Israel and Saudi Arabias Priorities in Syria.

Covert
Militarism and the Lebanonization Strategy
By Phil Greaves
Global Research, February 18, 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Current developments both inside and outside of Syria have shown that the primary sponsors of
the extremist-dominated insurgency namely, the United States, France, the United Kingdom,
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Israel and Turkey arent quite ready to throw in the towel.
One may be forgiven for thinking the Obama administration had decided to abandon the policy
of regime change following the failed attempt to incite intervention, through the chemical
weapons casus belli in August. But the harsh reality remains that the above mentioned alliance is
indeed continuing its covert military support of the insurgency, in one form or another, in the full
knowledge the vast majority of rebels are religious fundamentalists with a sectarian agenda, and
vehemently opposed to any form of democracy or political pluralism.
Primarily, the continued support is a product of the American Empires overarching strategy of
Full Spectrum Dominance over resource-rich and strategically placed regions of the globe, via
subversion, economic and military aggression; a policy imposed to varying degrees upon any
state unwilling to accept full US subordination. This aggressive US stance is by no means
exclusive to periods of heightened tension or crises; it is a permanent one, brought forward to its
violent climax purely through Machiavellian opportunism. In Syrias case, the Arab uprisings
provided the United States and its allies the perfect opening to set in motion the subversive plans
they had been working on since at least 2006. The possibility of removing an opposing
government that refuses to abide by American/Israeli diktat was simply too good a chance to be
missed. Accordingly, and from a very early stage, the US made attempts to facilitate and support
the violent elements in Syria, while its media arms were busy conflating them with localised
legitimate protesters.
Since the US took the typically reckless decision to support, widen and exacerbate the militant
elements, the policy has been an abject failure. Clearly, from the tone espoused by Western
diplomats and propagandists, and the oft-repeated slogan of Assads days are numbered, they
expected swift regime change. These desires were largely based on American hubris and the
hope that the Libya No Fly Zone scenario would gain traction in the UN security council.
Contrary to such desires, Russia and Chinas anger regarding NATOs destruction of Libya and
Gaddafis assassination, meant that any similar resolutions put forward on Syria would face
immediate veto. In turn this has proven to be a turning point in the modern relationship between
the permanent members of the security council, the full ramifications of which are yet to
materialise. Moreover, it proved to be a turning point in the Syrian crisis itself; knowing Russia
and China would block any attempts to give NATO its second outing as Al Qaedas airforce, the
US once again chose the policy of further covert militarism, drastically increasing funds and
weapons deliveries to the rebels parallel to the sectarian incitement campaigns espoused by
Salafi-Wahhabi clerics across the Gulf in the hope they could overturn the Syrian army through
terrorism and a brutal sectarian war of attrition.
As a consequence of the failure to remove Assad or destroy the Syrian government and its
apparatus, the Obama administration, reluctant and politically incapable of engaging in overt acts
of aggression, is employing a realpolitik strategy; using primarily covert militarism to appease
the desires of NeoConservative hawks in Congress, and its more zealous regional influences
emanating from Riyadh and Tel Aviv, while avoiding the possibility of being dragged into
another overt military intervention.
In turn, this double-edged strategy feeds the false public perception of the American Empire,
which the pseudo-pragmatists and neoliberal propagandists are so eager to uphold and is so
fundamental to US Empire-building; that of an inherently altruistic force, acting as global arbiter,
grudgingly subverting, invading, bombing, and intervening in sovereign nations affairs for the
good of all mankind. As long as this false perception is upheld, the sharp-edge to the grotesque
charade of US realpolitik that of covert militarism and state-sponsored terrorism continues
unabated. Clearly, the US Empire is in no rush to end the bloodshed in Syria, its priorities, as
they have been since the start of 2011, are to remove, or at least severely disable and weaken the
Syrian government and state, regardless of the consequences to the civilian population.
By using its control of state-funding, the arms flow, and therefore the strength and capabilities of
the insurgency as a whole, the Obama administration has employed futile carrot and stick tactics
in attempts to pressure the Syrian government during the current negotiations phase into
acceding to US demands and giving up its sovereignty with both the US-led alliance, and Syria
and its international allies, primarily Russia and Iran, in the full knowledge the rebels lack both
the domestic support, and manpower necessary, to oust Assad or defeat the Syrian army alone.
Recent reports allude to the stick of US Democracy having its most recent outing in the form of
new and improved weapons supplies to the rebels, allegedly including MANPADS. This
comes immediately off the back of the designed-to-fail Geneva peace talks and can be
interpreted as a direct result of Washingtons failure to enforce their objectives: the stick is an
endless supply of state-sponsored terrorism, the carrot is turning off the tap.
Whether the new arms shipments actually increase the rebels ability to inflict damage on the
Syrian government remains to be seen, and is highly improbable at this stage as the Syrian army
moves into the Qalamoun mountains to liberate the rebel-held town of Yabroud, in turn securing
vital transit and logistical routes from Lebanon. The likely outcome of an increased arms flow to
the rebels in the south, as evidenced at every interval of US-instigated militarization, will be a
repeat of the same devastating results: more civilian displacement, adding to the already critical
refugee crisis; more rebel destruction of civilian infrastructure, adding to further food and utility
shortages; and many more lives lost.
Lebanonization a substitute for regime change?
As is proving to be the case, if the United States and its allies are incapable of removing the
Syrian government via proxy forces without an increasingly unpopular Western military
intervention, and Assads position and domestic support remain steadfast, then a Lebanonization
strategy may well be the substitute optimal scenario the US and its allies are now working
toward.
Encouraging, exacerbating, and inciting division between Arabs has been the long-term strategy
for the Zionist establishment since the colonialists first usurped Palestinian land in 1948 with
specific effort made toward fomenting conflict along sectarian lines. The strategy of division is
directed toward any Arab state or government that refuses to abide by Zionist demands. Israeli
strategist Oded Yinons now infamous A strategy for Israel in the 1980s dubbed the Yinon
Plan provides perhaps the clearest account of Israels intentions toward its Arab neighbours:
The total disintegration of Lebanon into five regional local governments is the precedent for the
entire Arab world The dissolution of Syria, and later Iraq, into districts of ethnic and religious
minorities following the example of Lebanon is Israels main long-range objective on the Eastern
front. The present military weakening of these states is the short-range objective. Syria will
disintegrate into several states along the lines of its ethnic and religious structure As a result,
there will be a Shiite Alawi state, the district of Aleppo will be a Sunni state, and the district of
Damascus another state which is hostile to the northern one. The Druze even those of the
Golan should forma state in Hauran and in northern Jordan the oil-rich but very divided and
internally strife-ridden Iraq is certainly a candidate to fill Israels goals Every kind of inter-
Arab confrontation will hasten the achievement of the supreme goal, namely breaking up Iraq
into elements like Syria and Lebanon.
When viewed in this context, it can be no coincidence that US Secretary of State John Kerry is
desperately pursuing a fait accompli with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Contrary to the sickening media portrayal of the US as impartial peacebroker, Kerrys eagerness
to pursue a deal at this moment in time is a direct result of the Syrian conflict, and the
divisions within the resistance camp it has created. The US and Israel are now attempting to
force through an Israeli-oriented peace deal with the corrupt PA that will inevitably be both a
failure, and against the Palestinians interests. Staunch allies of Palestinian resistance, currently
bogged down fighting Al Qaeda ideologues in Syria and defusing car-bombs bound for Dahiyeh,
are in no position to support the Palestinians against Israel in their hour of need, the US and
Israel fully grasp the importance of isolating genuine Palestinian resistance from the few Arab
states and actors it receives support. In his latest speech, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed
Hasan Nasrallah reminded his listeners of this very crucial issue:
the US Administration is seeking, along with the Zionist Administration to put an end to the
Palestinian cause, and it considers that this is the best time for that because the Arab and Islamic
worlds are absent today, and every country is occupied with its own problems.
In a similar fashion, the US has used the Syrian conflict as a lever against Iran in the nuclear
negotiations, Washingtons longstanding attempts to pacify and subordinate an independent Iran
has undoubtedly played a major role in US policy on Syria perhaps the defining role.
Consequently, both the Palestinian and Iranian conflicts with Israel and the United States are
now, as they have always been intended to some extent in US calculations, inextricably linked to
resolving the Syrian crisis.
True to form, Israels evident glee at the destruction in Syria and overt preference for the
removal of Assad and the Syrian government, with the devastation that would entail, has proven
at times hard for them to conceal. Furthering the point, just one of many examples of Israeli-
rebel collusion came in a recent report from the National (falsely portraying the rebels Israel is
reaching out to as ostensibly moderate) which relayed that hundreds of rebels have received
treatment in Israeli hospitals and been sent back into Syria with up to a $1000 in cash. Israel
have made further efforts to consolidate contacts with the rebels in the south, regardless of the
level of fundamentalism, and cooperated with rebel factions during the Israeli bombings on
Latakia and Damascus.
In a feeble attempt to whitewash this collusion, Israeli propagandists are busily spreading the
misinformation that Israel is facilitating the Druze community in the south of Syria; yet the
Druze community are firmly allied with the Syrian government. In reality, Israeli attempts to
cultivate relations with the communities and rebels in the south should be correctly viewed as
attempts to create enforced safe-zones around the occupied Golan Heights, in furtherance of
the Zionists land-grabbing expansionist aspirations. Accordingly, Israels fraudulent neutrality is
completely exposed by their collusion with the rebels to meet their own interests, and overt acts
of aggression against the Syrian army.
There are many other indications that allude to prominent factions of the US alliance being
preferable of, and encouraging an outcome of division, most notably Israel, but simple logic
determines that Saudi Arabia, Israels most vital strategic partner in the region, and the actor
from within the US alliance that possesses the most material influence and political will to
support fundamentalists and terrorism, would also approve of the disintegration of the Syrian
state, primarily viewing it as a blow to Shia expansion. The Saudi and Gulf fixation on
sectarian themes, to mask what are essentially politically oriented conflicts, is also intentionally
built to intensify the strategy of division in multi-ethnic, religiously plural societies as
evidenced in virtually every country fundamentalist Gulf proxies have been unleashed upon,
most recently in Libya.
Yet even the Saudis have limits to their own capabilities and decisions, ultimately they rely on
the military largesse and protection of the United States, and will therefore reign in the terrorist
networks if push comes to shove. Hence, the recent Saudi attempts to dissociate from Al Qaeda
and the various extremists fighting in Syria can be seen as largely cosmetic and for public
consumption. In reality, the Saudi leadership see Al Qaeda and its extremist confrres as
malleable proxies of no real threat to themselves, while constituting a critical component of
Saudi foreign policy and covert aggression.
Of far higher importance to both Israel and Saudi Arabias confluent interests in the region,
which in turn play a critical role in US calculations, are the very states the fundamentalist proxies
are currently being sponsored to wage war upon; namely, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. The
disintegration of the resistance axis is the utmost priority for the states that drive US policy
in the Middle East, the supposed threat faced by militant fundamentalist ideologues,
originally created, and intermittently sponsored by the US and its allies, is merely an
afterthought.
The US Empire, in its efforts to contain, and therefore dominate and control such a strategic and
resource-rich region, is more than content to allow its reactionary and sectarian clients to incite
the conflict necessary to subvert, fracture and divide the inevitable power a unified Middle East
could claim: if only their progressive aspirations and unity were not repeatedly set back by
Zionist occupation and manufactured antagonism.
Phil Greaves is a UK based writer on UK/US Foreign Policy, with a focus on the Arab World,
post WWII. http://notthemsmdotcom.wordpress.com/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-and-saudi-arabias-priorities-in-syria-covert-militarism-and-the-
lebanonization-strategy/5369324

One Marines View: Keep Syria Secular, Pluralistic, and
Free of Foreign Insurgents
By Brad Hoff
Global Research, January 19, 2014
levantreport.com
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Media Disinformation, Politics and Religion, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Only a couple of major newspapers in the world have bothered to regularly cover the plight of
Syrias diverse religious and ethnic minorities living in rebel held areas. Lebanons The Daily
Star and Al-Akhbar newspapers have featured consistent coverage of Syrias Armenians, Kurds,
Iraqis, Druze, Christians, and Ismailis and the threats these communities face in opposition
held parts of Syria. Read the latest Al-Akhbar coverage of two Armenian Christian business
owners who dared to stay in Northern Syria, attempting to hold on to their family livelihood in a
rebel controlled area. They were arrested, forced to convert, executed with bullets to the head,
and denied burial.
The Syrian opposition was sold to the world by mainstream Western press from day one of the
Syria conflict as representing democracy, freedom, and a pluralist future for a new Syria. But the
last couple of years testify the complete opposite. Anyone who actually spent time in Syria prior
to the conflict knows that Baathist Syria has always been unique in the region for the high
degree of freedom that minorities exercise.
Ive personally seen the very public way that Syrias religious and ethnic minorities comfortably
fit in to Syrian society. One can see crosses everywhere in nearly every Syrian urban center, or
hear church services transmitted over loudspeakers in competition with the Muslim call to prayer
echoed from nearby mosques. The multi-colored Druze star is visible in suburbs of Damascus
and all over villages in the south of the country. Any visitor to Aleppo immediately notices the
very public Armenian presence with Armenian script proudly displayed in market places.
In the Hauran region, one can visit a recently erected huge government sponsored memorial to
the Druze patriarch Sultan al-Atrash, who famously said, Religion is for God, the fatherland is
for all. In the dozens of hotels around the Damascus city center, one encounters Kurdish
bellhops who are proud to tell visitors of their Kurdish identity. One of the largest Christ statues
in the world was recently erected over the ancient village of Saidnaya. The Orthodox monastery
that sits at its base was, in the last months, the recipient of rocket attack by rebel insurgents
hoping to gain control of the mountain that dominates the surrounding villages.
Speaking of Saidnaya, on one of my visits in the mid-2000s I was shocked to see special media
coverage on SANA Syrias national TV news station, of a reported miracle connected to the
villages 6th century Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery. A wealthy Saudi Muslim man was
attacked and robbed while driving to visit the Christian monastery (revered even among area
Muslims as a place of spiritual healing). The mans throat was slit and he was stuffed into the
back of his car and left to die. When the police found him, the man swore that the Virgin Mary
came to him, healed his slit throat, and restored him to health there on the spot. The story made
national prime time news. Perhaps the most miraculous aspect to the episode for me was the fact
that the story of a miracle connected to a Christian village aired on national news in a country
that was 70-75% Sunni Muslim.
This is a side of Syria only known to those who have spent a significant amount of time there.
Sadly, the standard narrative of the Syria conflict has been constructed by reporters, pundits, and
politicians who have hardly stepped foot inside Syria, if at all. This is why, even aside from the
silly singular reliance on rebel sources for information, subtle but hugely significant mistakes are
made with even the basic facts of Syrian society and history. Hugely influential outlets such as
the New York Times, Washington Post, or CNN routinely identify the regime as Shia-
dominated or alternately, Assad as pro-Shia. From this, they construct and over-emphasize
their narrative of Shia vs. Sunni sectarian civil war.
Anyone who knows anything about the esoteric Alawite identity and faith knows it is nothing
close to Shiism, whatever the historical roots might be. Syrias close relationship with Iran is,
and has always been, a matter of convenience as part of a self-imagined axis of resistance. This
has little to do with Shia religious ties and identity.
During the 2006 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, I was walking through the Christian
section of Old City Damascus. I walked past the window of a prominent Christian bakery and
saw large Hezbollah cakes. The cakes featured Hezbollahs green and yellow AK-47 and
clenched fist emblem glazed in icing, as well as small images of a burning Israeli battleship. The
cakes were commemorating Hezbollahs recent successful drone attack of an Israeli warship
stationed off the Lebanese coast. That a Christian baker would make and promote such a cake
had nothing to do with being pro-Shia but was about a shared feeling and identity of
resistance. The idea that Assad (or his regime) is Shiite with a supposed pro-Shia mission is
based in ignorance and disinformation.
Based on my experience living in Syria, my many contacts with Syrians inside the country and
abroad, and my personal grappling with the tragedy that has befallen a beautiful country, Ive
come to one certain conclusion:
The fight in Syria is between those that want to continue Syrias pluralistic and secular
identity those that want to ensure a high degree of personal social and religious freedoms,
and those that want to erect fanatic Sunni rule along the lines of a Taliban or Saudi
religious police state model. The latter, among actual Syrian nationals (as opposed to the mass
flux of foreign fighters), are in the minority; and this means that the current rebel opposition is
in reality an aggressive terrorist insurgency (and this was so much earlier than the major media
pundits will ever recognize). Sadly, this insurgency is only made strong through its significant
Saudi, Qatari, and NATO support and funding. I say all of this while fully acknowledging that
there have been real crimes and shortcomings of the regime.
The Western pundits dont know what to make of Assads continuing to stay in power a reality
contrary to their every prediction of his immediate demise sounded every few months over the
past two years. Since it is they whove attempted to frame the narrative in purely sectarian terms,
they ought to be asked: why hasnt Damascus, with its clear majority Sunni population, thrown
off the hated dictator?
The answer is simple. The majority of Syrians, whether Sunni, Shia, Alawi, Christian, Kurd,
Ismaili, are sane individuals theyve seen what life is like under the alternative. They
recognize that there is a real Syrian national identity, and it goes beyond mere loyalty to the
current ruling clique that happens to be in power, but in Syria as a pluralistic Levantine society
that doesnt want to model itself on Saudi Arabia.
Brad Hoff served as a Marine from 2000-2004 at Headquarters Battalion, Quantico. After
military service he lived, studied, and traveled throughout Syria off and on from 2004-2010. He
currently teaches in Texas.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/one-marines-view-keep-syria-secular-pluralistic-and-free-of-foreign-
insurgents/5365458

Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and Americas War on
Syria
The West's next proxy war is being stopped before it starts in Egypt.
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, March 25, 2014
landdestroyer.blogspot.com
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: ARAB PROTEST MOVEMENT, SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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The unprecedented sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Egypt for
their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman, is the culmination of a
lighting fast, all encompassing security crackdown across the pivotal North African Arab nation.
The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim
Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally sow their chaos in, peaceful and empty.
The New York Times reported in its article, Hundreds of Egyptians Sentenced to Death in
Killing of a Police Officer, that:
A crowd gathered outside a courthouse in the town of Matay erupted in wailing and rage on
Monday when a judge sentenced 529 defendants to death in just the second session of their trial,
convicting them of murdering a police officer in anger at the ouster of the Islamist president.
Here in the provincial capital just a few miles away, schools shut down early, and many stayed
indoors fearing a riot, residents said.
But the crowds went home, and soon the streets were quiet.
The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State
Department. The Washington Posts article, Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death,
stated:
The United States was deeply concerned, and I would say actually pretty shocked, about the
mass death sentences, said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. It defies logic and
certainly does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony, consistent with
international standards, could have been conducted over a two-day period, she said.
While the US continues to feign support for the government in Cairo, it was fully behind the
Muslim Brotherhood-led regime of Mohamed Morsi, its mobs in the streets, and the networks of
NGOs inside Egypt supporting and defending their activities.
The most recent of these NGOs on display is the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
cited by the above mentioned New York Times article which claimed:
We have never heard of anything of this magnitude before inside or outside of Egypt that
was within a judicial system as opposed to a mass execution, said Karim Medhat Ennarah, a
researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who specializes in criminal justice.
It is quite ridiculous, he said, arguing that it would be impossible to prove that 500 people each
played a meaningful role in the killing of a single police officer, especially after just one or two
short sessions of the trial. Clearly this is an attempt to intimidate and terrorize the opposition,
and specifically the Islamist opposition, but why would the judge get so deeply involved in
politics up to this point?
EIPR is funded by among others, the Australian Embassy in Cairo, and carries out the same
familiar role that other Western-funded NGOs did during the Arab Spring in 2011 the
covering up of the oppositions violence and atrocities, and the leveraging of human rights to
condemn the subsequent security crackdowns carried out in return by the state.
How Egypt Got Here
Egypts current turmoil is a direct result of the 2011 so-called Arab Spring. While nations like
Libya lie in ruins with the revolution a success and the Libyan people now subjugated by
pro-Western proxies, and Syria as continues to fight on in a costly 3 year conflict that has cost
tens of thousands of lives, Egypt has taken a different path.

When violent mobs began inching Egypt toward violence of Libyan and Syrian proportions, the
Egyptian military, who has been the primary brokers of power in Egypt for decades, bent with
the winds of change. Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power and the military tolerated the rise of
the Muslim Brotherhood itself into power. However, before they did so, they laid the
groundwork for its eventual undoing.
The military leadership bid its time patiently, waiting for the right moment to unseat the
Brotherhood and swiftly shatter its networks politically and militarily. It was a masterstroke that
has so far saved Egypt from the same fate suffered by other nations still burning in the chaos
unleashed by the Arab Spring.
Egypts Internal Crisis is Driven by External Meddling and Interests

Image: Protests in Egypt.
In January of 2011, we were told that spontaneous, indigenousuprising had begun sweeping
North Africa and the Middle East in what was called the Arab Spring. It would be months
before the Wests media would admit that the US had been behind the uprisings and that they
were anything but spontaneous, or indigenous. In an April 2011 article published by the
New York Times titled, U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings, it was stated:
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping
the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human
Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and
financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic
Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.
The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):
The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and
Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National
Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting
democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million
annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American
government, mainly from the State Department.
Far from simply capitalizing or co-opting genuine unrest, preparations for the Arab Spring
began as early as 2008. Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in
New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as
Movements.org.
There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYMs various
corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM
2008 summit report (page 3 of .pdf) states that the Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the
policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff
members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate,
media, and institutional representatives.
Shortly afterward, April 6 would travel to Serbia to train under US-funded CANVAS, formally
the US-funded NGO Otpor who helped overthrow the government of Serbia in 2000. Otpor,
the New York Times would report, was a well-oiled movement backed by several million
dollars from the United States. After its success it would change its name to CANVAS and
begin training activists to be used in other US-backed regime change operations.
The April 6 Movement, after training with CANVAS, would return to Egypt in 2010, along with
UN IAEA Chief Mohammed ElBaradei. April 6 members would even be arrested while awaiting
for ElBaradeis arrival at Cairos airport in mid-February. Already, ElBaradei, as early as 2010,
announced his intentions of running for president in the 2011 elections. Together with April 6,
Wael Ghonim of Google, and a coalition of other opposition parties, ElBaradei assembled his
National Front for Change and began preparing for the coming Arab Spring.
Clearly then, the Arab Spring was long planned and planned from abroad with activists
from Tunisia and Egypt on record receiving training and support from the West so that they
could return home and sow unrest in a region-wide coordinated campaign.
An April 2011 AFP report would confirm this, when US State Departments Michael Posner
would admit that tens of millions of dollars had been allocated to equip and train activists 2 years
ahead of the Arab Spring.
The Muslim Brotherhoods role was hidden in plain site. While the Western media focused on
the more presentable pro-democracy leaders it had trained and put at the head of the mobs in
Tahrir Square, it was the Muslim Brotherhoods large membership that filled the rest of the
square. They were also responsible for launching armed attacks across Egypt leading to the
revolutions 800+ death toll.

Image: Mohamed Morsi hardly a hardline extremists himself, he is the embodiment of the absolute
fraud that is the Muslim Brotherhood a leadership of Western-educated, Western-serving technocrats
posing as pious Muslims attempting to cultivate a base of fanatical extremists prepared to intimidate
through violence the Brotherhoods opposition. Failing that, they are prepared to use (and have used)
extreme violence to achieve their political agenda.
Egyptians quickly became distrustful of the protests leadership, particularly ElBaradei whos
ties to Western interests were uncovered and led to his swift fall from influence. The protest
movement lacked the political machinery to actually fill the void their movement had created.
Once again, the West turned to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Western-educated Mohamed
Morsi for results.
The Muslim Brotherhoods Resurrection
The Muslim Brotherhood is a faux-theocratic sectarian extremist movement a regional
movement that transcends national borders. It is guilty sowing decades of violent discord not
only in Egypt, but across the Arab World and it has remained a serious threat to secular,
nationalist states from Algeria to Syria and back again.

Image: Backlash against the Brotherhood. Despite the Muslim Brotherhoods political success, it
represents a violent, loud, minority that is quietly opposed by the vast majority of not only Egyptians, but
Arabs across North Africa and the Middle East. Its high level of organization, immense funding provided
by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and even the West, including Israel, allows it to perpetuate itself in spite of its
unpopularity, while its violent tactics allow it to challenge dissent.
Today, the Western press decries Egyptian and Syrian efforts to curb these sectarian extremists,
particularly in Syria where the government was accused of having massacred armed
Brotherhood militants in Hama in 1982. The constitutions of secular Arab nations across
Northern Africa and the Middle East, including the rewritten Syrian Constitution, have attempted
to exclude sectarian political parties, especially those with regional affiliations to prevent the
Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda affiliated political movements from ever coming into power.
And while specter of sectarian extremists taking power in Egypt or Syria may seem like an
imminent threat to Western (including Israeli) interests it in reality is a tremendous boon.
Morsi himself is by no means an extremists or an Islamist. He is a US-educated technocrat
who merely posed as hardline in order to cultivate the fanatical support of the Brotherhoods
rank and file. Several of Morsis children are even US citizens.
Despite a long campaign of feigned anti-American, anti-Israeli propaganda during the Egyptian
presidential run-up, the Muslim Brotherhood had joined US, European, and Israeli calls for
international intervention in Syria. Egypt had also broken off diplomatic relations with Syria
which were only restored after Morsi was finally ousted from power.
The Syrian Connection
The Muslim Brotherhoods Syrian affiliates have been funneling weapons, cash, and foreign
fighters into Syria to fight Wall Street, London, Riyadh, Doha, and Tel Avivs proxy war.
In Reuters May 6, 2012 article titled, Syrias Muslim Brotherhood rise from the ashes, it
stated:
Working quietly, the Brotherhood has been financing Free Syrian Army defectors based in
Turkey and channeling money and supplies to Syria, reviving their base among small Sunni
farmers and middle class Syrians, opposition sources say.
The Muslim Brotherhood was nearing extinction in Syria before the latest unrest, and while
Reuters categorically fails in its report to explain the how behind the Brotherhoods
resurrection, it was revealed in a 2007 New Yorker article titled, The Redirection by Seymour
Hersh.
The Brotherhood was being directly backed by the US and Israel who were funneling support
through the Saudis so as to not compromise the credibility of the so-called Islamic
movement. Hersh revealed that members of the Lebanese Saad Hariri clique, then led by Fouad
Siniora, had been the go-between for US planners and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
Hersh reports the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed
personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the
ruling government:
[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last
fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues
advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian
Muslim Brotherhood would be the ones to talk to, Jumblatt said.
The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007, US and Saudi backing had begun
benefiting the Brotherhood:
There is evidence that the Administrations redirection strategy has already benefitted the
Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal
members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in
2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, The Americans have provided
both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is
American involvement. He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi
Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Fronts members met with
officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official
told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
Jumblatt said he understood that the issue was a sensitive one for the White House. I told Cheney that
some people in the Arab world, mainly the Egyptianswhose moderate Sunni leadership has been
fighting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for decadeswont like it if the United States helps the
Brotherhood. But if you dont take on Syria we will be face to face in Lebanon with Hezbollah in a long
fight, and one we might not win.
It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and
could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was
fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular. Clearly the Brotherhood did not
spontaneously rise back to power in Syria, it was resurrected by US, Israeli, and Saudi cash,
weapons and directives. It was similarly resurrected in Egypt as well.
Syrias Chaos is a Warning of Egypts Possible Future
Even as the world begins to reap what was sown in Syria through the intentional resurrection of
the Muslim Brotherhood by the West and the extremist factions that the Brotherhood has on
record facilitated, it appears that there has been no collective lesson learned by the general
public, including many claiming to be geopolitical experts.
The same destabilization, step-by-step, is being carried out in Egypt once again through the
Muslim Brotherhood. Legions of terrorists are waiting in Egypts Sinai region for the
Brotherhood to sufficiently lay the groundwork in Egypts population centers so that they can be
destroyed, just as has been done in Syria. And behind it all is the West, desperately trying to
dislodge the Egyptian military from power with a combination of unpalatable carrots and broken
sticks.
US corporate-funded policy think tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
have expressed Americas desire to see the Egyptian military cut down to size, and removed
entirely as a political power broker, just as has been done in Turkey. In fact, the West is so proud
of what has been accomplished in Turkey, it refers to the removal of any independent military
institution around the world and its replacement by an easily manipulated proxy regime, the
Turkish model.
The Endowments post titled, Egypt Cant Replicate the Turkish Model: But It Can Learn From
It, best articulates this desire by stating:
In Egypt, a number of younger and more moderate Islamists have pointed to Turkeys ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a source of inspiration, citing legal reform, successful
economic management, and electoral victories as models to be emulated. In some policy
quarters, Turkey has even been presented as an overall model for the Arab worlda
characterization which derives largely from its seemingly unique ability to couple secular
democracy with a predominantly Muslim society.
And that (emphasis added):
The party has not only increased its support in secular businesses and the middle classes, but also
rendered the idea of a powerful statewhich commands the economy as well as the lives of
Muslims through Islamic principlesan obsolete one. For the most part, the AKP has
maintained the basic constitutional and institutional structure of the Turkish state, but has
enacted constitutional amendments for EU harmonization and curtailed the power of the
military. In other words, Islam and democracy have become compatible in Turkey under
neoliberalism.
Saudi Arabias Al Monitor, a clearinghouse for Western political spin, states clearly in its article,
Egypts Second Revolution a Blow to Turkey, that (emphasis added):
The Egyptian army considers Turkeys Justice and Development Party to be a political rival and
an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, the Egyptian military establishment views the
Turkish model of limiting the power of Turkeys military establishment by means of an
alliance with Washington as a model that threatens the presence and interests of the
Egyptian army.
Another US corporate-funded think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), cites another,
older Turkish model, the one where the Turkish military was wielding power before being
reduced in size and influence and blames it for the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt. In his post, In Egypt, the Military Adopts Turkish Model to Check Morsi, Stephen
Cook of the CFR wrote:
Shortly after the fall of Mubarak, Field Marshal Tantawi asked for a translation of Turkeys 1982
constitution, which both endows Turkish officers with wide-ranging powers to police the
political arena and curtails the power of civilian leaders. In the June 17 decree, the military
hedged against a Morsi victory by approximating the tutelary role the Turkish military enjoyed
until recently.
US foreign policy think tanks and editorial columns are awash with comparisons between Egypt
and Turkey and how Egypt can be transformed through the elimination of its politically
influential military into a proxy state more like Turkey a NATO member permanently bent to
the will of Wall Street, London, and the European Union.
How far the West is willing and able to go in Egypt to achieve this reordering and along what
path they will do it is still difficult to tell. How far they are willing to go in general can be seen in
the rubble strewn streets of Syrias smoldering, decimated cities. With the addition of the
Muslim Brotherhood to the formula, and considering their role in Syrias continued destruction,
Egypts military-led government may be accused of using excessive force but with Egypt many
times larger than Syria in terms of population and land area, and considering the devastation and
loss of life that has occurred in Syria, the alternative appeasement, temporary accommodation,
denial, or inaction is utterly unacceptable.

Image: While the Western media attempts to portray the military coup as an antiquated feature of failed
states, it has been and always will be an essential check and balance of last resort. In Egypt, the
military initially bent with the force of foreign-funded political destabilization as part of the Arab
Spring, bid its time, and when the moment was right, overthrew the Wests proxy-regime of Mohamed
Morsi. It did so with decisive and unyielding security operations to permanently uproot the regimes
power, and stem any attempts of triggering armed conflict backed by the West to reclaim power. The
Egyptian Model may prove instructive for Thailands current political crisis.
Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and Americas War on
Syria
The West's next proxy war is being stopped before it starts in Egypt.
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, March 25, 2014
landdestroyer.blogspot.com
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: ARAB PROTEST MOVEMENT, SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
258
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283

The unprecedented sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Egypt for
their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman, is the culmination of a
lighting fast, all encompassing security crackdown across the pivotal North African Arab nation.
The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim
Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally sow their chaos in, peaceful and empty.
The New York Times reported in its article, Hundreds of Egyptians Sentenced to Death in
Killing of a Police Officer, that:
A crowd gathered outside a courthouse in the town of Matay erupted in wailing and rage on
Monday when a judge sentenced 529 defendants to death in just the second session of their trial,
convicting them of murdering a police officer in anger at the ouster of the Islamist president.
Here in the provincial capital just a few miles away, schools shut down early, and many stayed
indoors fearing a riot, residents said.
But the crowds went home, and soon the streets were quiet.
The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State
Department. The Washington Posts article, Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death,
stated:
The United States was deeply concerned, and I would say actually pretty shocked, about the
mass death sentences, said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. It defies logic and
certainly does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony, consistent with
international standards, could have been conducted over a two-day period, she said.
While the US continues to feign support for the government in Cairo, it was fully behind the
Muslim Brotherhood-led regime of Mohamed Morsi, its mobs in the streets, and the networks of
NGOs inside Egypt supporting and defending their activities.
The most recent of these NGOs on display is the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
cited by the above mentioned New York Times article which claimed:
We have never heard of anything of this magnitude before inside or outside of Egypt that
was within a judicial system as opposed to a mass execution, said Karim Medhat Ennarah, a
researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who specializes in criminal justice.
It is quite ridiculous, he said, arguing that it would be impossible to prove that 500 people each
played a meaningful role in the killing of a single police officer, especially after just one or two
short sessions of the trial. Clearly this is an attempt to intimidate and terrorize the opposition,
and specifically the Islamist opposition, but why would the judge get so deeply involved in
politics up to this point?
EIPR is funded by among others, the Australian Embassy in Cairo, and carries out the same
familiar role that other Western-funded NGOs did during the Arab Spring in 2011 the
covering up of the oppositions violence and atrocities, and the leveraging of human rights to
condemn the subsequent security crackdowns carried out in return by the state.
How Egypt Got Here
Egypts current turmoil is a direct result of the 2011 so-called Arab Spring. While nations like
Libya lie in ruins with the revolution a success and the Libyan people now subjugated by
pro-Western proxies, and Syria as continues to fight on in a costly 3 year conflict that has cost
tens of thousands of lives, Egypt has taken a different path.

When violent mobs began inching Egypt toward violence of Libyan and Syrian proportions, the
Egyptian military, who has been the primary brokers of power in Egypt for decades, bent with
the winds of change. Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power and the military tolerated the rise of
the Muslim Brotherhood itself into power. However, before they did so, they laid the
groundwork for its eventual undoing.
The military leadership bid its time patiently, waiting for the right moment to unseat the
Brotherhood and swiftly shatter its networks politically and militarily. It was a masterstroke that
has so far saved Egypt from the same fate suffered by other nations still burning in the chaos
unleashed by the Arab Spring.
Egypts Internal Crisis is Driven by External Meddling and Interests

Image: Protests in Egypt.
In January of 2011, we were told that spontaneous, indigenousuprising had begun sweeping
North Africa and the Middle East in what was called the Arab Spring. It would be months
before the Wests media would admit that the US had been behind the uprisings and that they
were anything but spontaneous, or indigenous. In an April 2011 article published by the
New York Times titled, U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings, it was stated:
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping
the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human
Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and
financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic
Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.
The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):
The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and
Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National
Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting
democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million
annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American
government, mainly from the State Department.
Far from simply capitalizing or co-opting genuine unrest, preparations for the Arab Spring
began as early as 2008. Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in
New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as
Movements.org.
There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYMs various
corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM
2008 summit report (page 3 of .pdf) states that the Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the
policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff
members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate,
media, and institutional representatives.
Shortly afterward, April 6 would travel to Serbia to train under US-funded CANVAS, formally
the US-funded NGO Otpor who helped overthrow the government of Serbia in 2000. Otpor,
the New York Times would report, was a well-oiled movement backed by several million
dollars from the United States. After its success it would change its name to CANVAS and
begin training activists to be used in other US-backed regime change operations.
The April 6 Movement, after training with CANVAS, would return to Egypt in 2010, along with
UN IAEA Chief Mohammed ElBaradei. April 6 members would even be arrested while awaiting
for ElBaradeis arrival at Cairos airport in mid-February. Already, ElBaradei, as early as 2010,
announced his intentions of running for president in the 2011 elections. Together with April 6,
Wael Ghonim of Google, and a coalition of other opposition parties, ElBaradei assembled his
National Front for Change and began preparing for the coming Arab Spring.
Clearly then, the Arab Spring was long planned and planned from abroad with activists
from Tunisia and Egypt on record receiving training and support from the West so that they
could return home and sow unrest in a region-wide coordinated campaign.
An April 2011 AFP report would confirm this, when US State Departments Michael Posner
would admit that tens of millions of dollars had been allocated to equip and train activists 2 years
ahead of the Arab Spring.
The Muslim Brotherhoods role was hidden in plain site. While the Western media focused on
the more presentable pro-democracy leaders it had trained and put at the head of the mobs in
Tahrir Square, it was the Muslim Brotherhoods large membership that filled the rest of the
square. They were also responsible for launching armed attacks across Egypt leading to the
revolutions 800+ death toll.

Image: Mohamed Morsi hardly a hardline extremists himself, he is the embodiment of the absolute
fraud that is the Muslim Brotherhood a leadership of Western-educated, Western-serving technocrats
posing as pious Muslims attempting to cultivate a base of fanatical extremists prepared to intimidate
through violence the Brotherhoods opposition. Failing that, they are prepared to use (and have used)
extreme violence to achieve their political agenda.
Egyptians quickly became distrustful of the protests leadership, particularly ElBaradei whos
ties to Western interests were uncovered and led to his swift fall from influence. The protest
movement lacked the political machinery to actually fill the void their movement had created.
Once again, the West turned to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Western-educated Mohamed
Morsi for results.
The Muslim Brotherhoods Resurrection
The Muslim Brotherhood is a faux-theocratic sectarian extremist movement a regional
movement that transcends national borders. It is guilty sowing decades of violent discord not
only in Egypt, but across the Arab World and it has remained a serious threat to secular,
nationalist states from Algeria to Syria and back again.

Image: Backlash against the Brotherhood. Despite the Muslim Brotherhoods political success, it
represents a violent, loud, minority that is quietly opposed by the vast majority of not only Egyptians, but
Arabs across North Africa and the Middle East. Its high level of organization, immense funding provided
by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and even the West, including Israel, allows it to perpetuate itself in spite of its
unpopularity, while its violent tactics allow it to challenge dissent.
Today, the Western press decries Egyptian and Syrian efforts to curb these sectarian extremists,
particularly in Syria where the government was accused of having massacred armed
Brotherhood militants in Hama in 1982. The constitutions of secular Arab nations across
Northern Africa and the Middle East, including the rewritten Syrian Constitution, have attempted
to exclude sectarian political parties, especially those with regional affiliations to prevent the
Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda affiliated political movements from ever coming into power.
And while specter of sectarian extremists taking power in Egypt or Syria may seem like an
imminent threat to Western (including Israeli) interests it in reality is a tremendous boon.
Morsi himself is by no means an extremists or an Islamist. He is a US-educated technocrat
who merely posed as hardline in order to cultivate the fanatical support of the Brotherhoods
rank and file. Several of Morsis children are even US citizens.
Despite a long campaign of feigned anti-American, anti-Israeli propaganda during the Egyptian
presidential run-up, the Muslim Brotherhood had joined US, European, and Israeli calls for
international intervention in Syria. Egypt had also broken off diplomatic relations with Syria
which were only restored after Morsi was finally ousted from power.
The Syrian Connection
The Muslim Brotherhoods Syrian affiliates have been funneling weapons, cash, and foreign
fighters into Syria to fight Wall Street, London, Riyadh, Doha, and Tel Avivs proxy war.
In Reuters May 6, 2012 article titled, Syrias Muslim Brotherhood rise from the ashes, it
stated:
Working quietly, the Brotherhood has been financing Free Syrian Army defectors based in
Turkey and channeling money and supplies to Syria, reviving their base among small Sunni
farmers and middle class Syrians, opposition sources say.
The Muslim Brotherhood was nearing extinction in Syria before the latest unrest, and while
Reuters categorically fails in its report to explain the how behind the Brotherhoods
resurrection, it was revealed in a 2007 New Yorker article titled, The Redirection by Seymour
Hersh.
The Brotherhood was being directly backed by the US and Israel who were funneling support
through the Saudis so as to not compromise the credibility of the so-called Islamic
movement. Hersh revealed that members of the Lebanese Saad Hariri clique, then led by Fouad
Siniora, had been the go-between for US planners and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
Hersh reports the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed
personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the
ruling government:
[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last
fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues
advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian
Muslim Brotherhood would be the ones to talk to, Jumblatt said.
The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007, US and Saudi backing had begun
benefiting the Brotherhood:
There is evidence that the Administrations redirection strategy has already benefitted the
Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal
members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in
2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, The Americans have provided
both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is
American involvement. He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi
Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Fronts members met with
officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official
told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
Jumblatt said he understood that the issue was a sensitive one for the White House. I told Cheney that
some people in the Arab world, mainly the Egyptianswhose moderate Sunni leadership has been
fighting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for decadeswont like it if the United States helps the
Brotherhood. But if you dont take on Syria we will be face to face in Lebanon with Hezbollah in a long
fight, and one we might not win.
It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and
could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was
fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular. Clearly the Brotherhood did not
spontaneously rise back to power in Syria, it was resurrected by US, Israeli, and Saudi cash,
weapons and directives. It was similarly resurrected in Egypt as well.
Syrias Chaos is a Warning of Egypts Possible Future
Even as the world begins to reap what was sown in Syria through the intentional resurrection of
the Muslim Brotherhood by the West and the extremist factions that the Brotherhood has on
record facilitated, it appears that there has been no collective lesson learned by the general
public, including many claiming to be geopolitical experts.
The same destabilization, step-by-step, is being carried out in Egypt once again through the
Muslim Brotherhood. Legions of terrorists are waiting in Egypts Sinai region for the
Brotherhood to sufficiently lay the groundwork in Egypts population centers so that they can be
destroyed, just as has been done in Syria. And behind it all is the West, desperately trying to
dislodge the Egyptian military from power with a combination of unpalatable carrots and broken
sticks.
US corporate-funded policy think tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
have expressed Americas desire to see the Egyptian military cut down to size, and removed
entirely as a political power broker, just as has been done in Turkey. In fact, the West is so proud
of what has been accomplished in Turkey, it refers to the removal of any independent military
institution around the world and its replacement by an easily manipulated proxy regime, the
Turkish model.
The Endowments post titled, Egypt Cant Replicate the Turkish Model: But It Can Learn From
It, best articulates this desire by stating:
In Egypt, a number of younger and more moderate Islamists have pointed to Turkeys ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a source of inspiration, citing legal reform, successful
economic management, and electoral victories as models to be emulated. In some policy
quarters, Turkey has even been presented as an overall model for the Arab worlda
characterization which derives largely from its seemingly unique ability to couple secular
democracy with a predominantly Muslim society.
And that (emphasis added):
The party has not only increased its support in secular businesses and the middle classes, but also
rendered the idea of a powerful statewhich commands the economy as well as the lives of
Muslims through Islamic principlesan obsolete one. For the most part, the AKP has
maintained the basic constitutional and institutional structure of the Turkish state, but has
enacted constitutional amendments for EU harmonization and curtailed the power of the
military. In other words, Islam and democracy have become compatible in Turkey under
neoliberalism.
Saudi Arabias Al Monitor, a clearinghouse for Western political spin, states clearly in its article,
Egypts Second Revolution a Blow to Turkey, that (emphasis added):
The Egyptian army considers Turkeys Justice and Development Party to be a political rival and
an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, the Egyptian military establishment views the
Turkish model of limiting the power of Turkeys military establishment by means of an
alliance with Washington as a model that threatens the presence and interests of the
Egyptian army.
Another US corporate-funded think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), cites another,
older Turkish model, the one where the Turkish military was wielding power before being
reduced in size and influence and blames it for the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt. In his post, In Egypt, the Military Adopts Turkish Model to Check Morsi, Stephen
Cook of the CFR wrote:
Shortly after the fall of Mubarak, Field Marshal Tantawi asked for a translation of Turkeys 1982
constitution, which both endows Turkish officers with wide-ranging powers to police the
political arena and curtails the power of civilian leaders. In the June 17 decree, the military
hedged against a Morsi victory by approximating the tutelary role the Turkish military enjoyed
until recently.
US foreign policy think tanks and editorial columns are awash with comparisons between Egypt
and Turkey and how Egypt can be transformed through the elimination of its politically
influential military into a proxy state more like Turkey a NATO member permanently bent to
the will of Wall Street, London, and the European Union.
How far the West is willing and able to go in Egypt to achieve this reordering and along what
path they will do it is still difficult to tell. How far they are willing to go in general can be seen in
the rubble strewn streets of Syrias smoldering, decimated cities. With the addition of the
Muslim Brotherhood to the formula, and considering their role in Syrias continued destruction,
Egypts military-led government may be accused of using excessive force but with Egypt many
times larger than Syria in terms of population and land area, and considering the devastation and
loss of life that has occurred in Syria, the alternative appeasement, temporary accommodation,
denial, or inaction is utterly unacceptable.

Image: While the Western media attempts to portray the military coup as an antiquated feature of failed
states, it has been and always will be an essential check and balance of last resort. In Egypt, the
military initially bent with the force of foreign-funded political destabilization as part of the Arab
Spring, bid its time, and when the moment was right, overthrew the Wests proxy-regime of Mohamed
Morsi. It did so with decisive and unyielding security operations to permanently uproot the regimes
power, and stem any attempts of triggering armed conflict backed by the West to reclaim power. The
Egyptian Model may prove instructive for Thailands current political crisis.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/egypt-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-americas-war-on-syria/5375157
NATOs Turkey Providing Air Support for Al Qaeda in
Northern Syria
By Mimi Al Laham
Global Research, March 25, 2014
Syria News and Land Destroyer Report
Region: Middle East & North Africa
252
48 1

998

by Mimi Al Laham
The downing of a Syrian jet by Turkey was not an isolated incident but part of a major offensive
by Al Qaeda affiliated groups Jabhat Al Nusra (designated a terrorist organization by the US
State Department) and Ahrar Al Sham against a northwestern Syrian-Turkish border crossing.
Turkey has been supporting Al Qaedas attack on the Kassab border crossing, the only crossing
that was still held by the Syrian military. While the AFP did report that the group involved in the
attack was the AlQaeda faction Jabhat Al Nusra , this fact has not made it to any mainstream
media headline.

I mage: Excerpt from AFP reporting Al Qaeda forces involved in the Kassab cross-border
assault.
Jabhat Al Nusra, are also actively being given safe haven by Turkey. The map below shows the
Al Qaeda Camp within the Turkish border from which the attack on the Kassab border crossing
came. AlQaeda militants also brazenly videotaped themselves walking right through the Turkish
Kassab border gate into Syria without any harassment from Turkish guards.

Another Al Qaeda offshoot fighting along side Jabhat Al Nusra in the offensive is Ahrar Al
Sham. While the rebel group is not yet designated Al Qaeda by the US State Department, the
group was founded by Abu Khaled as-Suri, Al Zawahiris ambassador to Syria. Ahrar Al Sham
was described as Al Qaeda worth befriending by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
Washingtons premier think tank. Charles Lister, a fellow at of the Brookings Institution,
tweets video of Ahrar Al Shaam taking part in the attack on Latakia.

I mage: Al Qaeda rockets fall on Latakia province, killing 7 and injuring 30.
It was reported that Turkey had begun shelling inside Syrian soil to back the offensive on the
border point. Turkish artillery and tanks targeted Syrian positions, and Turkish special forces
have been observed in the region. A Lebanon based satelite channel Al Mayadeen TV reported
that the Syrian Army launched a counterattack on the border point Nabie Al Murr with Turkey ,
along with dense artillery cover. In response to the Syrian defensive measures against the
AlQaeda attack, Turkey downed a Syrian jet that was firing on the Al Qaeda militants from
Syrian airspace. Turkeys claims that the Syrian jet violated Turkish airspace is contradicted by
the fact the plane crashed over Syrian territory as shown in a video posted by Al Qaeda in the
area. The pilot managed to safely eject and was picked up in Syria, and was even interviewedby
Syrian state TV.The Al Qaeda attack and takeover of the Kassab border crossing has caused up
to 2000 to 6000 Armenian Syrians to flee the area. Mass looting and destruction of religious sites
was reported by residents (similar to criminal acts carried out in the recently liberated city of
Yabroud). Armenians are once again refugees due to the Turkish government like their ancestors
who fled the Armenian Holocaust decades ago.
There has been no mention on the BBC of NATOs open support for Al Qaeda groups. The
attack comes in the backdrop of mass rallies against Turkish President Erdogan, who recently
banned Twitter.
The battles in Latakia are ongoing, with the Syrian military inflicting heavy losses on Al Qaeda
militants.
Syrian activist and blogger Mimi Al Lahamcan be followed at
www.youtube.com/Syriangirlpartisan, www.facebook.com/partisangirl, &
www.twitter.com/partisangirl

http://www.globalresearch.ca/natos-turkey-providing-air-support-for-al-qaeda-in-northern-
syria/5375114

From Turkeys Covert War on Syria to the Crimea
Connection
Washington's "Short Leash"
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, March 23, 2014
New Eastern Outlook
Region: Europe, Middle East & North Africa, Russia and FSU
In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT
216
39 4

307

Protests began in Turkey in May of 2013, allegedly over the governments plans to develop a
park in Istanbul. While the Western media attempted to portray the growing unrest as
grassroots and leaderless, in fact, the opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) was
behind it from the beginning.
Now, CHP openly claims leadership of the movement as it applies pressure on the government
of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
But to what end?
PM Erdogan for his part, did his best to aid and abet the United States, England, and their
regional collaborators in the Middle East to destabilize and overthrow the government of
neighboring Syria.

Erdogan would even go as far as harboring terrorists within Turkish territory, providing them
with logistical support, and even helping steer vast quantities of cash and arms into their hands.
At various points throughout the now 3 year conflict, Turkish troops were used to apply pressure
on Syria by amassing troops along the border and threatening military action against fabricated
and accidental border incidents. Turkish planes even violated Syrian airspace, with one being
shot down over the Mediterranean Sea.
With a regime performing so willingly as a proxy for Western interests, why would the West
then be interested in removing Erdogan from power?
CHPs leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, currently seeking Erdogans job, was in the United States on
December 2, 2013, to give a talk (full transcript .pdf here) before the corporate-funded policy
think tank, the Brookings Institution. His warm welcome and announcement of a CHP chapter
opening in Washington D.C. was only matched by his eagerness to fully integrate Turkey with
the European Union. He also was eager to replace the current political landscape of Turkey
where strongmen like Erdogan can still rule with an authoritarian streak, with a flaccid,
ineffectual regime of administrators who serve merely as a medium for foreign corporate-
financier interests.
And while the certainty of Kilicdaroglus accession into power is still not guaranteed, the very
real pressure his street mobs are putting on Erdogan serves as an impetus to prod the current
government down a path most certainly not in the best interest of either its own self-preservation
or the best interests of the Turkish people themselves.
From Syria to Crimea Turkey Pursues One Damning Foreign Adventure After Another
In addition to the squandering of Turkeys
political capital and global reputation during its involvement in the Syrian conflict, the West now
appears to be positioning Turkey as a potential battering ram against Russia regarding the
Crimea standoff.
With Crimea now independent and beginning the integration process with the Russian
Federation, the West has attempted to consolidate and bolster the regime it itself has installed in
Kiev, Ukraine. To do this, the West has leveled sanctions against Russians and Ukrainians
perceived as enemies of the newly installed regime, as well as begun the process of arming and
aiding the regime ahead of inevitable uprisings sure to challenge their undemocratic grip on
power.
These measures appear to be futile, and to strengthen its hand, the West has been mobilizing its
media to manipulate and shake the confidence of investors regarding Russias economy, as well
as raise legal questions regarding the status of Crimea in relation to Turkey. As preposterous as it
may seem, articles from AL Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Al Monitor, Hurriyet Daily News, and
the International Business Times have taken multiple angles to explain how Turkey now
somehow has a role in deciding the fate of Crimea, rather than simply respecting the democratic
referendum already carried out last week.
And indeed, in each article, Erdogans reluctance to damage ties with Moscow are cited as
reasons why Turkey should, but isnt moving against Russia regarding Crimea. Enter CHPs
street mobs and the growing dissent now making headlines.
Twitter being banned in Turkey, according to Erdogan himself, was a move designed to counter
what he calls Turkeys foreign enemies. Indeed, in Washington Posts article, Turkey bans
Twitter as Prime Minister accused of graft cover-up, it reports:
The premier says the investigation and leaks are part of an effort to undermine him ahead of
March 30 municipal elections. He blames supporters of a United States-based Islamic cleric,
Fethullah Gulen, within Turkeys courts and security forces, with support from Turkeys foreign
enemies. Erdogan has responded by removing the prosecutors in charge and purging thousands
of police, effectively blocking further inquiries.
At a rally on Thursday he vowed to dig up Twitter and so on all of them from the roots
and said he didnt care about the international response.
The article also mentions Brookings D.C. guest, Kilicdaroglu, whose CHP party is at the center
of the growing unrest in Turkey:
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party, said the ban was
harming Turkeys image in the world and the party was applying to overturn it.
It is clear that more hoops lay ahead for the government of Erdogan to jump through in order to
satisfy the West, and the lash applied to his governments back is the CHPs street mobs
enabled with all the type of support synonymous with Western-backed destabilizations.
What the West Wants From Turkey Regarding Crimea
There is little Turkey could actually do in Crimea itself. However, Turkeys proximity and ties to
the Tartar minority the West would like to use as a pressure point against Russia in Crimea,
could be useful, as could another voice lent to bolstering the Wests narrative regarding Ukraine
in general. A harder line from Erdogan regarding Russia would lend additional perceived
credibility to the Wests narrative, but it would come at a heavy price regarding future
Russian-Turkish ties.
Erdogan, for all of his complicity regarding Syria, now with mobs threatening his position in
power, most likely realizes there is no amount of servitude that will satisfy the West as it is
seeking to advance its interests, not the people through which it does so. Alienating Russia
politically would lead to potential fallouts economically neither of which Erdogan (or even his
successors) could afford. Unfortunately for Erdogan, the short leash the West has him on will not
allow for considerations such as self-preservation politically, or even nationally.
For the West already facing growing challenges regarding their meddling in Ukraine, Turkeys
inability to definitively side with it is a problem they appear to have solved with the attempted
overthrow of Erdogans government and the installment of the impotent, needy, easily
manipulated, pro-European CHP party. CHP under Kilicdaroglu might just take the hardline
stance the West is seeking, regardless of its cost to its own future as well as Turkeys.
Driving a wedge between Turkey and Russia would be yet another move by the West toward its
greater goal of encircling and containing Moscow. The unrest in the streets across Turkey in the
coming weeks and months will be a gauge of how obedient Erdogan is being in this new role the
West has cast him in and should he decide not to take that role and also fails to quell the mobs
in the streets an eager Kilicdaroglu awaits.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online
magazine New Eastern Outlook and Global Research.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/turmoil-in-turkey-washingtons-short-leash-and-the-crimea-
connection/5374845

Western Left-opportunism, and Denying Agency in Syria.
By Phil Greaves
Global Research, March 16, 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Media Disinformation
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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83

Having last week expounded upon the duplicity of the western liberal lefts position on the
Imperialist-sponsored fascist coup in Ukraine, a particularly egregious example of the same
petty bourgeois sophism so pervasive within western civilised dissent has once again reared its
ugly head. In what can only be described as emo agitprop, the wests flagship of misinformation
and Imperialist propaganda recently published an article on Syria by self-proclaimed leftist
Artist Molly Crabapple.
The article covers a demonstration organised by an anti-government Syrian activist, who has
chosen to read the names of 100,000 victims of the Syrian war standing outside the White House
for 72 hours. The intended symbolism of such a demonstration is quite difficult to ascertain,
particularly considering a sound historical analysis shows that western Imperialism ergo: the
White House bears huge responsibility for the deaths of those very people now being used to
guilt the western public into supporting some form of further action against the Syrian state
meaning, (overt) US military intervention, NATO freedom-bombs, etc. Moreover, it seems that
both Crabapple and her subject have forgotten, or are intentionally omitting the fact that over
half of those victims met their deaths at the hands of the western/Israeli/wahhabi monarch-
sponsored fundamentalist dominated militia; the very same militia Crabapple is now lionizing as
revolutionaries.
Naturally for the Guardian, the narrative fulfills just about every western falsehood propagated
on behalf of the reactionary insurgency since it began, by doing so, it provides an opportunity to
expand upon and expose the role that western left-opportunism has played in buttressing said
falsehood throughout the Syrian crisis. Further still, it provides a chance to counter the twisted
theories and phrasing being used to attack anti-Imperialists and anti-revisionists from within the
western petty bourgeois celebrity-left camp, through which Crabapple and Co. postulate the
absurd notion that westerners with the tendency to focus on the role of western Imperialism
represent perverse Orientalists.
Barring the usual 40 year dictatorship slogans so typical of the deluded and self-righteous
cheerleaders of western bourgeois democracy, the historical context for Crabapples Syrian
revolution is built via the rosy portrayal of a wave of protests that swept the world. In Syria,
a police state and neoliberal reforms are the central material factors used to explain the crisis.
These puerile simplifications are employed to distort and minimise the primary role of western
predatory Imperialism, either that, or simply through blind stupidity and laziness.
In such a decontextualised analysis, there is no space available to document the years of western-
led economic sanctions and subversion; nor is any space permitted to analyse the sociopolitical
effects of the five-year drought that had decimated Syrias agricultural industry prior to 2011
causing widespread impoverishment to the disaffected rural sections of society, there is no
economic analysis whatsoever. More importantly, there is no space afforded to document the
decades of western support and collusion with Saudi Arabias overt and covert sponsorship of
fundamentalist ideologues, with the direct aim of unleashing them and their sectarian hatred
upon Syria (or any other target in the region, see: Libya, Hezbollah, Iraq, etc) when political
needs required; no space is given for the direct sponsorship of western Imperialism toward the
ex-pat SNC puppet administrators travelling between hotel suites in Ankara, Doha and Riyadh,
or the thousands of US State Department-trained activists and NGO workers flooding media
and commentary with false or bias accounts, staged photos and misinformation. Any critique of
the western corporate media, and the complimentary tailored analysis industrys disgraceful
servitude to western government narratives is completely omitted regardless of the fact that
both form essential components of modern soft Imperialism.
To suggest western Imperialism has invested in any of these individuals, policies or
organisations with any sort of altruistic intention is comparable to suggesting over sixty years of
historical evidence to the contrary is worthless; negating any value in historical materialism and
dialectics. Omission of context and crude historical revisionism are entirely deliberate and
further prohibit the prospect of reaching a sound political or moral examination of events and
their evolving processes. Dialectics, logic, critical distance and contradictory evidence are
replaced with emotionally driven narrow-framed discourse to remove the wider context,
therefore western culpability, and form the false depiction of a popular peaceful uprising versus
despotic regime.
Crabapple informs us that it took four months for Syrias protests to become an armed
insurgency. This blatant lie is a most crucial one in upholding the US-NATO false narrative on
Syria. Yet, as we shall see, while the celebrity-lefts continue to blindly recycle the lie, it has long
been refuted, in even the most loyal organs of western Imperialism itself.
Once the underlying causes of the crisis have been distorted beyond any semblance of reality,
whitewashing the rebels and their Imperialist sponsors role as the instigators and primary
actors responsible for excacerbating the crisis, Crabapple then attempts to bolster the false
distinctions between the supposedly moderate and extremist rebel groups with the double
fabrication that Al Qaeda took six months to enter the fray, and that Saudi Arabia took twenty
months to officially start supplying arms; portraying the fundamentalists emergence at around
February to March 2012. This is quite the perversion, and once again can only be interpreted as
pure stupidity, or outright disingenuity in the aim of furnishing the imaginary secular moderate
freedom fighters with unwarranted moral platform.
Contrary to this crude and uninformed analysis, and long known by anyone paying attention, the
dominant proto-Salafi militia such as Ahrar-al Sham who form the vanguard of the insurgency
throughout, and are inextricably linked to both the overt Al Qaeda elements and the ostensible
moderates in thrall to Imperialism openly admit to planning a violent sectarian insurgency
before any protests in Syria began. These militia, who share much in common with their overtly
extreme counterparts, were most certainly active in the first weeks of the crisis, as evidenced by
the oppositions own death-toll accounts; the one hundred-plus Syrian soldiers and police killed
during March-April 2011 alone belies the fantasy that the violence erupted simply through state
oppression of peaceful protesters.
Further contradicting the peaceful protester-moderate rebel narrative, corresponding incidents
of organised violence against state security became widespread by the middle of 2011 (see: here,
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), the massacre of 120 soldiers in Jisr
al Shugour (20 miles from the Turkish border) in June 2011 provides but one prominent
example. Either Crabapple is oblivious to all this, or is deliberately omitting it for the same
reasons listed above. In attempting to skirt the issue, Crabapple regurgitates the western
opportunists evidence-free conspiracy theory that the soldiers were executed by their own
superiors for refusing to fire on protesters: further dehumanizing the Syrian army.
Another critical falsehood follows, and one that has been endlessly spewed to form unwarranted
moral platform in the face of compelling contradictory evidence. Crabapple claims that crimes
are committed on all sides. But only the Assad regime, with its superiority of force could kill
on the scale and with the consistency that turned war crimes into a tactic of war. Again, this is a
blatant lie and distortion of the facts. The theory that the Syrian airforces bombardment of rebel
encampments in civilian zones equates to a larger percentage of the death toll is complete logical
fallacy void of any material evidence. The opposite is in fact true; according to the US Chief of
Staff, 90% of deaths in Syria have been incurred by gunshot or ground-to-ground artillery;
weapons which the rebels have had, and used, in abundance since the early stages. It has been
amply documented that every stage of western, Turkish or Gulf initiated military support to the
rebels has resulted in a huge increase in the both the death-toll and civilian displacement most
notably in the period between late 2011, when Russia and China made it clear they would block
any Libya-style No Fly Zone attempts, and July 2012, when the CIA and the Gulf states
dramatically increased the arms shipments to rebels.
Death tolls provided by anti-government activists such as the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights used as a principal source for western media, the UN, and western humanitarian
NGOs no less show it is the fundamentalist rebels that are likely responsible for the majority
of killing. In its latest tally, the SOHR claims that 55,000 Syrian army and national defence force
personnel have been killed during the conflict, accounting for almost 40% of total deaths,
whereas rebel deaths including 10,000 foreign fighters amount to 33,000, accounting for
almost 25% of the total, leaving roughly 50,000 civilian deaths, or 35% the total.
Using these figures; if one were to equally divide the civilian deaths between government and
opposition forces, then the revolutionaries would be responsible for close to 80,000 people
killed, or around 55% of the total unless of course one were to posit the absurd theory that
thousands of disparate fundamentalist militia have the ability to kill twice as many professional
soldiers than they lose, while avoiding a considerable toll on the civilians within the urban zones
they invade and militarize.
The equally false portrayal that a majority of Syrians oppose the government is omnipresent
throughout such commentary on Syria, and of course, this is another blatant lie. An example of
just how far-removed from reality this perception is was exposed way back in January 2012 at
the height of domestic anti-government sentiment and western agitprop when a Qatari-funded
YouGov poll found that 55% of Syrians, a massive majority considering the political conditions,
still supported their government. This percentage has undoubtedly continued to rise as the
conflict has dragged on, primarily as a result of the barbaric practices employed by the rebels in
civilian areas they encamp, ethnically cleanse, militarize, and generally terrorize the remaining
inhabitants of; the sentiment is only intensified through the prolonged incompetence of the ex-
pat puppets in five-star hotels elevated to the lofty position of the sole representatives of the
Syrian people by virtue of Imperialism alone. Needless to say, the poll and its results were
completely whitewashed from western media narratives and was most observantly ignored by the
western petty bourgeois opportunists, who find themselves parodying William Hague when
claiming to speak on behalf of the Syrian people.
Based on the fact a majority of Syrians support the government, and would therefore face the
wrath of the fundamentalist rebels rather than the army they see as protecting them, a fact which
is further evidenced by the vast majority of internally displaced people fleeing rebel liberation
for the refuge of government safe-zones; then the wilful misrepresentation of the death toll
becomes evermore deplorable. It can only be explained by Crabapple and the opportunists being
so indoctrinated by their own narrow parameters and dehumanizing terminology; they simply
dont see the tens of thousands of dead Syrian soldiers, their families, and the majority of Syrian
civilians who support the government as people worth accounting for. Crabapple and the pseudo-
lefts in turn defile the victims of the wahhabi mercenaries and Imperialism in Syria by
attempting to blame their fate on the very actors protecting them, effectively turning the victim
into the oppressor. The only other explanation is, once again, blind stupidity.
Over and above, it has long been known that western special forces, alongside Gulf, Jordanian,
Lebanese factions allied to the Saudis, Turkish and Israeli counterparts, have been actively
conspiring with, and militarily supporting, what are essentially fundamentalist militia to the
tune of billions of dollars and thousands of tonnes of arms. It is these actors accountable for
setting in motion the violent insurgency they had been planning since at least 2006, and now
continue to do so without even the pretense of plausible deniability.
The argument the pseudo-lefts are now attempting to throw at western anti-imperialists is one of
utter opportunism and deception. Crabapple mimics Zizek (and other servants of bourgeois
intelligentsia), and asserts that the emphasis on predatory western Imperialisms role when
analysing conflicts and crises abroad the emphasis espoused by westerners no less! is in fact
a perverse kind of Orientalism that removes and belittles the agency (another delightful
abstraction implanted into petty bourgeois leftist discourse) of indigenous people.
How damning one might say, but where does this logic end? For instance, if one opposed the
Imperialist rape of Iraq, then did one oppose the agency of Ahmed Chalabi and all the other
reactionary cretins who allied with western Imperialism? Did they who opposed the Imperialist
destruction of Libya whose position has now been fully vindicated, despite the grotesque
doublespeak of Bernhard Henri Levy and his acolytes deny the agency of Al Qaeda, Salafi
warlords and the criminals now running riot and destroying the remnants NATO left behind? The
glaring contradiction is lay bare with the aid of a further simple example that may especially
perplex the opportunists who feign support for Palestinian Resistance: if one opposes the
occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, is one opposing Zionist agency?
Applying this logic to the Syrian context, if western anti-Imperialists deny the agency of
Syrians by opposing a fundamentalist-led insurgency sponsored by Imperialism, then what
exactly do the opportunists deny when ignoring the majority of Syrians that oppose the wahhabi
revolutionaries!? In the western liberal-left equation, this majority of Syrians simply dont exist,
they have no agency worth even considering, let alone their right to self-determination. The
opportunists are in fact misrepresenting said agency they hold in such high esteem by falsely
portraying a minority of localised dissent, alongside a fundamentalist insurgency orchestrated
and sponsored by western Imperialism, as representative of the entire Syrian population. The
opportunists accuse us anti-Imperialists of Orientalism and denying agency while committing
the very act! A case of pure cognitive dissonance, or simply a feeble attempt at creating
confusion.
Such fallacious arguments and semantic trickery is employed in the vain attempt to shut down
critical analysis that does not abide by western bourgeois political ideology and partisan agenda.
In reality, it is the western pseudo-lefts who act as the agents of western Imperialism, betraying
self-determination and the foundations of internationalist socialism. To engage in such pointless
obfuscation and theorizing is to deliberately obstruct simple material fact, historical dialectics, a
ruthless criticism of all that exists and the correct examinations and conclusions to be drawn in
the international sense.
Lenin was forced to spend great energy in combating the same strands of left-opportunism one
hundred years ago, rightly describing it as the principle enemy within the working class
movement. The modern celebrity-lefts distortions and twisted theories represent nothing more
than the vile opportunism witnessed within the socialist parties during the outbreak of WWI,
when the so-called Marxists chose to side with their national bourgeoisie against the bourgeoisie
and the working classes of hostile nations. The European opportunists who chose to employ the
catchphrases of social chauvinism and act as the agents of their own bourgeoisie in defending
the fatherland are today reflected by the western socialists and leftists that endlessly
obscure the international characteristics of modern capitalism and its inevitable antagonism, in
turn diminishing the pre-eminent role, and therefore culpability, of western Imperialism.
Phil Greaves is a UK based writer on UK/US Foreign Policy, with a focus on the Arab World,
post WWII. http://notthemsmdotcom.wordpress.com/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/western-left-opportunism-and-denying-agency-in-syria/5373635

YRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a
Pretext for a US-NATO Humanitarian Intervention
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, March 15, 2014
3 May 2011
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: ARAB PROTEST MOVEMENT
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1320

Three Years Ago, March 17, 2011:
Was it a Protest movement or an Armed insurrection integrated by US-Israeli supported death
squads?
This article first published in May 2011 recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a
small border town with Jordan.
The Daraa protest movement on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event
involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).
In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against
Bashar Al Assad.
In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of demonstrators.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.
Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police
deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel
National News Report (which can not have be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al
Assad) confirmed that:
Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing
violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. and the Baath
Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel
Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News,
Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.
[They were killed] during clashes between the security forces and protesters They got killed
trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Daraa
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had
burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Daraa (emphasis
added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a
peaceful protest as claimed by the Western media. There was evidence of acts of arson
directed government buildings as well sniper firing from rooftops, shooting at police and
demonstrators, similar to what occurred in late February 2014 in Maidan square. Moreover,
from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than
demonstrators who were killed.
This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered
by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.
What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not
demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson.
The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed,
Buildings Torched in Protest
The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda affiliated insurgency
integrated by death squads. President Bashar al Assad was then to be blamed for killing his own
people.
Does it Sound familiar?
The same false flag strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine protest
movement.
On February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both demonstrators and
policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor Yanukovych of mass murder.
It was subsequently revealed that these snipers were controlled by the opponents of president
Yanukovych, who are now part of the coalition government.
The humanitarian mandate of the US and its allies is sustained by diabolical false flags
attacks which consist in killing civilians with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments
which refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.
Michel Chossudovsky, March 15, 2014

SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-
NATO Humanitarian Intervention
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 3, 2011
There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification from the outset of the protest
movement in southern Syria on March 17th.
The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of the broader Arab pro-democracy
protest movement, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria.
Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed forces, which are accused of
indiscriminately shooting and killing unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. While these
police shootings did indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the
demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were shooting at both the
security forces and the protesters.
The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated. Many of the reports are
according to witnesses. The images and video footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not
always correspond to the events which are being covered by the news reports.

There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased
in recent year, social conditions have deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of
sweeping economic reforms under IMF guidance. The IMFs economic medicine includes
austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the financial system, trade reform and
privatization. (See IMF Syrian Arab Republic IMF Article IV Consultation Missions
Concluding Statement, http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2006/051406.htm, 2006)
With a government dominated by the minority Alawite (an offshoot of Shia Islam), Syria is no
model society with regard to civil rights and freedom of expression. It nonetheless constitutes
the only (remaining) independent secular state in the Arab world. Its populist, anti-Imperialist
and secular base is inherited from the dominant Baath party, which integrates Muslims,
Christians and Druze.
Moreover, in contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, in Syria there is considerable popular support for
President Bashar Al Assad. The large rally in Damascus on March 29, with tens of thousands of
supporters (Reuters) of President Al Assad is barely mentioned. Yet in an unusual twist, the
images and video footage of several pro-government events were used by the Western media to
convince international public opinion that the President was being confronted by mass anti-
government rallies.

Tens of thousands of Syrians gather for a pro-government rally at the central
bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)

Syrians display a giant national flag with a picture of Syrias President Bashar al-Assad during a
pro-government rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)
The Epicenter of the Protest Movement. Daraa: A Small Border Town in southern Syria
What is the nature of the protest movement? From what sectors of Syrian society does it
emanate? What triggered the violence?
What is the cause of the deaths?
The existence of an organized insurrection composed of armed gangs involved in acts of killing
and arson has been dismissed by the Western media, despite evidence to the contrary.
The demonstrations did not start in Damascus, the nations capital. At the outset, the protests
were not integrated by a mass movement of citizens in Syrias capital.
The demonstrations started in Daraa, a small border town of 75,000 inhabitants, on the Syrian
Jordanian border, rather than in Damascus or Aleppo, where the mainstay of organized political
opposition and social movements are located. (Daraa is a small border town comparable e.g. to
Plattsburgh, NY on the US-Canadian border).
The Associated Press report (quoting unnamed witnesses and activists) describes the early
protests in Daraa as follows:
The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a
major challenge for President Bashar Assad, . Syrian police launched a relentless assault
Wednesday on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government protesters [Daraa], fatally
shooting at least 15 in an operation that began before dawn, witnesses said.
At least six were killed in the early morning attack on the al-Omari mosque in the southern
agricultural city of Daraa, where protesters have taken to the streets in calls for reforms and
political freedoms, witnesses said. An activist in contact with people in Daraa said police shot
another three people protesting in its Roman-era city center after dusk. Six more bodies were
found later in the day, the activist said.
As the casualties mounted, people from the nearby villages of Inkhil, Jasim, Khirbet
Ghazaleh and al-Harrah tried to march on Daraa Wednesday night but security forces
opened fire as they approached, the activist said. It was not immediately clear if there were more
deaths or injuries. (AP, March 23, 2011, emphasis added)
The AP report inflates the numbers: Daraa is presented as a city of 300,000 when in fact its
population is 75,000; protesters gathered by the thousands, casualties mounted.
The report is silent on the death of policemen which in the West invariably makes the front page
of the tabloids.
The deaths of the policemen are important in assessing what actually happened. When there are
police casualties, this means that there is an exchange of gunfire between opposing sides,
between policemen and demonstrators.
Who are these demonstrators including roof top snipers who were targeting the police.
Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) provide a clearer
picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18. The Israel National News Report (which
cannot be accused of being biased in favor of Damascus) reviews these same events as follows:
Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing
violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday.
. On Friday police opened fire on armed protesters killing four and injuring as many as 100
others. According to one witness, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, They used
live ammunition immediately no tear gas or anything else.
. In an uncharacteristic gesture intended to ease tensions the government offered to release the
detained students, but seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters
and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria:
Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March
21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report, quoting various sources, also acknowledges the killings of seven
policemen in Daraa: They were killed during clashes between the security forces and
protesters They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in
Daraa
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had
burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Daraa (emphasis
added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirm the following:
1. This was not a peaceful protest as claimed by the Western media. Several of the
demonstrators had fire arms and were using them against the police: The police opened fire
on armed protesters killing four.
2. From the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than demonstrators
who were killed: 7 policemen killed versus 4 demonstrators. This is significant because it
suggests that the police force might have been initially outnumbered by a well organized armed
gang. According to Syrian media sources, there were also snipers on rooftops which were
shooting at both the police and the protesters.
What is clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators
but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson. The title of the Israeli news
report summarizes what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in
Protests.
The Daraa protest movement on March 18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving,
in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel)
Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement.
What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent clashes on 17-18 March, is
the confrontation between the police and the armed forces on the one hand and armed units of
terrorists and snipers on the other which have infiltrated the protest movement.
Reports suggest that these terrorists are integrated by Islamists. There is no concrete evidence as
to which Islamic organizations are behind the terrorists and the government has not released
corroborating information as to who these groups are.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned
Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), among others have paid lip service to the protest
movement. Hizb ut Tahir (led in the 1980s by Syrian born Omar Bakri Muhammad) tends to
dominate the British Islamist scene according to Foreign Affairs. Hizb ut Tahir is also
considered to be of strategic importance to Britains Secret Service MI6. in the pursuit of Anglo-
American interests in the Middle East and Central Asia. (Is Hizb-ut-Tahrir another project of
British MI6? | State of Pakistan).

Hizb ut-Tahrir anti-Assad rally in Tripoli, Lebanon (40 km from Syrian border), April 22, 2011.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Syria
Syria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance, where Muslims and Christians
have for several centuries lived in peace. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical
political movement committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed
objective is to destabilize the secular state.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as Israels Mossad have
consistently used various Islamic terrorist organizations as intelligence assets. Both
Washington and its indefectible British ally have provided covert support to Islamic terrorists
in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to triggering ethnic strife, sectarian
violence and political instability.
The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The insurrection in Eastern Libya is
integrated by the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA.
The ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and fabrications, is to
create divisions within Syrian society as well as justify an eventual humanitarian intervention.
Armed Insurrection in Syria
An armed insurrection integrated by Islamists and supported covertly by Western intelligence is
central to an understanding of what is occurring on the ground.
The existence of an armed insurrection is not mentioned by the Western media. If it were to be
acknowledged and analysed, our understanding of unfolding events would be entirely different.
What is mentioned profusely is that the armed forces and the police are involved in the
indiscriminate killing of protesters.
The deployment of the armed forces including tanks in Daraa is directed against an organized
armed insurrection, which has been active in the border city since March 17-18.
Casualties are being reported which also include the death of policemen and soldiers.
In a bitter irony, the Western media acknowledges the police/soldier deaths while denying the
existence of an armed insurrection.
The key question is how does the media explain these deaths of soldiers and police?
Without evidence, the reports suggest authoritatively that the police is shooting at the soldiers
and vice versa the soldiers are shooting on the police. In a April 29 Al Jazeera report, Daraa is
described as a city under siege.
Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and
nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of
rooftop snipers.
Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him neither with the secret police,
paid thugs or the special forces of his brothers military division President Bashar al-Assad
has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Deraa for an
operation the regime wants nobody in the world to see.
Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut, including the Jordanian
mobile service that reaches into the city from just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered
firsthand accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from eyewitnesses
inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.
The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the
secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being
killed or wounded, in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is created
the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating crackdown. (Daraa, a City under
Siege, IPS / Al Jazeera, April 29, 2011)
The Al Jazeera report borders on the absurd. Read carefully.
Tanks and troops control all roads in and out, thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy
weaponry into Daraa
This situation has prevailed for several weeks. This means that bona fide protesters who are not
already inside Daraa cannot enter Daraa.
People who live in the city are in their homes: nobody dares walk the streets. If nobody
dares walk the streets where are the protesters?
Who is in the streets? According to Al Jazeera, the protesters are in the streets together with the
soldiers, and both the protesters and the soldiers are being shot at by plain clothes secret
police, by paid thugs and government sponsored snipers.
The impression conveyed in the report is that these casualties are attributed to infighting between
the police and the military.
But the report also says that the soldiers (in the thousands) control all roads in and out of the
city, but they are being shot upon by the plain clothed secret police.
The purpose of this web of media deceit, namely outright fabrications where soldiers are being
killed by police and government snipers is to deny the existence of armed terrorist groups.
The later are integrated by snipers and plain clothed terrorists who are shooting at the police,
the Syrian armed forces and local residents.
These are not spontaneous acts of terror; they are carefully planned and coordinated attacks. In
recent developments, according to a Xinhua report (April 30, 2011), armed terrorist groups
attacked the housing areas for servicemen in Daraa province, killing a sergeant and wounding
two.
While the government bears heavy responsibility for its mishandling of the military-police
operation, including the deaths of civilians, the reports confirm that the armed terrorist groups
had also opened fire on protesters and local residents. The casualties are then blamed on the
armed forces and the police and the Bashar Al Assad government is portrayed by the
international community as having ordered countless atrocities.
The fact of the matter is that foreign journalists are banned from reporting inside Syria, to the
extent that much of the information including the number of casualties is obtained from the
unverified accounts of witnesses.
It is in the interest of the US-NATO alliance to portray the events in Syria as a peaceful protest
movement which is being brutally repressed by a dictatorial regime.
The Syrian government may be autocratic. It is certainly not a model of democracy but neither is
the US administration, which is characterized by rampant corruption, the derogation of civil
liberties under the Patriot legislation, the legalisation of torture, not to mention its bloodless
humanitarian wars:
The U.S. and its NATO allies have, in addition to U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO Active Endeavor
military assets permanently deployed in the Mediterranean, warplanes, warships and submarines
engaged in the assault against Libya that can be used against Syria at a moments notice.
On April 27 Russia and China evidently prevented the U.S. and its NATO allies from pushing
through an equivalent of Resolution 1973 against Syria in the Security Council, with Russian
deputy ambassador to the UN Alexander Pankin stating that the current situation in Syria does
not present a threat to international peace and security. Syria is Russias last true partner in the
Mediterranean and the Arab world and hosts one of only two Russian overseas naval bases, that
at Tartus. (The other being in Ukraines Crimea.) (Rick Rozoff, Libyan Scenario For Syria:
Towards A US-NATO Humanitarian Intervention directed against Syria? Global Research,
April 30, 2011)
The ultimate purpose is to trigger sectarian violence and political chaos within Syria by covertly
supporting Islamic terrorist organizations.
What lies ahead?
The longer term US foreign policy perspective is regime change and the destabilization of
Syria as an independent nation-state, through a covert process of democratization or through
military means.
Syria is on the list of rogue states, which are targeted for a US military intervention. As
confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark the [The] Five-year campaign
plan [includes] a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Iran, Somalia and Sudan (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark).
The objective is to weaken the structures of the secular State while justifying an eventual UN
sponsored humanitarian intervention. The latter, in the first instance, could take the form of a
reinforced embargo on the country (including sanctions) as well as the freezing of Syrian bank
assets in overseas foreign financial institutions.
While a US-NATO military intervention in the immediate future seems highly unlikely, Syria is
nonetheless on the Pentagons military roadmap, namely an eventual war on Syria has been
contemplated both by Washington and Tel Aviv.
If it were to occur, at some future date, it would lead to escalation. Israel would inevitably be
involved. The entire Middle East Central Asian region from the Eastern Mediterranean to the
Chinese-Afghan border would flare up.
Related Video
VIDEO: Humanitarian Intervention in Syria and Libya
- by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky 2011-05-01
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the
University of Ottawa, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Editor of
globalresearch.ca. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order
(2003) and Americas War on Terrorism (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. He spent a month
in Syria in early 2011.
Read about Osama Bin Laden in Michel Chossudovskys international best-seller
Americas War on Terrorism
by Michel
Chossudovsky
also available in pdf format
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-who-is-behind-the-protest-movement-fabricating-a-pretext-for-a-
us-nato-humanitarian-intervention/24591

Israeli Military Supports Al Qaeda: Tel Avivs Dirty Role-
playing in the Syrian Crisis
By Kourosh Ziabari
Global Research, March 03, 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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When the civil war broke out in Syria in March 2011, there were some people who tended to
portray it as a continuation of the wave of revolutionary protests in the Arab world that started
from Tunisia and swept Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but as the time goes by, it
becomes more and more evident that whats happening in Syria is a foreign-plotted conspiracy
aimed at bringing down the government of President Bashar al-Assad, not a popular movement
nor a part of the Arab Spring.
As testified by several Western journalists who are currently reporting from Syria, including the
prominent French journalist Thierry Meyssan to whom I was talking a few weeks ago, theres no
trace of a popular uprising against the national government in the ongoing unrest in Syria. Its
simply one of the covert regime change projects of the United States, in which several countries
and role-players are taking part, including the Israeli regime.
Aside from the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda fighters, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
warriors, Turkish, Qatari and Saudi Arabian terrorists and extremists who are pouring into Syria
from the Arab and European countries at the behest of the United States and contributing to the
exacerbation of the crisis in Syria, Israel alone is playing the most destructive role in the Arab
country and has virtually become one of the main belligerents of the civil war there.
Its quite clear that unrest and violence in Syria would be in the best interests of Israel. Syria has
long been a pivotal part of the axis of resistance against Israel; therefore, the destabilization of
Syria means increased security on the Israeli borders and a giant step toward to a military
confrontation with Iran.
There is credible evidence showing that Israel, throughout the past three years, has been closely
working with Al-Qaeda bases in Syria, providing the terrorist cult with money, training and arms
to help them fight the government of President Assad and the Syrian Army forces.
According to German author and the director of nsnbc.me news website Christof Lehmann,
Israel provides direct military aid to Jabhat al-Nusrah, Liwa-al-Islam, and other Al-Qaeda
brigades currently stationed in Syria. Lehmann cites the Zionist daily Jerusalem Post as
acknowledging that Israel has established a field hospital in the Occupied Golan Heights which
provides medical and remedial services to the Jihadists and terrorists fighting in Syria. Bibi
Netanyahu has laughably described the hospital as the true face of Israel and a place where
the good in the world are separated from the evil in the world. Perhaps he has made such a
lunatic remark because he wishfully believes every force that resists Israeli oppression and
occupation is an incarnation of evil in the world.
Just recently, an Austrian military officer working with the United Nations Disengagement
Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Occupied Golan Heights who spoke to the media on the
condition of anonymity confirmed that Israel has provided large-scale logistical and military
support to the terrorists and rebels in different parts of Syria. The officer has confirmed that
theres a joint operation room between armed terrorist gangs and Israel which has the function to
coordinate the delivery of assistance to the terrorists.
Its even believed that the 21 August 2013 chemical attacks on the civilians of the Ghouta district
near Damascus in which around 1,500 people were killed was an Israeli scheme to deceive the
public around the world and make the Western powers believe that President Assad had ordered
the use of chemical weapons against the rebels and eventually lay the groundwork for a UNSC-
sanctioned military strike against Syria with the final objective of overthrowing the Syrian
government.
Its said that one day before the chemical attacks, the rebels and Al-Qaeda combatants had
massacred Syrian citizens in the Ghouta suburbs of the Markaz Rif Dimashq and recorded videos
of their killings and then uploaded the videos on the internet, pretending that the citizens were
killed in the chemical attacks perpetrated by the government; however, their plan was carried out
so frantically that they gave themselves up. It was then that the British MP George Galloway
suggested that the Israelis provided the insurgents with chemical weapons.
fo esu neeb sah ereht fIti desu taht sleber eht sti ,sag evren fo esu yna neeb sereht fI
t arty P caeda who used the cheaical weaponse, said the espec-cheaical weapons, it was hl
.George Galloway
Who gave Al-Qaeda the chemical weapons? Heres my theory. Israel gave them the chemical
weapons, Galloway MP added.
Obviously, Israel will be making a great achievement if it succeeds in bringing the government
of President Assad to its knees. Then it can realize its vicious plans for the Middle East,
including the plan of permanently annexing the Golan Heights, as the Foreign Minister Avigdor
Liberman has openly talked about. According to Liberman, the annexation of Golan Heights,
which were illegally occupied by Israel in 1967, is an issue which should be resolved with the
consent and agreement of Israel, the United States and the international community! The other
plans which Israel can take action to realize are the annexation of the West Bank and parts of the
Southern Lebanon which currently cannot turn into reality as a result of the presence of an
opposing force that is the disobedient government of Syria.
For a long time, the German textbooks were referring to what had come to be known as the
Schiitischer Halbmond (Shiite Halfmoon) to describe the Shiite populations that were
experiencing a growth of dominance in the Middle East since early 2000s. However, when in
2004, King Abdullah II of Jordan used the term Shiite Crescent to refer to the perceived threat
of Irans increasing influence in the Middle East, the epithet became more popular and widely
used.
The Shiite Crescent is notionally consists of the Shiite populations in Bahrain, Iran, Azerbaijan,
Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Although Shiites comprise only 10-15% of the Muslim population of
the world, the Shiite-dominant countries wield an influence and power which is growing
steadily, and since the political Shiite mindset fundamentally rejects Zionism and Israeli
expansionism, Israel finds it the best way to ensure its security to fight against the members of
this hypothetical Shiite Crescent or blackmail them the other way.
Although Iran has never been a threat to Israel despite the claims of its leaders to the contrary,
Tel Aviv considers defeating or at least damaging Iran one of its main foreign policy missions,
and conquering Syria that is Irans main ally and defender in the region would pave the way for
Israel to think about overpowering and overwhelming Iran. Iranian military officials and
statesmen have always clearly indicated that the peaceful nature of the country means that Iran
will never think of waging any wars or harming its neighbors or other countries, but at the same
time they have strongly maintained that any Israeli aggression against Iran will be the final nail
in Israels coffin and would be equivalent to the rainfall of Iranian rockets and missiles into the
Israeli soil which will close the chapter of this apartheid regime forever.

Now Israel, whose leaders have explicitly confessed to providing ammunitions, missiles and
other state-of-the-art weapons to the Syrian rebels and Al-Qaeda mercenaries, has found itself in
an inextricable battle over its shivering security. It should continue providing the insurgents and
mercenaries with dangerous weapons until President Assad is ousted from power, or concede to
another big failure in the Middle East after the 2006 Lebanon War (also known as the 33-day
War) and the Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead) and experience a serious security decline.

What is clear is that Israel is a big accomplice in the atrocities that are taking place in Syria. Its
playing a dirty role in the Arab country, but it doesnt seem that it would be held accountable
over its war crimes, like the past 66 years that it has been immune to accountability and
responsibility before the international community by virtue of its passionate attachment with
the United States
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-military-supports-al-qaeda-tel-avivs-dirty-role-playing-in-the-
syrian-crisis/5371624

Syria and Washingtons Plan B: Building a Case for
Humanitarian Military Intervention, Again
By Ajamu Baraka
Global Research, February 27, 2014
Black Agenda Report 25 February 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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The U.S. is once again preparing to play its humanitarian military intervention card in Syria,
with the help of corporate media. Washingtons real goal is cold-blooded: Generalized
mayhem, reducing the population to dependence on their networks and territorial
dismemberment have all moved the administration toward realization of its strategic objective.
With the predictable failure of the Syrian peace conference, the call for the Obama
administration to wage a humanitarian war to save civilians in Syria is once again being
championed by some elements of the mainstream media in the U.S. This shouldnt be a surprise
to anyone, since certain powerful voices in the U.S. corporate media have long been in lock-step
with some of the most hawkish elements in the Obama administration regarding the use of force
in Syria.
A sober, clear-eyed analysis of the logic of the decisions by the Obama administration suggest
that the failure of the peace conference was a programmed outcome. The inescapable conclusion
as to why the conference was even held, therefore, is that administration hawks saw the failure of
the conference as a valuable public relations weapon to move public opinion in favor of more
direct military involvement.
Before I am accused of being overly cynical or even conspiratorial, a review of the decisions
made in the days and weeks leading up to the conference provides more than adequate evidence
to support this contention.
If the Obama administration had been even remotely committed to brokering some kind of
diplomatic solution, would it have insisted that all of the parties to the talks be bound by the
terms of the Geneva communiqu that called for regime change in the form of a transitional
government? Would the administration have excluded Iran or been committed to pretending that
the legitimate opposition was represented by the Syrian National Coalition, a motley crew of
slavish opportunist exiles who everyone knows have no real connection to the political and
military situation on the ground?
The propaganda value of the talks seems to be the only plausible explanation for why the
administration would engineer the elaborate charade in Geneva. The decision to hold the talks
knowing that they were going to lead to failure is where the real cynicism lies.
As I have argued since the beginning of this manufactured conflict, peace and particularly the
humanity of the Syrian people are the last things on the minds of U.S. policy-makers. The often-
invoked concerns for the starving people of Homs and all of the other innocents in this brutal
conflict continue to be no more than a crude subterfuge to allow the administration to pursue its
broader regional geostrategic objective the elimination of the Syrian state.
That is why the Islamic fundamentalist groups that U.S. intelligence services helped to arm, train
and deploy with destructive efficiency (without much real concern if they were affiliated with al-
Qaeda) have targeted all of the institutions of the Syrian state schools, hospitals, government
agencies, electrical stations, water and sanitation facilities, food distribution networks as part of
their strategy. Generalized mayhem, reducing the population to dependence on their networks
and territorial dismemberment have all moved the administration toward realization of its
strategic objective. But because of the successes of the Syrian armed forces and the uncertainties
generated as a result of internal conflicts breaking out among Islamist forces in the country,
Washington decision-makers want to make sure that the Syrian government is not able to retake
or reconsolidate its influence in contested zones. This can only be assured as a result of more
direct military intervention on the part of the U.S. and its allies.
So the next act in this macabre play is now centering on the very real sufferings of the Syrian
people. The administrations man at the U.N., Lakhor Brahimi, set this direction in motion by
skillfully moving the peace talks toward the issue of humanitarian concerns. No longer needing
the chemical weapons excuse, the administration along with its coterie of collaborationist human
rights organizations and media apologists, are now demanding U.N. access to the areas where the
Syrian governmental forces have hemmed in the armed groups.
Taking a page from its Libyan playbook on how to manipulate the public to support war, the
Obama administration had a draft U.N. Security Council resolution circulated that placed the full
blame on the Syrian government for the humanitarian situation in the country.
The language in the resolution was seen as so one-sided and belligerent by some U.N. members
that it had no chance of being supported, which of course was the real objective. Orchestrated by
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, the resolution appeared aimed at invoking a veto
in the Security Council that would set the stage for another illegal NATO-led military assault on
the Syrian armed forces. Instead, a resolution was passed over the weekend that some
characterized as more balanced because it called on all sides to allow humanitarian aid to reach
civilians and condemned acts of terror. But all of the delegations understand that this
compromise resolution is primarily targeting the Syrian government.
This concern for the humanity of the Syrians is comical if it was not so deadly serious. Sen. John
McCain the same Vietnam-era war criminal who was silent on the uprising of the people in
Bahrain, the slaughter of innocent civilians in the various military assaults by Israel in Gaza and
who supported the illegal war against Iraq that resulted in the deaths of over a million Iraqis
loudly condemned the Obama administration for not doing more for people suffering in Syria.
McCain as well as the hawks in the Obama administration and in the media know that they have
a powerful weapon with the imperial and racist notion of the U.S. governments responsibility
to protect. The New York Times, Washington Post and a number of other major newspapers are
now on record suggesting that the use of force by the Obama administration to end the
starvation of innocents trapped in besieged cities is morally justified.
No one can deny the reality of tens of thousands of innocents suffering from the savage brutality
of war. And who can disagree with relieving the sufferings of innocent civilians trapped in the
middle of warring factions? U.S. decision-makers are well aware that most polling data suggest
that when issues of humanitarian concerns are introduced, public support for more direct
involvement in Syria shifts from a majority that is opposed to a slight majority that would
support it.
So the U.S. public has been saturated over the last two weeks with stories about the trapped
civilians, the cruel al-Assad government opposing humanitarian access and the innocent
American administration that only wants to help the suffering Syrian people. The sad part of all
of this is that with the anti-war and anti-imperialist movement in shambles, suffering from a
combination of institutional weakness, marginalization and the effects of the liberal virus that
has confused and disarmed U.S. radicals, the administration may very well be successful in
maneuvering the public into supporting more direct military involvement.
The consequence of all of this for the people of Syria will be more violent destruction, brutality
and displacement. But I am sure that the pro-imperialist and pro-war Democrats in the Obama
administration have concluded that for the Syrian people, freedom as they define it is worth
the price in death and destruction. And they will not see any irony in this.
Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist and organizer. Baraka is an Associate Fellow at the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, D.C. and editor and contributing columnist for
the Black Agenda Report. His latest publications include contributions to two recently published
books Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA and Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of
Amilcar Cabral.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-syrian-subterfuge-part-two-the-case-for-humanitarian-war-
again/5371238
Syria: Al Qaeda Terrorists Fired Mortar Shells to Derail
Homs U.N. Relief Efforts.
611 civilians Evacuated from Homs old city
By Global Research News
Global Research, February 10, 2014
SANA
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: United Nations, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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20 0

55
611 civilians who were besieged in the old city of Homs have been evacuated Sunday, Homs
governor Talal Barazi told SANA reporter on Sunday.
The majority of the civilains are women, children and elderly.
The evacuees are a new batch of civilians to be evacuated from Homs old city in implementation
of an agreement between Homs governor and the UN resident representative in Syria.

Homs governor, Talal al-Barazi said in a statement to SANA that persons ranging in age between
16 and 54 years have been evacuated at their own request who said they were ready to have their
file settled and agreed to face responsibility were they wanted to any judicial body.

Al-Barazi said that humanitarian aid has entered the old city whose access has been impeded due
to terrorist attacks on the aid trucks while they were on their way into the Old City
neighborhoods yesterday.
The governor revealed that a plan to extend the evacuation process for three days is under
consideration as the governorate is interested in evacuating all civilians willing to exit the old
city.
He affirmed that the governorate is ready to deliver humanitarian assistance so long as the UN
mission and the Syrian Red Crescent are delivering aid to those in need.

A number of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers have been wounded while delivering aid
into Homs old city as terrorists fired mortar shells and detonated an explosive device in an
attempt to derail the relief efforts.
However, two cars loaded with relief aid entered Homs city and have been distributed in the
neighborhoods of Bustan al-Diwan and al-Hamidieh.
83 civilians, all of them women, children and elderly were evacuated Friday
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-al-qaeda-terrorists-fired-mortar-shells-to-derail-homs-u-n-relief-
efforts/5368121

Syria: Christian City Attacked by Freedom Fighters.
CNN, NYT Justify Rebel Assault
Saidnaya under rebel attack
By Brad Hoff
Global Research, February 11, 2014
Levant Report.
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
538
66 9

872

Levant Reports own sources inside Syria were present in Saidnaya this week: they report that
the townspeople are now sounding the alarm to the international community that Islamist rebels
in the surrounding mountains are preparing a major invasion of the Christian city. The primary
aim of the rebels, the inhabitants fear, is to commit religious cleansing against Christians
similar to what happened only months ago in nearby Maaloula. A reluctant international press is
also beginning to acknowledge the potential for a genocidal event against Saidnayans, yet
disinformation is already in full swing.
This past Thursday, February 6, monasteries and churches in the ancient Christian city of
Saidnaya held special celebrations for the feast of St. Elian a Syrian saint martyred in Homs in
the third century. These celebrations took place despite the village being under constant rebel
mortar attack attacks that have been stepped up over the last month.

Saidnaya, which lies 25 minutes by car north of Damascus, and 40 minutes to the southwest of
Maaloula, is (alongside Maaloula) Syrias most celebrated and historic Christian city. Its scenic
location at the edge of the Qalaman Mountains, its active churches and monasteries that go back
to the time of Emperor Justinian, and multiple restaurants and resort hotels made it a favorite
weekend getaway destination for Syrians and tourists of all backgrounds prior to the chaos of the
last couple of years.
Saidnaya has, until recently, managed to stay quiet and relatively peaceful for most of the nearly
three years of the Syria conflict. Its 5 active monasteries, dozens of churches, and large convent
orphanage for girls, have continued life as usual as they have over the past many centuries living
under multiple regimes - from the Byzantines to the Ottomans to the Baath.
The mostly Orthodox Christian population tends to be presented as pro-regime in Western
media reports this perhaps because Syrias most well-known political prison is located in
Saidnaya. But the citys Christian population believes that its very survival is dependent on the
government checkpoints, tanks, and soldiers that protect it from the thousands of foreign-backed
insurgents that are hunkered down in the surrounding Qalamon Mountains.
Unlike the very politically involved Maronites of Lebanon, Syrias Christian population tends to
keep a low-profile, and has enjoyed the historical toleration shown by the secular pan-Arab
Baathists and socialist nationalist politicians that have led the country for much of Syrias
modern period.
Timothy Heckenlively, a Classics professor at a major central Texas university who has lived in
the Saidnaya/Maaloula area, published a brief report in October titled Saidnaya: another
Maaloula in the making?. After the initial successful insurgent entry into Maaloula, he
expressed the following concern:
It appears that the Islamist opposition forces who wrecked [sic] havoc in Maaloula may be
preparing for a similar assault on the equally important Christian village of Saidnaya. On Oct. 1,
Fides (a site of the Vatican news network) reported that raids were now commonplace and that
one man was dead after clashes the previous day.
Since October, insurgents have mounted multiple unsuccessful attempts to capture the
mountaintop which overlooks Saidnaya a strategic place from which they could destroy the
city below. At the highest point of this mountain sits Cherubim Monastery an active monastery
and retreat center which has an important cultural heritage site: a church which dates to the third
century. One of the tallest Christ statues in the world was recently erected on the monastery
grounds - a towering 39 meters tall bronze sculpture that was years in planning with the help of
Russian benefactors.
During the spring and summer months, Cherubim Monastery hosts Christian youth camps and
church schools. The monks recently had to leave the monastery due to the frequent rebel
incursions around the mountain; they are now sheltered in St. George Monastery in the village
below.
In an October 2013 Christianity Today article entitled Latest Stop in Race for Worlds Tallest
Jesus Statue: War-Torn Syria, the reality of an ongoing religiocide in this historic Christian
region was noted:
Saidnaya has recently faced sectarian attacks similar to Maaloula, another Aramaic-speaking
pilgrimage destination just 15 miles north. In addition to displacing tens of thousands of people,
the attacks have prompted 50,000 Syrian Christians to apply for citizenship in Russia, reports
Interfax. It is for the first time since the Nativity of Christ that we Christians of Qalamoun
living in the villages of Saidnaya, Maara Saidnaya, Maaloula and Maaroun are under threat of
banishment from our land, reads the groups appeal to the Russia Foreign Ministry.
The parallels between Maaloula and Saidnaya are all too evident: both are iconic Christian cities
that have done their best to prevent conflict from entering their sleepy countryside environs; both
contain Syrian cultural and UNESCO heritage sites valued by all Syrians; both have convent-run
orphanages for girls and charitable centers and retreat centers; and both are overlooked by
mountains from which rebels can wreak havoc and terror on a vulnerable population. Sadly,
Maaloula now sits liquidated of its Christian inhabitants (some were kidnapped, some killed, and
most fled to Damascus).
Our Lady of Saidnaya Convent and Orphanage is significantly larger than Maaloulas St. Thekla
Convent. It was the very first target of rebel insurgent attack on the city as it was struck by
mortar fire back in January 2012. Note that in spite of current opposition and media claims that
Saidnaya is primarily a government/military target, this first target of attack was a community of
elderly nuns and young orphan girls.
We all know the story of Maaloula. A reluctant international press picked up on the terror
attack after it was too late and even then major outlets like the New York Times did their best
to protect the reputation of the rebel insurgents involved in the takeover and brutal cleansing of
the citys Christian population. Maaloula was of no real strategic value to the rebel insurgents
their own actions in the aftermath of the assault testify to the fact that the towns religious
identity had everything to do with it.
Levant Reports sources, which have a close affiliation with Maaloulas St. Thekla Convent,
confirm that the ancient monastery church and side chapels were stripped completely of their
priceless religious icons, and other religious objects were urinated and defecated upon. Christian
villagers who were caught in the midst of the rebel assault had their throats slit, or were shot
execution style at close range.
According to Matthew Barber, Syria analyst and administrator of the hugely influential Syria
Comment site, the Free Syrian Army and allied groups played a central role in the assault and
takeover of Maaloula:
The video and photographic evidence available after the attack indicates that the operation was a
coordinated effort between (at least) the following groups: Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, the
Baba Amr Brigades (a rebel group possibly affiliated with the SIF Syrian Islamic Front), FSA
Commandos Unit, and Soqour al-Sham.
It is important to remember that the United States and other governments officially finance and
supply weapons to some of these very groups. Though the FSA continues to be sold as
moderate it routinely conducts joint operations with Jabhat al-Nusra and other groups. A
clear dividing line between extreme Islamists and the FSA is a myth sold by the United States
and Western governments.
The 12 abducted Maaloulan nuns and 4 young women from the orphanage are still the objects of
uncertain on-and-off hostage negotiations. Shamefully, multiple Western mainstream media
outlets uncritically reported opposition claims that the nuns were actually rescued from Syrian
Army forces as a result of the rebel takeover of Maaloula. See National Public
Radios outrageous December 20 report Rebel Leader: Nuns Were Led To Safety, Not Seized,
In Syria:
He decided to kill you and blame us, he recalls pleading with the sisters, referring to Syrian
President Bashar Assad, after a surface-to-surface missile shattered the convents thick wooden
door on Dec. 3
But Abu Majid says local rebels were protecting the women from the regime shelling on an
ancient Christian town.
Similar propaganda has already begun regarding the ongoing insurgent raids on Saidnaya. In a
recent January 24 CNN exclusive report from Saidnaya, the CNN correspondent declared that
Cherubim Monastery is not a civilian target these days this because Syrian Army tanks and
soldiers are protecting the monastery and the city below. Yet the report also acknowledges
that most of the fighters protecting the mountaintop and monastery are simply local Christians
who desire to keep the Islamic insurgents from entering. It is unbelievable that a reporter would
brazenly declare that a historic Christian monastery that housed elderly monks and was home to
summer youth camps is now a legitimate military target for the opposition.
A recent PressTV report, also with camera crew on the ground in Saidnaya, bothered to include
an interview with one the monks affected by the rebel shelling. Fr. Isaac Zeina, part of the
monastic community that inhabited Cherubim Monastery, said in the interview we pray to God
for an end to the war. These are hardly the words of pro-regime militarism, yet the CNN
report branded Fr. Isaacs monastery and home as not a civilian target.
Just last week, Al Monitor online news published an in-depth report on the Saidnaya
assaults. The Al Monitor article is significant in that its currently the only instance of a major
international news outlet exposing the clear the intentions of the areas rebel insurgents:
The city rings its bells whenever danger is imminent, as was the case when mortar shells hit the
Cherubim Monastery and the Convent of Our Lady of Saidnaya during the fourth attack [against
the city] on Jan. 19. The citys citizens are now wanted by armed militants.
Being from Saidnaya is enough reason to be killed by the militants who have suffered heavy
defeats there, the most recent of which was the fourth attack. Whats more, the citys people are
also guilty of being nasara, a derogatory term used by armed groups to refer to Christians.
You will be next, after Maaloula, recounts one of the citys dignitaries.
The Al Monitor article also confirms that the orphans at Our Lady of Saidnaya are still in
residence as rebel mortar shells continue to rain down. These girls are orphans with nowhere to
go, and the convent is their home. The article further confirms that Al-Nusra Front is
circulating a video declaring a genocidal war against all Christians.
Sadly, major media will on the whole continue to be silent about acts of genocide and
religiocide committed by rebels in Syria. Some of the worlds most influential and visible
reporters are close enough to events on the ground to know the truth, yet they continue to
willfully distort, and commit acts of omission in their reporting.
Anne Barnard is perhaps the single most influential reporter when it comes to shaping American
and world perceptions of the conflict in Syria. She is the Beirut bureau chief in charge of
covering the Middle East for the New York Times. Anyone who knows her work can easily
perceive that she consistently and almost exclusively relies on rebel opposition sources in her
reporting.
Joshua Landis, widely regard as the foremost Syria expert in the U.S., tweeted a
LevantReport.com article on October 8 of last year that systematically took apart Anne Barnards
NYT reporting of the first rebel attack on Maaloula. The critique included the following:
Soon the propaganda war began. The FSA posted videos to YouTube claiming that the Assad
regime was shelling churches in Maaloula and started promoting them on Twitter using various
aliases. This was soon followed by a video in which a wahabi-bearded liberator gave a tour of
the supposed damage. Their efforts soon met with the desired reward. On September 10, the New
York Times ran an article by Anne Barnard giving credibility to such videos and portraying
public outcry about Maaloula as potential misperception. Eight days later, Lina Sinjab of the
BBC used such materials to portray the whole event as an unfortunate scuffle with few deaths
and no particular damage to local churches.
The article tweeted by Landis named Barnard as a propagandist attempting to cover up the
crimes of the Syrian rebels. Surprisingly, in perhaps a sarcastic or playful acknowledgement of
the critique, Anne Barnard favorited the article on her Twitter account. This winking
acknowledgment from Barnard lends credibility to those who say that major media institutions
such as the New York Times are willfully distorting the true and full context of the Syria
conflict.
Saidnayas Christians, and all religious and ethnic minorities currently being targeted for
genocide by the Syrian rebels need true and accurate reporting of their plight now more than
ever. If real and lasting peace, the goal claimed by the Geneva Conference, is ever to be
established in Syria, it must begin with a realistic assessment of not just the regimes crimes and
brutalities, but of the unambiguous intention to commit genocide on the part of the rebel
opposition.
Brad Hoff served as a Marine from 2000-2004 at Headquarters Battalion, Quantico. After
military service he lived, studied, and traveled throughout Syria off and on from 2004-2010. He
currently teaches in Texas.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-christian-city-attacked-by-freedom-fighters-cnn-nyt-justify-rebel-
assault/5368353

Violation of International Law: Frozen Syrian Bank Assets
Confiscated by EU, Transferred to the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
By Global Research News
Global Research, February 13, 2014
SANA
Region: Europe, Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Law and Justice, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Foreign Ministry : release of Syrian assets frozen by EU to fund elimination of chemical
weapons flagrant violation of law
A source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said,
In a step, the newest in a series of illegal procedures made by the European Union on Syria, the
EU foreign ministers endorsed on Monday a modification to the restrictive measures imposed on
Syria to release Syrian assests frozen by the EU states to fund the elimination of the Syrian
chemical weapons, particularly to the credit fund of the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW), is a flagrant violation of the international law and the UN Charter
and understandings reached by the executive board of the OPCW.
The source added in a statement to SANA that the European step violates the resolution of the
OPCW executive board adopted on November 15, 2013 which acknowledged Syrias stance
which was conveyed to the organization officially stating the inability to shoulder the financial
costs of destroying the chemical weapons.
The source said that the ministry sees this step which is aimed at evading from the international
obligations to fund the process of destroying the Syrian chemical weapons a translation of hidden
intentions and an expression of the swindle policy practiced by some influential countries inside
the EU at a time when they reject to release frozen assets to fund purchase of food and medicine
which is considered the priority of the Syrian state.
The Foreign Ministry condemns this European selective step and calls on the EU to
immediately lift the immoral sanctions imposed on Syria and undo the measures which violate
the international law through which the EU allowed its members to arm the terrorist groups
which are responsible for bloodshed in Syria and to purchase the Syrian oil, the source added.
F.Allafi
http://www.globalresearch.ca/blatant-violation-of-international-frozen-syrian-bank-assets-confiscated-
by-eu-transferred-to-the-organization-for-the-prohibition-of-chemical-weapons-opcw/5368618

Israel is Attempting to use the Syrian Conflict to Annex
Syrias Golan
By Global Research News
Global Research, February 14, 2014
Syrian Arab News Agency
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: United Nations
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Wednesday sent two identical letters to the UN
Secretary General and the President of the UN Security Council saying that on January 31st ,
2014 while visiting the occupied Syrian Golan, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman made
statements which embody an insolent approach to the events in Syria and recklessness with the
relevant UN resolutions on ending the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan and all occupied
Arab lands since 1967.
During the visit, Liberman called for settling the Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights in the
framework of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the events in Syria, saying part of this
comprehensive bargain has to cover an understanding between Israel, the international
community and the US stating that Golan is part and parcel of Israel.
He claimed that the security dangers linked to our capability to defend north of the country
requires a recognition of Israels sovereignty of the Golan Heights by the international
community.
It seems that Israel, an authority existing through occupation, didnt stop at involving in
supporting the armed terrorist groups in Syria, but mistakenly believes it can exploit its backing
to a terrorist war on Syria to achieve its expansionist dreams and try to legitimatize its
occupation of the Syrian Golan, turning a blind eye to all international relevant resolutions on
ending the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan including resolution No. 497 of 1981, the
letter said.
It added that those statements the requirement to remind Israel that the UN Security Council has
affirmed in Resolution No. 497 of 1981 that the Israeli decision issued on December 14th, 1981
to impose its laws, administrative and judicial custody on the occupied Syrian Golan is null and
void and has no legal value, a stance to which the UN General Assembly has annually affirmed
via its resolutions, the latest of which No. 84/68 states that Israel, until now, did not abide by UN
Security Council resolution No. 497 of 1981 and that Israel s decision issued on December 14th,
1981 is null and void.
The General Assembly, in the 5th item of the same resolution, also called on Israel to withdraw
from the whole occupied Syrian Golan to the June 4th, 1967 line.
The Foreign Ministry said that after the 47 years which have passed on Israels occupation of the
Syrian Golan and the international communitys adoption of hundreds of resolutions which call
for the end of this occupation and the stop of its inhuman and racial policies as well as the acts of
killing against civilians in the occupied Arab lands, Israel still turns a blind eye to all
international resolutions. Furthermore, Libermans statement indicates an escalation of Israels
recklessness disregard for the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN General
Assembly.
The government of the Syrian Arab Republic, while draws the attention of the UN Secretary
General and the US Security Council President to the dangers of such statements and the
accompanying Israeli hostile practices, calls on the UN, particularly the Security Council to take
the necessary procedures to guarantee the respect for its resolutions and oblige Israel to end its
occupation of the Syrian Golan and withdraw from it into the line of June 4th, 1967, the
Ministry said.
It added that Syria renews the assertion that the continuous dealing of the UN with the Israeli
occupation of the Syrian Golan is routine without any serious move to enforce the Security
Councils resolutions, which encourages this illegal situation to continue in our region and
undermine the credibility of the UN organization.
The Ministry called for issuing this letter as an official document of the Security Council and
General Assembly under the two agenda items of 35 and 52.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-is-attempting-to-use-the-syrian-conflict-to-annex-syrias-
golan/5368868
House of Saud Gives Syrian Insurgents Anti-Aircraft
Missiles with US Blessing
By Jason Ditz
Global Research, February 15, 2014
Antiwar.com
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Officials have confirmed that Saudi Arabia intends to provide Chinese-made anti-aircraft
missiles to rebel factions in Syria soon in a move to tip the balance against a Syrian military
which has enjoyed air superiority.
Shoulder-mounted manpad missiles have been smuggled into Syria after the looting in Libya,
but never in huge quantities. Rebel factions, including those supported by the West, have
repeatedly said that if they were able they would use such missiles to attack civilian airliners
flying over Syrian airspace, saying all civilian aircraft are legitimate targets in their war.
It is those threats which have made the US oppose such arms shipments in the past, and while
they say their position has not changed they dont appear to be seriously opposing Saudi
shipments, and indeed plan to bankroll the same rebels with millions of dollars in new aid.
Though Saudi Arabia has bought large amounts of US arms, the decision to use Chinese
weapons for the rebel shipments is no doubt an attempt to retain plausible deniability for the US
when the inevitable happens and the moderate rebels start shooting down passenger jets across
the region.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/house-of-saud-gives-syrian-insurgents-anti-aircraft-missiles-with-us-
blessing/5368954

More than 100 Foreign Spies Imprisoned in Syria
By Global Research News
Global Research, February 18, 2014
Alalam
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Intelligence, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
9
10 3

40
A new report shows that more than 100 foreign intelligence and military agents from Saudi
Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are imprisoned in Syria.
According to a report published by the Lebanon-based Al-Manar, 85 Saudi officers, mostly from
Saudi intelligence service, are incarcerated in Syria for assisting and training terrorists.
At least 7 of the spy inmates are described as senior officers.
Saudi Arabias officials, via a mediator, have made numerous appeals to get their agents
released. However, the Syrian government has turned down the pleas.
According to the report, 14 Qatari and seven Turkish intelligence officers from are also
imprisoned in Syria for similar charges.
Turkish and Qatari officials have also made attempts to get their intelligence agents freed but
they have not succeeded.
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to reports, the Western powers
and their regional allies, especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the
insurgents operating inside Syria.


Syria at the Edge of Shock Doctrine
By Rob Prince
Global Research, February 18, 2014
Consortiumnews 15 February 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a leading advocate for
humanitarian military interventions.
Disappointed that President Obama didnt bomb Syria last year, the neocons and other war
hawks are using the frustrations over initial peace talks in Geneva to ratchet up pressure for a
humanitarian military assault now.
At a moment when the only viable path open to resolving the Syrian conflict lies in a negotiated
settlement between the Assad government and the legitimate opposition, two colleagues at the
University of Denvers Korbel School of International Studies, Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel
of the Center for Middle East Studies, have put forth an emotional and poorly conceived call for
military intervention to resolve the escalating humanitarian crisis in Syria.
Using logic tinted with Cold War reasoning (blaming the Russians is bit out of fashion) and poor
examples (Somalia 1993?) to bolster their arguments, they put forth their ideas on the subject
in a New York Times op-ed, titled Use Force To Save Starving Syrians. In a one-sided appeal,
they place the blame for the Syrian human debacle almost entirely at the feet of the Assad
government for virtually all of the violence.

At the same time, the role of Salafist Islamic militants (trained and funded by the Saudis, Qatar,
Turkey and ultimately supported and manipulated by Washington) is minimized if not denied.
Yet it is these elements who have, to a great degree, essentially hijacked a legitimate Syrian
opposition movement, internationalized the struggle and continue to wreak havoc and death in
their goal to establish Shariah law in Syria and beyond.
Russia is criticized for failing to restrain the Syrian governments military actions but no similar
demands none at all are made of the United States and the Saudis to rein in allies fighting
in the field. Nor is any weight given to the extensive human, infrastructural and cultural damage
these Islamic fundamentalist elements have done or to their utter viciousness, cruelty and
politically retrograde nature.
Calling for military intervention as a way to end or at least reduce the bloodshed in Syria does
pull at certain ethical heartstrings. But it is, at best, a desperate appeal, and at worst, quite
frankly, a cynical move meant to give cover to not especially humane long-term geopolitical
considerations.
Indeed, perhaps the sorriest assumption of their argument is that the United States can save the
day and end the humanitarian tragedy in Syria by riding in on its white heavenly horse laden
with cruise missiles and drones. Are they forgetting Washingtons long record of supporting
totalitarian regimes in exchange for oil in the Middle East and elsewhere, and whose
involvement in the Syrian tragedy is, incidentally, far from innocent?
One must make a distinction between humanitarian intervention in times of war, and military
intervention using humanitarian pretexts. The latter actually has a very long and sordid history
going back at least several hundred years and has been used by virtually every colonial and
neocolonial military intervention and massacre. It is nothing new, although lately, through the
thinking of certain American intellectuals (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha
Power and others) it has been given a new intellectual gloss, responsibility to protect.
Pulling out the humanitarian pretext has become more in fashion in this post-Cold War era
when the United States can no longer argue that countering the Soviet threat is a pretext for
political and military intervention. Even during the Cold War, the United States would frequently
invoke a humanitarian pretext (intermingled with anti-communism) for its Third World
interventions, CIA coups, whatever. The bodies of hundreds of thousands of Chileans,
Argentines, Brazilians, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, litter the fields and oceans as
evidence of the results of that policy.
Of late the swan song of saving the natives from humanitarian disaster has been cultivated into
a fine art by the French in Africa in their attempt to re-position themselves to insure their share
of that continents strategic assets, most recently in Mali and now in the Central African
Republic. [The French military intervention in Mali, ostensibly to fight radical Islamists,
followed those militants spreading their influence across northern Africa as a result of the
French-U.S.-led humanitarian intervention to oust and kill Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in
2011.]
Washington is learning from Paris how to refine the argument. What is usually omitted or denied
is the degree to which (in the case of the French in Mali or the U.S. in Syria) French or
American behind-the-scene machinations contributed to the crises exploding in the first
place. This is certainly the case for U.S. political activities in Syria publicly calling for
President Bashar al-Assad to go by ceding power to a transitional government while less
openly training, arming and financing some of the most dastardly elements in the Middle East to
bring down the Assad regime (or getting regional allies to do so).
Naomi Kleins Shock Doctrine aptly applies to what the United States did in Libya (it was
Washington pulling the strings even if the French took the lead in the bombing campaign) and
what it has tried to do less successfully in Syria: use the pretext of humanitarian intervention to
garner public support for a military-initiated regime change. Follow that up with UN Security
Council support for limited military actions to give the cover of international law to the
operation. Then, immediately violate the UN mandate by unilaterally extending the scope of the
approved mission. Get as many allies on board to do the fighting to extend the weight of the
coalition of the willing.
Once the regime change has been accomplished, the societies are restructured along neoliberal
lines making for easier economic penetration and exploitation, their formerly more centralized
governments fractured in one way or another. Once the fighting is over, offer World Bank and/or
IMF structural adjustment aid to restructure the battered economies and infrastructure along
neoliberal lines.
In calling for military intervention in Syria something not even the U.S. military is
particularly enthusiastic about Hashemi and Postel cozy up, as they have before on Iran in
2009 and Libya in 2011, with the likes of AIPAC, along with this countrys band of intrepid and
misguided neoconservatives. These are the same elements that pushed this country into invading
Iraq and continue to push the Obama administration to intervene militarily in Syria.
What would be worse at the moment than a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria, which has the
possibility of aggravating an already destabilized region that much more and probably drawing
in other players including Iraq, Iran and possibly Russia? The military situation on the ground
over the past year has shifted dramatically in favor of the Assad government and its allies
reducing Washingtons hopes for regime change in Syria considerably.
The inner workings of the Obama administrations decision not to attack Syria last September
remain hazy. Perhaps someday the deeper logic of the decision to pull away from the abyss will
come to light. They seem to include both regional considerations as well as Washingtons desire,
not to be exaggerated, to shift American strategic attention to Asia. The concern that military
operations in Syria could result in Iraq- or Afghanistan-like debacles for U.S. policy probably
figured into the decision.
Along with near global opposition to a bombing campaign against Syria last September, the
futility and probably negative results of such a plan may have also figured into the Obama
administrations decisionnot to initiate military action. Whatever, that decision not to pull the
military trigger against Syria, followed by Washingtons negotiations with both Syria and Iran,
are some of the (few) wiser decisions that President Barack Obama has made on Middle East
policy since coming to office in 2009.
Regarding Syria, another hard truth, even for sincere humanitarians, is that U.S. (or U.S.-led)
military intervention is not likely to improve the humanitarian tragedy unfolding there but
instead could even worsen the already bleak reality. Though surely, a U.S.-led bombing
campaign would kill many Syrians, including civilians, there is no certainty none that it
would in any way resolve the conflict.
Rather than ratcheting up the dangers of the Syrian conflict, is it not the time to do just the
opposite? Despite the predictably frustrations, should we not, instead, press for a negotiated
political solution to a conflict that has proven it will have no military solution? Admittedly, the
Geneva negotiations over Syria to date have been little more than a charade, but then are we
the world not in a better place wrangling over how to settle the Syrian crisis politically rather
than fighting over which targets U.S. drones and Cruise missiles might be targeting?
The failure of this round (Geneva II as it is called) cannot be blamed, as the authors do, on
Russian machinations. To the contrary, Russia and most particularly its foreign minister, Sergei
Lavrov, are looking more like the peacemakers in the Syria crisis than is Washington. Global
public opinion recognizes very clearly that the Russians have played a positive, if not decisive,
role in moving the Syrian crisis from big power military confrontation to negotiations while the
Obama administrations approach is more confused and contradictory.
After a sharp U-turn away from military confrontation last year by agreeing to multi-party
negotiations on Syria, the Obama administration seems to have gotten cold feet about pursuing
the Geneva process seriously. The fact of the matter is that there is no way, none, that
Washington can resolve the Syrian crisis independently on its own or to its liking. The Obama
administration plan for regime change in Syria what it has been working on now for several
years appears dead in the water.
What is the alternative vision to ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria? What can be done to
stop the bleeding? The following are some steps I would recommend that might just make
considerably more sense than bombing Damascus or sending U.S. troops to die in yet
another Middle East war. It is a global peace offensive that is needed, not military intervention.
1. That the international community could and should call on all parties to initiate an immediate
multi-sided ceasefire. Of course, pressure from outside allies would be key. If it would be
expected that the Russians and Iranians would hold the Syrian government to task, it would also
be expected that the United States and the Saudis would hold their allies on the ground to the
same standard.
2. The recruiting, training and arming of all foreign mercenaries should end.
3. Assuming that the ceasefire could be established, then a massive humanitarian aid program,
directed by the United Nations, supported by a Security Council resolution should be
implemented as soon as possible.
4. The Geneva peace process has to be actively supported. Frankly, as Ibrahim Kazerooni and I
have stated on our radio program, in our op-eds for the past three years, in public forums and
elsewhere, there can be no military solution to the Syrian crisis. It can only be resolved
politically and diplomatically (a position that President Obama has said that he shares).
5. The Geneva negotiations should center on talks between the Assad government and the
legitimate Syrian opposition. By the latter is meant, those domestic opponents to the regime,
whose grievances against the government are longstanding (and genuine) and whose roots in
Syrian society are organic and undisputed. Such negotiations need to be pursued without
preconditions beyond maintaining the ceasefire.
6. The Obama administration has to be more engaged in the multilateral Geneva peace
negotiations. While Washington made an important decision by not going to war last September,
it seems to be essentially paralyzed in moving the negotiating process. Once again, it is time for
Obama to display the political courage he showed the world in September by pressing the United
States to negotiate seriously in Geneva and not let the domestic political opponents to his Syrian
policy (neo-conservatives, AIPAC, etc.) once again gain the upper hand.
Rob Prince is Teaching Professor at the University of Denvers Korbel School of International
Studies. In recent years, he has written extensively on North Africa. He is also the publisher of
the Colorado Progressive Jewish News.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-at-the-edge-of-shock-doctrine/5369461

US Intelligence and Arab Allies Meet in Washington:
Secret Arrangements to Topple Syrian Government,
Channel Support to Al Qaeda
By Global Research News
Global Research, February 19, 2014
Alalam
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Western and Arab spy chiefs gathered for a meeting in Washington last week to discuss
providing more advanced weapons and special training to Syria militants.
Intelligence agents from the United States and its Arab allies in the Middle East are making
secret arrangements to increase support for Syria militants to topple the Syrian government.
Western and Arab spy chiefs gathered for a meeting in Washington last week to discuss
providing more advanced weapons and special training to the militants, The Washington Post
reported in an article on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabias Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was among the participants,
according to the report.
The US national security adviser, Susan Rice, met with Prince Mohammed during the meeting to
discuss support strategy for the militants.
The new strategy comes as the militants have been losing ground over the past year.
The gathering was also attended by intelligence chiefs from Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and other
regional allies of Washington. Most of the operations agreed in the meeting will be supervised by
the Central Intelligence Agency.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is reportedly revisiting plans for Syria, including renewed
military options.
A report by the Wall Street Journal said the White House is reconsidering military, diplomatic
and intelligence options regarding Syria which were abandoned in favor of pursuing the talks.
As the president has made clear, we are constantly looking at what options we can take to
resolve the crisis in Syria. We are going to continue to work with all of the parties concerned to
try to move forward on a diplomatic solution, White House National Security Council
spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said.
Syria sank into war in 2011 when pro-reform protests turned into a massive insurgency following
the intervention of Western and regional states.
The unrest, which took in terrorist groups from across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa,
has transpired as one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-intelligence-and-arab-allies-meet-in-washington-secret-
arrangements-to-topple-syrian-government-channel-support-to-al-qaeda/5369666

Is Washington Considering a Full-Scale Drone War over
Syria?
By Timothy Alexander Guzman
Global Research, February 21, 2014
Silent Crow News and Global Research
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Militarization and WMD, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?
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Will the Obama administration launch a full scale drone war over Syria in the coming months
ahead? Public support for Washington to order a direct military intervention against the Syrian
government because it is accused of using chemical weapons against civilians is at the lowest
level in 20 years according to a Gallop Poll conducted on September 2013.
More than 51% of Americans oppose military action and 13% are unsure if military action is
practical.
In February 2013, US Press Secretary Jay Carney stated to the public, the ethical and wise use
of drones that can pinpoint targets without of course killing innocent civilians is legal:
We have acknowledged, the United States, that sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to
conduct targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the
United States and to save American lives. We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to
mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, prevent future attacks, and, again, save American
lives. These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise. The U.S. government takes great
care in deciding to pursue an al Qaeda terrorist, to ensure precision and to avoid loss of innocent
life
Washington did consider launching drone strikes in the same year as reported by the Los
Angeles Times CIA begins sizing up Islamic extremists in Syria for drone strikes:
The CIA has stepped up secret contingency planning to protect the United States and its allies as
the turmoil expands in Syria, including collecting intelligence on Islamic extremists for the first
time for possible lethal drone strikes, according to current and former U.S. officials.
President Obama has not authorized drone missile strikes in Syria, however, and none are under
consideration
Obamas speech on his drone policy had concerns on the publics attitude towards another war in
the Middle East. Obama said the following on the use of drones in foreign land:
Any U.S. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies and impacts public opinion
overseas. Moreover, our laws constrain the power of the President even during wartime, and I
have taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. The very precision of drone
strikes and the necessary secrecy often involved in such actions can end up shielding our
government from the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites. It can also lead a President
and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism
In a recent meeting between French President Francois Hollande and President Obama to discuss
issues in the Middle East and Africa, Obama was asked about the situation in Syria:
Ive said throughout my presidency that I always reserve the right to exercise military action on
behalf of Americas national security interests. But that has to be deployed wisely. And I think
that what we saw with respect to the chemical weapons situation was an example of the
judicious, wise use of possible military action
The Obama administration refers to the use of military action and how it is deployed as a wise
option. Is he talking about the use of drone warfare? He later continued his statement saying that
the Syrian situation is Fluid:
Whether we can duplicate that kind of process when it comes to the larger resolution of the
problem, right now we dont think that there is a military solution, per se, to the problem. But the
situation is fluid, and we are continuing to explore every possible avenue to solve this problem,
because its not just heartbreaking to see whats happening to the Syrian people, its very
dangerous for the region as a whole, including friends and allies and partners like Lebanon or
Jordan that are being adversely impacted by it
The Obama administration can possibly launch a full scale drone war on Syria without involving
ground troops since the public is opposed to another direct military intervention in the Middle
East. Washington still has its hands tied with troops remaining in Afghanistan. Relations with
President Hamid Karzai are strained. President Karzai refused to sign a security pact allowing
10,000 US troops to stay in Afghanistan for counter-terrorism purposes and training Afghan
forces beyond 2014. Karzai also wants limited NATO troops in Afghanistan. With US and Israeli
troops in preparation for a possible confrontation with Iran if nuclear talks fail, the use of drones
would be a viable option for Washington since it would strike a delicate balance with the
international community and the American public concerning their attitudes towards a new war
using ground troops. A full-scale drone war launched by Washington would seem like a low-
intensity war to the public, meaning that a drone war is not really a major war involving US
troops on the ground, as President Obama said in his 2013 drone policy speech such actions can
end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny .
Washington would hope that the American public and the international community would not
organize anti-war protests regarding Americas 21st century drone war against President Bashar
al-Assad and the Syrian people involving so-called precision strikes. War is war, regardless of
what some people in power may think. The public wants no war against Syria, but will
Washington and its allies listen? That is a good question.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-washington-considering-a-full-scale-drone-war-over-syria/5370020