reports of barrel bombs hitting hospitals and schools, killing thousands.” The use of present tenses (“are dropping”, “have seen”) strongly indicates that the al Jazeera footage is to be understood as depicting current events.

Yours faithfully

Robert Stuart

https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/
Attachments area
Preview YouTube video Leaked: Regime Forces Dropping Barrel Bombs on Homes, Celebrating

Topic:

Aleppo, Syria: Syrian government allocates water in crisis caused by ISIS capture of river

Mon, 2015-07-13 00:20 by Anonymous

ALEPPO, SYRIA. 12 July 2015: The water crisis is getting bigger. We are boiling water and cooling it to make it clean to drink. A couple of days ago, the Syrian Government took over all water from the water sellers, who are blackmailing the people and asking expensive price for the water. Government and military officers distributed 500 litres per household for free. This pleased many but annoyed others who wanted more and were ready to pay for it. Yesterday's water prices doubled! Many say that the water (which comes from a dam on the Euphrates, which is under the terrorists' control) reached the Sleimaniyyé sector of the city, where the distribution station is located. So it needs couple of days to reach to our house.

Water is life! Without it, we can't clean, drink, wash... Without it, everything is pale, dry, dusty, smelly, and thirsty.

I cannot be sure of exactly what is happening in this water crisis, as I can only see part of the situation. My understanding is formed from what others tell me and other sources. I have observed military personnel requesting peoples' IDs, and filling blue forms to show which house has had its share and which hasn't. However some people claim that some pro-government officers took the water by force and allocated it to their own homes and those of their relatives and friends.

Anything is possible, but I didn't witness this and most of the taxi drivers I rode with over the last three days were happy with the government's solution and free distribution policy.

To put good policy or law into practice is another problem in Syria, because of the breakdown in organisation. I saw unruly crowds asking for their free share of water.

Rumour-mongers are par for the course, talking about people who tricked government officers to have double or triple the amount of free water, by using different friend's ID's pretending that they are neighbors. Again, everything is possible. In such a crazy crisis, there are no rules and ethics. Government, water sellers, and people. We can say that at least 20% of each group is deceptive and corrupt. As we know, negative humans don't notice the good 80% among the people or government, but they keep complaining about the corrupted ones.

Misusing water, from all sides, is another problem.

So as you see, it is hard to be completely optimistic about the situation. There is much confusion and each person notices what s/he wants to see. People who mistrust the pro-government militias and government officers can't believe that they are really distributing water for free, but I personally saw and heard that in the last 3 days. Others don't trust ordinary people. But no-one trusts the water sellers!

The day after the last attack on 2nd and 3rd July, the terrorists (by whatever names they call themselves) occupied part of the Scientific Research Centre outside Aleppo, which is located on big piece of land and has several buildings. The important stuff in the Scientific Research Centre had been evacuated some time ago, early in the crisis. The centre had then been occupied by the Free Syrian Army for several months, until it was liberated by the Syrian Army. Now, since this last huge attack of 2nd and 3rd July, the terrorists managed to occupy part of it. Battles have been ongoing since then, but there has been no big news, and things have cooled down somewhat.

Topic:

Complaint to UK Channel 4 of reuse and relabeling of old film for anti-Syrian propaganda purposes - by Robert Stuart

Wed, 2015-07-08 11:43 by Sheila Newman

This is a letter of complaint to UK television Channel 4 [1] about what looks like recent blatant re-use and relabeling as new film of old film shot in 2012. This film has been used as propaganda against the Syrian Arab Army for the purposes of justifying support of 'rebel' groups, in an article entitled, "Syria: Living under the horrors of barrel bombs in Aleppo." We are republishing it for information and for the record.

Syria: living under the horrors of barrel bombs in Aleppo, Channel 4 News, 10 June 2015.

Dear Sir or Madam

I wish to raise concerns regarding the above Channel 4 News report.

The first video on the Channel 4 News webpage above is captioned “amateur footage of recent barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo and Deraa”. At 34 seconds there is a shot of two men aboard a helicopter, one of whom appears to take a cigarette from the mouth of the other which he uses to light the fuse on a munition which they then both push overboard.

The same scene appears at 23 seconds in the second, longer report on your webpage, at the conclusion of the following narration:

“Sweets for the Syrian rebels yesterday after they drove out Bashar Al Assad’s troops from the Brigade 52 base in Deraa. It’s another setback for the government which has been rapidly losing territory. Syrian air force video online shows the response: they drop four barrel bombs, which hit not only rebel positions but civilians.”

This clearly indicates that the scenes of the two men pushing the munition out of the helicopter took place shortly after the “rebel” victory in Deraa, which you inform viewers occurred on Tuesday 9 June 2015, and to which the images you show were "the response".

A portion of the same footage of the same two men is included at 27 seconds in video “obtained by Al Jazeera” embedded in a Daily Telegraph article of 20 May.

However, another portion of the Al Jazeera/Telegraph footage – the section at 1:54 where a crew member uses a cigarette to light the fuse on a long, slender munition which is then ejected overboard – appears at 4:32 in this You Tube video which was published on 27 October 2012.

It would seem very likely that the Al Jazeera footage presented by the Telegraph is all of the same vintage, i.e. around two and half years prior to the Telegraph’s and to your report - and quite possibly even older.

Are you able to provide an assurance that the footage of the two airmen featured in your 10 June report is, as you claim, “recent” and specifically that it represents, as you claim, “the response” to the capture of the Syrian army's Brigade 52 base on Tuesday 9 June 2015?

Yours sincerely

Robert Stuart

https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/

NOTES

"Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began transmission on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body established in 1990, coming into operation in 1993. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, Channel 4 became an entirely UK-wide TV channel for the first time.

The channel was established to provide a fourth television service to the United Kingdom in addition to the television licence-funded BBC's two services and the single commercial broadcasting network, ITV." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4

Topic:

Who is really responsible for Terrorism today?

Mon, 2015-07-06 19:37 by Jonathan Rutherford

Today there is heightened concern and fear among western publics about terrorism. There is no doubt that ISIS, along with other jihadi groups, poses a real (if often exaggerated) threat and have committed many heinous atrocities. But the horrible truth is, that the U.S and their G7 'partners' - that is, the political wing of what today makes up a Transnational Elite (i.e. the political, economic, cultural, elites who reside mainly in the G7 and who collectively manage neoliberal globalization) – are not only responsible for far greater crimes (i.e. millions dead and maimed in wars), but share a large degree of the blame for the rise of these groups in the first place.

There is a long history of the Transnational Elite (TE), either directly or indirectly supporting Islamist movements. From the Taliban’s precursors, the Mujahedeen (back then dubbed 'freedom fighters') fighting with U.S support against the progressive Soviet backed government, to the jihadist’s in Libya, who NATO knew from the beginning of that conflict, formed the backbone of the uprising against Gaddafi. Today, we can add the various Islamist groups in Syria, which have been directly and indirectly supported, as declassified U.S defence documents recently confirmed, by the TE in an unholy alliance with reactionary Arab states, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The main reason why the TE has aided such groups is that they have played a useful role in weakening their real target – namely, independent/nationalist governments that, in one way or another, fail to play by the rules of neoliberal globalization, managed by the TE.

These independent governments have in various ways frustrated the TE, not because of their lack of democracy or human rights abuses etc – otherwise how could one explain the continued close alliance between the TE and reactionary regimes e.g. the militarist head chopping Saudi's! But because they have tended to adopt an independent foreign policy – supporting, for example, Palestinian resistance movements – and most of all because they have refused to open up, privatise and liberalize their economies for the further penetration of Transnational Corporations, who today dominate the global economy and who are owned and controlled by economic elites residing mainly with the G7! Syrian President Bashar Al Assad summed all this up well in a recent interview he gave:

"France wanted Syria to play a role with Iran concerning the nuclear file. What was required was not to be part of that file, but to convince Iran to take steps which are against its interests. We refused to do that. They also wanted us to take a position against resistance in our region before putting an end to Israeli occupation and aggression against the Palestinians and other neighboring countries. We refused that too. They wanted us to sign the Euro-Association Agreement which was against our interests and was meant to turn our country into an open market for their products while giving us a very small share of their markets. We refused to do that because it is against the interests of the Syrian people."

With respect to ISIS, it is well documented that this Sunni insurgent group was incubated in the wake of the chaos unleashed by the Iraq war the subsequent dismantling of the Baathist state. But it’s worse than that. The G7 elites were quite happy to let ISIS and other Jihadi groups do their worst in Syria, in coalition with their main agents on the ground the so-called 'free Syrian Army,’….as long as the guns were pointed at the Syrian state which the TE had earmarked for 'regime change'. Up until recently, the western media failed to report the atrocities of these groups and instead blamed everything, despite much counter logic/evidence, on the government.

ISIS only became the official target of the TE when they got out of hand. That is, they started to attack the FSA - the direct agents of the TE on the ground – as well as the pro-western Kurds of Barzani in Northern Iraq, who sit on top of some of the most lucrative oil fields in Iraq! It was these actions that led ISIS to become a target of the TE. Even today, however, the war against them is only cosmetic. Bashar Assad observed that the Syrian Army has carried out many more airstrikes in a single day than the western led coalition of 60 countries has carried out in weeks. Clearly ISIS is being allowed to continue to play a role weakening the main target of the TE: the Syrian Government.

But aren't 'we' (i.e the TE) supporting the 'moderates' in Syria? For starters all of these ‘moderates’ are a far cry from the peaceful protestors we are familiar with – they are armed insurgents. Imagine if western states were faced with armed movements (backed by foreign governments no less!), committing atrocities and aiming to overthrow the government. One can hardly imagine them being labeled ‘moderates’! Perhaps more importantly, almost the entire armed opposition, including the ‘moderates’, are Islamists, not secularists, and their only 'revolutionary' demand is to overthrow Assad! The only force within Syria fighting for secularism is the Syrian Arab Army, which strong evidence and logic suggests, still retains strong support from the majority of Syrians.

That said, as Steven Gowens points out, there is indeed a real difference between the ‘moderates’ and the ‘extremists’ in Syria – that is, ‘if moderate is defined as amenable to direction by Washington.’ And he goes on to spell out the real role these groups play, in the regime change strategy:

"Most rebels are Islamists whose goal is to establish a state governed by the Koran. US strategy in Syria is not to allow Islamists to come to power, but to use them to force a political settlement—one in which Assad steps down and relinquishes power to actors who are keen to turn Syria into a western puppet state, much like the current government in Ukraine, with its cadre of wealthy business people, investment bankers, anti-Russian rightists, and foreigners, including a former US government employee as finance minister."

I disagree with a supposedly 'anarchist' sentiment one sometimes hears: i.e. 'a pox on all your houses'. The implication being, that anarchists should idly sit by in sublime 'neutrality', while the most powerful elites in the world run roughshod over the basic right of all people to national independence/sovereignty, in their bid for reliable client states who will play by the rules of globalization! To me, there is no contradiction in standing up for a people’s right to national sovereignty – even when that means supporting governments and armies we may not like – and being an anarchist.

All this does not mean that I blame everything to do with war and terrorism on the G7 elites. Clearly the conflict in Syria (and elsewhere) emerges out of long tensions between the Syrian secular state and a poor/disenfranchised Muslim minority. Ecological issues, such as rapid population growth across the Middle East in recent decades, and the consequent ‘youth bulge,’ have also played a major role enhancing tensions. Then there is the whole question of why Islamic/religious fundamentalism has been resurgence in recent decades – a question, which has been well addressed from radical left perspectives by Saral Sarkar here and Takis Fotopoulos here.

In a real sense we too – the ordinary citizens of the west – are culpable. Not just due to our lack of interest in these issues, or willingness to speak out or protest about what governments do in our name. Even more so because we continue to demand the affluent middle class lifestyles that, in a real sense, are the spoils of a now globalized transnational empire of capital. Yes, the super-corporate rich are the main beneficiaries, but the middle class billions – still a small minority of the world’s population – are also beneficiaries, at least in a narrow material sense. As Ted Trainer reminds us, in a world of scarce resources, ‘if you want affluence, prepare for war.’

So next time a discussion among your family and friends breaks out about issues of militarism, terrorism and war, tell them that to overcome this sad syndrome requires some radical actions. In the short term we must speak out against the global power elites who are often supporting or helping terrorists to flourish in their attempts to undermine independent/nationalist governments. But we also need to work toward the long-term transformation of our own societies, towards systems, cultures and lifestyles that do not require us to take more than our fair share of world resources. We need to work, in other words, towards a simpler way.

Topic:

Syria: Where America drops barrel bombs filled with lies

Sun, 2015-07-05 14:47 by Jane Stillwater

One of the main reasons I hate Wall Street and War Street is that they are usually lying through their teeth to us. Fortunately, however, there are usually actual eye-witnesses to what really happened as well, and these actual eye-witnesses are always calling Wall Street and War Street out for their lies -- but none of that even seems to matter. Remember all the lies we were told about Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Palestine? Bosnia? Ukraine? Panama? Guatemala? Granada? And how we were always warned about these lies? And yet all those "wars" went on anyway.

And here is just one more example of the kind of pretty lies that we are constantly being told -- this time about Syria. An internet friend of mine who I met after visiting Damascus last year is now living in Aleppo and he sent me the following eye-witness 411 about what is really going on in his town.

So you read this. And you have been told. By an actual eye-witness. But does that mean that the unjust and mendacious "war" on the Syrian people will now stop, now that you actually know the actual truth? Obviously not.

"We didn't sleep at all last night," my friend Waheed (not his real name)[1] wrote me today from his home in Aleppo. "Attacks by the so-called 'moderate rebels' started in the afternoon yesterday and continued constantly up until this morning. The news here said that three or four civilians died and that 87 civilians were injured. But the ambulance sirens didn't stop all night long."

Hey, Waheed, are you okay? Apparently yes, but just barely.

"I'm sure that you have heard time and again in the American media," said Waheed, "that Syrians support the so-called 'moderate rebels'. But every single one of the people I know over here do not -- and aren't they the real Syrians? And after all these years and after all these attacks on them and after they have lost their income sources and family members, they are still asking the Syrian army to fight on their behalf, to terminate these vicious attackers and their nests, which have become like cancer in our body."

But what about the barrel bombs we hear so much about? I asked.

"At this point in time," said Waheed, "the Syrian people no longer even care if the termination of these terrorist who are invading our homes is by chemical weapons, bombs or whatever. All we want is for the killing of Syrians to stop. Yet, around the world and in the mainstream media, they still dare to demonize the so-called 'barrel bombs' of the Syrian army and they talk about the loss of lives of ISIS terrorists as if it was the loss of lives of some mythological Syrian peaceful moderate opposition who had been killed by a dictator!"

Waheed is totally pissed off that all these lies are being spread around. Barrel bombs? Really? When the terrorists' ISIS version of Freddie Kruger is being armed, trained and paid for by US, Saudi, Israeli and Turkish neo-colonialists who are only after capturing Syria's land and oil? Barrel bombs are the bad guys here? I think not.

"I don't swear, and I'm fasting this month," Waheed said next, "but this injustice is unlimited and it makes me and many others here feel like we are going to explode with cursing and swearing against all that nonsense of people lecturing in some conference in Britain this week or people at the UN who are telling nothing but lies and hypocrisy."

Part of Waheed's family spent last night huddled in the bathroom of their house because it was the safest room. "Everyone there was crying and terrified by the 'moderate peaceful opposition' as their house is located close to one of the conflicts lines. But the Syrian army can't bomb these ISIS and foreign-fighter terrorists because then the 'international community' will accuse the Syrian army of using this unprecedented super-ultra-modern weapon that is way stronger than a nuclear bomb: Barrel bombs!"

Yeah, right. And next the Syrian army will probably be accused of illegally using fire crackers or cap guns to protect themselves.

"The terrorists are using mortars, explosive bullets, cooking-gas-cylinder bombs and bombs made out of water-heater cylinders; filled up with explosives and shrapnel and nails, and fired by what they call "Hell Canons". Just Google these weapons or see their YouTube clips." Yes, they still do have Google in Aleppo -- but not for long if Obama and Bibi and Turkish hard-liners and the House of Saud have their way.

"The cooking-gas cylinder is made of steel, and it weighs around 25 kg. Imagine it thrown by a canon to hit civilians? And imagine knowing that it is full with explosives? And yet, the mainstream media in America is all busy with the legendary weapon of 'barrel bombs'! And also filled up with how these terrorist ISIS 'moderate rebels' came to spread 'freedom' among Syrians! How dare they say that Syrian army shouldn't fight them back?"

And meanwhile the fighting just keeps getting closer to Waheed's house. "For the first time last night, we smelled gunpowder. The shelling was so extreme and so close as to leave the smell gunpowder in the air." Yet no one at the UN complains about the American-backed terrorists.

"The results of last night's shelling was nothing but more new innocent civilian victims," said Waheed. At this point I'm almost ready to cry.

"I mean, the terrorists failed in gaining new land or occupying new buildings or quarters. They lost many of their foreign-fighter cannon-fodder 'zombies' here of course but their zombies don't count because they are being paid to fight and have no families or friends here to weep over their mangled bodies like is the case with our civilians."

Waheed then apologizes for being so upset -- as if he didn't have a legitimate reason. I know if it was my family and neighbors who were being blown up by terrorist death machines, I'd be too hysterical to even put words on a page!

"Mostly I'm not so much upset by the attackers and whoever is supporting them in Turkey over here (and Israel and Jordan in the south); but mainly from the liars in that conference in Britain or at the UN, who keep lying and lying, telling piles and tons of lies, about 'freedom' and 'barrel bombs' -- and they live in their perfumed and ironed suits and ties, happy with their Ph.D degrees in stupidity and fooling the world, having no problem in obtaining clean water, electricity, hot food and the rest of the services that we are suffering over here to obtain, even a part of them.

"Those people travel in 1st class airlines and live in 5-star hotels, and are ready to come on TV to weep over the fate of the 'Syrian people' and blame the 'regime' -- while giving a blind eye upon all the terrorists they are funding and supporting. I wish these people, whether they are Arabs or Western, Muslims or Christians, Syrians or others... I wish them Hell! And to taste and suffer the same pain they are causing to the innocent Syrian people." Me too!

These pond-scum should be evicted from their 5-star hotels and forced to go live out the reality that they now happily force millions of others to endure.

"The Syrian army has defended our city, and all the lies on the media claiming terrorists' victories are nothing but rumors and gossip. But that's all for today. Take care." You too, Waheed.

NOTES

Jane Stillwater and candobetter.net have the same correspondent from Aleppo, whom we reported here: Aleppo, Syria: 2nd-3rd July 2015 attacks - Please stop blaming the Syrian Government However Jane has had some more dialogue with him which means that the block of words we posted originally has been clarified, contexted and better explained in this article of Jane's.

First published on Jane Stillwater's blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/07/syria-where-america-drops-barrel-bombs.html

Topic:

Aleppo, Syria: 2nd-3rd July 2015 attacks - Please stop blaming the Syrian Government

Sat, 2015-07-04 01:05 by Anonymous

ALEPPO, SYRIA: We didn't sleep all the night. The attacks of yesterday 2nd July started around afternoon and continued up till today 8:30 am 3rd July. They said that 3-4 civilians died, but 87 civilians injured. The ambulance voices didn't stop all night long. You had to hear the people over here in Aleppo. Aren't they Syrians? After all these years and after all these attacks on them and after they lost their income sources and family members, they are asking the Syrian army to terminate the terrorist attackers and their nests, which have become like cancer in Syria's body. They don't care if that termination happens by chemical weapons, bombs, or whatever.

Yet, around the world and in the mainstream media, they dare to demonize the Syrian Army with the so-called "barrel bombs" and refer to dead terrorists as peaceful moderate Syrian opposition who had been killed by dictator!

I don't swear, and I'm fasting this month, but that injustice is unlimited and makes me and many feel like we are going to explode with cursing and swearing against all that nonsense of people lecturing in conferences in Britain or people of the UN who have nothing to offer but lies and hypocrisy.

Our daytime maid, along with her sister and mother, spent the night in the bathroom, because it's the safest place in their house. They were crying and terrified by the "moderate peaceful opposition" as their house is located close to one of the conflict lines. But we can't bomb them because the "international community" will accuse the Syrian army of using their unprecedented super ultra weapon that is way stronger than a nuclear bomb: Barrel bombs!

The terrorists are using mortars, explosive bullets, cooking-gas cylinder bombs and water-warming long cylinder bombs, filled up with explosives and shrapnel and nails, in what they call "Hell Canon". (Google these weapons or see their YouTube clips.) The cooking-gas cylinder is made of steel, and it weighs around 25 kg. Imagine it thrown by a canon to hit civilians? And imagine knowing that it's full with explosives?... Yet, the media is busy with the legendary weapon of "barrel bombs"! They came to spread "freedom" among Syrians! How dare they say that Syrian army shouldn't fight them back?

For the first time last night, we smelled gunpowder. The shelling was so extreme to smell gunpowder in the air.
Results were nothing but new innocent victims. I mean, the terrorists failed in gaining new land, or occupying new buildings or quarters. They lost many of their "zombies", but they don't count, because they have no families or friends to weep on them, unlike civilians.

I apologize that I'm very upset, mostly not from the attackers and whoever is supporting them in Turkey over here (and Israel and Jordan in the south); but mainly from the liars in that conference in Britain or at the UN , who keep lying and lying, piles and tons of lies, about "freedom" and "barrel bombs" and live in their perfumed and ironed suits and ties, happy with their Ph.D. degrees in stupidity and fooling the world, having no problem in obtaining clean water, electricity, warm food, and all the other services that we here cannot rely on. Those people travel in 1st class airlines, and live in five-star hotels. They are always ready to appear on television to weep on the plight of the "Syrian people" and blame the "regime" while turning a blind eye upon all the terrorists they themselves are funding and supporting. I wish these people, whether they were Arabs or Westerns, Muslims or Christians, Syrians or others... I wish them Hell! And to taste and suffer the same pain they have caused to innocent people.

Syrian army had defended the city, and all the lies on the media claiming the terrorists victories are nothing but rumors and gossips.

President Bashar al-Assad had gifted Aleppo yesterday with about $15.5 million as an urgent aid to the city.

Topic:

Vladimir Putin on France and Europe: "NATO Member States have renounced their sovereignty"

Wed, 2015-07-01 03:07 by admin

By Sayed Hasan (27/6/15) republished from GlobalResearch. This article includes three embedded videos with transcripts.
Update, 4 July 2015: France rejects asylum request from Assange | Sky News.
Updates, 1 July 2015: Western Presstitutes Dumbfounded by Vladimir Putin’s 89% Approval Rating by Paul Craig Roberts, What does Vladimir Putin’s 89% rating really mean? by The Saker.

75.5% of Russians
support President
Vladimir Putin

“As you know, the modern world, especially the Western world, is highly monopolised and many Western countries – whether they want to hear this or not – have voluntarily given up a considerable part of their sovereignty. To some extent, this is a result of the politics of blocs. Sometimes we find it very difficult to come to terms with them on geopolitical issues. It is hard to reach an agreement with people who whisper even at home for fear of being overheard by the Americans. This is not a joke or a figure of speech.” (Vladimir Putin)

Vladimir Putin denounces, more and more explicitly, the servility of France and Europe towards the United States, whether in the case of wire-tapping French leaders or that of the Mistral ships.

Far from protest-
ing against the
flagrant violation
of French sove-
reignty that the
espionage of its
top leaders const-
itutes, our govern-
ment bravely hast-
ened to hush up
this scandal ...

The publication by WikiLeaks of documents establishing the wire-tapping by the United States of three French Presidents was an open secret known since the revelations of Edward Snowden. Far from protesting against the flagrant violation of French sovereignty that the espionage of its top leaders constitutes, our government bravely hastened to hush up this scandal, as was expected by Lavrov and Putin. Let us remember that France prided herself in 2013 for having rejected the asylum for Edward Snowden, and that it is illusory to believe that these revelations could change anything : official France cannot but turn down flat Julian Assange's calls.

Francois Hollande com-
plains of alleged Rus-
sian interference in Uk-
raine whilst arming ter-
rorists fighting the pop-
ularly elected Syrian
President Bashar al-
Assad. This war has,
so far, cost the lives of
220,000 Syrians by one
estimate.

By refusing the delivery of two helicopter carriers ordered and paid for by Russia, France is both disgraced and discredited internationally as a reliable economic partner and military supplier. The inept pretext of the Ukrainian crisis and alleged Russian interference, invoked by a country that involved itself in the Syrian crisis by arming Al-Nusra terrorists (of which it is apologetic) and calling for the overthrow (even murder) of the legitimate Syrian leader, reveals the extent of the hypocrisy and indecency of the French government and its subjection to American diktats. Especially since this same government then concluded huge arms sales contracts with the barbaric regimes of Qatar and even Saudi Arabia, engaged in an illegal and criminal war in Yemen.

While trade between the US and Russia is increasing, their European “allies” are forced to impose sanctions on Moscow and suffer alone its formidable repercussions: thus Vladimir Putin has renewed for one year the Russian embargo on food products from Europe.

Vladimir Putin recently said to Charlie Rose, an American TV star presenter who asked incredulously if Russia really aspired to gain respect (indeed, what a preposterous idea):

“You know, I hear this all the time: Russia wants to be respected. Don't you? Who does not? Who wants to be humiliated? It is a strange question. As if this is some exclusive right – Russia demands respect. Does anyone like to be neglected?” To this rhetorical question, our French leaders respond ‘yes’ without hesitation and continue to whisper in their own homes for fear of prying ears (and microphones).

Instead of a rapprochement with Russia, a historic partner concerned about the respect of States and their sovereignty, in addition a rising great power and champion of the defence of international law, France and Europe prefer subjugation to the US, the superpower in irremediable decline with which they chain their destinies. It is easy to conceive the repulsion that Russian elites, despite their professionalism, must feel for our inglorious leaders. Probably to the extent of the felt more and more by their own peoples, whom Putin chooses to address directly.

... France is now
relegated to the
status of American
sub-colony whose
independence and
national interests
are routinely
violated and
trampled ...

Former arrogant colonial power and conqueror, then sovereignist Gaullist Republic, France is now relegated to the status of American sub-colony whose independence and national interests are routinely violated and trampled, as much by the stateless and spineless leaders in Paris, repeatedly guilty of the crime of high treason (abolished, thankfully for them), as by the imperial hawks in Washington.

Even a country like Algeria, a former French colony run by a corrupt and retrograde military regime, has at least leaders concerned of their national interests to the point of refusing any participation in the Saudi-American coalition against Yemen, while Hollands’ France was ready to pounce gleefully on a new crusade in Syria, which could have triggered World War III. One may ask, to use an expression of Norman Finkelstein, why prostitutes have such a bad reputation... Welcome to Western mediocracy!

Sayed 7asan

Translated from French by Jenny Bright

Transcripts

Vladimir Putin on the tapping of French Presidents: This scandal will be stifled (English subtitles)

Briefing session with permanent members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, 25 June 2015

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/49766

Transcript:

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Mr Lavrov will tell us about the consultations in Paris. Let's start with this. Please, Mr Lavrov.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov:On the whole, it was not useless because even despite certain wrangling during the discussion, the main outcome was the acknowledgement of the fact that there is no alternative to complete fulfilment of the Minsk Agreements. First and foremost, the acknowledgement by our German and our French partners of the fact that the overwhelming part of the Minsk provisions should be implemented through direct dialogue between authorities in Kiev and Donetsk and Lugansk.

I can't say that we have resolved all the problems because this should be done directly by the Contact group and the working subgroups created. I will report on that in more detail later, but on the day of our meeting, a report on the taps [by the United States of the French leadership] was published, and this gave rise to unrest in France so this was another thing that distracted our attention.

Vladimir Putin: How will this scandal end?

Sergei Lavrov: Frankly speaking, I think that Germany's example [the US special services wiretapping the German leadership] gives the answer: I think that both sides will try to blanket the scandal and forget about it.

Vladimir Putin: That is what would happen.

Putin denounces the ’submission’ of France: ”Even without Mistral, we will survive” (English subtitles)

Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, April 16, 2015

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/49261

Transcript:

[...]

Olga Ushakova: Let’s take another question from the audience – from Dmitry Shchugorev's section this time.

Dmitry Shchugorev: We have Dmitry Abzalov here, the president of the Center for Strategic Communications. Please, go ahead.

Dmitry Abzalov: Good afternoon, Mr Putin. I have this nagging question about Mistral ships. This week, the second ship was tested and left for the French shipyard. What are the prospects? Will we push for having these ships delivered to us? Will we seek financing? In general, what will our military and economic partnership with the European Union and France, in particular, be like after what happened a year ago?

Vladimir Putin: The refusal to deliver ships under the existing contract is, of course, a bad sign. However, frankly speaking, it's of little consequence for us or our defence capability. We signed these contracts primarily to support our partners and offer work to their shipyard. We planned to use the ships in the Far East. For us, this is not critical.

However, I believe that the leadership of France – and the French people in general – are honourable people and will return the money. We are not even going to demand any penalties or exorbitant fines, but we want all of our costs covered. This certainly means that the reliability of our partners – who, acting as part of the military-political bloc, in this case NATO, have lost some of their sovereignty – has suffered, and is now questionable. Of course, we will keep this in mind as we continue our military and technical cooperation.

Kirill Kleymenov: Our partners may find that it was an easy way for them to get off the hook.

Vladimir Putin: That's all right, we'll survive.

[...]

Vladimir Putin to the peoples of the West: Russia is not an imperial power, the US spy on NATO members (English subtitles)

Speech by Vladimir Putin on the integration of the Crimea to Russia, March 18, 2014 – With a reflection on this intervention dated April 22, 2014

Source : http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6889

Transcript:

[...]

Today, I would like to address the people of the United States of America, the people who, since the foundation of their nation and adoption of the Declaration of Independence, have been proud to hold freedom above all else. Isn't the desire of Crimea's residents to freely choose their fate such a value? Please understand us.

I believe that the Europeans, first and foremost, the Germans, will also understand me. Let me remind you that in the course of political consultations on the unification of East and West Germany, at the expert, though very high level, some nations that were then and are now Germany's allies did not support the idea of unification. Our nation, however, unequivocally supported the sincere, unstoppable desire of the Germans for national unity. I am confident that you have not forgotten this, and I expect that the citizens of Germany will also support the aspiration of the Russians, of historical Russia, to restore unity.

I also want to address the people of Ukraine. I sincerely want you to understand us: we do not want to harm you in any way, or to hurt your national feelings. We have always respected the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state, incidentally, unlike those who sacrificed Ukraine's unity for their political ambitions. They flaunt slogans about Ukraine's greatness, but they are the ones who did everything to divide the nation. Today's civil standoff is entirely on their conscience. I want you to hear me, my dear friends. Do not believe those who want you to fear Russia, shouting that other regions will follow Crimea. We do not want to divide Ukraine; we do not need that. As for Crimea, it was and remains a Russian, Ukrainian, and Crimean-Tatar land.

I repeat, just as it has been for centuries, it will be a home to all the peoples living there. What it will never be and do is follow in Bandera's footsteps!

[...]

Direct Line with Vladimir Putin – April 17, 2014

Source : http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20796

Transcript:

[...]

Kirill Kleymenov: But before giving the floor to [our correspondent in Germany], I'd like to ask you to return to the speech that we discussed at the very beginning, the one that you made before signing the treaty on Crimea and Sevastopol's accession to Russia. Many people were very impressed by it and compared it to your Munich speech. They even called it your best speech.

I'd like to ask you why you made this speech. First, the protocol didn't demand it and, second, the format was very unusual – you addressed peoples rather than countries or governments.

Vladimir Putin: The format was chosen based on the importance of the event and the situation. This is an unusual event in the life of our people, our country and our state. This is why I considered it my duty to address the Federal Assembly and the people of the Russian Federation in the presence of members of the State Duma and the Federation Council. This is the first point.

Second. Why was the speech addressed to the peoples of other countries rather than their governments? As you know, the modern world, especially the Western world, is highly monopolised and many Western countries – whether they want to hear this or not – have voluntarily given up a considerable part of their sovereignty. To some extent, this is a result of the politics of blocs. Sometimes we find it very difficult to come to terms with them on geopolitical issues. It is hard to reach an agreement with people who whisper even at home for fear of being overheard by the Americans. This is not a joke or a figure of speech. Listen to me, I'm serious, I'm not joking. However, they are our main partners on economic and some other issues.

But I addressed the peoples of these countries primarily because an ordinary person from Germany, France or Italy will instantly sense whether a statement is false or not. Our position is absolutely open, honest and transparent, and for this reason it is easier to get it across to ordinary people than even to some leaders. It seems to me we succeeded to some extent. No matter what government rules a country, it will have to consider the opinion of its voters. This is why I addressed the people.

[...]

Topic:

911 TV stations beaming mostly nonsense disorganise the Middle East

Sun, 2015-06-28 23:23 by Anonymous

A report from a Syrian returning to war-torn Aleppo, Syria, for family reasons. He complains that the Middle East is saturated with commercial, religious and political propaganda, most of it broadcast from overseas. The effect is to disorganise the locals and keep them ignorant of what is happening, and the creation of many splinter groups. The author wonders if governments in the west would tolerate the same disorganising effect that they seem to promote and accept for countries in the 'third world'.

ALEPPO: My father spent two days in hospital in Aleppo and I stayed with him. At night I clicked through the channels on the hospital supplied television.

It took me 2 nights to surf all channels, which were 911 in total (what a number!). Some of them had no signal. But I was surprised about the quality and variety of the channels.

Almost 75-80% were religious channels! 80% of them are related to Sunni Islam (Wahhabis, Muslim Brotherhood ... etc). The rest were Shi'a, Arab Christian, and other minorities from here and there.

Around 15% or so of the total were regional channels, for either new entities or future ones to come. That was even more interesting and surprising for me.

Each important city in the Arab world has it's own tv channel, even if it isn't working or has no signal. They have all booked a place for future use. From Misrata in Libya, to Deir-ez-Zour in Syria, all have their tv channels.

They are not national channels. They are broadcasting from God knows where. Most of Yemenite tv channels were out of order, except the few supported by the Saudis, which came over loud and clear. There was a channel for Darfur in Sudan, many for Kurdistan. There were channels with names purporting to be Aleppo: one with the so-called opposition, the other is pro Syrian government. And so on.

Most of the non-religious channels fell into the entertainment category. Most featured trashy music and commercials, dating, and a couple of Hollywood movies, all subtitled in Arabic. There was one National Geographic in Arabic from Abu Dhabi (UAE).

Among those hundreds of channels, there were very few really entertaining and useful ones. Very optimistically, I might consider perhaps 23 tv channels informative, national or "resisting" the mainstream media propaganda. Overall, I mostly watched only 5 channels over thse two nights with my father in hospital.

I started to wonder about all these trashy channels.

It occurred to me that soon each family will have its own tv channel, flag, national anthem, currency, tiny militia to protect their leader, and borders to define their entity. Each building or neighborhood, each clan and tribe, each sect and domination, each ethnicity and community will have its own channel.

All of these 911 channels are broadcasting from abroad. Many are located in Britain or Israel, funded by the Saudis or other fanatics from all backgrounds.

No wonder crazy people are joining terrorists and ISIL and Nusra, brainwashed by these 24/7 tv channels, each one showing them paradise, that they are correct and righteous, while the others are infidels and wrongdoers, therefore they deserve death penalties.

Many channels combine politics with religion, notably some of the new Libyan regional ones.

This phenomenon seems to give life to cliches: Divisions into divisions; Divide & Rule; ; Religion is the opium of the peoples and nations. All these famous phrases came to mind as I watched the parade of televised nonsense.

I'm wondering why don't we have similar remarkable tv channels in Europe and North America. For instance, why isn't the Vatican broadcasting in Irish to Catholics in Ireland encouraging them to fight for their independence, interviewing Irish Catholics who present a "peaceful and moderate opposition" abroad, pushing and polishing their agenda from within their community, referring affectionately to their villages and cities? Why aren't there French channels for French Canadians, Russian channels to support Russian Orthodox Americans? Would it be allowed? Would it be possible?

Could Arabs of Montreal in Canada or in Marseille in France establish their own independent states? Don't they have rights as minorities, after all?

Might the UN create sanctions against France for refusing land and an identity to such a state? Might we one day see NATO or some similar multinational army invading France from overseas to defend the rights of minorities in France or similar secceding communities in other countries?

I know it sounds like a fantasy when I speak of such possibilities in the western world, because this fantasy works only against people of the 'third' world, to keep them divided, and redefine them as minorities and ethnic groups.

Did you know that the whole world is broadcasting Arabic language channels? Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, the Netherlands and Germany, France, BBC, India, and many U.S. channels!

But there are hardly any useful and informative regional channels in the Arab world, broadcast in English and other international languages. Aljazeera English does not count, since it is just another propaganda source.

Anyway, time to go now. We may have more than a thousand tv channels at home, but we have no electricity to watch any right now!
Maybe that's better!

Topic:

Will Turkey’s Election Give Peace a Chance in Syria?

Fri, 2015-06-26 00:02 by Rick Sterling

The June 7 parliamentary election in Turkey could have a huge impact on the conflict in Syria. The invincible image of President Erdogan has been cracked. There is a real chance that the election might lead to substantive change in Turkish foreign policy promoting the war in Syria. (This article first published at Dissident Voice on June 24th, 2015.)

Even though Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most votes, they lost their majority in parliament and must now find a coalition partner. Turkey’s new parliament was seated for the first time on Tuesday June 23. Now begins the political bargaining and negotiations to form a governing coalition. Depending on the outcome, Turkey may stop or seriously restrict the flow of weapons and foreign fighters through its territory into Syria. If Turkey does this, it would offer a real prospect for movement toward negotiations and away from war in Syria. Why? The Syrian war continues because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, USA, France, UK and others are spending billions of dollars annually to fund the armed opposition and sustain the war in violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Closely allied with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey has been the primary path for weapons and foreign fighters in Syria. ISIS has depended on export of oil and import of weapons and fighters through Turkey. Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other armed opposition groups have depended on weapons and foreign fighters coming in via Turkey for attacks on northern Syria including Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Turkish Government Support of War on Syria

The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:

Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video Syria: Wolves of the Valley: “Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary.”
Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria.
Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here. In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities.
Turkey’s foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.
Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kms inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue.
Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This has led to the recent assaults by thousands of foreign fighters on Idlib and Jisr al Shugour in northern Syria. Armed with advanced weaponry including TOW missiles, and using suicide bomb vehicles, the armed groups over-ran Syrian armed forces defending both cities. The assaults were facilitated by Turkey jamming and disrupting Syrian radio communications.
Turkey has facilitated travel into northern Syria by extremist mercenaries from all parts of the globe including Chechen Russians, Uyghur Chinese, Europeans, North Africans, South Asians including Indonesians and Malaysians. The assault on Jisr al Shugour was spearheaded by Chinese Uyghur fighters and suicide bombers crossing over from Turkey with tanks and heavy artillery.
Turkey itself has provided steady supply of recruits to the Islamic State. Like other countries which have had citizens indoctrinated with wahabi fanaticism, they have done little or nothing to limit the indoctrination or restrict emigration for ‘jihad’.
Turkey has permitted the supply of huge quantities of car bomb ingredients (ammonium nitrate fertilizer) to the Islamic State. On May 4 the NY Times reported these shipments at the Turkish border. Sixteen days later ISIS over-ran Ramadi in an assault that began with 30 car bombs with ten reportedly the size of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Finally, as part of its continuing effort to draw the U.S. and NATO into direct participation in the war on Syria, Turkey is an active player in various propaganda campaigns. For example, the “White Helmets” or “Syrian Civil Defence” are trained and supplied in Turkey. Some of the videos purportedly from Syria are likely filmed in Turkey at their training site. White Helmets and Syrian Civil Defence are both creations of the West and join with Turkey in calling for a “No Fly Zone”.

Turkish Repression of Journalism, Police and Courts

The AKP government has vigorously tried to suppress information about the extent of Turkey’s support of the war on Syria. They have resorted to repression and intimidation such as:

Turkish authorities have charged four regional prosecutors with attempting to topple the government. Their “crime” was to insist on the inspection of four trucks headed from Turkey to Syria. The trucks contained weapons and ammunition in violation of Turkish law. The trial of the four prosecutors is ongoing, 18 months after the inspection.
Turkish authorities arrrested seven high ranking military officers over the inspection of trucks taking weapons and fighters to Syria.
Turkish authorities banned social media and news outlets from reporting on arms shipments through Turkey to Syria. Twitter and Facebook accounts that talked about the shipments where shut down. Erdogan went on to threaten to “eradicate” Twitter.
Turkish President Erdogan threatened two life term sentences for the editor of Hurriyet daily newspaper for publicizing support of the armed opposition in Syria by Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT.
A whistle-blowing MIT (intelligence agency) officer who opposed the agency’s collusion with terrorism in Syria was arrested, convicted and imprisoned. After two years he managed to escape and tell his story. The blockbuster account was broadcast on Turkey’s OdaTV and later translated into English and published here.

Was American Journalist Serena Shim Murdered?

As seen in the examples above, Turkish AKP authorities have aggressively tried to suppress information on the involvement in Syria. If they have been that aggressive with Turkish journalists, prosecutors and military officers, how far might they go against a foreign journalist working for Iran’s Press TV?

The American born journalist Serena Shim died just days after she documented the use of World Food Program trucks to transport foreign fighters to the border with Syria and into ISIS territory. After learning that Turkish intelligence was looking for her, Serena Shim was so concerned that she expressed her fear on television. Two days later, Serena Shim’s car was hit head-on by a cement truck. The driver of the cement truck disappeared but was later found. There are many discrepancies about what happened. The first reports indicated the truck and driver left without stopping. Then the driver and truck were located, and then photos appeared showing a collision.

While some Turkish security services have preemptively exonerated the driver of the cement truck, the local prosecutor has filed charges against the driver, accusing him of causing death through negligence. There are many suspicious aspects, not least is the fact that the cement truck’s wheels are angled toward the car, not away as one would expect with a vehicle trying to avoid collision.

The death of American journalist Serena Shim, and her factual investigative reporting on Syria and Turkey, stands in sharp contrast with the sensational media accounts about the “kidnapping” of NBC reporter Richard Engel. That event turned out to be a hoax contrived by “rebels” to manipulate American political opinion. With the complicity of individual reporters and mainstream media, the fraud was successful. The bias in mainstream western media is further demonstrated by the almost complete media silence about the death of Serena Shim and her important journalistic work.

Turkey’s Election

For the past 13 years Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had majority control of Turkey’s parliament. In the recent election AKP’s share of the popular voted plummeted 10% and they lost their parliamentary majority. The results are a clear rebuff to Erdogan and AKP policies. Sixty percent of voters went against AKP, splitting the vote among the three alternative parties. The pro-Kurdish and Leftist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) burst onto the scene capturing 13% of the votes and equaling the number of parliamentary seats captured by the rightist and anti-Kurdish National Movement Party (MHP). The main opposition party is the social democratic Republican Peoples Party (CHP) with 26% of the vote.

Over the coming weeks, AKP will try to form a coalition government with one or more of the alternate parties. However, it won’t be easy. The natural bedfellow would be the anti-Kurdish and rightist MHP, but they are demanding the resumption of a corruption trial against AKP leaders including Erdogan’s son Bilal. That trial would probably lead back to President Erdogan himself, so it seems unlikely AKP will ally with MHP. The three alternative parties could form a coalition to govern without AKP, but it’s hard to imagine the staunchly anti-Kurdish MHP allying with the pro-Kurdish HDP.

If a majority coalition cannot be formed within 45 days, the Turkish constitution requires a rerun of the election.

Election Should Bring Major Change in Syrian Policy

Even with severe repression and intimidation, the Turkish public is aware of Turkey’s policy supporting war on Syria. One consequence of the war has been almost 2 million immigrant refugees with the dispersal of many throughout Turkey, providing cheap labor and adding significantly to the unemployment problem. In addition, there have been terrorist attacks in the border region and an escalation of corruption and repression as external money and weapons have flooded the area en route to Syria. The war against Syria has been widely unpopular and played a significant role in the election.

All the opposition parties called for change in Turkey’s foreign policy.
Criticism of Erdogan and Davutoglu’s policy even comes from within the AKP membership: “Many believe that one reason for the AKP’s dismal showing in the 2015 elections is its policy on Syria.”
The head of the main opposition party (CHP) says Turkey will start controlling the border and stop the flood of arms and fighters into Syria.

The coming weeks will indicate how Turkey moves forward: Will AKP manage to form a coalition government with one of the opposition parties? Or will there be another election?

Will Turkey start enforcing the border and stop shipments of arms to the armed opposition as demanded by the leader of the main opposition party? This would be a huge change in the dynamics within Syria. Without a rear base of constant and steady support, the armed opposition would be forced to rely on their own resources rather than those of foreign governments. They would quickly wither since they have very little support base within Syria.

Since the election, there are already signs of a shift in the balance. Kurdish forces recently captured ISIS’ important border crossing at Tal Abyad. This has been the main route of weapons, fighters and supplies between Turkey and the Islamic State’s ‘capital’ at Raqqa in eastern Syria.

The Past Year and Looking Ahead

Thirteen months ago it looked like the war in Syria was starting to move toward resolution. The last remaining armed opposition in the “capital of the revolution” Homs, reached reconciliation and withdrew from the Old City of Homs in May 2014. On June 3, 2014 the election in Syria confirmed substantial support for the government.

Since then, we have seen dramatic changes. On June 10, 2014 ISIS surged through western Iraq and captured the city of Mosul and huge quantities of American armaments including tanks, rockets, humvees, etc. That led to the creation of the “Islamic State” and expansion in eastern Syria including Tabqa Air Base where hundreds of Syrian soldiers and ISIS fighters died.

This past spring saw the coalescing of numerous foreign and Islamist groups into the Jaish al Fatah (Army of Conquest) supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. With high powered TOW anti-tank missiles and thousands of shock troops they were able to overtake both Idlib and Jisr al Shugour near the Turkish border.

ISIS and the Army of Conquest are both dependent on the Turkish supply line. If that is closed off or seriously restricted, it will dramatically change the situation.

With the prospect of losing their base of support in Turkey, will the opposition try something desperate to draw the US and NATO into the conflict directly?

The Turkish people have indicated they want to stop their government’s war on Syria. If their will is respected, it should lead to restricting and stopping the foreign funding and promotion of the conflict. If Turkey stops the flood of weapons and foreign fighters into northern Syria, it will be following instead of violating international law. This will give peace a chance in Syria.

Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

This article was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2015 at 7:53pm and is filed under Elections, France, Kuwait, NATO, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terrorism (state and retail), Turkey, United Kingdom.

Topic:

ISIS controlling water supply to Aleppo and chlorine factory but UN blaming Syrian Government

Wed, 2015-06-24 00:32 by admin

ALEPPO, SYRIA: We have received the following report, which attests to knowledge of ISIL using chlorine as a chemical weapon and controlling water supply from the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates.

ALEPPO: We have water today, after 10-14 days without water service from the government. We spent all the day filling up all empty containers and bottles, the bathtub and water tanks and cisterns at home and on the roof. We filled up some of them few days ago, via the water seller. Aleppo 's water is from the Euphrates. Turkey used to prevent us from accessing water in the 1990's. ISIL is controlling the dam today and most of the Euphrates. They occupied the chlorine factory as well, which used to sterilize the water. Now ISIL is using it in chemical attacks, and the UN is blaming the Syrian army and government, either for claiming using it against innocent people, or for failing in protecting it from falling in the wrong hands of ISIS! Thanks to them, Aleppo is thirsty.

Forty year old neighbors have become like enemies. When you have limited time to have limited resources, people in the west turn nuts and do crazy stuff, run over each other, swear and hit each other while fighting over a digital camera or any other item. Same over here, fighting over little water.

Water is coming little by little, with some dust and clay at the beginning. It doesn't reach the higher stories of houses in the easy way of the old days. We need like a private pump to each house to do the job. But that needs power, and power/hydro/electricity comes around 4 hours a day.

People are depending on alternative solutions, like a small size generator that works on fuel. But fuel has become a problem of its own during the last couple of years, since there was no fuel in the city!

The other solution is to register with a bigger generator size for the neighborhood, with one's request of Amperes. We are registered for 6 Amperes, enough for the fridges, tv, fans, and lights. A dentist friend needs 16 Amperes for his clinic. That service gives us another 10-11 hours of power a day, and costs around $20 a week. We still have to suffer 9 hours without power.

So, back to the water conflicts between neighbors, each claiming that the others took more. I don't blame my mother or neighbors who are ready to start a conflict because of that, but I feel so bad at how sanctions, battles and agreements on the global level, have reached us as individuals and cause troubles between friends, families, and neighbors, who only a few years ago were laughing and inviting each other to share plenty of food...and water!

Topic:

Protest in Paris against French and Saudi Arabian governments' complicity in terrorist war against the people of Syria

Mon, 2015-06-22 00:32 by admin

Republished from A protest in Paris against terrorism-backing policies of French government and Saudi regime (21/6/15) | SANA. See also 80,000 terrorists enter Syria via Turkey, Jordan: Syrian UN envoy (22/6/15) | PressTV and other articles about Syria.

Paris, SANA – A number of associations, including the French "Civitas" association, "The Gathering of Expatriates for Syria" and "The Union of Syrian Patriots" staged on Saturday a protest outside the Saudi Embassy in the French capital Paris against the terrorism-supporting policies of the French president Francois Holland and those of the Saudi regime.

A crowd of French citizens and members of the Syrian community in France and Belgium took part in the event, with the participants holding Holland’s government and the Saudi regime responsible for the massacres and crimes committed by the terrorists in the Middle East countries, particularly Syria, Iraq and Egypt.

They demanded an international trial for the two sides and all other individuals, organizations and governments that are backing or dealing with the terrorist organizations.

French and Syrian flags were waved during the protest and the slogans chanted expressed support for Syria, applauding its steadfastness in the face of the terrorists and their backers.

Alain Escada, Chairman of Civitas association, which seeks to create a French political lobby opposing the French President Francois Holland, placed the blame for the terrorist acts committed in Syria and other countries on the policies of an "axis of countries" including the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Turkey.

This axis, Escada said, seeks to establish a new world order to subjugate countries into implementing their agendas in service of their interests.

For his part, Omran al-Khatib, head of the Gathering of Expatriates for Syria told SANA in a statement that "Our participation aims at demanding that the peoples and governments of the world stand firmly in the face of Al Saud regime that generated terrorism in all its forms."

SANA reporter also spoke to a number of Syrian expatriates, who stressed that they support their homeland and its leadership and army against the terrorist organizations and all of their sponsors.

Qabas/ H. Said

Other stories about Syria: ISIS fighters plant mines and bombs in Palmyra - monitor (21/6/15) | RT, 'Revolution within revolution': How and why Kurdish women are fighting ISIS (DOCUMENTARY) (18/6/15) | RT, Syrian communities abroad condemn terrorist crimes in Syria, protest against arming terrorists (18/6/15), Syrians abroad: International silence on ISIS massacres is betrayal of human values and (3/5/15), Hundreds of Turkish citizens protest against Turkish support for terrorists.

Comment: If Angelina Jolie, the "Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)" and now visiting Turkey, ostensibly to help Syrians and Iraqis displaced by war (3/5/15), truly wanted to stop the refugee crisis, then perhaps she should consider joining any planned demonstrations by Turks opposed to President Erdogan's complicity in the proxy terrorist war against Syria which has so far cost over 220,000 lives. One such demonstration occurred on 3 May and is described in a previously linked article.

Topic:

As Western Aid Bolsters Islamists, The Resistance Axis Fights Back

Wed, 2015-06-10 22:26 by Steven Chovanec

Candobetter.net Editor: This article is about the US contribution to the radicalisation of the Middle East. In reality there is no dividing wall between the 'extremists' and 'America's supposedly moderate opposition allies'. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government.

Recent Rebel Gains a Result of US Support to Extremists

The rebel opposition in Syria has in recent months made a series of gains against the Syrian army, most notably in Idlib, Palmyra, and Ramadi in Iraq. However, given that from the very beginning the opposition had taken “a clear sectarian direction” and has been dominated by “ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra… in addition to other extreme jihadi groups”, itself consisting of “no moderate middle”, and the fact that “in reality there is no dividing wall between them [extremists] and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies”, it is no wonder why all of the recent gains have been made by hard-line Islamists.(1) The radicalization of the opposition was the result of a covert US/CIA-led program in collusion with regional allies to expand the dissent base in Syria and strengthen Islamist rebels against the Syrian government.(2)

These recent Islamist advances are the result of an increase in support from the US-led coalition to their proxies inside Syria. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact in early March to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government. Huffington Post quotes Usama Abu Zeid, a legal advisor to the Free Syrian Army, as confirming that this new coordination had facilitated recent rebel advances.(3) The pact subsequently lead to the al-Qaeda takeover of Idlib in late March, where the two countries have since set up a joint command center to further coordinate and command their extremist proxies from the captured province. Syrian government sources thus accurately blame Turkish intervention as the key factor in the fall of Idlib. The city’s fall however is only the 2nd provincial capital that has been captured by the opposition during the entire 4-year war, the other being Raqqa, which is now the de facto capital of the fake Islamic State “Caliphate.”(4)

In addition to Turkish and Saudi support to al-Qaeda extremists, so too has the US increased its support to Islamists.

In early May Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute Doha Center confirmed that “US-led operations rooms in southern Turkey and Jordan” have specifically “encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations”, and while doing so have “dramatically increased [their] level of assistance and provisions of intelligence” to this Islamist-led opposition, all of which has led to the al-Qaeda victory in Idlib.(5) So not only has the entire support to the opposition from the beginning been coordinated and commanded by the US, so too has the US spearheaded recent support to al-Qaeda along with its Turkish, Saudi, and Qatari allies.

These Western-backed advances were facilitated by the delivery of “gamechanging” new advanced weaponry to the extremists, including TOW anti-tank missiles. The Guardian reports that the results of this “were shocking. The regional capital of Idlib fell within days. Several weeks later, the nearby town of Jisr al-Shughour also fell to an amalgam of jihadist.”(6) All of this being “the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey,” which was “blessed by Washington after long hesitation.”(7)
The US recently encourages support to Islamists while it’s Saudi and Turkish allies openly support al-Qaeda linked militants, all of whom have been provided with new shipments of advanced weaponry and support which has been instrumental in their recent advances.

Qatar has made recent efforts to convince al-Nusra’s leader to detach itself from al-Qaeda and portray Nusra as though it is not planning to attack the West in an attempt to justify this increased aid. However it is important to note that “if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change,” while it’s leaders would remain “close to al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri [sic].” In a recent interview with the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, al-Nusra’s leader al-Golani was given a platform to say that Nusra does not plan to attack the West, yet he still reaffirmed full allegiance to al-Qaeda’s leader al-Zawahiri against the wishes of Qatar.(8) Despite the failure of re-branding al-Qaeda’s Syria faction the group still received a substantial increase in aid and support from its backers in the Gulf, Turkey, and the United States.

Given this, both the US and Turkey have in addition recently agreed “in principle” to establish a no-fly zone to further aid the forces on the ground they are supporting.(9) This is illegal, against international law, and would be de-facto support to terrorist organizations in the form of US aerial attacks against the Syrian state. It would be devastating to the region as well, only benefiting supporters of reactionary Islamic rule and Western imperial hegemony.

However, the al-Qaeda linked factions unfortunately are not the only groups that owe their recent battlefield successes to their Western patrons, so too does the Islamic State.

When the Islamic State recently took Ramadi in Iraq, they travelled a full 553km across open desert to the city from their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.

Despite the fact that destroying the militants along this route would have been like shooting fish in a barrel, the US “anti-ISIS” coalition did not expend a single airstrike against them, even though the US “had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the US military, it was an open secret at the time.” The US intelligence community “had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive in Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements,” which were coming from Raqqa, “through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders.” Furthermore, “It surprised no one,” US intelligence officials said. (10)

Speaking on these developments, former British MI6 agent Alastair Crooke comments that “the speculation about a coming fractured Iraq has gained big momentum from ISIS's virtually unopposed walk-in to Ramadi. The images of long columns of ISIS Toyota Land Cruisers, black pennants waving in the wind, making their way from Syria all the way -- along empty desert main roads -- to Ramadi with not an American aircraft in evidence, certainly needs some explaining. There cannot be an easier target imagined than an identified column of vehicles, driving an arterial road, in the middle of a desert.”(11)

As ISIS arrived in Ramadi, the US-coalition launched a paltry 7 airstrikes against them, a number so low as to be entirely insignificant. To alleviate concerns that the US openly allowed ISIS to take Ramadi, the US military blamed a great and powerful “sandstorm” for their lack of airstrikes. However, just days later they retracted these false statements. ABC reports that “Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters today that last weekend's sandstorm had not affected the coalition’s ability to launch airstrikes in Ramadi, though “weather was a factor on the ground early on.””(12) Further dispelling these excuses, the day after Ramadi’s fall rows of Islamic State militants were pictured celebrated openly in the streets below crystal clear skies.

(Source of picture: MailOnline, May 19, 2015)

If the US-coalition had been serious about stopping ISIS they could have easily destroyed whole factions of the group at this time. Instead, desperate for another excuse to explain their inaction, they changed their reasons and blamed concern for civilian deaths for the lack of strikes. However this excuse is so patently absurd as to be laughable, and therefore can be completely disregarded; one need only look at the grave human death tolls inflicted during the invasion of Iraq, the US support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza last summer, the US-facilitated devastation of eastern Ukraine, the global drone campaign, the US’ own “anti-ISIS” airstrikes, and the current crazed US-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen to see that Western officials lose exactly zero sleep over the civilian blood that is on their hands.(13)

The actions of the US leads to the conclusion that it either wanted or didn’t care if ISIS took Ramadi and thus allowed it to happen, and very likely even facilitated its accomplishment.

Speaking the day after the city’s fall, Wahda Al-Jumaili, an advisor to Iraq’s parliamentary speaker, stated “Whether this was the result of treason, neglect, or conspiracy, or a regional or international plot… Even the international coalition has played a bad role. People saw the international coalition dropping weapons for ISIS. They dropped heavy weaponry to the forces of terrorism in Ramadi. This is an act of treason by the international coalition forces.”(14)

This comes after countless other Iraqi officials have been accusing the US-coalition for months of dropping aid packages to ISIS militants. Video evidence has confirmed that one of these shipments has demonstrably occurred, whereas Iraqi officials have provided photographic evidence of British planes they had shot down after learning they were going to
deliver aid to ISIS.(15)

Coupled with this is the fact that ISIS’ long time benefactor, Saudi Arabia, has recently increased its aid to the Islamic State.

Recently the New York Times reported that the newly crowned Saudi King Salman, who the authors note has “a history of working with Islamists,” has recently “sanctioned allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda”, “discarded his
predecessor’s rejection of political Islamists”, and shifted policy towards “increasing support for rebels in Syria.”(16) What the Times did say is that it is primarily Saudi Arabia and other major US Arab allies who “fund ISIS,” in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey’s own words, so it is no wonder which ‘Islamists’ Saudi
Arabia has increased support for.(17)

The official narrative is that the Saudi state is no longer funding ISIS, and instead it is only private donors not connected to the government who continue the funding, all the while the state conveniently is unable to stop them, try as they might. This, of course, coming from arguably the most authoritarian and despotic regime on the planet which doesn’t even balk at
imprisoning its own daughters, but surely it’s perfectly plausible that this anachronistic monarchy which controls its population through the bludgeon and fear is simply baffled with inability at locating the guilty perpetrators.

Given General Dempsey’s testimony that it was the Saudi state who funded ISIS, there is no credible evidence that any of this support from them has stopped, save vacuous statements by the US and Saudi governments who of course would predictably say as much. If any change has occurred, it is that the Saudi government has taken steps to distance its involvement in the eyes of the world while it continues to covertly go about business as usual, using wealthy donors, who were presumably providing the funds that would then be transferred by the Saudi state all along, as their proxies. In other words, it is a PR concern, not one of policy direction. Indeed, according to Britain’s leading international security scholar Nafeez Ahmed, “informed sources in the region have told me that fundraising for ISIS is still being done openly across the Gulf monarchies at state-run mosques… Yet the US and UK have refused to exert any meaningful diplomatic or financial pressure whatsoever on these countries to change course.”(18)

Turning back to Syria, the US is as well aiding ISIS in the same way that it did for its takeover of Ramadi.

In recent ISIS offensives in Syria the US as well took no aerial action despite the fact that doing so would have been easy and effective. A spokesman for the rebel group the Shamiah front recently criticized the US-coalition for not bombing IS convoys as they moved outward from Raqqa, saying that “There were convoys of 15 to 20 vehicles each. Only two coalition raids in the past three days would have been enough to stop the attack.” Similarly, Salim Idriss, once the US’ leading rebel commander, said that the US-led coalition repeatedly had allowed Islamic
State convoys to pass unhindered, pointing most recently to May 31^st when he said a 60-vehicle convoy moved from Raqqa to Aleppo unperturbed.(19)

This US support for ISIS and al-Qaeda might seem strange if one follows the official narratives, however the picture becomes much clearer when you look at what is being discussed behind closed doors within the US establishment.

A declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document authored in August of 2012 reveals that the West accelerated support to the opposition in Syria knowing full well they were supporting extremists and that this would pave the way for an ‘Islamic State’ to emerge, seeing this as the desired outcome and a key geopolitical asset for their interests in the region. “They were not only as they claimed supporting moderate groups, who were losing members to the more extremist groups, but that they were directly supporting the extremist groups. And they were predicting that this support would result in an Islamic State organization, an ISIS or ISIL… They were encouraging it, regarding it as a positive development, because it was anti-Assad, Assad being supported by Russia, but also interestingly China… and Iran…” said former Pentagon officer and legendary whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who is accompanied by many other knowledgeable ex-US-intelligence officials who draw similar conclusions from the leaked report.(20)

Further, the report presciently predicts in 2012 the fall of both Mosul and Ramadi given that the West continues to “support the opposition” of which “the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces”, stating that “this creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi,
and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters.”

Given that in 2012
US Department of Defense intelligence knew that the opposition was “sectarian”, dominated by extremist groups, and that continued support to such an opposition would lead to the fall of Mosul and Ramadi, and the fact that with this
knowledge the US actually increased their aid to the rebels rather than curtailing it, means that the US must have intended, either directly or indirectly, these predictable outcomes of their actions.(21)

The US predicted the rise of ISIS, supported extremist elements with the help of its allies knowing full well that a Salafist principality would emerge which would then lead to Mosul and Ramadi’s fall, and further desired the establishment of such a principality as a geopolitical asset and thus continued to support these efforts, all the while conducting an ineffective “anti-ISIS” coalition against the same extremists, which should be viewed as a PR move aimed at maintaining
plausible deniability and to obscure the actual role the US has played in the facilitation of ISIS, evidenced further by ISIS’ continual growth.

The strategy is divide and rule, dominance through ‘controlled chaos’, aiming to be both the arbiters of the sides “fighting” and those supporting the extremists, and thus insuring that destabilization and US hegemony result… by any means necessary.

The recent al-Qaeda and ISIS advances are a direct outcome of this strategy, the result of the US and her allies increasing aid and the delivery of advanced weaponry to their extremist proxies in the region, all the while death, mayhem, and terror ensues upon the innocent civilian populations.

The Resistance Strikes Back

Adding further to the incredulity of the US-led “anti-ISIS” campaign, recently a meeting headed by the United States was held between 20 countries to discuss their anti-ISIS strategy, however the most effective forces that have been engaged in fighting and deterring ISIS, Russia, Iran, and Syria, were absent from the meeting. This meeting perfectly represents the follies of the US strategy against ISIS and why it will fail, “The US campaign against Isis is weakened not so much by lack [of] ‘boots on the ground,’ but by seeking to hold at arm’s-length those who are actually fighting Isis while embracing those such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey who are not,” as explained by Patrick Cockburn, the leading Western journalist in the region.

While this US-led coalition expresses optimistically spurious notions of a “winning strategy”, the truth is that ISIS hasn’t been deterred since this strategy has come into effect. It should be said as well that “the ‘moderate’ rebels the US and UK support themselves openly welcomed the arrival of such extremists. Indeed, the Free Syria Army backed by the West was allied with ISIS, until ISIS attacked them at the end of 2013,” former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge notes.(22)

Judging by actions rather than by words, the US-led coalition is not at all serious about defeating ISIS.

Amidst media obfuscation of those responsible for the recent al-Qaeda and ISIS victories in Syria and Iraq, there has as well been a concerted propaganda effort to weaken the moral of the Syrian army and the resistance axis of
Syria-Hezbollah-Iran-Russia in the form of a torrent of Western media publications, interviews, articles, and research papers all professing that Assad is losing the war. The tone of these Western protestations is nothing short of euphoric, yet those on
the ground suffering from the brutality of al-Nusra and ISIS’ gains are not as jubilant, nor are they under the illusion that successes by foreign-backed extremist Wahhabis constitutes the makings of a “revolution.” Yet despite the Wests wishful thinking and adherence to the narrative of “moderate rebels” fighting against extremists, which itself is an impressive display of willful ignorance that disciplined intellectuals must work hard to cultivate, their insistence on attacking Syrian society with terrorist proxies has not been as successful as they had hoped, and has sparked a substantial backlash from Iran.

The Qalamoun border region between Syria and Lebanon is a strategically important area and the battle for it “is likely to
make major changes to the landscape of control in Syria.” Control over Qalamoun threatens to cut off important rebel supply lines that runs from the Damascus suburbs to the mountain region, and to hinder the smuggling of arms and resources from Lebanon into Syria and vice versa, given the areas proximity to the Lebanese border.

In the beginning of May Hezbollah had achieved important victories over the Nusra Front-led Army of Conquest, the joint Saudi-Turkish coalition of extremist, and the ISIS militants that have been vying for control of the region. By the end of the same month Hezbollah and the Syrian army had taken full control over Qalamoun. Foreign Policy describes the victory as such: “Hezbollah fighters point out recently captured al-Nusra Front training sites and military positions, and describe how they’ve been able to clear the area of the jihadis. They pick their way over the remnants of the al Qaeda affiliate’s makeshift camp, where clothes, tins of foods, and shell casings are strewn across the ground.” One commander had stated that they had cleared “about 40 positions belonging to the terrorists,” and had “liberated 120 square miles.” While another fighter described that “80 percent of the recaptured area had been under al-Nusra Front’s control” prior to the offensive.

With the capture of Qalamoun the Syrian army and Hezbollah have secured the most important roads leading to Syria’s capital of Damascus from Lebanon, leaving al-Nusra with only one last supply route into the Rif Dimashq Governorate, located at the Al-Zabadani-Nehleh border crossing. The victory is important for the Syrian government because “the mountain range is key in connecting Damascus to Homs and the rest of the Syrian coast,” while for Hezbollah it allows for “securing the supply routes in and out of Syria and preventing armed groups from infiltrating Lebanon.” As a result, “Hezbollah not only sees the Qalamoun battle as a priority for its survival, but also sees itself as the
first line of defence against a threat facing the entire country.” According to one resident from the Bekaa
village bordering the eastern mountain range, “If Hezbollah wasn't in Qalamoun right now, we would cease to exist,” adding further that “Maybe the people of Beirut aren't aware of this, but we certainly are.”(23)

Coupled with this important strategic victory and the prospect of Western-backed rebels gaining even more ground after their own successes, leaders from Hezbollah and Iran have been increasingly vocal about their support for Syria. According to the
Institute for the Study of War “These incidents will likely drive Iran to increase its direct economic and indirect military support to the Assad regime in order to bolster its ability to sustain the fight. In a speech delivered on May 23, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah will fight “wherever necessary” throughout Syria; other Hezbollah senior officials released their own statements confirming that Hezbollah will continue to back the Syrian regime for “however long it takes” despite recent setbacks. These messages of defiance suggest that Hezbollah will likely increase its support to the regime.”

Shortly afterwards, the normally publicly silent leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Major General Qasem Soleimani, asserted that plans being made by Damascus and Tehran would “surprise” the world. "The world will be surprised by what we and the Syrian military leadership are preparing for the coming days," Iran's official IRNA state news agency quoted the general as saying. Following this news, Israeli intelligence sources speculate that “Tehran is believed to be preparing to dispatch a substantial Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) special operations unit to Syria to tackle the separate rebel and ISIS advances closing in on the Assad regime.”(24)

While reports of IRGC forces intervening in Syria have not yet surfaced, on June 3^rd AFP reports that thousands of Iranian and Iraqi fighters have been deployed to Syria to bolster Damascus’ defenses, citing Syrian security sources as stating that “Around 7,000 Iranian and Iraqi fighters have arrived in Syria over the past few weeks and their first priority is the defence of the capital. The larger contingent is Iraqi.”

Syria is believed to have appealed to Tehran and Russia to step up support following recent developments. “The goal is to reach 10,000 men to support the Syrian army and pro-government militias, firstly in Damascus, and then to
retake Jisr al-Shughur because it is key to the Mediterranean coast and the Hama region,” the source said. The Daily Star quotes a Lebanese political source as stating that “Iran has sent 15,000 fighters to Syria to reverse recent battlefield setbacks for Syrian government troops and wants to achieve results by the end of the month.” According to retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel W. Patrick Lang’s
estimate “this is just the beginning of a large scale Iranian intervention in the Syrian civil war. The entry into the
Syria war of a large number of Iranian Quds force led troops would be a game changer. Whether the fighters are Iranian, Iraqi or from the dark side of the moon their presence might well make a decisive change in the balance of combat power in Syria.”(25)

Following this reports have begun to surface announcing that Hezbollah is making major gains on Arsal’s outskirts and that the Syrian army has regained ground against
Islamic State in Hasaka city.

It seems that the recent support to al-Qaeda by the US, the open intervention of Turkey and Saudi Arabia in support of jihadi extremists, the new Saudi king Salman’s increased aid to Islamists, and the recently ramped-up aid and introduction of advanced weaponry to all of these groups has finally hit a nerve with Iran and Russia, and has sparked a backlash. All of which has further corroborated who, in fact, is actually serious about defeating the scourge of Islamist radicals that have recently plagued the Middle Eastern region, and in contrast who only talks as if they do, as well as those who openly support such inhumane developments for selfish geopolitical aims and hegemony.

Notes:

1.) Judicial
Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf;
Patrick Cockburn, “Preface” & “The Rise of ISIS”, The Rise of Islamic
State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution (Brooklyn, NY, 2015). Pg. xx, 3.
Print.

2.) The New York Times reports that the CIA is
engaged in a clandestine operation to arm Syrian rebels, specifically choosing
which rebels receive the lethal aid. Eric Schmitt, New York Times, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian
Opposition.” June 21, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=0;
The Times subsequently reports that the US-coordinated shipments are “largely
going to hard-line Islamists”, Davide E. Sanger, New York Times, “Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in
Syria.” October 14, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/jihadists-receiving-most-arms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&;
A 2012 DIA report notes that “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI
(al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” and
that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition.” Given this
information, the US increased aid in the following years. Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf;
A leading Syrian opposition leader, Dr. Haytham Manna, writing in The Guardian
states “the pumping of arms to Syria, supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the
phenomenon of the Free Syrian Army, and the entry of more than 200 jihadi
foreigners into Syria in the past six months have all led to a decline in the
mobilisation of large segments of the population… and in the activists'
peaceful civil movement. The political discourse has become sectarian; there
has been a Salafisation of religiously conservative sectors”, Haytham Manna, The Guardian, “Syria’s opposition has
been led astray by violence.” June 22, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/22/syria-opposition-led-astray-by-violence.

3.) Desmond Butler, Huffington Post, “Turkey Officials Confirm Pact With Saudi Arabia
to Help Rebels Fighting Syria’s Assad.” May 7^,2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/turkey-saudi-arabia-syria-rebels-pact_n_7232750.html.

4.) Reuters, Hareetz,
“Turkey helped Islamists take over Idlib, Syrian source accuses.” March 30,
2015. http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.649656.

5.) Charles Lister, Foreign Policy, “Why Assad is Losing.” May 5, 2015. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/05/why-assad-is-losing-syria-islamists-saudi/.

6.) Martin Chulov, The Guardian, “Amid the ruins of Syria, is Bashar al-Assad now
finally facing the end?” May 23, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/syria-iran-isis-battle-arab-world?CMP=share_btn_tw.

7.) Debkafile,
DEBKA Weekly Vol. 14, Issue 663, May 15, 2015.

8.) “Leaders of Syria's Nusra Front are considering
cutting their links with al Qaeda… sources said. Sources within and close to Nusra said that
Qatar, which enjoys good relations with the group, is encouraging the group to
go ahead with the move, which would give Nusra a boost in funding… Intelligence officials from Gulf states
including Qatar have met the leader of Nusra, Abu Mohamad al-Golani, several
times in the past few months to encourage him to abandon al Qaeda and to
discuss what support they could provide, the sources said. They promised funding once it happens… The Nusra Front is listed as a terrorist
group by the United States and has been sanctioned by the United Nations
Security Council. But for Qatar at least, rebranding Nusra would remove legal
obstacles to supporting it.” Mariam Karouny, Reuters, “Syria’s Nusra Front may leave Qaeda to form new entity.”
March 4, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/us-mideast-crisis-nusra-insight-idUSKBN0M00GE20150304.

9.) Associated Press in Ankara, Turkey, The Guardian, “Turkey and US ‘agree in
principle’ to provide air support for Syrian rebels.” May 25, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/turkey-us-air-support-syria-rebels-agree-in-principle.

10.) Eli Lake, Bloomberg,
“U.S. Saw Islamic State Coming, Let It Take Ramadi.” May 28, 2015. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-28/u-s-saw-islamic-state-coming-let-it-take-ramadi.

11.) Alastair
Crooke, Huffington Post, “If Syria
and Iraq Become Fractured, So Too Will Tripoli and North Lebanon.” June 1,
2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/syria-iraq-fractured_b_7471540.html.

12.) US blames lack of
airstrikes on a sandstorm. Erich Shmitt, Helene Cooper, The New York Times, “ISIS Fighters Seized Advantage in Iraq Attack
by Striking During Sandstorm.” May 18, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/world/middleeast/isis-fighters-seized-advantage-in-iraq-attack-by-striking-during-sandstorm.html?_r=0;
US retracts statement about sandstorm after evidence emerges disproving these
claims. Luis Martinez, ABC News,
“Misunderstanding May Have Led Iraqi Troops to Leave Ramadi.” May 21, 2015. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/misunderstanding-led-iraqi-troops-leave-ramadi/story?id=31219607.

13.) Accounting Obama’s global
drone campaign, the Guardian notes that out of 41 men targeted in Yemen and
Pakistan, a total of 1,147 were killed, at least 149 of them being children,
the reported data being only a fraction of those killed overall, the total
civilian death toll likely being much worse. Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian, “41 men targeted but 1,147
people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground.” November 24, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147;
A US-led airstrikes in northern Syria targets a town without any ISIS present,
kills a total of 52 civilians in the process. Maya Gebeily, Agence France Presse, “US-led airstrikes
‘kill 52 civilians in northern Syria.’ May 2, 2015. http://news.yahoo.com/52-civilians-dead-coalition-strikes-syria-monitor-074747525.html;
A series of Saudi airstrikes in May, conducted with the support of the US,
struck a hospital and medical camp in southwestern Yemen killing at least 58
civilians and injuring another 67. The hospital was not being used by rebels
and none of the dead was a rebel fighter.
Despite this and much more, US support for the assault continued. Hakim
Almasmari, Melissa Gray, CNN, “Yemeni
civilians killed in Saudi Airstrikes, officials say.” May 1, 2015. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/01/middleeast/yemen-crisis/index.html;
US and Saudi naval blockade of Yemen blocks desperately needed aid, relegating
80% of the population under a humanitarian disaster. Julian Borger, The
Guardian, “Saudi-led naval blockade leaves 20m Yemenis facing humanitarian
disaster.” June 5, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/05/saudi-led-naval-blockade-worsens-yemen-humanitarian-disaster.

14.) Quote of Wahda Al-Jumaili, advisor to Iraq’s
parliamentary speaker, The Middle East Media
Research Institute, “Wahda Al-Jumaili, Advisor to Iraqi Parliament Speaker:
Int'l Coalition Dropped Weapons, Which Enabled ISIS Takeover of Ramadi.” May
19, 2015. http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/4917.htm.

15.) Steven Chovanec, Underground Reports, “Iraq Sidelines US
in Tikrit Offensive Amidst Accusations US is Arming ISIL.” March 12, 2015. http://undergroundreports.blogspot.com/2015/03/iraq-sidelines-us-in-tikrit-offensive.html.

16.) Ben Hubbard, The
New York Times, “King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and the Royal
Family.” May 10, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/world/middleeast/king-salman-upends-status-quo-in-region-and-the-royal-family.html?_r=0.

17.) Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey speaking before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, C-SPAN. September 16,
2014. http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4509231/general-dempsey-acknowledges-us-arab-allies-funding-isis;
Josh Rogin, The Daily Beast, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS.” June 14, 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html.

18.) Nafeez Ahmed, Middle East Eye, “Why the War on ISIS Will Fail.” December 16,
2014. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-war-isis-will-fail-1513487412.

19.) Roy Gutman, Mousab Alhamadee, McClatchy, “Rebels call for U.S.
airstrikes as Islamic State advances near Aleppo.” June 1, 2015. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/01/268446/rebels-call-for-us-airstrikes.html.

20.) Judicial
Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf;
Nafeez Ahmed, Medium “Ex-intel officials: Pentagon report proves US complicity
in ISIS.” June 2, 2015. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/ex-intel-officials-pentagon-report-proves-us-complicity-in-isis-fabef96e20da.

21.) Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf;
It is a tenant of law that the doer of an act must be taken to have intended
its natural and foreseeable consequences. Given that the fall of Mosul and
Ramadi were natural and foreseeable consequences and that the US-led coalition
still continued the policies that were known to lead to these outcomes, the US
and her allies must therefore be taken to have intended these outcomes, either
directly or indirectly. Steven Chovanec, MintPress
News, “New FOIA Doc Reveals How US Supported The Rise Of ISIS.” May 26,
2015. http://www.mintpressnews.com/MyMPN/new-foia-doc-reveals-how-us-supported-the-rise-of-isis/;
International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the
Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (1996), “Dissenting Opinion of Judge
Weeramantry,” Chapter III, “Humanitarian Law,” section 10, “Specific rules of
the humanitarian laws,” (a) “The prohibition against causing unnecessary
suffering”.

22.) US-led coalition meets to discuss their “winning
strategy” against ISIS, without inviting Russia, Iran, and Syria. BBC, “Iraq coalition winning against IS,
says US.” June 2, 2015. http://m.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32962870;
Patrick Cockburn, The Independent,
“Isis in Kobani: Turkey’s act of abandonment may mark an ‘irrevocable breach’
with Kurds across the region.” October 7, 2014. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-kobani-turkeys-act-of-abandonment-may-mark-an-irrevocable-breach-with-kurds-across-the-region-9780941.html;
Nafeez Ahmed, Ceasefire, “Story of a
War Foretold: Why we’re fighting ISIS.” September 25, 2014. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/fighting-isis/.

23.) Alessandria Masi, International Business Times, “Hezbollah, Syrian Army Make
Strategic Gains Against Al Qaeda-Led Rebels In Battle Of Qalamoun.” May 11,
2015. http://www.ibtimes.com/hezbollah-syrian-army-make-strategic-gains-against-al-qaeda-led-rebels-battle-1917734;
The Daily Star, “Hezbollah, Syrian
army seize control of new Qalamoun hill.” May 15, 2015. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/May-15/298074-hezbollah-syrian-rebels-clash-for-control-of-west-qalamoun.ashx;
Nour Samaha, Al Jazeera, “Nasrallah
declares victory in Syria’s Qalamoun.” May 16, 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/nasrallah-declares-victory-syria-qalamoun-150516192033488.html;
Leith Fadel, Al-Masdar News, “The
Syrian Army and Hezbollah Triumph Over Al-Qaeda in the Qalamoun Mountains.” May
29, 2015. http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/the-syrian-army-and-hezbollah-triumph-over-al-qaeda-in-the-qalamoun-mountains/;
Nour Samaha, Foreign Policy, “Hezbollah
Is ‘Stronger Than Ever’.” June 1, 2015. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/01/hezbollah-is-stronger-than-ever-isis-syria/;
Nour Samaha, Al Jazeera, “Why
Qalamoun matters for Hezbollah.” May 11, 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/150511085809867.html.

24.) Jack Moore, Newsweek,
“Iranian military mastermind Soleimani vows to ‘surprise’ world in Syria.” June
3, 2015. http://europe.newsweek.com/iranian-military-mastermind-soleimani-vows-surprise-world-syria-328161;
DEBKAfile, “Iranian Rev Guards ready
to intervene in Syria to save Assad. Soleimani: Expect major events in Syria.”
June 3, 2015. http://www.debka.com/article/24639/.

25.) Agence
France Presse, “Iraq, Iran fighters deployed to defend Damascus: security
source.” June 3, 2015. http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-iran-fighters-deployed-defend-damascus-security-source-143253360.html;
The Daily Star, “Iran sends 15,000
fighters to Syria.” June 4, 2015. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jun-04/300520-iran-sends-15000-fighters-to-syria.ashx;
Patrick Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis,
“Is Soleimani’s “Surprise” underway?” June 4, 2015. http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/06/httpwwwdailystarcomlbnewsmiddle-east2015jun-04300520-iran-sends-15000-fighters-to-syriaashx.html.

Topic:

Case study in Distortion and Bias on Syria - PBS 'Frontline'

Fri, 2015-06-05 14:21 by Rick Sterling

Most Australian and US viewers will be completely unaware that polls have consistently shown the majority of Syrians supporting their government and opposing armed opposition attacks. British journalist Jonathan Steele wrote in 2012, “Most Syrians back President Assad but you’d never know from Western media. In 2013, a NATO study concluded that Assad was winning the battle for Syrian hearts and minds. In light of this it seems fair to ask: Why are none of these voices included in a documentary about Syria? Why were there no voices from members of the Syrian American Forum or Arab Americans for Syria or from Syrians who actually live in Syria and experience the conflict first hand? Read whole article inside.

This article originally entitled: PBS Frontline Fails the Public with “Obama at War”: A Case Study in Distortion and Bias on Syria, by Rick Sterling and first published on June 4th, 2015 at Dissident Voice.

Introduction

Frontline is an influential television program which examines important foreign and domestic issues. The shows tend to be technically well done – combining concise writing with compelling video. Many North Americans watch and have their beliefs shaped by Frontline documentaries.

Last week Public Broadcasting System channels across North America broadcast the Frontline special titled “Obama at War”. The 52 minute video portrays the following:

* Origins of the Syrian conflict

* Response of the Obama administration

* Evolution of the conflict

* The run-up and response to alleged chemical attacks in 2013

* Emergence of ISIS, Nusra and other extremist groups

* Where is the conflict headed? Where is US policy headed?

The video is online here. The approximate time stamp of some key moments in the video are noted in text below.

Positive Elements

On the positive side, the documentary acknowledges that:

* It is a violation of international law to provide weapons to a non-state actor trying to overthrow a sovereign state.

* The overthrow of the Libyan government led to chaos and increased sectarianism and violence.

* There might not be any easy solutions; escalating US involvement as demanded by the “Syrian opposition” and interventionists might actually make things worse.

In addition, the program shows the inner workings and debate process in the Obama administration.

That said, following are some key problems with the documentary.

Key Failings:

(1) Promotes “Syrian Opposition” that is more American than Syrian

Three “Syrian Opposition” members (Ouabi Shahbandar, Murhaf Jouejati, and Amr al Azm) appear 12 times through the documentary, using about 7% of the total time. In reality all of the three are U.S. Citizens; none of them has lived in Syria for many years or decades.

Ouabi Shahbandar is the “Syrian Opposition” member given prominent attention in the video. He came to the US at age 8. At Arizona State University in 2003 he was a young Republican neoconservative on the rampage, strongly supporting GW Bush and the invasion of Iraq, denouncing war protesters as “terrorists” and allying with far right figures such as David Horowitz. In the past decade he has worked for the US Dept of Defense.

Murhaf Jouejati teaches at the National Defense University (US Dept of Defense). A third voice is from Amr Al Azm who is leader of the US funded “Day After Project” intended to plan for development after regime change in Damascus. In short, all three “Syrian Opposition” voices are aligned and committed to US not Syrian national interests.

(2) Excludes authentic Syrian voices

Most viewers will be completely unaware that polls have consistently shown the majority of Syrians supporting their government and opposing armed opposition attacks. As the widely respected British journalist Jonathan Steele wrote in 2012, “Most Syrians back President Assad but you’d never know from Western media.” In 2013, a NATO study concluded that Assad was winning the battle for Syrian hearts and minds and “After two years of civil war, support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad was said to have sharply increased.”

In light of this it seems fair to ask: Why are none of these voices included in a documentary about Syria? Why were there no voices from members of the Syrian American Forum or Arab Americans for Syria or from Syrians who actually live in Syria and experience the conflict first hand?

(3) Gives biased and contradictory characterization of the conflict

At (2:30) “Syrian opposition” member Murhaf Jouejati claims the Syrian opposition has universal goals and is not sectarian. In contrast, at (3:35) Washington Post journalist David Ignatius describes the uprising as a “Sunni revolution”. How can it be a “Sunni revolution” and non-sectarian at the same time?

In reality, both portrayals are distortions. The Syrian conflict has been often characterized in Western media as “an Alawi regime dictatorship dominating the Sunni majority population.” Although repeated countless times, it is essentially untrue. For example, the powerful Syrian Defense and Information Ministries are both led by Sunni Muslims; the Syrian Army is majority Sunni; the economy is dominated by Sunni businessmen. In reality, Syria is a mix of many religions and the government is predominately nationalist and secular, not religious.

The opposition is driven by sectarian Wahabi ideology but that does not represent Sunni Islam any more than Zionist supremacism represents Judaism or right wing Christian fundamentalists represent Christianity.

(4) Excludes important background information about U.S. Ambassador and US Policy

U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford is ever-present in the documentary. He appears 15 separate times and his perspective uses almost 10% of the entire video. In the opening scenes, Ford talks about going to support a protest march in Hama. He says “We were not backing any particular set of demands that the protesters were putting forward; we were simply supporting their right to demonstrate peacefully.” This is a nice platitude for those who believe in the tooth fairy, but how about the real world?

In fact, U.S. policy has been hostile toward Syria for many years. In 2003-4 the Syria Accountability Act imposed sanctions. It’s widely known that the US and allies Israel and Saudi Arabia seek to break Syria’s alliance with Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement. Israel has attacked Syria numerous times. In 2007, Seymour Hersh wrote:

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Robert Ford is very familiar with these “extremist groups” since he was Political Counselor under Ambassador John Negroponte in Baghdad 2004 – 2006 during the time that they were launched. Negroponte is infamous in Latin America where he was US Ambassador to Honduras coordinating the creation of the ‘Contras’ in Nicaragua and death squads in El Salvador and Honduras. Negroponte and Robert Ford implemented the transformation in US strategy in Iraq following the first year of US occupation. Called the “Salvador option” by Newsweek magazine, Robert Ford likely played a pivotal role since he was a top official and fluent in Arabic. But this important background information is missing from the Frontline special.

(5) Falsely claims the Syrian insurgency was predominately secular in 2012/2013

One of the major arguments of Robert Ford and other interventionists is that the Syrian uprising was not sectarian; they claim the Obama Administration did not do enough to support the secular opposition and thereby “allowed” it to be radicalized. Ford says toward the end of the documentary:

Of course there was a window of opportunity. The jihadi elements in Syria were a distinct minority in the Syrian armed opposition in late 2012 and going into 2013.(45:35)

This assertion is contradicted on multiple counts. Observing conditions in Aleppo in September-October 2012, American journalist James Foley wrote:

Many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition — one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups.

More significantly, just in the past few weeks, the August 2012 analysis of the Defense Information Agency has been released following a law suit connected to Congressional hearings around Benghazi. That report states:

Internally, events are taking a clear sectarian direction. The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major force driving the insurgency in Syria.

It appears Ford was deliberately downplaying the sectarian reality of the conflict to justify his call for greater US intervention.

(6) Falsely suggests Obama Administration was preventing opposition forces from receiving weapons

The documentary gives the impression the Obama administration was steadfastly blocking the supplying of weapons to Syrian armed opposition through 2012. In reality, huge quantities of weapons were transferred beginning 2011. Another Defense Intelligence Agency document discloses:

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the Gaddafi regime, in October 2011 and up until early September 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped …to Syria.

The weapons included “Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 150mm howitzer missiles.”

As documented here, beginning November 2012 there was a major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels:

3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan.

The kernel of truth here is that despite the huge shipments of weapons to the armed opposition they were still losing. Unwilling to accept this, Saudi Arabia wanted to escalate the shipments and transfers even more.

(7) Excludes Crucial Information including the Huge Number of Syrian Soldiers Killed

There are many scenes of Syrian victims from “armed opposition” territories and battle zones. Like all wars and conflicts, it is horrible with good and bad people on all sides. However, it is striking that there are no videos or interviews showing the extent of casualties in Syrian government areas.

Three quarters of the Syrian population live in areas under Syrian government control and they are also victims of random or targeted attacks. Nor is there any hint about the huge number of Syrian soldiers, police and national defense forces who have been killed.

Viewers of “Obama at War” will have no idea that between 80 and 120 thousand Syrian soldiers and civil defenders have been killed in the conflict. Many thousands are victims of those “Sniper” rifles shipped under the watchful eye of the CIA. Skeptical readers are urged to look for themselves at the range of estimates from different sources shown here.

Contrary to the mythology, there was a violent faction provoking the conflict from the beginning.

What would happen in the USA or Canada if foreign sponsored “rebels” killed tens of thousands of police or military soldiers?

(8) Falsely claims “clear proof” that Syrian government used Sarin in Spring 2013

At (22:15) Frontline intones “With no one to stop him, Assad initiates a new phase in the war: the deployment of chemical weapons.”

Mark Mazetti of NY Times says:

Intelligence community was assessing that the rebels were on the ropes. You have the clear proof in the intelligence community that there had been chemical weapon attacks ….

Mazetti’s assertion ignores the widespread debate and differing opinions among those looking into the sarin issue. For example, UN Inspector Carla Ponte said the evidence pointed toward the rebels being responsible, not the government. She said:

There are strong, concrete suspicions …of the use of sarin gas….on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.

If the “rebels” were “on the ropes”, why would the Assad government use chemical weapons and provoke international outcry and possible intervention? On the other hand, the “rebels” had the motive and the means. Syrian insurgents had even been captured with Sarin in Turkey earlier in the year.

(9) Excludes key research on responsibility for Sarin Use in August 2013

At (26:45) Frontline says “Then, a sarin gas attack on a rebel held suburb of Damascus…..1400 men, women and children are killed according to what the American intelligence agencies tell the President.” John Kerry accuses the Syrian government of using “the world’s most heinous weapons against the most vulnerable people”.

In reality, there was immediate skepticism about the responsibility. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), made of up retired members of the US intelligence community especially the Central Intelligence Agency, issued a statement saying:

Former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this.

“Obama at War” ignores the critical debate and simply repeats the accusations which have been largely discredited. Over the past 18 months some of the best US investigative journalists have researched what happened on August 21 in Ghouta. Seymour Hersh wrote “The Red Line and the Rat Line” pointing to Turkish and Nusra culpability. Robert Parry wrote “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case” identifying the “junk heap of bad evidence” used to blame the Syrian government. Two months before the gas attacks, Russ Baker predicted the drive toward another US intervention based on false premises. He commented sarcastically: “No one is likely to demand good hard evidence for the use of chemical weapons. After all, the Bush administration and its lies for war was so…very long ago.”

Instead of dealing with the controversy and contrary evidence, Frontline ignored it and echoes the assertions of interventionists.

(10) Largely ignores the lessons from Libya

The situation in Libya is highly relevant to Syria – and recent. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to explore what happened there and the lessons to be learned? At (9:45) there is a passing reference to the chaos in Libya following the overthrow of the Gadaffi government.

Earlier at (5:45) NY Times reporter Mark Mazetti says “We had seen what happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya … Popular demonstrations would ultimately bring down the regime.” However, that is inaccurate regarding Libya where the government was overthrown by a seven month US/NATO/GULF bombing campaign – not “popular demonstrations”.

Considering that the attacks on Libya were presented as necessary to “protect civilians” (as is currently argued for Syria), and the eruption of sectarianism and violence which has followed, and the terrible decline in living standards and security for Libyan civilians …. isn’t this worthy of more than five seconds passing reference?

(11) Repeats Dubious Accusations regarding Chlorine Gas Bombs

“Obama at War” repeats accusations based on unreliable evidence that the Syrian government has been using chlorine gas bombs to attack civilians. Logic would suggest that the opposition has a motive for this while the government does not. Some widely publicized writers, such as Dr. Annie Sparrow, are full of moralistic condemnations but curiously short of facts. As reported by Time magazine in Spring 2013, the major chlorine producing factory in Syria (and its stockpiles of chlorine) were under Nusra (Al Queda) control since 2012. It is also curious there are no current videos showing the alleged onslaught of chlorine filled barrel bombs while there are many videos showing the armed opposition launching gas canisters.

(12) Promotes False History of the Expansion of ISIS and Nusra

At this point the documentary does something very misleading: it presents the expansion of ISIS and Nusra as a consequence of the Obama decision not to attack Syria. At 36:25 the documentary intones “Extremists exploited the decision not to attack.” At 36:35 Shahbandar claims that extremists are telling Syrian civilians “Look you’ve been betrayed by the world ….”. At 36:55 Baker (NY Times) suggests that ISIS and Nusra are saying “We’re the only ones who can take down Assad and create a new order here.” The documentary then claims that moderate rebels are joining extremists with ISIS emerging as the strongest. That is soon followed by video showing ISIS surging through Iraq and seizing Mosul.

In reality, the extremists (Nusra, ISIS, etc) were the major armed opposition force long before the August 2013 situation. That was confirmed in the August 2012 DIA report. Nor was the surge of ISIS into Iraq a consequence of the Obama decision. The ISIS seizure of Mosul occurred in June of 2014, ten months after the Obama decision.

If the US had proceeded and attacked Syria in September 2013 it would have further weakened the Syrian government and helped the extremists expand even more. After four years of attacks by tens of thousands of heavily armed insurgents from all over the globe, the Syrian government and military is greatly weakened. That has allowed ISIS to control the lightly populated eastern part of the country. The Syrian army is bogged down fighting thousands of extremists in the major urban areas in the west, north and south which has allowed ISIS to continue in the east.

(13) Suggests that ISIS and Nusra are “helping” and “defending” Syrians

At 37:10 Ford says:

I think it’s human nature to seek help from those who will defend you against the external threat that’s killing you, arresting you, torturing you … It’s no surprise that Syrians seek support of anyone to get rid of the regime that’s inflicting the pain.

Ford’s assertion that the extremists are “defending” Syrians against an “external threat” is bizarre since the “external threat” refers to the Syrian government and “those who will defend you” refers to extremist organizations consisting of huge numbers of sectarian fanatics and mercenaries from across the globe.

While there are some Syrians who want a sectarian wahabi state with strict sharia law, they are vastly outnumbered by Syrians who want to maintain a secular state and inclusive multi-faith society. The suggestion in this documentary that a significant number of Syrians seek “help” from ISIS or Nusra is a grotesque falsehood.

Ford continues his nonchalant description of ISIS at 44:30:

Dropping bombs is not going to destroy the Islamic State and so it seems the Islamic State is going to maintain control over the eastern half of Syria more or less indefinitely.

Conclusions

* “Obama at War” presents a biased and distorted view of the reality in Syria.

* The experience and perspective of the vast majority of Syrians is ignored.

* There is a pressing need for realistic reports which convey the perspectives and experiences of all people in the conflict, not just the “opposition” and their supporters.

Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

Topic:

Question David Kilcullen's war message: Letter to Geraldine Doogue from Susan Dirgham, AMRIS

Thu, 2015-05-28 13:11 by admin

In Geraldine Doogue's interview with war strategist David Kilcullen on ABC's Saturday Extra (Blood Year, 23 May 2015), there was every sign that Ms Doogue accepted his point of view without question despite his being someone who works closely with the deadly U.S. war machine in Iraq and the region. Yes, Kilcullen is an ‘expert’ in that he has spent time in the ME and he has studied terrorism. He is eloquent. He is personable. He is an Aussie: he seems calm and reasonable. But in his work for the U.S. military, what truths does he omit, what ‘facts’ does he invent?

27 May 2015

Dear Geraldine,

In your interview with war strategist David Kilcullen on ABC's Saturday Extra (Blood Year, 23 May 2015), there was every sign that you accepted his point of view without question despite his being someone who works closely with the deadly U.S. war machine in Iraq and the region.

Yes, Kilcullen is an ‘expert’ in that he has spent time in the ME and he has studied terrorism. He is eloquent. He is personable. He is an Aussie: he seems calm and reasonable. But in his work for the U.S. military, what truths does he omit, what ‘facts’ does he invent?

Can he represent the aspirations of Iraqi and Syrian people who want their countries to be united, stable, peaceful, prosperous and free of foreign interference?

Or do their aspirations inevitably clash with powerful interests in the United States? Would Kilcullen’s work with the U.S. and Australian armies compromise him in the eyes of most Iraqis and Syrians?

The fact that David Kilcullen can put on his CV, “In 2003, I did not support the war in Iraq” would be irrelevant to most Iraqis since he has effectively supported the American war machine ever since.

In 1991, American war planes strafed or bombed one to two thousand Iraqi military vehicles on a 60-mile stretch of highway. They killed thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers returning from the disastrous war in Kuwait. It was dubbed the “Highway of Death” and memories of it would be etched in the brains of Iraqis. One U.S. pilot is quoted as saying, “It was like shooting fish in a barrel”.

The fact that the people of Iraq and the region have no reason to honour the United States is a no-brainer.
As a spokesperson for the ME war plans of the American Administration, David Kilcullen will not, cannot, present events through the eyes of the ordinary people of Iraq or Syria, the people who are traumatised, terrified, maimed and killed. In Australia, those who stand up with strong and eloquent voices against war, sectarianism and division are not given a chance to challenge his views.

But who will present their stories and hopes and dreams to the Australian public? Unless we seek them out, we are diminished.

One hundred years ago, the Anzacs swore allegiance to their ‘Lord the King’ and so it was the Imperial plans of Britain they fought for. Today, in Australia, particularly in the media, there seems to be an unwritten, unspoken allegiance to the Imperial plans of the United States.

The Middle East was a world away in 1915. Today, there are many Australians who have an allegiance to one side or another in the wars there. The blood lost there is mourned here. The hatreds simmering there are simmering here, within our own communities.

It is not the time for allegiances to empires or caliphates. To be supreme, both must seek to divide, destroy and brutally kill. Instead, it is the time for pursuing our most precious of human values and for seeking the truth. Only by doing so can hatred, wars and terror be stopped.

How often must we be reminded that ‘No man is an island’?

The charm and sophistry of David Kilcullen, and his reliance on sectarian terms to describe the war in Iraq, are not a substitute for the voices of the people of Iraq and Syria who live in a hell the United States and its allies have engineered.

Iraqi and Syrian people who want to end the terror and war have spokespeople. Let’s not imagine they are unsophisticated natives. Let’s not ignore them. Let’s learn about their lives and hear their voices.

In a video interview in early 2014, Monsignor Jacques Behnan Hindo, Archbishop for Syriac Catholics stated,

There is always fear. There is always anxiety. We live with the same anxieties. We are waiting for salvation. Unfortunately Geneva (2 conference) has not yielded anything yet. And, even more unfortunately, the United States, France, yes, France – and England do nothing except add poison to things …by aiding these opposing … these factions, more than half of which have come from outside (Syria). And when one comes from outside (Syria), he/she does not want what is good for Syrians but rather massacring them. And then they want to declare an Islamic State. And we as Christians cannot accept that. I am not a masochist. I do not accept to get flogged. I cannot accept these people, purely and simply. And when I hear Kerry or Fabius, these people who take their fake humanitarian sentiment, I ask myself: “What are they doing?”…

(A political solution) is always possible. However, the first thing that must happen is for these terrorists to leave. This is an essential condition. And when they are out, we Syrians can come to an agreement. We had already several towns where the Army entered because residents had had enough, and they expelled the foreigners that were in their town. And now they live much more quietly. In our region, it is the same thing … in all the cities and villages of the north. Yes, there are people who oppose (the state). I myself am not that much for the government. However, when I compare what awaits me with these people to what I have today, I say to myself: “I am doing very well today.” And I wouldn’t want to put Fabius in my place... when these people come and occupy the country. I do not want to see Fabius, Kerry, or the others. But they are not supposed to understand that they will never be here. That is why they are screwing around. Excuse my expression. They are screwing all Syrians. I wrote a letter to Obama and I told him that, in his name Barack, there is the word Baraka (blessing). However, when he sent all his fleet, it was to declare war. It was a curse! Between a curse and a blessing, there is a huge difference.

(Question: Are you able to maintain hope?) I am, even physically, very optimistic. And then I always have the hope of Christ. I always believe that even Christ on the Cross had the light of resurrection behind him. Therefore it will come. The torment and the fear might extend for a while, but it will be over. And we shall live. I have a lot of hope. That’s why I tell my people not to immigrate, because we can turn our region, our country, into another Switzerland. There is absolutely everything to make it happen. There is intelligence, money, land… everything. Therefore nothing is missing in order to live a life much better than before, in 2 or 5 years from now.

Sami Ramadani, a political exile from Sadam Hussein’s regime wrote in The Guardian in June 2014,

The most serious sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq's modern history followed the 2003 US-led occupation, which faced massive popular opposition and resistance. The US had its own divide-and-rule policy, promoting Iraqi organisations founded on religion, ethnicity, nationality or sect rather than politics. Many senior officers in the newly formed Iraqi army came from these organisations and Saddam's army. This was exacerbated three years ago, when sectarian groups in Syria were backed by the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Geraldine, I implore you to challenge your guests, challenge your listeners, and search for other points of view besides those that only serve to indirectly promote more war and more terror in the Middle East.

Saturday Extra no longer allows comments to be submitted to its online page. All old comments have been removed. It is unfortunate Saturday Extra does not welcome dissenting voices from the community. I have created a page online with all my emails and letters to you as well as comments I submitted to your webpage. I will include this message above.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Susan
National Coordinator of "Australians for Musslaha (Reconciliation) in Syria"

CC: some of your colleagues in the ABC

Topic:

Wanna defend Islam? Then forget about joining ISIS. Go defend Syria or Yemen instead

Sat, 2015-05-23 13:33 by Jane Stillwater

My three-month-old granddaughter has finally fallen asleep so I gotta bang this article out fast before she wakes up and I don't have a lot of time to run all this down to you ad infinitum. Thus I'm only going to explain it to you once. So listen up.

If you are a disenchanted western Muslim youth and you are considering running off to the Middle East to join ISIS and fight to protect the name of the Prophet, I only got one word for you. "Forget-about-it".

Let's face it, guys. If Mohammed (PBUH) was living today, he would be absolutely horrified by ISIS. Horrified! Absolutely. Muslims hacking Muslims to death like they were bloody chickens being slaughtered for Eid and Muslim men raping Muslim women like they were cattle instead of humans? Forget that. Just forget it. The Prophet would be totally appalled.

But if you really really do want to fight to protect Islam, then go to Damascus and join Assad's heroic Syrian army instead. Or go fight for Hezbollah. Or join the Houthi in Yemen. Or decry the slaughter of Muslims in Gaza. Are you pissed off at the western neo-colonialist imperialist Empire of Chaos for unjustly demonizing your religion and destroying the Middle East? Then put your freaking anger where your mouth is. Go fight against ISIS -- not for it.

You need another reason to fight against ISIS? I got another one here.

ISIS was originally created in order to spread chaos in the Middle East so that western neo-colonialists could easily swoop in and take over once all those pesky Muslims who actually own the land (and oil) there are finishing slaughtering each other. And you disenchanted western Muslim youth want a piece of this? Really?

Fighting these neo-colonialist bastards' wars for them is definitely not halal!

Anyone who does even the slightest bit of research and anyone who is even slightly intelligent enough to question all the American, Israeli, European and Saudi neo-colonial lies and propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with has just got to know that western imperialists are equipping, training and backing ISIS -- for both fun and profit. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/22/secret-intel-reports-on-syria-iraq-revealed/

So if you are a good Muslim, don't even think about joining ISIS because the western Empire of Chaos will have all the fun -- and you will be left getting none of the Prophet.

And after the American, Israeli, European and Saudi neo-colonialist bastards get done destroying the Middle East, they are gonna turn on America, Israel, Europe and Arabia next. You think I'm wrong? It's already started to happen.

Oops, gotta go. The baby's awake. And it's time for disenchanted western Muslim youth to wake up too.

Jane Stillwater was an independent observer at the 2014 Syrian elections. Her blogspot is http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/. This article was first published on that blogspot, here: http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/05/wanna-defend-islam-then-forget-about.html

Topic:

The Battle for Palmyra: What really happened according to Syrian military sources - Extract of article by Ziad Fadel

Fri, 2015-05-22 14:10 by Sheila Newman

(Republished from article by Ziad Fadel on Syrian Perspective news site published at about 0100 hrs 22 May Australian time, titled, "The Battle for Palmyra: What really happened according to our military sources" at http://www.syrianperspective.com/2015/05/the-battle-for-palmyra-what-really-happened-according-to-our-military-sources.html#mwV9mmSsyfezg5Ii.99) HOMS:Tadmur (Palmyra): Even nominally friendly sites like NSNBC are misreporting events in this historically important town in the far east of Homs Governorate. Many sites are simply making the fatuous statement that the entire city of Palmyra has been overrun by ISIS fanatics and that includes Alalam and Al-Mayaadeen. Interesting to note that neither news source has anyone on the ground there to report directly.

Two days ago, the SAA and militias supported by local tribesmen and the ubiquitous Syrian Air Force clobbered ISIS destroying whole convoys of trucks and armored pickups armed with anti-aircraft guns. By the SAA’s reckoning, that was the end of the assault on the town. We reported confidently that the brunt of the ISIS assault was crushed by the combination of forces mentioned in the foregoing.

The night of May 20, 2015 saw a unique operation by, what is claimed to be, “thousands” of foot soldiers crowding into the northern neighborhoods of this small city. With stealth, they managed to establish a salient in the north which would eventually secure the arrival of hundreds more of the terrorist vermin. It was this morning when the battle for the center of the city began. Arrayed against the ISIS rodents are the NDC, Ba’ath Party militias and local fighters committed to keeping Saudi-style nihilism out of their lives. Interesting, too, is that the terrorists did not use a suicide truck bomber to open a corridor into the town.

Since this article is copyright, to read the rest, (well worth the reading) you will need to go to the original publication here: http://www.syrianperspective.com/2015/05/the-battle-for-palmyra-what-really-happened-according-to-our-military-sources.html

Topic:

The Fall of Palmyra: The Result of US-Coalition Ramping up Aid to Extremists - Article by Steven Chovanec

Fri, 2015-05-22 00:25 by admin

News reports have begun to come in about the fall of Palmyra to ISIS in Syria, and while most Western media has rightly been concerned with the city’s ancient ruins, few mentions have been given to the welfare of the people living in the region, or the fact that “The Syrian army launched a massive operation to evacuate as many civilians as possible of the city’s 100,000 inhabitants before its epic defeat.” (Debkafile, May 20, 2015). (Article first published on author Steven Chovanec's site at http://undergroundreports.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-fall-of-palmyra-result-of-us.html on
Wednesday, May 20, 2015.)

Perhaps it is not expedient to the Western narrative to report the fact that the Syrian army is heavily invested in the protection of its people.

However, these outlets do note that “The capture of Palmyra is the first time the al Qaeda offshoot has taken control of a city directly from the Syrian army and allied forces, which have already lost ground in the northwest and south to other insurgent groups in recent weeks.” (Reuters,
May 20, 2015) (emphasis added)

The title “insurgent groups” is a euphemism for al-Qaeda, as “the Syrian military opposition is dominated by ISIS and by Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qaeda representative, in addition to other jihadi groups,”(1) and their gains are not some recent aberration but instead are the direct result of the US-led coalition ramping up aid to their proxy forces in the region.

In the Israeli intelligence source Debkafile’s recent weekly newsletter they specifically point out that “Bashar Assad’s fortunes have been waning in recent weeks. His army’s morale is in the pits. Some units are keeping to the sidelines of battles. Iran no longer rushes forward with fresh military supplies. Hizballah, the strongest force still fighting for Assad, is taking heavy losses at the hands of Al Qaeda’s Syrian arm, the Nusra Front. All this is the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey – blessed by Washington after long hesitation.” (DEBKA Weekly Vol. 14, Issue 663, May 15, 2015) (emphasis added)

Thus the “insurgent” al-Qaeda groups that have recently been making gains against the Syrian army are doing so because of the heavy weaponry they have recently received from their backers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey… all blessed by the oversight and direction of Washington.

Further revealing Washington’s hand in leading al-Qaeda from behind is a recent report by analyst Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute Doha Center, in which it was admitted that the operation rooms headed by the US in Turkey and Jordan specifically encouraged forces of the Syrian opposition to work closely with al-Qaeda in order to achieve these recent gains, a cooperation that has been known to knowledgeable analysts for years, yet which is now fully admitted in the open:

“The involvement of FSA groups, in fact, reveals how the factions’ backers have changed their tune regarding
coordination with Islamists. Several commanders involved in leading recent Idlib operations confirmed to this author that the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey, which coordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to vetted opposition groups, was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation from early April onwards. That operations room — along with another in Jordan, which covers Syria’s south — also appears to have dramatically increased its level of assistance and provision of intelligence to
vetted groups in recent weeks.

“Whereas these multinational operations rooms have previously demanded that recipients of military assistance cease direct coordination with groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, recent dynamics in Idlib appear to have demonstrated something different. Not only were weapons shipments increased to the so-called “vetted groups,” but the
operations room specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.” (Foreign Policy, “Why Assad is Losing”, May 5, 2015) (emphasis added)

Although the author acts as if this cooperation of US-backed rebels and Islamist extremist is a “change of tune”, in reality it is actually “business as usual,” at least by US-backed rebel commanders own admissions. A video, which has been authenticated by the leading Syria expert in the US, Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma, documents a meeting between US Ambassador to Syria Robert Stephen Ford (for more information on Robert Ford consult this
article) and Free Syrian Army Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi. The same video shows Col. Okaidi celebrating a recent victory with ISIS Emir Abu Jandal. The Free Syrian Army is the largest recipient of US aid and commonly referred to in Western media as the “moderate” opposition. The video goes on to show
footage of Col. Okaidi speaking in various interviews about FSA’s connection with ISIS and al-Qaeda, himself even stating that al-Nusra do not “exhibit any abnormal behavior, which is different from that of the FSA.” He also states that “My relationship with the brothers in ISIL is good… I communicate almost daily with brothers in ISIL… the relationship is good, even brotherly.” The video shows the same ISIS Emir Abu Jandal a few minutes after his celebration with Col. Okaidi stating that “The Islamic State is here to stay!” another ISIS fighter is then seen saying “I swear to Allah, O Alawites, we came to slaughter you. Await what you deserve!”

This unfortunately is the true and shameful history of US support to the “moderate” Syrian opposition.

The recent gains of ISIS in Palmyra are not separate from these events however. It must be remembered that the Islamists who are now receiving their first shipments of heavy weaponry from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey are not limited to al-Qaeda and the Nusra Front, but include ISIS as well. The Western support for ISIS goes further than US-backed groups openly collaborating with ISIS. In Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey’s own words, it is these same Arab allies, “our Arab allies,” who “fund ISIS.”

A recent report by the New York Times would further detail how our “Arab allies” are stepped up support for these extremist elements:

“King Salman, 79, has shifted toward an activist foreign policy, going to war in Yemen and increasing
support for rebels in Syria as he positions his country as the defender of the region’s Sunnis. In some cases, he has sanctioned allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda… And his support for Islamists could end up empowering extremists, just as Saudi support for the Afghan jihad decades ago helped create Al Qaeda… In another shift, King Salman appears to have discarded his predecessor’s rejection of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood as a fundamental threat to the regional order… In March, he received Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Riyadh. The two agreed to work together to support the rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, according to Yasin Aktay, the foreign relations chief for Turkey’s governing party.

“Although Mr. Aktay said that only moderate groups received support, many of Syria’s most effective fighters are staunch Islamists who often fight alongside the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, raising the possibility that aid might also empower extremists.

“King
Salman has a history of working with Islamists. Decades ago, he was a royal point man and fund-raiser for jihadists going to Afghanistan, Bosnia and elsewhere.” (NYT,
“King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and the Royal Family”, May 10, 2015)

Therefore, despite the Times whitewash of attempting to separate “support for Islamists” from support for extremists, stating that support for Islamists only could “end up empowering extremists” rather than the obvious fact that these are one in the same, what the Times is saying, without actually saying, is that “our
Arab ally” King Salman, who has a “history of working with Islamists” and who “funds ISIS”, has recently increased “support for rebels in Syria”, has increased support for ISIS, sanctioned “allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda”, and has “discarded” a “rejection of political Islamists”, therefore fully embracing them.

Therefore the recent gains made by the extremist opposition in Syria is the direct “outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition… from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.” These states are “our Arab allies who fund ISIS,” Saudi Arabia itself specifically “increasing
support for rebels” and “sanctioning allying with Islamists.” All of these developments of course being “blessed by Washington.”

The Obama administration recently approves the shipment of heavy weaponry to the Syrian opposition after long hesitation, the US-led operation rooms in Turkey and Jordan openly encourage working with al-Qaeda to defeat Assad’s army, and the new Saudi King Salman, whose country is the main funder of ISIS, openly has ramped up support to Islamists in Syria, all the while al-Qaeda makes recent gains in the northwest and south, while
ISIS makes its gains in the eastern region of Palmyra.

All just one big coincidence? I think not…

NOTES

1.) Cockburn, Patrick. "The Rise of ISIS." The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2015. 3. Print.

Topic:

Podcast: Rick Sterling on harm done to Syria by Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch

Thu, 2015-05-21 23:16 by admin

Radio Interview: Rick Sterling: Problems in Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch About Syria. Rick Sterling is the author of Eight problems with Amnesty International’s Report on Aleppo Syria and this interview by Brendan Stone gets him to explain his position in depth. If you thought it was too hard to figure out what is happening in the Middle East and what exactly America is doing there, this interview will clear up a lot.

The interview was on a show with the title, "Unusual Sources, on radio4al.net, which indexes a lot of other good topics. The interviewer was Brendan Stone.

Rick Sterling is a retired electronics / aerospace engineer. He has supported struggles against imperialism and for justice in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East since the early 1970?s and is currently on the boards of Mt Diablo Peace Center in Walnut Creek and the Task Force on the Americas in Marin.

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Letter to Mr Turnbull, Communications Minister, on violence-inciting reporting on Syria

Wed, 2015-05-20 16:38 by Sheila Newman

This is a letter to Malcolm Turnbull, Communications Minister, from Susan Dirgham of AMRIS. It draws his attention to the danger presented to Australia by biased reporting on Syria. Ms Dirgham points out that such biased reporting may have caused young Australians to join ISIS and other 'revolutionaries' in the mistaken impression that they were fighting for freedom. She also gives a link to where an Al-Jazeera reporter called for the genocide of Alawis in Syria and suggests that the tens of thousands of Alawis in Australia may not be immune from similar intimidation either. She asks Mr Turnbull to exercise some leadership in this matter. Candobetter.net Editor: We have updated this article (which initially contained the words of an email document sent yesterday) to reflect some changes in the wording of the hard copy which was sent today.

The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull
MP, Minister for Communications
PO Box 6022, House of Representatives
Parliament House,
Canberra, ACT 2600

21 May 2015

Dear Minister,

As you are Australia's Communications Minister, I urge you to give attention to a program broadcast this month on Al-Jazeera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtNYSUqYHw&feature=youtu.be

The program targets an Arabic speaking audience, and it would have a significant number of viewers in Australia. The host of the Al-Jazeera program and one guest express support for the killing of Alawis in Syria. They do not exclude women and children.

Note, there is at least one petition being distributed protesting this incitement to genocide by the host of an Al-Jazeera program:

http://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-human-rights-watch-office-of-the-special-advisor-on-the-prevention-of-genocide-office-of-the-high-commissioner-for-human-rights-bring-al-jazeera-network-and-faisal-al-kasim-to-justice-for-inciting-genocide-on-tv

This call for genocide on Al-Jazeera may appear to be an aberration and as such dismissed by many. However, I contend that there is a tolerance for such vitriolic hatred within our own community and the groundwork for it has been partially laid by mainstream reporting of the Syrian conflict. (It is worth noting that prominent Al-Jazeera journalists have resigned in protest over that media outlet’s coverage of the conflict in Syria and Bahrain.)

In the last four years, I have contacted the ABC on numerous occasions to alert journalists to the distortion and bias in reports on Syria and to warn them that such reporting will encourage some in the community to support a violent jihad in Syria, something which can have repercussions in Australia. My last formal complaint was in regards to the bias in a report on AM. Despite the weight of my arguments and the implications of a mainstream broadcaster presenting militias intent on destroying the army of a secular society in a positive light, it was not upheld. http://susandirgham.wordpress.com

Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, much of the reporting and official commentary on Syria has been framed in terms of 'a brutal Alawi regime oppressing the Sunni majority'. As the guest who stood up against the calls for genocide on the Al-Jazeera program explained, this does not reflect the reality of the Syrian government, the army or the conflict.

I was heartened this week to see an article in the alternative magazine "New Matilda" which analyses and challenges mainstream reports on Syria. https://newmatilda.com/2015/05/17/corporate-media-and-syria-study-propaganda-and-sloppy-standards

There must be some serious examination of the media presentation of the conflict in Syria and how that impacts Australians who support ISIS or al-Nusra in Syria. It would seem appropriate that you initiate it.

Like Syria, Australia is a diverse and secular society. It too can suffer from hatreds and divisions stirred up by malevolent forces.

For example, there are tens of thousands of people with Alawi Muslim backgrounds in Australia who have come from Syria, Lebanon or Turkey. Unbeknownst to most of us, they may already be facing intimidation from sections of the community who are influenced by calls to hate, both direct and indirect, from a range of sources.

Other key commentators have presented the conflict in the Middle East in sectarian terms. For example, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States has described the terrorist group ISIS as the 'lesser evil'; in his mind 'Shia' are the greater evil. No doubt such views expressed by a prominent person have an impact on communities and reporting. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/israels-former-ambassador-to-the-us-on-the-palestinian-question/373627/

On the other hand, retired U.S. General Wesley Clark has claimed that friends and allies of America created ISIS in order to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHLqaSZPe98

What is the truth? At times it seems the world is edging towards an abyss and we are being taken there with our minds, our eyes and our mouths closed.

An esteemed professor at M.I.T., Professor Theodore Postol, and a former U.N. weapons inspector, Mr Richard Lloyd, published a paper that contended that the Syrian army could not have fired the weapons that purportedly carried sarin and killed over 300 people in Damascus in August 2013. Unsubstantiated claims that the Syrian government was responsible for this 'massacre' and others have contributed to many people's bafflement regarding the war and to their disengagement in regards to supporting peace or the war's victims. On the other hand, the claims have led to the active engagement of others on the side of the terror. The implications of Postol and Lloyd's findings are extremely significant, yet our public or corporate media eschews them. Here is a link to the Theodore Postol and Richard Lloyd report: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1006045-possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.html

To unite Australians and to fear the future less, it is vital that we espouse and live values that reflect our common humanity and which can inspire us all. Organizations cannot display courage; individuals must.

In the past four years, many brave people in Syria have been committed to the work of reconciliation. If Syria is not to become a failed state and its people destitute and brutalized for decades to come, these efforts must be acknowledged and supported. "The Babbila Reconciliation: a Light at the End of Syria’s Dark Tunnel" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSS-AhrqGps

As Communications Minister and as someone committed to reconciliation, you are in an excellent position to take a lead. I urge you to give attention to the call for genocide on the Al-Jazeera program and to respond appropriately. Also, with the increasing number of reports of Australians being lured to Syria to support designated terrorist organizations, there is an urgent need for an independent parliamentary enquiry into the coverage of the conflict in Syria by our Public Service Broadcasters.

Yours faithfully,

Susan Dirgham

National Coordinator of "Australians for Reconciliation in Syria" (AMRIS)

CC: Australian Communications and Media Authority

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Illegal Entry: US forces enter Syria without permission, refuse to cooperate in fight against ISIS

Mon, 2015-05-18 23:09 by Sheila Newman

In a worrying turn of events, the US Government has refused to cooperate with Syria in dealing with ISIS and has threatened the Syrian Government if it tries to 'interfere' in the defense of its own country. Writes Patrick Martin, "What will happen if US forces come into contact with Syrian government forces during future operations like Friday’s raid? There is every reason to believe that a major purpose of such incursions into Syrian airspace and Syrian territory is to create a pretext for a direct US attack on the Syrian army and the Assad government."

This article was first published as "US special forces stage raid into Syria," http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/18/syri-m18.html by Patrick Martin, on 18 May 2015.

The US government said Saturday that soldiers in the elite Delta Force, the main Pentagon Special Forces unit, had carried out a raid into eastern Syria, killing a leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other members of the Islamic extremist group.

The Pentagon identified the high-level ISIS official as a Tunisian who had assumed the name Abu Sayyaf (Arabic for “father of the sword”). According to the US government, when he fought back against the attacks, the commandos killed him and a dozen other men, before returning to Iraq with two female captives.

President Obama gave the order for the raid, the White House said, based on the “unanimous recommendation” of US national security officials, and with the consent of the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for the use of Iraqi bases to launch the attack inside Syria.

US press coverage supplemented the brief announcement by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, giving details of the raid supplied in unattributed interviews from Obama administration officials in both the White House and Pentagon.

By these accounts, US Huey helicopters and Osprey vertical takeoff planes transported the Delta Force commandos from a base in Iraq to the location at al-Amr, the largest Syrian oil field, about 20 miles south of Deir el Zour in the eastern desert.

The commandos allegedly encountered resistance when they attempted to seize Abu Sayyaf and his wife, and killed him and a dozen other ISIS fighters, before retreating under fire to their aircraft and returning to Iraq with two women: Umm Sayyaf, the ISIS leader’s wife, and a Yazidi woman in their household. The US troops suffered no casualties despite the supposedly fierce firefight and “hand-to-hand” combat.

Weekend news reports in the United States were devoted to celebratory accounts of the raid and the daring of the Special Forces commandos, the “courage” of Obama in ordering the attack, ad nauseam, with no discussion of the likely consequences of such military actions becoming more frequent in the future.

None of the details provided in the press accounts can be accepted as fact, given that the US officials refused to provide details that could be independently verified. Such anonymous leaked accounts have been used to plant false reports, most notoriously in relation to the May 1, 2011 commando raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

A lengthy exposé by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, published May 10 by the London Review of Books, argued that virtually every detail of the raid that killed bin Laden was falsified by US official spokesmen, from President Obama on down.

Similarly, the claims about Friday’s raid should be treated as entirely unproven at this stage. The US government has admitted that its troops entered Syria without notifying the government of that country, making its operations there completely illegal under international law. Anything beyond that remains to be demonstrated.

Syrian official television initially claimed that the raid was conducted forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, not those of the United States, and that five leaders of ISIS were among the dead, including a Tunisian, a Chechen, a Turk, a Saudi and an Iraqi.

The White House adamantly denied the Syrian claim. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told reporters, “The US government did not coordinate with the Syrian regime, nor did we advise them in advance of this operation.”

Meehan continued, using a different acronym for Islamic State, “We have warned the Assad regime not to interfere with our ongoing efforts against ISIL inside of Syria. The Assad regime is not and cannot be a partner in the fight against ISIL.”

This statement has ominous implications. What will happen if US forces come into contact with Syrian government forces during future operations like Friday’s raid? There is every reason to believe that a major purpose of such incursions into Syrian airspace and Syrian territory is to create a pretext for a direct US attack on the Syrian army and the Assad government.

There was some substantiation of at least part of the Syrian television account of the raid on the al-Amr oilfield. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group hostile to Assad and aligned with efforts to promote foreign intervention in Syria to overthrow the regime, reported that the US special forces raid killed 32 ISIS fighters, including four leaders, identifying them as “IS oil chief Abu Sayyaf, the deputy IS defence minister, and an IS communications official.”

This puts the death toll at much higher than reported by the Pentagon, and confirms the Syrian claim that a group of ISIS leaders, not just one, were killed.

The exact circumstances of the raid may not be known for some time. But the political context in which it takes place suggests a significant escalation by the Obama administration.

The raid is the fourth US special forces operation in the Middle East in less than a year, including an unsuccessful raid last summer on an ISIS facility in Raqqa, allegedly to rescue US hostages who were later executed, and two unsuccessful raids in Yemen in November and December, supposedly to rescue an American held prisoner by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The American AQAP prisoner and a South African fellow captive were killed during the second raid.

Meanwhile, US-led airstrikes on ISIS targets across eastern Syria continue. In the 24 hours ending Sunday morning, the Pentagon reported eight bombing attacks, including six near the city of Hasakah, in the northeast, and two near Kobani, a Kurdish-populated town where a lengthy ISIS siege was broken by US saturation bombing.

In an editorial published May 13, the Washington Post urged the Obama administration to openly declare the goal of its intervention in Syria to be the overthrow of the Assad government. Pointing to the mounting disagreements between Obama and the Gulf sheikdoms, reflected in the near-boycott of last week’s Camp David meeting by four of the six Gulf monarchs, the Post declared, “But there is a way that Mr. Obama could serve both US interests and those of the Gulf allies: by attacking the Middle East’s most toxic and destabilizing force, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

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Eight Problems with Amnesty International’s Report on Aleppo Syria - by Rick Sterling

Sat, 2015-05-16 14:12 by admin

Editor's introduction: Whilst Amnesty International attracts many well-intentioned people, young and old, the organisation has a disturbing record of taking sides and pushing propaganda that actually benefits the US/NATO war machines and their take-over bids in the Middle East. This side-taking has damped down international critical analysis that might have saved Iraq and Libya from total destruction and which might still save millions of innocent Syrians from having their civilisation erased from the map. Rick Sterling's article, which sets out Amnesty International's record in the Middle East, is a lesson to those who don't look carefully into brand labels, because unfortunately, Amnesty International looks more and more a brand label - but what is it actually selling? Your careful reading of the article inside could make a difference to world peace, currently teetering in the Middle East. - Candobetter.net Editor.

First published at http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/eight-problems-with-amnestys-report-on-aleppo-syria/ on May 14th, 2015

In 1990 Amnesty International made a horrendous mistake in the midst of the media campaign leading up to Gulf War 1. While U.S. military action was being debated and the public was significantly opposed, it was reported that Iraqi troops were stealing incubators from a Kuwaiti hospital and leaving babies to die on the floor. In dramatic testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a Kuwaiti teenage girl claimed she was a hospital volunteer and eye-witness. Congress members were in tears, the event received huge publicity and had significant influence in changing public opinion. The event was a fabrication conceived by a Washington PR firm and the girl was the Kuwaiti Ambassador’s daughter. There might have been more scrutiny and investigation but the story was corroborated by Amnesty International.

More recently, in early 2011, Amnesty International and other human rights groups were influential in spreading false or exaggerated information about conditions in Libya. It paved the way for a “No Fly Zone” which NATO converted into a mandate for “regime change”. The consequence has been a catastrophic loss of security and living standards for the citizens of Libya and an eruption of violence and sectarianism within and beyond the borders.

Currently we see a major media campaign for a “no fly zone” billed as a “safe zone” in opposition controlled northern Syria. In this context, Amnesty has just issued a report: “Death Everywhere: War Crimes and Human Rights Abuses in Aleppo, Syria“. The 62 page report alleges the Syrian government is deliberately targeting civilians in opposition controlled parts of Aleppo, using barrel bombs to kill 3124 civilians versus only 35 fighters in the past 15 months. Amnesty accuses the Syrian government of committing war crimes and possible “crimes against humanity”. They recommend an arms embargo against the Syrian government.

Following are significant problems with the report.

1. Amnesty ignores external interference in Syria.

Article 2 of the United Nations Charter says “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”. It is public information that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, USA, France and Britain are funding, supplying, weaponizing and promoting armed insurgents in Syria. Is this not a “use of force” against Syria? The insurgents, both Syrian and foreign, are being paid salaries by one or another of the countries seeking overthrow of the Damascus government. Turkey is providing facilities and military support. The USA is providing training, communications equipment and coordination. Saudi Arabia, France and Qatar are providing weapons. Britain is providing training and other supplies. Are these not violations of the U.N. Charter to which all these countries are signators? The Erdogan government in Turkey has openly advocated taking over northern Syria, imposing a “No Fly Zone” and basically enforcing this as a zone controlled by the NATO/Gulf sponsored opposition. This is a clear threat on Syrian territorial integrity. Why does Amnesty ignore this?

2. Amnesty approves the violation of international customary law.

International customary law does not allow for supplying arms to “vetted” or “approved” insurgents. Yet one of the Amnesty recommendations to the international community is that: “If considering supplying arms to non-state armed groups in Syria, first carry out a rigorous human rights risk assessment and establish a robust monitoring process …”.

This is an amazing statement, effectively sanctioning the supplying of arms to insurgents who agree to follow “humanitarian” rules of war. The implication is that it’s permissible to kill soldiers, police, government and security people in Syria if you avoid killing civilians. Would it be similarly permissible for Canada and Mexico to train and arm insurgents to come to the U.S. to kill soldiers, police and anyone else defending the security apparatus?

Somehow we can be sure that Amnesty would NOT accept or justify this invasion and violation of international law. So why are they and others justifying this violation against Syria?

When the U.S. created the ‘Contras’ to sow mayhem and bloodshed in Nicaragua in the 1980s, the World Court at the Hague was clear. Their decision was that “by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the ‘Contra’ forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua” the United States was “in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.”

The situation today with Syria is very comparable. International customary law has not changed. It is just being ignored. Amnesty should be challenging this violation, not approving it.

3. Amnesty relies on witnesses who are biased and possibly paid and coached.

The Amnesty report is based on interviews with “78 current or former residents of Aleppo and 29 professionals working in or on Aleppo “. Amnesty established contact with witnesses through collaboration with the following groups: Syrian Institute for Justice and Accountability, the Violations Documentation Center, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and the Syria Research and Evaluation Organization.

Each of these collaborating groups is either based in, or receiving funds from, Turkey, USA or one of the other countries heavily involved in seeking overthrow of the Damascus government.

Two-thirds of the displaced persons in Syria live INSIDE Syria. To produce a more accurate and objective report, Amnesty could have obtained testimonies from people who fled Aleppo and are now living in Homs, Latakia, Damascus or in Aleppo under government control. That would have entailed collaborating with other organizations that are not part of the foreign funded opposition supporting “human rights” groups, but would have given a more balanced picture.

The Amnesty report includes numerous references to testimony or interviews with members of the “Civil Defence”. What they do not say is that “Syrian Civil Defence”, also known as “White Helmets”, are a creation of the US and UK. There may be some useful training but they are heavily used for propaganda purposes.

The recent exposure of the Richard Engel/NBC hoax confirms that the insurgents are keen to manipulate the media. It is quite likely that witnesses provided to Amnesty were ‘vetted’ and/or coached in advance and some of them might have been paid. With no other testimonies, the result is a highly distorted picture of circumstances in Aleppo.

4. Amnesty relies on dubious data from a biased source.

The Amnesty analysis and conclusions rely substantially on data from the Violations Documentation Center (VDC). This source is highly partisan. For example, they divide fatalities into two overall groups: “Martyrs” and “Regime Fatalities”.

“Martyrs” include ISIS fighters and foreign mercenaries killed by the Syrian Army/Militia or even by the U.S. airstrikes around Kobani. See the VDC screenshot photo 1 showing the ISIS “martyr” killed in Kobani. Photo 2 shows a young girl listed as “regime fatality”.

The data itself looks dubious. For example, we know there was much conflict and loss of life in the Idlib area during the past six weeks. Both Idlib and Jisr al Shughour were captured by the armed opposition. It is very probable that many Syrian soldiers and armed fighters were killed in the conflict. Many civilians fled the urban areas as the armed groups came in. However, the VDC site (photo 3) shows something startling and less than credible for Idlib Governate from March 1, 2015 through May 1, 2015:

“regime fatalities” (Syrian army, militia and supporting civilians) = 12

“martyrs” (opposition fighters and supporting civilians) = 662.

There is little or no evidence provided regarding most of the alleged victims. Photographs and video evidence is provided for a small minority of the cases.

The spokesman and advocacy director for VDC is Bassam al Ahmad. He is based in Istanbul and closely connected to the United States as shown in his recent participation in a “Leadership Conference” as shown in photograph #4 below.

In short, Amnesty’s report and conclusions are based on dubious data from a biased source closely aligned with foreign powers actively seeking “regime change” in Damascus.

5. Amnesty ignores important background information.

There is considerable evidence that armed groups which invaded Aleppo in summer 2012 quickly fell into disfavor and became unpopular. The unpopularity of the armed opposition was identified by American journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff in the Fall of 2012 and Winter 2012-2013. Foley described how rebels invaded Aleppo in the summer of 2012. His article, written in October, was titled “Rebels losing support among civilians in Aleppo”. A few months later Sotloff described civilian dislike of the rebels in an article titled “Bread lines and disenchantment with the FSA”.

According to the Syrian journalist known as Edward Dark, there was youthful enthusiasm for early protests but it rapidly turned to regret as armed rebels invaded Aleppo, took over neighborhoods and engaged in widespread looting. As Dark says in his article “How we lost the Syrian revolution“….

Never have I felt as sad as when, shortly after Aleppo was raided by the rebels, I received messages from some of those people I used to work with. One said, “How could we have been so stupid? We were betrayed!” and another said, “Tell your children someday that we once had a beautiful country, but we destroyed it because of our ignorance and hatred”.

Edward Dark may be naive regarding the extent of US and foreign involvement in the armed insurrection but his article seems to sincerely express the early dreams and subsequent regrets of idealistic protesters in Aleppo. The Amnesty report completely ignores this important background and context.

6. Amnesty ignores important current information.

Readers of the Amnesty report on Aleppo may assume there have been large numbers of civilians living in the opposition controlled districts. In reality civilians began departing as soon as the armed insurgents invaded neighborhoods years ago. Currently the most common description of an opposition controlled neighborhood is that it’s a “ghost town”.

Amnesty also fails to disclose the huge number of Syrian soldiers and militia killed by opposition snipers and bombs. Isn’t it relevant that, depending on the source, between 75 and 120 thousand Syrian soldiers and local militia defenders have been killed in Syria?

7. Amnesty echoes allegations which are unverified and probably false.

Opponents of the Syrian government allege that the Syrian Army uses chlorine gas weapons in violation of a recent U.N. Security Council resolution. The Amnesty report includes a graphic of a “barrel bomb” with a caption suggesting that chlorine was used in attacks on March 16, 2015. These claims are widespread but dubious. They ignore the following facts:

(a) Syrian military has no reason to use chlorine since it has more effective bomb explosives;

(b) Syrian military has strong motive to NOT use such a weapon since it has been explicitly sanctioned.

(d) The opposition has the means and the opportunity to use chlorine gas weapons since they have ground projectiles and because the major chlorine gas producing factory in Syria was seized by Nusra rebels in 2012.

Instead of seriously examining chlorine allegations, the Amnesty report echoes the dubious charges.

8. Amnesty fails to recognize what keeps the conflict going.

As indicated above, the initial enthusiasm of idealistic protesters soon turned to despair as they came face to face with the reality of abusive and sectarian armed gangs. The general population was unhappy and largely departed with whatever they could take. This leaves the question: Why does the conflict continue? The reason is because there is a continuing supply of money, weapons, foreign fighters and supplies coming through Turkey. Without that, the conflict would have ended long ago. Perhaps there could have been a reconciliation agreement as was done one year ago in Homs. But because Aleppo is relatively close to the porous border with Turkey, and because wealthy external powers have not been willing to give up on plans for “regime change”, the conflict has continued. Generous salaries have continued to flow to foreign and domestic fighters; supplies and armaments have continued to flow. In recent months Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have coordinated more closely to escalate the conflict, including collaboration with Jabhat al Nusra (al Queda). Fighters and heavy artillery recently poured across the Turkish border to invade Idlib then Jisr al Shugour. There are also reports of large quantities of ammonium nitrate fertilizer going across the border from Turkey destined for exploding and killing Syrians not fertilizing the soil.

Conclusion

Amnesty is appropriately concerned with civilian deaths. But what keeps the war going, to the detriment of soldiers and civilians, is external powers continuing to funnel money, supplies, weapons and mercenaries into Syria. It seems the outside powers are willing to destroy Syria rather than give up their plan for regime change in Damascus.

Tragically there is “death everywhere” in Syria. In significant measure, it is the consequence of powerful countries trampling on international law. Amnesty should be exposing this, not ignoring or approving it.

Photos:

Comment from Candobetter.net Editor: The designations for these photos come from the VDC (Violations Documentation Center). As mentioned in the article, they break down the casualties into two broad categories: "martyrs" (what they apparently see as the 'good guys') and "regime fatalities" (dead Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers, militia and some civilians .... the 'bad guys').

“Martyr” (VDC)

“Regime fatality” (VDC)

Latest Martyr Idlib Fatalities (VDC)

Latest Regime Idlib Fatalities (VDC)

Bassam al Ahmad of VDC at U.S. Leadership Conference (VDC)

Map Aleppo / Turkey

Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

This article was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2015 at 3:48am and is filed under Mercenaries, NATO, Propaganda, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom.

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ISIS attacking ancient, iconic Palmyra in Syria

Thu, 2015-05-14 10:51 by Sheila Newman

Candobetter.net has been informed of an urgent call from Syria this morning to Australians for Mussahala (Reconciliation) in Syria (AMRIS) spokesperson, Susan Dirgham, to inform her that the the ancient ruins of Palmyra are being attacked by ISIS. The caller in Syria hoped AMRIS could get the information out to the world in an effort to prevent the destruction of the ruins.

The caller pointed out that Palmyra is the symbol of Syria, but it belongs to all humanity, For those who haven't been to Palmyra or seen the images, destroying it would be like destroying the Parthenon, the Colosseum or the Great Wall of China.

For those who don't know the story of Queen Zenobia, this is a good time to read up on it. Her story is known by every Syrian. For some time, she was victorious against the Roman Empire.

"Zenobia (240 – c. 275) was a 3rd-century Queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria, who led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. The eighth wife of King Septimius Odaenathus, Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire following Odaenathus' death in 267. By 269, Zenobia had expanded the empire, conquering Egypt and expelling the Roman prefect, Tenagino Probus, who was beheaded after he led an attempt to recapture the territory. She ruled over Egypt until 271, when she was defeated and taken as a hostage to Rome by Emperor Aurelian." (From Wikipedia)

ISIS thugs have already gained significant publicity by destroying the ancient city of Nimrod and other world heritage sites.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad was reelected by a huge majority last year, despite alternative candidates, in an election that was monitored by UN observers who have not been given fair coverage by the UN. Syrians rely on the Syrian army to protect them from ISIS and other so-called rebels, but the United States, NATO and NATO allies like Australia, have pursued ideological policies against Syria and have supported dangerous and brutal anti-government forces which have largely joined now with ISIS. Turkey has been undermining local attempts in the area to help Syria defend its civilisation and people from these terrible loose cannon groups that have risen with the chaos that NATO has caused in the Middle East. Turkey's leader, Erdogan, who Australia supports, is thought to be a closet Islamic Brotherhood fanatic. The Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq are fighting ISIS, and Iran is giving arms support. The West needs to pull its ideological finger out and HELP the Syrian army.

See Attacking Syria is simply illegal by David Macilwain. Discussion of why accusations about barrel bombs and poison gas are far-fetched and misattributed, but purveyed by Western media and used as an excuse by US/NATO and Australia to destroy Syria and its people (of which a large proportion are Palestinians who have rights in Syria where they do not have them anywhere else) with sanctions, support for murdering 'rebels' and bombing of infrastructure purportedly to destroy those 'rebels'.

Read more on this world heritage site of Palmyra.

Victory in Europe (VE) Day commemorations

U.S. and Europe Boycott Russia’s V-Day Celebration of Its 9 May 1945 Victory Over Hitler (9/5/15), by Eric Zuesse | Global Research

Anglo-American Money Owners Organized World War II (7/5/15), by Valentin Katasonov | Voltaire Net

United States' human rights watch

Omar Khadr Arrested and Detained in Guantanamo. Timeline (9/5/15) by Eric Zuesse | Global Research

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