Western media has never reached such a low level. Proxy "rebels" & Anti-Govt MSM propaganda failed big time in Syria.
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
- Thread starter Suli
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Western media has never reached such a low level. Proxy "rebels" & Anti-Govt MSM propaganda failed big time in Syria.
The MSM is indeed a joke, in the UK for starters it's being essentially controlled by one man, a non UK national at that.
Shock! Horror! Who'd a thawt it?! Jihadists break their word...
https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...lso-blocking-civilians-leaving-fouaa-kafraya/
Militants exit east Aleppo while also blocking civilians from leaving Fou'aa, Kafraya
Leith Fadel
BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:25 P.M.) - At least two batches of armed militants in eastern Aleppo have been transferred by Syrian government buses to the town of Khan Touman near the Idlib Governorate's northeastern border, a military source told Al-Masdar News on Thursday evening.
The militants and their wounded fighters were finally transferred on Thursday after intense negotiations between the Iranian, Turkish, and Russian governments last night.
Part of the agreement between the aforementioned governments was to transfer the wounded and sick from the two Syrian government controlled towns of Kafraya and Al-Fou'aa; this did not happen on Thursday.
According to a military source, the jihadist rebels of Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) reportedly blocked the wounded and sick from Al-Fou'aa and Kafraya from being transferred to safety; this agitated several Syrian government officials, who helped negotiate the transport of civilians.
The Syrian military will once again attempt to transport the sick and wounded from Kafraya and Al-Fou'aa tomorrow; if they are once again blocked, they will likely halt the transfer of militants in east Aleppo.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...lso-blocking-civilians-leaving-fouaa-kafraya/
Militants exit east Aleppo while also blocking civilians from leaving Fou'aa, Kafraya
Leith Fadel
BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:25 P.M.) - At least two batches of armed militants in eastern Aleppo have been transferred by Syrian government buses to the town of Khan Touman near the Idlib Governorate's northeastern border, a military source told Al-Masdar News on Thursday evening.
The militants and their wounded fighters were finally transferred on Thursday after intense negotiations between the Iranian, Turkish, and Russian governments last night.
Part of the agreement between the aforementioned governments was to transfer the wounded and sick from the two Syrian government controlled towns of Kafraya and Al-Fou'aa; this did not happen on Thursday.
According to a military source, the jihadist rebels of Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) reportedly blocked the wounded and sick from Al-Fou'aa and Kafraya from being transferred to safety; this agitated several Syrian government officials, who helped negotiate the transport of civilians.
The Syrian military will once again attempt to transport the sick and wounded from Kafraya and Al-Fou'aa tomorrow; if they are once again blocked, they will likely halt the transfer of militants in east Aleppo.
Is Reuters good enough for you? Listen to this, now they're saying this, after Aleppo was liberated. All of your propaganda machines lied about this for years, to keep Aleppo in Al-Qaeda's hands... And now time is telling who was telling the truth, and who was lying and telling pure propaganda...
Aleppo civilians find food stockpile at abandoned rebel depot
http://uk.reuters.com/video/2016/12...tockpile-at?videoId=370716597&videoChannel=75
Hello Danny
Hello Raoul.
.......................................................
US State Department in secret e-mails in February 2012:
"Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria"
State Dept email made public via FOIA process
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_OctWeb/238/DOC_0C05789138/C05789138.pdf
Its pretty obvious AQ wanted Assad out, as did the U.S. for different reasons.
The enemy of my enemy is.....
Was Syria really in half such a bad state as it is now before the Arab spring started?
Don't remember seeing much about it at the time.
Don't remember seeing much about it at the time.
It was one of the uglier police states of the region. The Assads ruled with an iron fist, however I wouldn't place their level of brutality quite on the same level as Qadhafi and Saddam. Hafiz al-Assad was an extremely shrewd operator who generally found ways other than outright massacre to stay in power (these ways obviously included torture, assassinations, sponsorship of terrorist organisations, full press censorship, etc., but also skilful use of alliances domestically and internationally).
There is one exception, which is the events which occurred in Hama in 1982. There had been a low-level Muslim Brotherhood-led insurgency* against the regime since 1976, the Islamists were very active in Aleppo and Hama especially, and from initially targeting soldiers escalated the violence to the point in 1980 when they were massacring innocent Alawites. The regime of course responded in kind with equally brutal measures. Eventually in 82 the Islamists took control of Hama, and Assad responded by closing off the city and bombarding it until the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria were no more - indeed they had no presence again in the country until 2011. The likely death toll in that operation was around 10,000.
It's an open question how much Bashar dictates policy, but until 2011, and despite some early signs of possible reform, he followed pretty much the same course his father took.
Like all the other players in the Middle East, the Assads cracked down against the Islamists domestically, while attempting to use them against their enemies. And from 1980 onwards, Syria had a lot of regional enemies due to its alliance with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. Most notably they sponsored Sunni and Shi'i Islamists against the Israelis, and Bashar helped facilitate the movement of foreign jihadis into Iraq during the 2000s to fight US forces.
*(edit): officially the insurgency was led by a group called the Combatant Vanguard, and the Brotherhood tried to disclaim any association with its more extreme actions. But that is a common Brotherhood tactic and most scholars today recognise the overlap between them.
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Thanks for the reply. Seems like such a mess, everybody seems to be having fought everyone at some point over there.
What do you think is the best possible outcome for the region and the Syrian people? That Assad be dethroned or that he stays in power? I know the answer probably isn't as simplistic as that but what's your 2 cents on this?
Is there any particular point at which Gaddafi turned from run-of-the-mill dictator to particularly brutal monster?
I've been wondering about this. Robert Ford became US Ambassador in 2011, 2 months before stuff started hitting the fan. This is some fecking unbelievable shit - but it cross-checks. Check it out...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/terror...tory-of-americas-death-squads/5317564?print=1
Edit: Worryingly, since I posted that link (and another to the same site on twitter) the page has become unavailable (or maybe it's just getting too many hits). So, here's the text. Sorry. It's long.
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The history of America’s death squads
The recruitment of death squads is part of a well established US military-intelligence agenda. There is a long and gruesome US history of covert funding and support of terror brigades and targeted assassinations going back to the Vietnam War.
As government forces continue to confront the self-proclaimed “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), the historical roots of the West’s covert war on Syria, which has resulted in countless atrocities, must be fully revealed.
From the outset in March 2011, the US and its allies have supported the formation of death squads and the incursion of terrorist brigades in a carefully planned undertaking.
The recruitment and training of terror brigades in both Iraq and Syria was modeled on the “Salvador Option,” a “terrorist model” of mass killings by US sponsored death squads in Central America. It was first applied in El Salvador, in the heyday of resistance against the military dictatorship, resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths.
The formation of death squads in Syria builds upon the history and experience of US sponsored terror brigades in Iraq, under the Pentagon’s “counterinsurgency” program.
The Establishment of Death Squads in Iraq
US sponsored death squads were recruited in Iraq starting in 2004-2005 in an initiative launched under the helm of the US Ambassador John Negroponte, who was dispatched to Baghdad by the US State Department in June 2004.
Negroponte was the “man for the job.” As US Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte played a key role in supporting and supervising the Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras as well as overseeing the activities of the Honduran military death squads.
“Under the rule of General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, Honduras’s military government was both a close ally of the Reagan administration and was “disappearing” dozens of political opponents in classic death squad fashion.”
In January 2005, the Pentagon confirmed that it was considering, “forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency [Resistance] in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.”
Under the so-called “El Salvador option,” Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter. …
Hit squads would be controversial and would probably be kept secret.
The experience of the so-called “death squads” in Central America remains raw for many even now and helped to sully the image of the United States in the region.
Then, the Reagan Administration funded and trained teams of nationalist forces to neutralize Salvadorean rebel leaders and sympathizers. …
John Negroponte, the US Ambassador in Baghdad, had a front-row seat at the time as Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85.
Death squads were a brutal feature of Latin American politics of the time. …
In the early 1980s President Reagan’s Administration funded and helped to train Nicaraguan contras based in Honduras with the aim of ousting Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime. The Contras were equipped using money from illegal American arms sales to Iran, a scandal that could have toppled Mr. Reagan.
The thrust of the Pentagon proposal in Iraq, … is to follow that model …
It is unclear whether the main aim of the missions would be to assassinate the rebels or kidnap them and take them away for interrogation. Any mission in Syria would probably be undertaken by US Special Forces.
Nor is it clear who would take responsibility for such a program - the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency. Such covert operations have traditionally been run by the CIA at arm’s length from the administration in power, giving US officials the ability to deny knowledge of it (El Salvador-style ‘death squads’ to be deployed by US against Iraq militants - Times Online, January 10, 2005, emphasis added).
While the stated objective of the “Iraq Salvador Option” was to “take out the insurgency,” in practice the US sponsored terror brigades were involved in routine killings of civilians with a view to fomenting sectarian violence. In turn, the CIA and MI6 were overseeing “Al Qaeda in Iraq” units involved in targeted assassinations directed against the Shiite population. Of significance, the death squads were integrated and advised by undercover US Special Forces.
Robert Stephen Ford -subsequently appointed US Ambassador to Syria- was part of Negroponte’s team in Baghdad in 2004-2005. In January 2004, he was dispatched as U.S. representative to the Shiite city of Najaf which was the stronghold of the Mahdi army, with which he made preliminary contacts.
In January 2005, Robert S. Ford’s was appointed Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy under the helm of Ambassador John Negroponte. He was not only part of the inner team; he was Negroponte’s partner in setting up the Salvador Option. Some of the groundwork had been established in Najaf prior to Ford’s transfer to Baghdad.
John Negroponte and Robert Stephen Ford were put in charge of recruiting the Iraqi death squads. While Negroponte coordinated the operation from his office at the US Embassy, Robert S. Ford, who was fluent in both Arabic and Turkish, was entrusted with the task of establishing strategic contacts with Shiite and Kurdish militia groups outside the “Green Zone.”
Two other embassy officials, namely Henry Ensher (Ford’s Deputy) and a younger official in the political section, Jeffrey Beals, played an important role in the team “talking to a range of Iraqis, including extremists” (See The New Yorker, March 26, 2007). Another key individual in Negroponte’s team was James Franklin Jeffrey, America’s ambassador to Albania (2002-2004). In 2010, Jeffrey was appointed US Ambassador to Iraq (2010-2012).
Negroponte also brought into the team one of his former collaborators Colonel James Steele (ret) from his Honduras heyday.
Under the “Salvador Option,” “Negroponte had assistance from his colleague from his days in Central America during the 1980?s, Ret. Col James Steele. Steele, whose title in Baghdad was Counselor for Iraqi Security Forces supervised the selection and training of members of the Badr Organization and Mehdi Army, the two largest Shiite militias in Iraq, in order to target the leadership and support networks of a primarily Sunni resistance. Planned or not, these death squads promptly spiraled out of control to become the leading cause of death in Iraq.
Intentional or not, the scores of tortured, mutilated bodies which turn up on the streets of Baghdad each day are generated by the death squads whose impetus was John Negroponte. And it is this U.S.-backed sectarian violence which largely led to the hell-disaster that Iraq is today. (Dahr Jamail, Managing Escalation: Negroponte and Bush’s New Iraq Team,. Antiwar.com, January 7, 2007)
“Colonel Steele was responsible, according to Rep. Dennis Kucinich for implementing “a plan in El Salvador under which tens of thousands Salvadorans “disappeared” or were murdered, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and four American nuns.”
Upon his appointment to Baghdad, Colonel Steele was assigned to a counter-insurgency unit known as the “Special Police Commando” under the Iraqi Interior Ministry” (See ACN, Havana, June 14, 2006).
Reports confirm that “the US military turned over many prisoners to the Wolf Brigade, the feared 2nd battalion of the interior ministry’s special commandos” which so happened to be under supervision of Colonel Steele:
“US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing,” while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said. An interview conducted by Maass [of the New York Times] in 2005 at the improvised prison, accompanied by the Wolf Brigade’s US military adviser, Col James Steele, had been interrupted by the terrified screams of a prisoner outside, he said. Steele was reportedly previously employed as an adviser to help crush an insurgency in El Salvador” (Ibid, emphasis added).
Another notorious figure who played a role in Iraq’s counter-insurgency program was Former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who in 2007 was indicted in federal court on 16 felony charges.
Kerik walks amidst a phalanx of bodyguards during visit to the Police Academy in Baghdad, July 2003.
Kerik had been appointed by the Bush administration at the outset of the occupation in 2003 to assist in the organization and training of the Iraqi Police force. During his short stint in 2003, Bernie Kerik, who took on the position of interim Minister of the Interior- worked towards organizing terror units within the Iraqi Police force, “Dispatched to Iraq to whip Iraqi security forces into shape, Kerik dubbed himself the “interim interior minister of Iraq.” British police advisors called him the “Baghdad terminator,” (Salon, December 9, 2004, emphasis added).
Under Negroponte’s helm at the US Embassy in Baghdad, a wave of covert civilian killings and targeted assassinations had been unleashed. Engineers, medical doctors, scientists and intellectuals were also targeted.
Author and geopolitical analyst Max Fuller has documented in detail the atrocities committed under the US sponsored counterinsurgency program.
The appearance of death squads was first highlighted in May this year [2005], …dozens of bodies were found casually disposed … in vacant areas around Baghdad. All of the victims had been handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head and many of them also showed signs of having been brutally tortured. …
The evidence was sufficiently compelling for the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), a leading Sunni organization, to issue public statements in which they accused the security forces attached to the Ministry of the Interior as well as the Badr Brigade, the former armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), of being behind the killings. They also accused the Ministry of the Interior of conducting state terrorism (Financial Times).
The Police Commandos as well as the Wolf Brigade were overseen by the US counterinsurgency program in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior:
The Police Commandos were formed under the experienced tutelage and oversight of veteran US counterinsurgency fighters, and from the outset conducted joint-force operations with elite and highly secretive US special-forces units (Reuters, National Review Online).
…A key figure in the development of the Special Police Commandos was James Steele, a former US Army Special Forces operative who cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the US military mission in El Salvador at the height of that country’s civil war. …
Another US contributor was the same Steven Casteel who as the most senior US advisor within the Interior Ministry brushed off serious and well-substantiated accusations of appalling human right violations as ‘rumor and innuendo.’ Like Steele, Casteel gained considerable experience in Latin America, in his case participating in the hunt for the cocaine baron Pablo Escobar in Colombia’s Drugs Wars of the 1990s …
Casteel’s background is significant because this kind of intelligence-gathering support role and the production of death lists are characteristic of US involvement in counterinsurgency programs and constitute the underlying thread in what can appear to be random, disjointed killing sprees.
Such centrally planned genocides are entirely consistent with what is taking place in Iraq today [2005] … It is also consistent with what little we know about the Special Police Commandos, which was tailored to provide the Interior Ministry with a special-forces strike capability (US Department of Defense). In keeping with such a role, the Police Commando headquarters has become the hub of a nationwide command, control, communications, computer and intelligence operations centre, courtesy of the US (Max Fuller, op cit).
This initial groundwork established under Negroponte in 2005 was implemented under his successor Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Robert Stephen Ford ensured the continuity of the project prior to his appointment as US Ambassador to Algeria in 2006, as well as upon his return to Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission in 2008.
Operation “Syrian Contras”: Learning from the Iraqi Experience
The gruesome Iraqi version of the “Salvador Option” under the helm of Ambassador John Negroponte has served as a “role model” for setting up the “Free Syrian Army” Contras. Robert Stephen Ford was, no doubt, involved in the implementation of the Syrian Contras project, following his reassignment to Baghdad as Deputy Head of Mission in 2008.
The objective in Syria was to create factional divisions between Sunni, Alawite, Shiite, Kurds, Druze and Christians. While the Syrian context is entirely different to that of Iraq, there are striking similarities with regard to the procedures whereby the killings and atrocities were conducted.
A report published by Der Spiegel pertaining to atrocities committed in the Syrian city of Homs confirms an organized sectarian process of mass-murder and extra-judicial killings comparable to that conducted by the US sponsored death squads in Iraq.
People in Homs were routinely categorized as “prisoners” (Shia, Alawite) and “traitors.” The “traitors” are Sunni civilians within the rebel occupied urban area, who express their disagreement or opposition to the rule of terror of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), “Since last summer [2011], we have executed slightly fewer than 150 men, which represents about 20 percent of our prisoners,” says Abu Rami. … But the executioners of Homs have been busier with traitors within their own ranks than with prisoners of war. “If we catch a Sunni spying, or if a citizen betrays the revolution, we make it quick,” says the fighter. According to Abu Rami, Hussein’s burial brigade has put between 200 and 250 traitors to death since the beginning of the uprising” (Der Spiegel, March 30, 2012).
The project required an initial program of recruitment and training of mercenaries. Death squads including Lebanese and Jordanian Salafist units entered Syria’s southern border with Jordan in mid-March 2011. Much of the groundwork was already in place prior to Robert Stephen Ford’s arrival in Damascus in January 2011.
Ambassador Ford in Hama in early July 2011
Ford’s appointment as Ambassador to Syria was announced in early 2010. Diplomatic relations had been cut in 2005 following the Rafick Hariri assassination, which Washington blamed on Syria. Ford arrived in Damascus barely two months before the onset of the insurgency.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA)
Washington and its allies replicated in Syria the essential features of the “Iraq Salvador Option,” leading to the creation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various terrorist factions including the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra brigades.
While the creation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was announced in June 2011, the recruitment and training of foreign mercenaries was initiated at a much an earlier period.
In many regards, the Free Syrian Army is a smokescreen. It is upheld by the Western media as a bona fide military entity established as a result of mass defections from government forces. The number of defectors, however, was neither significant nor sufficient to establish a coherent military structure with command and control functions.
The FSA is not a professional military entity; rather it is a loose network of separate terrorist brigades, which in turn are made up of numerous paramilitary cells operating in different parts of the country.
Each of these terrorist organizations operates independently. The FSA does not effectively exercise command and control functions including liaison with these diverse paramilitary entities. The latter are controlled by US-NATO sponsored Special Forces and intelligence operatives, which are embedded within the ranks of selected terrorist formations.
These (highly trained) Special Forces on the ground (many of whom are employees of private security companies) are routinely in contact with US-NATO and allied military/intelligence command units (including Turkey). These embedded Special Forces are, no doubt, also involved in the carefully planned bomb attacks directed against government buildings, military compounds, etc.
The death squads are mercenaries trained and recruited by the US, NATO, its Persian Gulf GCC allies as well as Turkey. They are overseen by allied special forces (including British SAS and French Parachutists), and private security companies on contract to NATO and the Pentagon. In this regard, reports confirm the arrest by the Syrian government of some 200-300 private security company employees who had integrated rebel ranks.
The Jabhat Al Nusra Front
The Al Nusra Front -which is said to be affiliated to Al Qaeda, is described as the most effective “opposition” rebel fighting group, responsible for several of the high profile bomb attacks. Portrayed as an enemy of America (on the State Department list of terrorist organizations), Al Nusra operations, nonetheless, bear the fingerprints of US paramilitary training, terror tactics and weapons systems. The atrocities committed against civilians by Al Nusra (funded covertly by US-NATO) are similar to those undertaken by the US sponsored death squads in Iraq.
In the words of Al Nusra leader Abu Adnan in Aleppo, “Jabhat al-Nusra does count Syrian veterans of the Iraq war among its numbers, men who bring expertise - especially the manufacture of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - to the front in Syria.”
As in Iraq, factional violence and ethnic cleansing were actively promoted. In Syria, the Alawite, Shiite and Christian communities have been the target of the US-NATO sponsored death squads. The Alawite and the Christian community are the main targets of the assassination program.
Confirmed by the Vatican News Service, Christians in Aleppo are victims of death and destruction due to the fighting which for months has been affecting the city. The Christian neighborhoods, in recent times, have been hit by rebel forces fighting against the regular army and this has caused an exodus of civilians.
Some groups in the rugged opposition, where there are also jiahadist groups, “fire on Christian houses and buildings, to force occupants to escape and then take possession [ethnic cleansing] (Agenzia Fides. Vatican News, October 19, 2012).
“The Sunni Salafist militants - says the Bishop - continue to commit crimes against civilians, or to recruit fighters with force. The fanatical Sunni extremists are fighting a holy war proudly, especially against the Alawites. When terrorists seek to control the religious identity of a suspect, they ask him to cite the genealogies dating back to Moses. And they ask to recite a prayer that the Alawites removed. The Alawites have no chance to get out alive” (Agenzia Fides 04/06/2012).
Reports confirm the influx of Salafist and Al Qaeda affiliated death squads as well as brigades under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood into Syria from the inception of the insurgency in March 2011.
Moreover, reminiscent of the enlistment of the Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war, NATO and the Turkish High command, according to Israeli intelligence sources, had initiated.”
“A campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011).
Private Security Companies and the Recruitment of Mercenaries
A Secret Army of Mercenaries for the Middle East and North Africa
According to reports, private security companies operating out of Gulf States are involved in the recruiting and training of mercenaries.
Although not specifically earmarked for the recruitment of mercenaries directed against Syria, reports point to the creation of training camps in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In Zayed Military City (UAE), “a secret army is in the making” operated by Xe Services, formerly Blackwater. The UAE deal to establish a military camp for the training of mercenaries was signed in July 2010, nine months before the onslaught of the wars in Libya and Syria.
In recent developments, security companies on contract to NATO and the Pentagon are involved in training “opposition” death squads in the use of chemical weapons:
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior US official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012).
The names of the companies involved were not revealed.
Behind Closed Doors at the US State Department
Robert Stephen Ford was part of a small team at the US State Department team which oversaw the recruitment and training of terrorist brigades, together with Derek Chollet and Frederic C. Hof, a former business partner of Richard Armitage, who served as Washington’s “special coordinator on Syria.” Derek Chollet has recently been appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ISA).
This team operated under the helm of (former) Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman.
Feltman’s team was in close liaison with the process of recruitment and training of mercenaries out of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Libya (courtesy of the post-Gaddafi regime, which dispatched six hundred Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) troops to Syria, via Turkey in the months following the September 2011 collapse of the Gaddafi government).
Assistant Secretary of State Feltman was in contact with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim. He was also in charge of a Doha-based office for “special security coordination” pertaining to Syria, which included representatives from Western and GCC intelligence agencies well as a representative from Libya. Prince Bandar bin Sultan. a prominent and controversial member of Saudi intelligence was part of this group. (See Press TV, May 12, 2012).
In June 2012, Jeffrey Feltman was appointed UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, a strategic position which, in practice, consists in setting the UN agenda (on behalf of Washington) on issues pertaining to “Conflict Resolution” in various “political hot spots” around the world (including Somalia, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Mali). In a bitter irony, the countries for UN “conflict resolution” are those which are the target of US covert operations.
In liaison with the US State Department, NATO and his GCC handlers in Doha and Riyadh, Feltman is Washington’s man behind UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahmi’s “Peace Proposal.”
Meanwhile, while paying lip service to the UN Peace initiative, the US and NATO have speeded up the process of recruitment and training of mercenaries in response to the heavy casualties incurred by “opposition” rebel forces.
The US proposed “end game” in Syria is not regime change, but the destruction of Syria as a Nation State.
The deployment of “opposition” death squads with a mandate to kill civilians is part of this criminal undertaking.
“Terrorism with a Human Face” is upheld by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which constitutes a mouthpiece for NATO “Humanitarian Interventions” under the doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P).
The atrocities committed by the US-NATO death squads are casually blamed on the government of Bashar Al Assad. According to UN Human Rights Council High Commissioner Navi Pillay, “This massive loss of life could have been avoided if the Syrian Government had chosen to take a different path than one of ruthless suppression of what were initially peaceful and legitimate protests by unarmed civilians,” (quoted in Stephen Lendman, UN Human Rights Report on Syria: Camouflage of US-NATO Sponsored Massacres, Global Research, January 3, 2012).
Washington’s “unspeakable objective” consists in breaking up Syria as a sovereign nation -along ethnic and religious lines- into several separate and “independent” political entities.
By: Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Article
Source: Global Research
Subject code: 54935
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I tell ya... It's just mindblowing what you can turn up on the web sometimes. Check the feck out who's in the photos with McCain in this article...
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/09/associated-press-investigates-americans.html
and in this...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/0...ved-money-from-terrorist-regime-saudi-arabia/
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/09/associated-press-investigates-americans.html
and in this...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/0...ved-money-from-terrorist-regime-saudi-arabia/
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Do you think anyone in the outgoing or incoming administrations will have the strength of character to blow this whole dirty bag of tricks wide open?
It would be wrong to lay the blame solely at America's door though. Here's what the UK govt has been up to...
https://off-guardian.org/2016/10/17...-opposition-aka-terrorists-with-a-human-face/
How Britain Funded Syria’s “Moderate Armed Opposition” (aka Terrorists with a Human Face)
by Vaska https://vaskaxtumir.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/my-inaugural-page-2/
by Felicity Arbuthnot, via Global Research
A document (1, pdf) produced last December by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, headed: “ UK Humanitarian Aid in Response to The Syria Conflict”, makes interesting reading.
The British government it states, has spent “over £100 million” since 2012, “working closely with a range of actors” to “find a political solution to the conflict and prepare to rebuild the country in the post Assad era.” (Emphasis added.)
Our efforts … include providing more than £67 million of support to the Syrian opposition.”
One of the “actors” to benefit from hefty chunks of British taxpayers moneys is the Syrian National Coalition whose website (2) states, under “Mission Statement and Goals”:
“The coalition will do everything in its power to reach the goal of overthrowing the Assad regime …” and to “Establish a transitional government …” (Emphasis added.)
Thus the UK government is overtly supporting the illegal overthrow of yet another sovereign government.
This all reads like a re-run of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraq National Congress and Iyad Allawi’s Iraq National Accord, backed by the British and US governments to equally criminally overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Iraq’s football pitches, gardens and back yards turned graveyards, probably three million deaths between the embargo, the 1991 thirty two country assault, the 2003 blitzkrieg and invasion – ongoing – the ruins of the “Cradle of Civilisation” of which Syria is equally custodian, are silent witness to that gargantuan crime against humanity – and history. Will Washington and Whitehall never learn – or is destruction of civil societies, Nazi-like aggression, illegal overthrows and rivers of blood their raison d’être?
Incidentally, Foreign Office accounting farcically includes: “more than £29 Million to reduce the impact of the conflict on the region.” Stopping dropping British bombs would surely be the most practical way to do that – and persuading their US “coalition partners” to do the same. Yet more nauseating, murderous, hypocrisy.
Talking of reducing “the impact of conflict on the region” – here is what the UK is contributing to destroying it – courtesy again the (un-consulted) British taxpayer:
The British government document informs that:
To date, there are over 2,700 volunteers in 110 civil defence stations across northern Syria, trained and equipped with help from UK funding … The ‘White Helmets’ as they are more commonly known
The “White Helmets” of course, only work in the areas held by the “moderate” organ eating, child decapitating, human incinerating, crucifying “opposition.”
In Foreign Office parlance, under the heading: “Moderate armed opposition: £4.4 million”, it is explained that this has been devoted to “life saving equipment”, presumably for the head choppers since the “life savers” appear to be their guests. Indeed the “White Helmets” website states that: “They are the largest civil society organisation operating in areas outside of government control …” (Emphasis added.)
Also, near farcically, the Foreign Office informs: “We have also funded Law of Armed Conflict training to help commanders train their fighters to understand their responsibilities and obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.” Given their track record of near unique, mediaeval barbarity, the “training” is clearly falling on deaf ears.
The UK of course, is in no position to lecture on the law of armed conflict since the newly unelected Prime Minister, Theresa May, has vowed to halt all cases against British service men and women brought by Iraqis who allege torture, murder of relatives, and varying unimaginable abuses. So much for “responsibilities and obligations under human rights and humanitarian law.”
British generosity is seemingly boundless in murderous meddling in other nations. “Media activists” have been given £5.3 million: “UK funded projects are helping establish a network of independent media outlets across Syria, whose work has included sending out messages about personal safety after the regime’s chemical weapons attack in Ghouta and, more recently, active reporting produced by civil society groups and the likes of the ‘White Helmets’ across Twitter and Facebook accounts.”
The “regime’s chemical weapons attack on Ghouta” has of course, been roundly disproved despite the best efforts of Western propaganda. As Eric Draitser has written (4):
The cynic might ponder that funding “media activists” and the “The White Helmets” to possibly “actively (mis)report” is blatant propaganda. As the propoganda master, Joseph Goebbels knew: Propaganda is the art of persuasion – persuading others that your ‘side of the story’ is correct – with mega money and resources thrown at the “persuasion.”
The UK’s arguable illegal munificence also extends to: “ … working with other international donors to establish and build up the Free Syrian Police (FSP) a moderate police force in opposition-controlled areas … “
Breathtaking. Another re-run of Iraq:
Disband the police, army, all structures of State – and Iraq is the soul searing, haunting, admonishing ghost, mourning the vibrant, cohesive, civil society (for all its complexities, as most societies) it was prior to the embargo and Iraq Liberation Act (1998) which stated that: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq…” and signed into law on 31st October 1998, by President Bill Clinton.
As mentioned previously, there is now of course the Syria Accountability and Liberation Act of 2010 (H.R. 1206.) Spot the parallels.
“The White Helmets” have also benefitted from $23 million from the US, according to State Department spokesman, Mark Toner (27th April 2016) and €4 million from the government of the Netherlands. Last week Germany announced increasing this year’s donation to €7 million. Japan has also chipped in.
A great deal of money, it would seem, is being thrown at insurgents and illegal immigrants in a sovereign country, awarding themselves the title of Syrian Civil Defence. Yet they do not even have an emergency telephone number. As Vanessa Beeley (5) has pointed out in extensive writings on the subject, the real Syria Civil Defence was established in 1953, is a Member of the International Civil Defence Organisation whose partners include the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs – and as all national emergency services, they have a telephone number: 113.
Among the myriad tasks the “White Helmets” claim to undertake is: “The provision of medical services – including first aid – at the point of injury.” Why then were they trained not by expert first responders, paramedics, civil emergency operatives, but by a mercenary, sorry “private contractor”?
According to Wikipedia: “Founder of Syria’s White Helmets, James Le Mesurier is a British ‘security’ specialist and ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier has also been placed in a series of high-profile posts at the United Nations, European Union, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”
Equally interesting is Le Mesurier’s own site (6):
“Democratisation programmes” eh? George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-four” had a “Re-education Committee”, but let’s not get too carried away.
On Tuesday 11 October 2016, the UK’s arguably combative Andrew Mitchell MP, ex-Royal Tank Regiment, who allegedly called Downing Street Police after an altercation “f ***** g plebs”, was granted an emergency three-hour debate in the House of Commons on Syria after allegations by the ‘White Helmets’ that Russian military jets and Syrian helicopters were bombing civilians in eastern Aleppo.
Mitchell stormed the debate all guns blazing, calling the alleged situation “akin to the attack on Guernica during the Spanish civil war” and suggesting the RAF should be empowered to shoot down Russian and Syrian aircraft. He also pushed for a “no fly zone.” As is known from Libya, that is a Western-only fly zone obliterating all in its sights. Guernica indeed.
Again of course, all but Russian and Syrian aircraft are there illegally, but Andrew Mitchell is being advised among others by former CIA Director General David Petraeus, who was also former Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan and of Multinational Forces in Iraq. Not really a mini think tank, some might speculate, where the rule of law is going to have highest priority.
Mitchell also called for extra funding for – you guessed it – “The White Helmets.”
Incidentally, there are rigid protocols for first responders, paramount among which is to protect the injured, the traumatized, from publicity and identification, in their vulnerability.
“The White Helmets” are seemingly never without camera crews handy recording a small body, face facing the camera, dust covered, blood spattered, clothes awry, in the arms of the “rescuer.”
“Lights, camera, action”? Heaven forbid.
Notes
1.https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...on-Humanitarian_Support_-_Public_Document.pdf
2. http://en.etilaf.org
3. http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/03/whats-the-price-of-air-strikes-5542341/
4. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-in...syria-is-still-the-main-course-for-us/5470828
5. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-re...helmets-as-terrorist-linked-imposters/5547528
6. http://www.maydayrescue.org/content/james-le-mesurier-0
Copyright © Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, 2016
https://off-guardian.org/2016/10/17...-opposition-aka-terrorists-with-a-human-face/
How Britain Funded Syria’s “Moderate Armed Opposition” (aka Terrorists with a Human Face)
by Vaska https://vaskaxtumir.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/my-inaugural-page-2/
by Felicity Arbuthnot, via Global Research
A document (1, pdf) produced last December by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, headed: “ UK Humanitarian Aid in Response to The Syria Conflict”, makes interesting reading.
The British government it states, has spent “over £100 million” since 2012, “working closely with a range of actors” to “find a political solution to the conflict and prepare to rebuild the country in the post Assad era.” (Emphasis added.)
Our efforts … include providing more than £67 million of support to the Syrian opposition.”
One of the “actors” to benefit from hefty chunks of British taxpayers moneys is the Syrian National Coalition whose website (2) states, under “Mission Statement and Goals”:
“The coalition will do everything in its power to reach the goal of overthrowing the Assad regime …” and to “Establish a transitional government …” (Emphasis added.)
Thus the UK government is overtly supporting the illegal overthrow of yet another sovereign government.
This all reads like a re-run of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraq National Congress and Iyad Allawi’s Iraq National Accord, backed by the British and US governments to equally criminally overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Iraq’s football pitches, gardens and back yards turned graveyards, probably three million deaths between the embargo, the 1991 thirty two country assault, the 2003 blitzkrieg and invasion – ongoing – the ruins of the “Cradle of Civilisation” of which Syria is equally custodian, are silent witness to that gargantuan crime against humanity – and history. Will Washington and Whitehall never learn – or is destruction of civil societies, Nazi-like aggression, illegal overthrows and rivers of blood their raison d’être?
Incidentally, Foreign Office accounting farcically includes: “more than £29 Million to reduce the impact of the conflict on the region.” Stopping dropping British bombs would surely be the most practical way to do that – and persuading their US “coalition partners” to do the same. Yet more nauseating, murderous, hypocrisy.
Talking of reducing “the impact of conflict on the region” – here is what the UK is contributing to destroying it – courtesy again the (un-consulted) British taxpayer:
The British government document informs that:
To date, there are over 2,700 volunteers in 110 civil defence stations across northern Syria, trained and equipped with help from UK funding … The ‘White Helmets’ as they are more commonly known
The “White Helmets” of course, only work in the areas held by the “moderate” organ eating, child decapitating, human incinerating, crucifying “opposition.”
In Foreign Office parlance, under the heading: “Moderate armed opposition: £4.4 million”, it is explained that this has been devoted to “life saving equipment”, presumably for the head choppers since the “life savers” appear to be their guests. Indeed the “White Helmets” website states that: “They are the largest civil society organisation operating in areas outside of government control …” (Emphasis added.)
Also, near farcically, the Foreign Office informs: “We have also funded Law of Armed Conflict training to help commanders train their fighters to understand their responsibilities and obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.” Given their track record of near unique, mediaeval barbarity, the “training” is clearly falling on deaf ears.
The UK of course, is in no position to lecture on the law of armed conflict since the newly unelected Prime Minister, Theresa May, has vowed to halt all cases against British service men and women brought by Iraqis who allege torture, murder of relatives, and varying unimaginable abuses. So much for “responsibilities and obligations under human rights and humanitarian law.”
British generosity is seemingly boundless in murderous meddling in other nations. “Media activists” have been given £5.3 million: “UK funded projects are helping establish a network of independent media outlets across Syria, whose work has included sending out messages about personal safety after the regime’s chemical weapons attack in Ghouta and, more recently, active reporting produced by civil society groups and the likes of the ‘White Helmets’ across Twitter and Facebook accounts.”
The “regime’s chemical weapons attack on Ghouta” has of course, been roundly disproved despite the best efforts of Western propaganda. As Eric Draitser has written (4):
The cynic might ponder that funding “media activists” and the “The White Helmets” to possibly “actively (mis)report” is blatant propaganda. As the propoganda master, Joseph Goebbels knew: Propaganda is the art of persuasion – persuading others that your ‘side of the story’ is correct – with mega money and resources thrown at the “persuasion.”
The UK’s arguable illegal munificence also extends to: “ … working with other international donors to establish and build up the Free Syrian Police (FSP) a moderate police force in opposition-controlled areas … “
Breathtaking. Another re-run of Iraq:
Disband the police, army, all structures of State – and Iraq is the soul searing, haunting, admonishing ghost, mourning the vibrant, cohesive, civil society (for all its complexities, as most societies) it was prior to the embargo and Iraq Liberation Act (1998) which stated that: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq…” and signed into law on 31st October 1998, by President Bill Clinton.
As mentioned previously, there is now of course the Syria Accountability and Liberation Act of 2010 (H.R. 1206.) Spot the parallels.
“The White Helmets” have also benefitted from $23 million from the US, according to State Department spokesman, Mark Toner (27th April 2016) and €4 million from the government of the Netherlands. Last week Germany announced increasing this year’s donation to €7 million. Japan has also chipped in.
A great deal of money, it would seem, is being thrown at insurgents and illegal immigrants in a sovereign country, awarding themselves the title of Syrian Civil Defence. Yet they do not even have an emergency telephone number. As Vanessa Beeley (5) has pointed out in extensive writings on the subject, the real Syria Civil Defence was established in 1953, is a Member of the International Civil Defence Organisation whose partners include the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs – and as all national emergency services, they have a telephone number: 113.
Among the myriad tasks the “White Helmets” claim to undertake is: “The provision of medical services – including first aid – at the point of injury.” Why then were they trained not by expert first responders, paramedics, civil emergency operatives, but by a mercenary, sorry “private contractor”?
According to Wikipedia: “Founder of Syria’s White Helmets, James Le Mesurier is a British ‘security’ specialist and ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier has also been placed in a series of high-profile posts at the United Nations, European Union, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”
Equally interesting is Le Mesurier’s own site (6):
“Democratisation programmes” eh? George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-four” had a “Re-education Committee”, but let’s not get too carried away.
On Tuesday 11 October 2016, the UK’s arguably combative Andrew Mitchell MP, ex-Royal Tank Regiment, who allegedly called Downing Street Police after an altercation “f ***** g plebs”, was granted an emergency three-hour debate in the House of Commons on Syria after allegations by the ‘White Helmets’ that Russian military jets and Syrian helicopters were bombing civilians in eastern Aleppo.
Mitchell stormed the debate all guns blazing, calling the alleged situation “akin to the attack on Guernica during the Spanish civil war” and suggesting the RAF should be empowered to shoot down Russian and Syrian aircraft. He also pushed for a “no fly zone.” As is known from Libya, that is a Western-only fly zone obliterating all in its sights. Guernica indeed.
Again of course, all but Russian and Syrian aircraft are there illegally, but Andrew Mitchell is being advised among others by former CIA Director General David Petraeus, who was also former Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan and of Multinational Forces in Iraq. Not really a mini think tank, some might speculate, where the rule of law is going to have highest priority.
Mitchell also called for extra funding for – you guessed it – “The White Helmets.”
Incidentally, there are rigid protocols for first responders, paramount among which is to protect the injured, the traumatized, from publicity and identification, in their vulnerability.
“The White Helmets” are seemingly never without camera crews handy recording a small body, face facing the camera, dust covered, blood spattered, clothes awry, in the arms of the “rescuer.”
“Lights, camera, action”? Heaven forbid.
Notes
1.https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...on-Humanitarian_Support_-_Public_Document.pdf
2. http://en.etilaf.org
3. http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/03/whats-the-price-of-air-strikes-5542341/
4. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-in...syria-is-still-the-main-course-for-us/5470828
5. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-re...helmets-as-terrorist-linked-imposters/5547528
6. http://www.maydayrescue.org/content/james-le-mesurier-0
Copyright © Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, 2016
@DenisIrwin Stop posting walls of text. You're not supposed to paste the entire article as that deprives the source of traffic.
If only the BBC were as clued up on Syria as the average Joe on twitter. They're now breaking the news I saw on twitter and linked to on here 12 hours ago.
Seems as though Russians have lost patience with double-crossers and have decided to press home attack on remaining rebels in E Aleppo to finish them off. According to latest tweets that is. I expect the BBC will clarify things. Tomorrow sometime.
Edit: Russians saying "finished"; Syrians saying "suspended"
Notheredit:
Edit: Russians saying "finished"; Syrians saying "suspended"
Notheredit:
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@DenisIrwin, you wisely suggested to Raoul a while back to exercise skepticism with regard to his sources. I'd really advise you to do the same when it comes to a source like Global Research. Much of what you've posted there is conspiracism built on some nuggets of truth.
In terms of what is actually feasible rather than my pipe dream, I think it's is definitely preferable that Assad stays in power over the al Qaeda aligned rebels. That is not an endorsement of Assad on my part, an Assad 'victory' is not a solution to the problems that generated the crisis in the first place, and I believe the regime bears the most responsibility (over the course of 40 years in charge) for the state of the country and its collapse in 2011 (see the back and forth with Mihajlovic and Danny from here: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/isis-in-iraq-and-syria.392179/page-182#post-19868831). But we are where we are, and this has been on the cards since the opposition embraced al Qaeda in 2012 if not before.
The Kurdish forces are perhaps worthy of support as long as they limit their goals to the realistic prospect of securing autonomy along the same lines as northern Iraq. If they try to expand beyond Kurdish majority areas or try to use Rojava as a base for attacking Turkey, then that's not something to support and they'll inevtiably bring disaster on themselves.
There are no nice options on the horizon. Syria's future is tied to the future of the region as a whole. My guess is that a Turkey-Iran Cold War will eventually emerge over the next few years to shape the region, and unfortunately Syria and Iraq will be right at the centre of that. It's very hard to envision peace breaking out before the next decade. But I think some kind of partition will eventually emerge, indeed the signs are already there.
Ah, I was thinking about this, actually I don't know much about the details of his regime. I guess I've always had him up there with the worst due to his personality. Also Libya in theory shouldn't be as tough a society to rule over as Syria and Iraq - it doesn't have the same kind of ethnic and sectarian cleavages as those two. So it's not clear to me why a guy like Qadhafi emerged as dictator there. But maybe he shouldn't be compared with Saddam (definitely the worst of the worst).
In terms of what is actually feasible rather than my pipe dream, I think it's is definitely preferable that Assad stays in power over the al Qaeda aligned rebels. That is not an endorsement of Assad on my part, an Assad 'victory' is not a solution to the problems that generated the crisis in the first place, and I believe the regime bears the most responsibility (over the course of 40 years in charge) for the state of the country and its collapse in 2011 (see the back and forth with Mihajlovic and Danny from here: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/isis-in-iraq-and-syria.392179/page-182#post-19868831). But we are where we are, and this has been on the cards since the opposition embraced al Qaeda in 2012 if not before.
The Kurdish forces are perhaps worthy of support as long as they limit their goals to the realistic prospect of securing autonomy along the same lines as northern Iraq. If they try to expand beyond Kurdish majority areas or try to use Rojava as a base for attacking Turkey, then that's not something to support and they'll inevtiably bring disaster on themselves.
There are no nice options on the horizon. Syria's future is tied to the future of the region as a whole. My guess is that a Turkey-Iran Cold War will eventually emerge over the next few years to shape the region, and unfortunately Syria and Iraq will be right at the centre of that. It's very hard to envision peace breaking out before the next decade. But I think some kind of partition will eventually emerge, indeed the signs are already there.
Ah, I was thinking about this, actually I don't know much about the details of his regime. I guess I've always had him up there with the worst due to his personality. Also Libya in theory shouldn't be as tough a society to rule over as Syria and Iraq - it doesn't have the same kind of ethnic and sectarian cleavages as those two. So it's not clear to me why a guy like Qadhafi emerged as dictator there. But maybe he shouldn't be compared with Saddam (definitely the worst of the worst).
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Howard Nurse's influence growing, I see.
Do us a favour? Tell me what's true and what's not?
What do people see as the next move by the west/rebels.
Will they accept defeat in Syria?
try to rebuild covertly and try again or set in motion a whole new level and go on a boots on the ground offensive?
Will they accept defeat in Syria?
try to rebuild covertly and try again or set in motion a whole new level and go on a boots on the ground offensive?
Nah, I'm not arsed going through those articles chasing down every source for you. I'll give you one example why - you've posted a link to a Veteran's Today article above. Here are a couple of other articles they've published in the recent past:
Secrets of the Holohoax and Zionist Fantasies
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/08/03/secrets-of-the-holohoax-and-zionist-fantasies/
Alien Agenda V: World Zionists Play Russian Roulette With Alien ETs
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/0...ionists-play-russian-roulette-with-alien-ets/
This suggests you've made up your mind on what you believe and are simply posting any stuff you can find which confirms it.
Like I suggested above, if you exercise the same caution when approaching stories you reflexively believe as you do towards those stories you reflexively don't believe, then I think you'll be able to make your own mind up and explain how you came to your conclusions independently without just posting link after link to dubious 'news' sites.
In the meantime, here are some soruces on Syria that I consider mostly reliable - they don't necessarily try to hide their bias, but are generally honest in their approach I think:
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/
http://www.unz.com/author/patrick-cockburn/
http://angryarab.blogspot.ie/
https://twitter.com/ajaltamimi
https://twitter.com/aronlund
https://twitter.com/thomasjoscelyn
https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa
https://twitter.com/Hayder_alKhoei
https://twitter.com/hxhassan
https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai
https://twitter.com/FabriceBalanche
https://twitter.com/p_vanostaeyen
https://twitter.com/LongWarJournal
https://twitter.com/KirkHSowell
https://twitter.com/edwardedark
(Edit): @DenisIrwin if you're interested in Syrian or Iraqi history then I can recommend some good sources and books there as well.
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@2cents But back on subject, every single day of this ongoing war in Syria I am reminded of why I said right from the start I did not want the US to get involved.
OK. The verterans today link was simply to show some phtos that showed John McCain with some terrorist leaders. I watched the Daily Show clip but it seemed to finish before those photos appeared. Are you going to tell me the photos are faked? They appear elsewhere - although I realise, with the web being what it is, photoshop fakes can spread all over the place quickly.
I did cross-check quite a few things in that Terrorism with a “Human Face”: The History of America’s Death Squads piece which held up. I've seen a lot of mindblowingly evil sh!t on videos from that area and that era so nothing much would surprise me. I watched some videos of interviews with Robert Ford and took a strong personal dislike of the dude. I read other articles containing stories about and interviews with him. I guess, yeah, I decided he was the type of utter cnut that could and probably did all the things that article said he did.
As for the current situation... I know there are some real nasties among the rebels. Head-choppers etc.. Everything makes me want to believe that Assad's regime would have been bad but not evil without evil being injected into Syria - the sort of evil I was talking about from Iraq - it fits with the narrative. I read up on some Syrian history so I know there was some bad shit that went down way before 2011 - really big massacre type shit. I also had a fairly good idea that Syria had had terrorist training camps for years. In fact, I thought they were much more likely to have been harbouring terrorists than Iraq before the US decided to go for Saddam. Ah... tired. Help.
When did you start following this conflict? Everyone following it from the start knows about McCain meeting those guys, he didn't exactly try to keep it secret at the time - it was part of his (failed) campaign to get Obama to give greater support to the rebels. McCain has been a massive critic of Obama for not providing more help to them. He is also a war-mongering idiot.
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They're now in a very precarious position.
As it stands, the two remaining opposition strongholds are Idlib and Raqqa. The trouble is, Idlib is currently being controlled by Al-Nusra (Al Qaeda) whereas Raqqa as we all know is under the control of ISIS. So if they were to join them they'd be seen to be openly collaborating with two extremist factions, which puts their Western backers in a very awkward position. They could launch a counter-offensive and take a few towns, but in time the government will likely take them back and all that would have been achieved is more people dying for nothing, most of whom will likely have been civilians.
IMO the best thing they can do is pack it in and accelerate the end of this war, or join the Kurds in the SDF coalition and take back land from ISIS, which they can then leverage for autonomy as part of some pro-democracy opposition movement. Sadly, I don't see the Turks or Gulf Cartel allowing them to do so.
Mate - I've been without a TV since I was made illegally homeless in June 2015. I was then street homeless for 6 months while trying to work as often as I could as a van driver on minimum wage (when I could get enough sleep between driving jobs). The council housed me a year ago. Since then I've been working, sometimes 60-70hrs per week. Still no TV. The only newspapers I've seen have been on the bus to or from work. I've had wifi for my laptop when I could afford it - which hasn't been all that often. So really, I've only picked up on what has been going on in Syria over this past few days when I've been bed-ridden with "man flu". It's horrible. I hate that there's so much propaganda. I know the UK and US governments are funding fecking terrorists - which is well fecked up. I am completely thrown by Trump's win. His appointments are fully as bad as I expected. The Tories have a special place in my hear... spleen. Everything is bad bad bad.
This is the key really. It looks like the Turks and Gulfies have abandoned the rebels in Aleppo. Perhaps they'll do the same in Idlib. I think they want eastern Syria in return. Assad doesn't seem to have the resources to retake Idlib and Raqqa simultaneously. And the Kurds wisely don't want to march on Raqqa. So the theory goes that the Turkish-backed rebels will be the ones to march on Raqqa (eventually), and that they've been given the nod by the Russians (supporting Assad) and the Americans (supporting the SDF) to do so. If that happens, then Syria will be partitioned.
The Iraqi government won't like it though, they've the most to lose now by having a Turkish-backed rebel regime in Raqqa.
The Turks are trying to play that same dangerous game in Mosul, citing their historical claim of the city.
Both scenarios are going to put the Iraqi government in a awkward position, considering Iran will certainly object to them and could easily galvanise the powerful militias in Iraq to outright reject such proposals.
The world is really really seriously fecked up. How can americans and brits not know that their governments are supporting head-chopping freaks?!
Completely off-topic but I have been arguing with you a bit in this thread so wanted to say I'm really sorry to hear about the shit you've been going through. Puts my own moaning about 2016 into perspective. Massive credit to you for turning things round and here's hoping it's onwards and upwards for you, personally, in 2017 whatever happens in Syria!
The short answer is its the media.
MSM is depicting this conflict as a war between the evil emperor Assad and the valiant rebel alliance. Assad + Russia + Iran = bad, opposition and allies = good.
Though fortunately their outreach is waning and I actually think more people are seeing through the BS.
Hear hear, kudos to your resilience, it would have broken most people, myself included.
Hence why I think in the long-term this will evolve into a Turkey-Iran conflict of some kind. It's already one element among many of the conflict since 2011, but the Turks and Iranians have kind of tip-toed around the implications of their positions on Syria so far. If this scenario plays out it'll be harder and harder for them to avoid the reality that their regional ambitions are not mutually compatible.