In late August 2013, the Obama administration lurched to the brink of invading Syria after blaming a Sarin gas attack outside Damascus on President Bashar al-Assad’s government, but evidence – reported by investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh – implicates Turkish intelligence and extremist Syrian rebels instead.
The significance of Hersh’s report is twofold: first, it shows how Official Washington’s hawks and neocons almost stampeded the United States into another Mideast war under false pretenses, and second, the story’s publication in the London Review of Books reveals how hostile the mainstream U.S. media remains toward information that doesn’t comport with its neocon-dominated conventional wisdom.
In other words, it appears that Official Washington and its mainstream press have absorbed few lessons from the disastrous Iraq War, which was launched in 2003 under the false claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was planning to share hidden stockpiles of WMD with al-Qaeda, when there was no WMD nor any association between Hussein and al-Qaeda.
A decade later in August and September 2013, as a new war hysteria broke out over Assad allegedly crossing President Barack Obama’s “red line” against using chemical weapons, it fell to a few Internet sites, including our own Consortiumnews.com, to raise questions about the administration’s allegations that pinned the Aug. 21 attack on the Syrian government.
Not only did the U.S. government fail to provide a single piece of verifiable evidence to support its claims, a much-touted “vector analysis” by Human Rights Watch and The New York Times – supposedly tracing the flight paths of two rockets back to a Syrian military base northwest of Damascus – collapsed when it became clear that only one rocket carried Sarin and its range was less than one-third the distance between the army base and the point of impact. That meant the rocket carrying the Sarin appeared to have originated in rebel territory.
There were other reasons to doubt the Obama administration’s casus belli, including the irrationality of Assad ordering a chemical weapons strike outside Damascus just as United Nations inspectors were unpacking at a local hotel with plans to investigate an earlier attack that the Syrian government blamed on the rebels.
Assad would have known that a chemical attack would have diverted the inspectors (as it did) and would force President Obama to declare that his “red line” had been crossed, possibly prompting a massive U.S. retaliatory strike (as it almost did).
Plans for War
Hersh’s article describes how devastating the U.S. aerial bombardment was supposed to be, seeking to destroy Assad’s military capability, which, in turn, could have cleared the way to victory for the Syrian rebels, whose fortunes had been declining.
Hersh wrote: “Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed.
“‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’
“The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings.”
According to Hersh, the administration’s war plans were disrupted by U.S. and British intelligence analysts who uncovered evidence that the Sarin was likely not released by the Assad government and indications that Turkey’s intelligence services may have collaborated with radical rebels to deploy the Sarin as a false-flag operation.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan sided with the Syrian opposition early in the civil conflict and provided a vital supply line to the al-Nusra Front, a violent group of Sunni extremists with ties to al-Qaeda and increasingly the dominant rebel fighting force. By 2012, however, internecine conflicts among rebel factions had contributed to Assad’s forces gaining the upper hand.
The role of Islamic radicals – and the fear that advanced U.S. weapons might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists – unnerved President Obama who pulled back on U.S. covert support for the rebels. That frustrated Erdoğan who pressed Obama to expand U.S. involvement, according to Hersh’s account.
Hersh wrote: “By the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. ‘Erdoğan was pissed,’ the former intelligence official said, ‘and felt he was left hanging on the vine. It was his money and the [U.S] cut-off was seen as a betrayal.’”
‘Red Line’ Worries
Recognizing Obama’s political sensitivity over his “red line” pledge, the Turkish government and Syrian rebels saw chemical weapons as the way to force the President’s hand, Hersh reported, writing: “In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarised law-enforcement organisation – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability.
“‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Stepping up Turkey’s role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn’t respond [to small chemical weapons attacks] in March and April.’”
The dispute between Erdoğan and Obama came to a head at a White House meeting on May 16, 2013, when Erdoğan unsuccessfully lobbied for a broader U.S. military commitment to the rebels, Hersh reported.
Three months later, in the early hours of Aug. 21, 2013, a mysterious missile delivered a lethal load of Sarin into a suburb east of Damascus. The Obama administration and the mainstream U.S. press corps immediately jumped to the conclusion that the Syrian government had launched the attack, which the U.S. government claimed killed at least “1,429” people although the number of victims cited by doctors and other witnesses on the scene was much lower.
Yet, with the media stampede underway, anyone who questioned the U.S. government’s case was trampled under charges of being an “Assad apologist.” But we few skeptics continued to point out the lack of evidence to support the rush to war. Obama also encountered political resistance in both the British Parliament and U.S. Congress, but hawks in the U.S. State Department were itching for a new war.
Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a bellicose speech on Aug. 30, 2013, amid expectations that the U.S. bombs would start flying within days. But Obama hesitated, first referring the war issue to Congress and later accepting a compromise brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin to have Assad surrender all of his chemical weapons even as Assad continued denying any role in the Aug. 21 attacks.
Obama took the deal but continued asserting publicly that Assad was guilty and disparaging anyone who thought otherwise. In a formal address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2013, Obama declared, “It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack.”
Suspicions of Turkey
However, by autumn 2013, U.S. intelligence analysts were among those who had joined in the “insult to human reason” as their doubts about Assad’s guilt grew. Hersh cited an ex-intelligence official saying: “the US intelligence analysts who kept working on the events of 21 August ‘sensed that Syria had not done the gas attack. But the 500 pound gorilla was, how did it happen? The immediate suspect was the Turks, because they had all the pieces to make it happen.’
“As intercepts and other data related to the 21 August attacks were gathered, the intelligence community saw evidence to support its suspicions. ‘We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdoğan’s people to push Obama over the red line,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘They had to escalate to a gas attack in or near Damascus when the UN inspectors’ – who arrived in Damascus on 18 August to investigate the earlier use of gas – ‘were there. The deal was to do something spectacular.
“‘Our senior military officers have been told by the DIA and other intelligence assets that the sarin was supplied through Turkey – that it could only have gotten there with Turkish support. The Turks also provided the training in producing the sarin and handling it.’
“Much of the support for that assessment came from the Turks themselves, via intercepted conversations in the immediate aftermath of the attack. ‘Principal evidence came from the Turkish post-attack joy and back-slapping in numerous intercepts. Operations are always so super-secret in the planning but that all flies out the window when it comes to crowing afterwards. There is no greater vulnerability than in the perpetrators claiming credit for success.’”
According to the thinking of Turkish intelligence, Hersh reported, “Erdoğan’s problems in Syria would soon be over: ‘Off goes the gas and Obama will say red line and America is going to attack Syria, or at least that was the idea. But it did not work out that way.’”
Hersh added that the U.S. intelligence community has been reluctant to pass on to Obama the information contradicting the Assad-did-it scenario. Hersh wrote:
“The post-attack intelligence on Turkey did not make its way to the White House. ‘Nobody wants to talk about all this,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘There is great reluctance to contradict the president, although no all-source intelligence community analysis supported his leap to convict. There has not been one single piece of additional evidence of Syrian involvement in the sarin attack produced by the White House since the bombing raid was called off. My government can’t say anything because we have acted so irresponsibly. And since we blamed Assad, we can’t go back and blame Erdoğan.’”
Like the bloody U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the near U.S. air war against Syria in 2013 is a cautionary tale for Americans regarding the dangers that result when the U.S. government and mainstream media dance off hand in hand, leaping to conclusions and laughing at doubters.
The key difference between the war in Iraq and the averted war on Syria was that President Obama was not as eager as his predecessor, George W. Bush, to dress himself up as a “war president.” Another factor was that Obama had the timely assistance of Russian President Putin to chart a course that skirted the abyss.
Given how close the U.S. neocons came to maneuvering a reluctant Obama into another “regime change” war on a Mideast adversary of Israel, you can understand why they are so angry with Putin and why they were so eager to hit back at him in Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”]
~
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Iran has dismissed a report claiming that the upcoming visit to the Iranian capital, Tehran, by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is aimed at securing interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists.
“Some international media release biased reports with certain motives and this is not a new practice,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, the speaker for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), on Saturday.
The visit by UN nuclear agency’s chief Yukiya Amano is intended to pave the way for the “implementation” of the road map signed between Iran and the IAEA in mid-July, he added.
The remarks came following a report by The Associated Press quoting unnamed diplomats as saying that during his visit, “Amano plans to push for long-delayed interviews with Iranian scientists linked to alleged experiments as well as to discuss a planned inspection of Parchin [military site].”
Earlier in the day, the IAEA announced that Amano will travel to Iran later on Saturday to discuss issues related to the country’s nuclear program.
“The visit will focus on the ongoing cooperation between the IAEA and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the context of the Road-map for the clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” read the statement issued by the agency, adding that Amano will meet with Iranian officials on Sunday.
On July 14, Iran and the IAEA signed a road map regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear work in the Austrian capital city of Vienna. The agreement was reached on the same day Iran and the P5+1 – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – finalized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna.
As part of the road map, the IAEA is required to finish its investigations about Iran’s nuclear activities and submit a report to the agency’s board by December 15.
Back on Monday, Amano said Iran has successfully met its obligations as stipulated in the road map, including an August 15 deadline for sending written explanations on its past activities.
Earlier this week, experts from Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog wrapped up a two-day session in Tehran, during which the Iranian team discussed the questions posed by the IAEA on September 8 with regard to Iran’s explanations. According to reports, expert meetings will continue in the city during the first week of the Iranian calendar month of Mehr (late September).
The UN Security Council on July 20 unanimously endorsed a draft resolution turning the JCPOA into international law.
Under the JCPOA, limits will be put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic.
For years the 9/11 Truth movement has been vainly pleading with mainstream media – and the “alternative” 9/11-Truth-rejecting media (which we’ll include for our purposes as mainstream) to cover any of the endless, obvious problems with any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (OCT) tales we’ve been told. Now, all of a sudden, these same mainstream media, echoing prestigious players like former US Senator Bob Graham, are on the rampage about a “9/11 cover-up,” and are pushing for the release of 28 redacted pages from the 2002 Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee 9/11 Inquiry’s report! So…let’s all of us 9/11 Truthers jump aboard this fast moving train with both feet, right?
The Truth movement has gradually been gaining a foothold with the public; a growing number of people countenance some kind of government role in 9/11 and/or its cover-up. Suspicion has likewise grown about the role played by Bush-administration neocons and their Zionist bedfellows. After 15 years of staunch media refusal to report the flagrantly obvious holes in the various OCT stories we’ve been fed, why is this particular issue suddenly headline news? Why at this particular juncture? And how does it just happen to be spearheaded by one of the major contributors to the initial coverup?
Let’s examine the question of why the Deep State might want this story heated up to a fever pitch:
Misdirection
It is now commonly assumed among the public that those 28 pages in some way implicate the Saudi government in the events of 9/11, probably by financing the OCT-alleged hijackers. But consider the not unlikely possibility that the real players in 9/11 were not the Saudis, but rather the Bush neocons and their Israeli partners in crime. If they were looking for a way to deflect increasing public doubt about the OTC, blaming the Saudis would be an excellent choice.
Professional magicians employ misdirection – irrelevant bodily motions and various props – to distract the audience’s attention from what they’re really up to. Some of us in the movement consider the 28 Pages campaign to be just such a classical misdirection, so that the Saudis can be pulled out of the hat as the new scapegoats for 9/11. The benefits of such minor modification of the OTC outweigh its risks:
Risks and benefits
Sure, there’s some risk involved. Releasing the 28 pages (if they say what it is widely believed they will say) would, after all, make it obvious to the public that the government has been involved in some kind of cover-up. Hardly a surprise to the Truth movement, or to that majority of Americans who have lost confidence in the official narrative. But let’s remember that the government survived the Snowden/NSA disclosures virtually unscathed – Big Brother can now legally get all the info he wants, and polls have indicated that many Americans are absorbing this “new normal” by censoring themselves online. So another such embarrassment might be just as easily spun and exploited to the real perpetrators’ advantage.
On the other hand, the benefits of such misdirection would be huge:
Everyone’s focus would now be on the Saudis and off the Neocons and their Zionist bedfellows.
The core OCT mythology would not only remain intact, but become solidified in the public mind (i.e., the catastrophic events of 9/11 were entirely the result of 19 hijackers’ actions, whose commandeered airliner crashes were the efficient cause of numerous fire-induced building collapses).
Why does this matter?
On the broadest level of geopolitics, the OCT myth is the basis for Western Islamophobia and the perpetual “Global War on Terror.” Blaming the Saudis only amplifies the assumption of “international Islamic terrorism,” still omitting all reference to Western players.
It is patently clear that the hijacker aspect of 9/11 is logically unsustainable (see below). Whether or not these men ever really existed, whether or not they behaved as devout Muslims, whether or not they were on the planes and whether or not they were financed by the Saudis, Pakistan’s ISI or anyone else – these may be useful questions for some purposes, but not for determining who was ultimately behind 9/11. Moving the public perception in the direction of blaming the Saudis for 9/11 because they supported the “hijackers” – the effect of 28 Pages campaign-support websites like hr14.org, – means abandoning the ever-widening trail of truth so relentlessly blazed by the 9/11 Truth movement, a trail leading close enough to their doors that the real culprits are beginning to feel some heat.
Yet movement veterans who should know better are falling all over each other to jump on the campaign bandwagon, and indeed, to be seen as leading the parade for “HR14,” the Congressional resolution demanding that the administration declassify those 28 pages! As 9/11 activists, they are well aware that the whole OCT story is a fabrication, and that the Saudis could not possibly have masterminded 9/11. Here’s their rationalization in a nutshell: Because the mainstream media are suddenly embracing the topic, any wide public revelation of a “cover-up” will eventually lead to an unraveling of the real cover-up, and therefore represents Truth movement’s first – and perhaps last – real opportunity to break into the wider realm of acceptable public opinion. But meanwhile, to “protect” the politicians (and the uninformed public?) whose support is needed for the passage of this bill, these websites, whilst making a pretense of advancing the cause of 9/11 Truth, implicitly embrace the long-debunked OCT (now twisted ever so slightly to incriminate the Saudis).
But consider the past fourteen years of consistent derogatory treatment by the corporate (and even many “alternative”) media of those who seriously question the basic OCT myth, and the media consolidation this represents – the control of these sources by corporate directors and the Deep State agents who write their playbook. These people are not fools – they don’t launch a propaganda ploy without Plans B, C, etc. in place for potential damage control. Based on the mainstream media’s track record of the past fourteen years, the chances of their running away with this story in a way that genuinely promotes 9/11 Truth seem vanishingly small. And the Achilles’ heel of such an overly optimistic hope is that the solid research and evidence gathered by the Truth movement fall outside (and contradict) the Saudi-financed hijackers-dunnit scenario, so the media is unlikely to seriously reference any of it in its treatment of any forthcoming 28-pages “revelation.”
Looking ahead, where will this leave the Truth movement? How is it going respond if the 28 pages say exactly what people are expecting them to say, and movement leaders are credited for their release? Will these same activists now tooting the horn for hr14 be able to credibly turn around and say “Wait, this information is misleading because ‘the real 9/11’ was something far beyond the abilities of the Saudis to manage!”? And will the media do an about-face with them, and obligingly lavish coverage on what it has complicitly covered up since 9/11?
About those “hijackers”
Our position on the irrelevance of Saudi “financing” admittedly hinges on the question of the alleged “hijackers.” If these alleged 19 hijacked and flew the jetliners in question, Saudi involvement might be argued to have significance (albeit still not the key to 9/11 perpetration). But there are a host of reasons for rejecting the entire OCT hijack scenario:
The “hijackers’” publicly documented behavior was not that of devout Muslims [1]
There is no credible time-stamped video record of them boarding planes, much less arriving at the departing airports. [2]
The stories told about Muhammed Atta and whomever it was who allegedly accompanied him to Portland, Maine changed constantly. [3]
There is no original flight manifest showing Middle Eastern names. [4]
The FBI came up with a list of hijackers within just a few hours of the first 9/11 event, a number of whom they replaced with substitutes shortly afterwards. [5]
The transmission of cockpit comments of “hijackers” heard by the control towers could have been generated anywhere.
The simple button-press sequence (“squawk”) signaling a hijacking was not executed on any of the four planes. [6]
The initially-alleged cellphone calls that reported hijackings in progress were proven in most cases to have been technically impossible; most were later changed to on-board phone calls, some from planes that didn’t have on-board phones, and some calls (per the FBI) were never completed or didn’t exist – particularly the only one referencing “box cutters.” [7]
The conditions in the planes’ passenger cabins that would have existed under the alleged flight behavior of the planes at the time of the calls were completely inconsistent with the background sounds on the calls and the behavior of the alleged callers [8].
With one exception, the alleged “pilots” had never flown a jet-liner; one had flown a simulator of a different plane with a completely different cockpit layout; the one who allegedly made the almost-impossible maneuver over the Pentagon had been declared by his instructors to be unable to even fly a single-engine plane. [9]
The claims of finding a “hijacker” passport unscathed on the ground in NYC, and undamaged red bandanas (indicative of the wrong Muslim sect, in any case) in Pennsylvania, given the alleged physical reality of those crashes, are absurd on their face. [10]
With respect to the question of how 9/11 could have happened without human hijackers, it is vital to note that as of 2001, the technology for complete remote takeover, isolation and control (takeoff, flying, landing) of commercial jetliners was well advanced and had been fully tested in the types of aircraft involved in 9/11, and the air traffic auto-pilot navigation lanes in the sky were precise to within a few feet. [11]
The list goes on. . . As one considers each piece of evidence, the chance that “hijackings” took place approaches zero. The real role of the alleged hijackers is not yet known – those with documented flying lessons may very well have been unwitting patsies. In any case, the question of who might have been financing their stay in this country, Saudi or otherwise, is at best tangential to the larger picture of what really happened on 9/11. No matter what the motive, then, any attempt to persuade people that the final answer to the question of 9/11 perpetration lies in this direction can only be construed as dangerous misdirection. The real price already being paid by the Truth movement is the subversion of unwitting activists who help promote such meretricious campaign propaganda, thereby betraying the movement’s hard-won, fact-based alternative perspective.
The 28 Pages campaign: 9/11 Truth bonanza or limited hangout?
Our own concern about the 28 Pages campaign was triggered by the emergence of several websites supporting it, which hold out the promise that the 28 pages will answer the question of who was really behind 9/11 (and that this will turn out to be Saudi Arabia). Examples are 28pages.org and most especially hr14.org. As the latter is controlled by a veteran 9/11 truther, we appealed to him as fellow activists – an ad hoc group of 9/11 activists sent him a letter critiquing the website from the standpoint of 9/11 Truth, requesting specific revisions of its message. Because his reply failed to substantially address the issues we raised, we have now published it as an open letter.
We are hardly the first to find serious problems with the direction of the 28 Pages campaign. Perhaps the first notable critique came from the blog of Kevin Ryan; whilst this early criticism was on the milder side, its excoriation of the leadership of the 28 Pages campaign – Bob Graham and his “CIA protege” Porter Goss – is not to be missed! Years earlier, in fact, Ryan had opined in Washington’s Blog : “Those redacted pages, and much of the 9/11 Commission report that followed, have always seemed to be a kind of ‘Get into Saudi Arabia free’ card for the powers that be.” Given the recent sea change in Saudi foreign policy – its nearer alignment with Russia and the BRICS bloc – such a prospect cannot be overlooked. What better way to incite public animosity towards the Saudis than by playing the tried and true 9/11 blame game?
Expanding on Ryan’s disquieting report, Professor Michel Chossudovsky, of Globalresearch, wrote:
Calling for the official release and publication of the 28 page classified section of the joint inquiry report pertaining to Saudi Arabia is an obvious red-herring. The objective is to confuse matters, create divisions within the 9/11 Truth movement and ultimately dispel the fact that the 9/11 attacks were a carefully organized False Flag event which was used to declare war on Afghanistan as well as usher in sweeping anti-terrorist legislation.
Both the Congressional inquiry as well the 9/11 Commission report are flawed, their objective was to sustain the official narrative that America was under attack on September 11, 2001. And Graham’s role in liaison with the CIA, is “damage control” with a view to protecting those who were behind the demolition of the WTC towers as well [as] sustaining the Al Qaeda legend, which constitutes the cornerstone of US military doctrine under the so-called “Global War on Terrorism”.
As the 28 Pages campaign unfolds, such scathing criticism has proven remarkably prescient. We urge our fellow 9/11 Truth activists to take it to heart, and to approach the 28 Pages campaign juggernaut, if at all, with extreme caution, so long as it faithfully clings to the OTC . Caveat emptor!!
Point Video-2: Was the Airport Video of the Alleged AA 77 Hijackers Authentic?: Official 9/11 Videotaped Evidence; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-video-2/ * Point Video-1: The Alleged Security Videos of Mohamed Atta during a Mysterious Trip to Portland, Maine, September 10-11, 2001; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-video-1/
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally.
RICO was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread.
The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
In the case of fossil fuels, just as with tobacco, the industry joined together in a common enterprise and coordinated strategy.
The tobacco industry was proved to have conducted research that showed the direct opposite of what the industry stated publicly — namely, that tobacco use had serious health effects. Civil discovery would reveal whether and to what extent the fossil fuel industry has crossed this same line. We do know that it has funded research that — to its benefit — directly contradicts the vast majority of peer-reviewed climate science. One scientist who consistently published papers downplaying the role of carbon emissions in climate change, Willie Soon, reportedly received more than half of his funding from oil and electric utility interests: more than $1.2 million.
Obviously, there’s a lot of money hanging in the balance with regard to energy policy. But when does coordinating “a wide range of activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts” go from basic First Amendment expression to racketeering? The tobacco analogy is inappropriate in regards to how direct the link between smoking and cancer is. Even among those who do agree that global warming is a problem, there’s a tremendously wide variety of opinions about the practical effects. Who gets to decide whether someone is “downplaying the role of carbon emissions in climate change” relative to the consensus? If message coordination and lobbying on controversial scientific and political issues can be declared racketeering because the people funding such efforts have a financial interest in a predetermined outcome, we’re just going to have to outlaw everything that goes on in Washington, D.C.
In February, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., attempted a McCarthyite witch hunt against climate scientists he found disagreeable. And Sheldon Whitehouse is sitting U.S. Senator. He’s now publicly encouraging legal persecution of people who conduct scientific research and/or those that have opinions about it he disagrees with. He wrote this opinion in the Washington Post on Friday, and no one much noticed or batted an eye at the consequences of what he’s advocating here. Such calls for draconian restrictions on speech are becoming alarmingly regular. And if more people don’t start speaking out against it, sooner or later we’re actually going to end up in a place where people are being hauled into court for having an opinion that differs from politicians such as Senator Whitehouse.
20 U.S. climate scientists
When I first spotted this, I rolled my eyes – another day, more insane U.S. climate politics. What really motivated this post is the following letter, from 20 U.S. climate scientists. Letter reproduced in full [link]:
Letter to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren
September 1, 2015
Dear President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren,
As you know, an overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced about the potentially serious adverse effects of human-induced climate change on human health, agriculture, and biodiversity. We applaud your efforts to regulate emissions and the other steps you are taking. Nonetheless, as climate scientists we are exceedingly concerned that America’s response to climate change – indeed, the world’s response to climate change – is insufficient. The risks posed by climate change, including increasing extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and increasing ocean acidity – and potential strategies for addressing them – are detailed in the Third National Climate Assessment (2014), Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The stability of the Earth’s climate over the past ten thousand years contributed to the growth of agriculture and therefore, a thriving human civilization. We are now at high risk of seriously destabilizing the Earth’s climate and irreparably harming people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people.
We appreciate that you are making aggressive and imaginative use of the limited tools available to you in the face of a recalcitrant Congress. One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change. The actions of these organizations have been extensively documented in peerreviewed academic research (Brulle, 2013) and in recent books including: Doubt is their Product (Michaels, 2008), Climate Cover-Up (Hoggan & Littlemore, 2009), Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes & Conway, 2010), The Climate War (Pooley, 2010), and in The Climate Deception Dossiers (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015). We strongly endorse Senator Whitehouse’s call for a RICO investigation.
The methods of these organizations are quite similar to those used earlier by the tobacco industry. A RICO investigation (1999 to 2006) played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking. If corporations in the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds that have been documented in books and journal articles, it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible so that America and the world can get on with the critically important business of finding effective ways to restabilize the Earth’s climate, before even more lasting damage is done.
Sincerely,
Jagadish Shukla, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Edward Maibach, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Paul Dirmeyer, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Barry Klinger, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Paul Schopf, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA David Straus, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Edward Sarachik, University of Washington, Seattle, WA Michael Wallace, University of Washington, Seattle, WA Alan Robock, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ Eugenia Kalnay, University of Maryland, College Park, MD William Lau, University of Maryland, College Park, MD Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO T.N. Krishnamurti, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL Vasu Misra, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL Ben Kirtman, University of Miami, Miami, FL Robert Dickinson, University of Texas, Austin, TX Michela Biasutti, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY Mark Cane, Columbia University, New York, NY Lisa Goddard, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY Alan Betts, Atmospheric Research, Pittsford, VT
I am familiar with all of these names, and know a few of them fairly well. The list includes several members of the National Academy of Science, and numerous IPCC authors. Apart from Trenberth and Robock, as far as I know, none of these individuals have made previous public/political statements about climate change. In fact, one of them told me (say a decade ago), that he had worked hard to keep his head below the radar and stay out of all the politics and the fighting. Another (Mike Wallace) wrote a jacket blurb for Roger Pielke Jr’s latest book The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change (note: Pielke Jr was one of the Grijalvi 7).
My first reaction was that this was some kind of joke, or that some of these individuals didn’t know what they were signing. The document originated from the Institute of Global Environment and Society, of which Jagadish Shukla is President (and first signatory, and presumably the instigator). So it seems that at least the 6 individuals associated with the IGES knew what they were signing.
The quote from Peter Webster at the start of this post was included in an email that he sent to one of the signatories. The (anonymous) response:
After reading Senator Whitehouse op ed in the Washington Post, I thought the senator should be supported by the scientific community. Similarities with the tobacco industry are compelling. This is just a small step for me to get engaged with social/policy relevant issues.
Forgive them (?)
Well, that letter reflects, at best, a great deal of naiveté by the signatory. Perhaps some of them had their arm twisted by the instigators/advocates, and were just trying to be collegial.
To paraphrase the other JC:
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Dear signatories of this letter:
I will try to clarify here what you have done, and why it is wrong.
First, you have been duped by the Merchants of Doubt book/movie. See my previous blog post Bankruptcy of the ‘merchants of doubt’ meme, which includes reviews by other social scientists.
Second, the consensus on human caused climate change is not as overwhelming as you seem to think. See my recent blog post The conceits of consensus, which includes a detailed analysis of an extensive survey of climate scientists (not to mention extensive critiques of the Cook et al. analysis).
Third, the source of funding is not the only bias in research, and the greatest bias does not necessarily come from industry funding, see these posts:
Fourth, scientists disagree about the causes of climate change for the following reasons:
Insufficient observational evidence
Disagreement about the value of different classes of evidence (e.g. models)
Disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence
Assessments of areas of ambiguity and ignorance
Belief polarization as a result of politicization of the science
The biggest disagreement however is about whether warming is ‘dangerous’ (values) and whether we can/should do something about it (politics). Why do you think your opinion, as scientists, matters on values and politics?
Fifth, what you have done with this letter is advocacy. This is a very dicey role for a scientist to play, fraught with reputational and ethical land mines. Here are several essays on this topic, written from a range of perspectives:
What you have done with your letter is the worst kind of irresponsible advocacy, which is to attempt to silence scientists that disagree with you by invoking RICO. It is bad enough that politicians such as Whitehouse and Grijalvi are playing this sort of political game with science and scientists, but I regard it as highly unethical for scientists to support defeating scientists with whom you disagree by such methods. Since I was one of the scientists called out in Grijalvi’s witch hunts, I can only infer that I am one of the scientists you are seeking to silence.
Caracas – Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders lashed out at the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez this week in response to a Clinton super PAC email linking him the late socialist leader.
“Yesterday, one of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent Super PACs attacked our campaign pretty viciously,” the independent Vermont senator told his supporters in a campaign fundraising email.
“They suggested I’d be friendly with Middle East terrorist organizations, and even tried to link me to a dead communist dictator,” the email continued, referring to Venezuela’s three time democratically-elected former president Hugo Chávez.
The statement came in response to a email circulated on Monday by the pro-Hillary Clinton super Political Action Committee (PAC) Correct the Record, comparing Sanders to the newly elected head of Britain’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Following Sanders’ praise for the left-leaning Labour MP upon his victory this past Saturday, the Clinton campaign took aim at the self-proclaimed democratic socialist politician, seeking to link him with Corbyn’s “most extreme comments”.
Corbyn has been branded a “national security threat” by UK Prime Minister David Cameron for his foreign policy postures, which include opposition to NATO and support for the “electoral democratic credentials” of Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution.
Breaking with its hitherto standing policy of refraining from criticizing Sanders, the Clinton campaign sought to draw links between the two anti-party establishment progressives, pointing to the Vermont independent’s role in negotiating a 2005 deal with the Bolivarian government to bring free and discounted home heating oil to the poor in northeastern US cities.
However, Sanders’ distancing from Chávez, labeling him a “dead communist dictator” has caused disenchantment in some circles, who reject what they view as an offensive characterization of the immensely popular, democratically-elected late president, whose socialist government has won eighteen internationally recognized elections since 1998.
“Venezuela has become . . . the bad guy. We’re the villain,” Venezuela’s chargé d’affaires in Washington, Maximilien Sanchez Arvelaiz, told reporters.
In March, President Obama issued an executive order branding Venezuela a “national security threat” and imposing sanctions over unproven allegations of “human rights violations”.
Sanders, who has surpassed Hillary Clinton in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, has up until recently avoided issuing statements on US foreign policy, preferring to focus on confronting economic inequality.
“For the left, Hugo Chavez is/was a reference,” Sanchez asserted, noting that Jeremy Corbyn recently won a landslide victory notwithstanding his public endorsement of the revolutionary Venezuelan leader and his democratic socialist project.
Meanwhile, the Sanders campaign has made fresh statements in response to the Clinton attacks, further disavowing any links with Chávez.
“To equate bringing home heating oil to low-income Vermonters with support for the Chavez government is dishonest,” Sanders spokesperson Michael Briggs told the Huffington Post.
Martin Chulov needs a little help getting the narrative straight on Syria. Here are the portions of his article in today’s Guardian we think most in need of work:
A large convoy of Russian vehicles was reportedly on the move through central Syria on Wednesday, sparking new claims that renewed Russian support for the ailing Assad regime could lead to Moscow effectively running the war.
[…]
Separately, the citizen journalism project Bellingcat said on Wednesday that photographs of a Russian communications-jamming vehicle in Latakia region proved that a military buildup was under way.
“Newly published images showing a Russian R-166-0.5 (ultra) high-frequency signals (HF/VHF) vehicle driving through Syria’s coastal region now leaves little to no doubt on Russia’s intentions in Syria,” the report said. “The R-166-0.5 provides jam-resistant voice and data communications over a long range, enabling Russian troops to communicate with their bases in the coastal strongholds of Tartus and Latakia while operating far inland.”
“The whole package is being presented by Putin as part of a global and regional endeavour to stop IS,” said Middle East analyst and associate fellow at Chatham House, David Butter. “And, as such, it should provide the basis for cooperation between Russia, the US, the Europeans and the Arabs.
[…]
“They are doing more than supplementing the Syrians,” said a senior western official in London. “They are taking over the air war for them. The Syrians are not good at attacking ground forces.”
[…]
The Russian intervention comes at an especially complicated time in Syria’s civil war. Battle lines between the regime and a largely homegrown opposition have remained mostly static around Damascus and Aleppo, but have been fluid elsewhere.
[…]
However, senior Russian officials have repeatedly told counterparts in the Arab world that their stance stems largely from the US-led intervention in Libya in 2011, which Moscow saw as a trick and a threat to its influence.
“They are very much disrespectful of the regime as a partner and an ally,” said Harling. “But they completely share its view of the war’s cause and structure. They are anti-Islamist, anti-west and anti-democratic.
“They have been fighting a Cold War on their own, which naturally they have been winning in different ways. It plays well at home, where people have nothing but nostalgia to cling on to. They position themselves as standing up to western designs, as exemplified by Syria, and are saying to the region itself that [they] are a power to be contended with.”
Here’s how we think this should read, if we remove the spin (our modifications in italics):
“A large convoy of Russian-built vehicles was reportedly on the move through central Syria on Wednesday. Although Russian-built vehicles have formed a significant part of Syria’s military hardware for many years, some commenters are claiming these particular vehicles imply an increased level of Russian support, though they do not say why.”
Separately, the self-styled one-man “citizen journalism project” Bellingcat, whose “research” has been rejected by many professional analysts and attracted widespread ridicule, said on Wednesday that photographs of a Russian communications-jamming vehicle in Latakia region proved that a military buildup was under way, and used as evidence a photograph of some Russian-made hardware, claiming it “[enabled] Russian troops to communicate with their bases in the coastal strongholds of Tartus and Latakia while operating far inland.”
However, he appears to have forgotten that a Russian-made vehicle doesn’t necessarily have “Russian troops” inside it, and has made an idiotic leap of inference that overlooks the crucial fact Syria is full to bursting with Russian-built military hardware, all being used by Syrians.
[…]
“The whole package is […] part of a global and regional endeavour to stop IS,” said Middle East analyst and associate fellow at Chatham House, David Butter. “And, as such, it should provide the basis for cooperation between Russia, the US, the Europeans and the Arabs.”
“They are doing more than supplementing the Syrians,” said a senior western official in London. “They are taking over the air war against ISIS for them. The Syrians are not good at attacking ground forces.”
The Russian intervention comes at an especially complicated time in Syria’s civil war. Battle lines between the regime and a largely western-trained and supplied opposition, consisting almost entirely of radical jihadists have remained mostly static around Damascus and Aleppo, but have been fluid elsewhere.
However, senior Russian officials have repeatedly told counterparts in the Arab world that their stance stems largely from the US-led intervention in Libya in 2011, when the US used a UN mandated no-fly zone as a cover to launch an unsanctioned attack on the Libyan government, which Moscow saw as a trick and a violation of international law.
“They are very much disrespectful of the [Syrian] regime as a partner and an ally,” said Harling. “But they completely share its view of the war’s cause and structure. They are anti-US hegemony and anti-ISIS.
Moscow condemns the inclusion of journalists in Kiev’s new sanctions list and believes the move to be unacceptable and violating freedom of speech, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.
“The fact that there are many individuals from the media in that list is, of course, absolutely unacceptable and completely against any principles in the freedom of speech, and in this case we strongly condemn this decision, especially in regard to including individuals in the media,” Peskov told journalists.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree sanctioning 90 entities and barring almost 400 people, including several high-ranking individuals and journalists, from entering Ukraine for one year. The Ukrainian president said the sanctions would contribute to his country’s defense amid the conflict in the southeast.
More than 40 journalists and bloggers from countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, Latvia and Russia, were targeted by the restrictions.
Later that day, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) slammed the decree, saying it blocked vital news and information about the crisis in the country.
Amid violence in Ukraine’s southeast, the freedom of media, particularly Russian media, has been repeatedly violated in the country. According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a number of international journalists working in Ukraine have been kidnapped, tortured and killed since the start of the conflict.
This is not the first restriction of Russian media in Ukraine. In February, Kiev stripped 115 Russian news outlets of accreditation in governmental institutions.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post addressing the myriad falsehoods and inaccuracies proffered by influential think tank head and former Obama official Anne-Marie Slaughter in an August 20 op-ed she wrote for USA Today about the multilateral nuclear agreement reached between Iran and six world powers this summer in Vienna.
During the course of her column, Slaughter gets some very basic facts about the Iranian nuclear program, the history of negotiations, and the deal itself totally wrong. For instance, she claims the deal “completely dismantles its nuclear supply chain.” It doesn’t. She calls the Iranian nuclear program – the one fully safeguarded and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency – “illegal.” It is not.
One of the most flagrant and repeated errors in Slaughter’s piece is that Iran currently has in its possession “stockpiled plutonium and highly enriched uranium.” Again, this isn’t even remotely true as Iran has never produced nor stockpiled any plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Ever.
Alas, despite my (and others) efforts to force this to Slaughter’s attention and get her to respond, she didn’t.
Until Sunday.
First came the obvious “I’m busy” stuff, but soon thereafter came the full admission of error about her “stockpiled plutonium and highly enriched uranium” claim. Apparently, explains Slaughter in lieu of actually owning up to being dead wrong, she was “writing 2 quickly” and “didn’t mean 2 say stockpiles of plutonium.”
How someone accidentally writes and publishes something they claim to know isn’t true is beyond me. But, amazingly, what she tweeted after that is even more damning.
According to Ms. Slaughter, who has been a professor and department chair at elite academic institutions, served as a top aide to the Secretary of State, and now runs a major D.C. think tank, “writing for [a] mass audience” means ignoring the truth, or what she refers to for some reason as omitting “nuance.”
First off, facts aren’t nuance. They are facts. Iran not having stockpiles of weapons-grade fissile material is not some bit of inane minutiae when one has decided to argue that Iran is a potential nuclear-armed threat. No, falsely claiming the opposite is an integral part of your overall argument and it is erroneous information upon which less informed or interested readers (yes, the “mass audience”) will base their own judgments on the matter. If your facts are wrong, and you’re supposed to be the “expert,” then how are we to expect the non-experts to know what the truth is?
Which brings us to the second thing: Anne-Marie Slaughter clearly isn’t concerned about the truth. She’s concerned about making her case in support of the Iran deal, and still sounding tough on the Iranian bogeyman, regardless of what she needs to pretend is true to do it.
This is exactly why most people are so poorly-informed about Iran’s nuclear program and why faulty assumptions lead, not only to warmongering and threats, but to bad policy.
But, hey, for Anne-Marie Slaughter, she only had so much room to “frame [the] core debate,” which clearly doesn’t leave any space for telling the truth about things. I mean, writing “low enriched uranium” takes up far more space than “plutonium and highly enriched uranium,” right?
Slaughter only addressed that one mistake, however, ignoring the other obvious errors published in her op-ed.
When asked whether she would contact USA Today and ask them to issue a correction on her article about the “stockpiles” claim, Slaughter demurred.
Besides the fact that September 15 is not “over a month” after August 20, Slaughter is apparently uninterested in setting the record straight and believes her commentary, published in USA Today, has an extremely short shelf-life of relevance. Why correct my mistakes when the damage is already done?
Such is the emphasis on truth and the importance of honesty in the mainstream commentariat. After all, if the “mass audience” doesn’t know they’re being lied to by Very Important People like Anne-Marie Slaughter, why would she let them find out? I mean, hey, she’s got a book to promote!
Reflecting on how tragically wrong she and other supporters of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq were about what they claimed they knew was true, Slaughter wrote in 2013, “We can only hope we have gained a lesson in humility.”
Sadly enough, that lesson, for Slaughter herself, appears yet unlearned.
Over recent months the situation in the Mediterranean has served as a dramatic reminder of what the leaders of Europe have tried hard to forget. The Syrian crisis has reached Europe. Although a lot of talk has been made over numbers and percentages of refugees that every country may or may not accept, let’s not forget that behind those numbers and the showy emotionalism of the politicians hides the ugly side of world politics.
The plans to overthrow the “annoying” regimes in the Middle East began at the time when the war hawks of Washington and their European allies prepared the first Iraqi war.
In a 2007 speech, US General Wesley Clark recounted a conversation he had back in 1991 with the then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. During that talk, the Secretary told the General that the Pentagon had already drawn plans in order to achieve the change of regimes in Iraq, Syria and Iran. “…We’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran, Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”
General Clark went on to reveal that six weeks after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, an official from the Department of Defense told him that the Pentagon had issued a classified document describing the strategy of the USA in order to overthrow the regimes of seven countries in the next five years. The beginning would be made with Iraq, followed by Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finally, Iran.
Those claims were confirmed by the former French Minister of Foreign affairs, Roland Dumas when he told a French television station that Great Britain used to train and support Syrian rebels at least two years prior to the revolt aiming to overthrow Assad from power.
The money that fuels the war
Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. WikiLeaks released over 7000 secret diplomatic cables that document that funding. The cables revealed that up to 6,3 million dollars was funneled to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London. The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel that broadcasted anti-government propaganda in Syria and that played an important part in the 2010-11 anti-Assad protests.
The remaining 6 million were spent by the US in order to support rebels and activists and educate journalists in ways of manipulating the news about the Syrian crisis in a manner that would benefit the rebels. In Aprιl 2011, the spokesman for the State Department, Mark Toner, admitted that the WikiLeaks documents were authentic and he claimed that the US supported several “civil movements in Syria” with “the goal of strengthening freedom of expression”.
In 2012, the French Minister of Foreign affairs, Laurent Fabius, alongside the UK, pushed for a relaxation of the EU arms embargo to Syria to enable “defensive arms to reach opposition fighters”. France was the first European power to recognize the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, a coalition of several rebel groups formed in Doha that according to the French president François Hollande, was the “only representative of the Syrian people”. The coalition was also recognized by neighboring Turkey and the Arab League as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people’s aspirations.”
In December 2012, at a meeting held in Marrakesh, the United States backed the National Coalition as the transitional government of Syria. By that time more than 100 countries, including the European Union, had recognized the Syrian opposition, despite fears that it might be linked to Al Qaeda-related groups. According to the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, “important” financial contributions were announced at the meeting: Saudi Arabia offered $100 million, the US pledged a further $14m in medical aid and Germany offered $29m.
Two years later, in 2014, French president Hollande, cynically told French media that France was arming and training Syrian rebels, for an unspecified period of time, because “they are the only ones to take part in the democratic process”. In an interview with French daily Le Monde he admitted that France cannot “go it alone” and that there was “a good understanding with Europe and the Americans.”
Indeed there was.
The Libyan connection
Back in September 2012, the US consulate in Benghazi and a CIA base located a mile from the consulate were attacked by local militias. The attacks resulted to the death of four people, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton were heavily criticized over the lack of security at the consulate and the delayed response.
But the official narrative failed to address some key issues: why the CIA base was attacked and what was the exact role of the consulate in an area partially controlled by local militia?
Officially the consulate’s role was to establish a cultural center and a library in Benghazi. But media reports indicate that the consulate had a much more obscure role.
Soon after the war to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya began, in February 2011, the CIA set up a base for its spying operations in Benghazi. The CIA base was known as the Annex and according to the Wall Street Journal the sole aim of the consulate was to “provide diplomatic cover to the Annex”.
The Sunday Times of London reported that the United States had been secretly purchasing the stockpiled weapons of Gaddafi — including anti-aircraft SA-7 missiles, anti-tank rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells. Via a connection with Middle Eastern countries that were already supporting various opposition groups in Syria some of these weapons were channeled to the rebels.
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has also revealed that President Obama and the Turkish PM, Erdogan had reached a secret deal in the beginning of 2012. The deal was that the CIA and the British M16 would undertake to move Gaddafi heavy weapons out of Libya and use them to supply the Free Syrian Army; Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were to provide the funds for this operation that was covered under the auspices of an Australian entity.
It is very likely that most of those weapons ended up in the hands of the Al-Nusra front – an extremist group that is linked to Al Qaeda in Syria. When the US and its European and Middle Eastern allies were channeling heavy weaponry to the rebels in Syria, up to 9 per cent of the Free Syrian Army’s total fighters belonged to the Al Nusra Front. In 2012 Washington Post reported that the jihadist group is growing fast “in part because it has been the most aggressive and successful arm of the rebel force”
Indeed, by 2013, virtually all rebel areas controlled in Syria would be led by jihadists.
The Ghouta massacre
In August 2013, yellow smoke rose over the rebel -controlled suburb of Ghouta near Damascus. A few hours later and the lifeless bodies of 1,000 people, including 300 children would be lying in the streets. It was one of the worst sarin attacks in the history of the Syrian civil war.
President Obama accused the Syrian regime for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons and announced US military intervention in Syria.
However, two days before the planned strike, Obama said that he would seek congressional approval of the intervention.
So what has made the US President change his mind?
Seymour Hersh presents an alternative narrative to the events: The US intelligence feared that Turkey was supplying sarin gas to rebels’ months before the attack took place. This information was never made public.
Hersh writes that “the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page “talking points” briefing on June 19th which stated the Syrian rebel group al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell”. According to the paper “Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators, ‘were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria”.
According to Hersh’s exposé, in 2012 the US intelligence services believed that the rebels would lose the war. This prompted the Turkish national intelligence agency and Gendarmerie, the nation’s paramilitary law enforcement arm, to work with al-Nusra Front in Syria in order to help them build their chemical development. Erdogan allegedly hoped that the use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians would led to a military response from the United States against Assad.
Hersh’ report has sparked controversy and the New Yorker and Washington Post declined to publish it.
It would take years until the political and military games surrounding the Syrian conflict come to light.
Meanwhile, 4 million Syrians are forced to escape the conflict and over 250,000 people have tried to reach Europe in August 2015. Western countries are willing to grant asylum, but are not willing to stop the actions that fuel the war.
It seems that the bodies of the drowned Syrian children shocked a lot of consciences, but changed no policies.
Francesca Megaloudi is a Greek journalist specializing in human rights reporting. Her latest book on North Korea will be published this fall.
Next week the Department of Justice will likely decide whether to issue a grant to the Los Angeles Police Department to purchase 700 body-worn video cameras. Because LAPD’s body camera policy fails to ensure accountability and transparency and would, in fact, hide almost all camera footage from the public, we are urging the DOJ to deny funding.
LAPD applied for the grant to fund its body-worn camera program through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Body-Worn Camera Pilot Implementation Program earlier this year. After the shootings in Ferguson, Missouri and other places around the country created a national discourse about the need for police accountability, President Obama announced plans to “strengthen community policing,” including contributing $75 million over three years to provide a 50 percent match grant to states and localities that purchase body worn cameras. LAPD could be the first law enforcement agency to receive funds under the grant.
Los Angeles could also become the largest city in the country to use body cameras on a wide scale. LAPD has already purchased 860 cameras using private donations and plans to purchase 7,000 cameras total. The city has a goal of outfitting every LAPD officer with a body camera.
But amid these ambitious plans, LAPD has enacted a body camera use policy that runs completely counter to every reason to employ body cameras in the first place. At its heart, the policy appears designed to protect law enforcement officers rather than members of the public who they have sworn to serve.
It does not provide for any public access to body camera video—even in cases of shootings or alleged misconduct. In fact, LAPD has made clear that it will not release video footage unless required to do so in court—or unless the chief, in his discretion, believes it would be “beneficial.”
It not only permits but requires officers to review body camera footage before they write up their reports—even before they provide an initial statement to investigators when they are involved in critical uses of force or accused of grave misconduct.
It has no consequences for officers who fail to turn on their cameras during use-of-force incidents.
It provides no clear rules to prevent LAPD from using body cameras as a tool to surveil the public at large. It doesn’t address the use of back-end analysis tools such as facial recognition on footage; nor does it provide guidelines for use of the cameras during First Amendment-protected activity.
Given LAPD’s notorious history of police misconduct, secrecy, unlawful surveillance, and resistance to outside review stretching back to at least the 1930s, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the agency has enacted a policy to protect its own rather than ensure accountability and transparency. The policy is also consistent with the hard-line stance LAPD has taken with respect to releasing automated license plate camera (ALPR) data. However, the DOJ should not add insult to injury by funding this program.
LAPD’s policy not only runs counter to recommendations from the ACLU, but also to recommendations from law enforcement organizations like the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), an “independent research organization” whose board of directors is made up of police chiefs from agencies around the country. PERF has recommended that
with certain limited exceptions . . . , body-worn camera video footage should be made available to the public upon request—not only because the videos are public records but also because doing so enables police departments to demonstrate transparency and openness in their interactions with members of the community.
Even one of Los Angeles’ own police commissioners—who cast the lone dissenting vote against the policy—criticized it for its failure to address release of footage to the public and for allowing officers to review footage before writing reports. He said that LAPD’s process for adopting the policy “undermines the goal here of accountability and trust.”
LAPD’s policy also runs counter the BJA grant program’s requirements. The program requires recipients to enact policies for body camera use that, “at a minimum increase transparency and accessibility, provide appropriate access to information, allow for public posting of policy and procedures, and encourage community interaction and relationship building.” LAPD’s policy fails to meet even these baseline goals.
The President intended DOJ’s body camera program to “build and sustain trust between communities and those who serve and protect these communities.” But if the DOJ is really serious about doing so, this is not the way. The DOJ must send a message to other grant applicants by denying LAPD’s funding request. Police-worn body cameras are fraught with enough potential threats to civil liberties; we don’t need harmful policies designed to shield police action from public scrutiny reinforcing these threats.
Read our letter to the Department of Justice here.
Campaigners sharply condemned a European Commission (EC) proposal to create a new corporate court system to replace its highly controversial Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism on Wednesday.
The ISDS system is central to an EU-US trade agreement being negotiated behind closed doors, which could allow corporations to sue governments if they act against their interests.
Known as The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the trade deal has been shunned by almost 3 million European citizens. Some 97 percent of respondents to an EC consultation flatly rejected the trade deal’s ISDS dimension.
The EC put forward a proposal for an alternative court system on Wednesday – a move it said would make the ISDS mechanism more transparent and allow states to appeal against multinationals’ legal challenges. But campaigners say the suggested changes are merely cosmetic, and would still allow corporations to sue governments in secret court settings.
Another EU-Canada trade deal known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which is currently awaiting ratification, contains an old version of the ISDS mechanism. It has also received widespread opposition from campaigners worldwide.
Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said the EC’s proposed new court system is effectively “a PR exercise.”
“The European Commission says that this new proposal is based on ‘substantial input’ from its public consultation, but 97 percent of the thousands of responses it received in this consultation were clearly opposed to ISDS in any form,” he said on Wednesday.
“This alternative proposal is essentially a PR exercise to get around the enormous controversy and opposition that has been generated by ISDS.”
Dearden said the proposed corporate court system will still give corporations unnerving new powers.
“The Commission can try to put lipstick on a pig, but this new proposal doesn’t change the fundamental problem of giving corporations frightening new powers at the expense of our national democracies,” he said.
“Although a little more transparency is no bad thing, the real issue at hand here is that of corporate power.
“This change shows the European Commission is feeling the pressure of nearly 3 million people opposing TTIP and CETA, the two looming deals featuring ISDS,” Dearden added. He noted, however, that the EC has failed to halt the ratification of CETA.
Redacted documents detailing covert meetings between the EC and powerful tobacco lobbyists recently compounded fears TTIP would allow tobacco giants to sue governments that attempt to legislate in the public interest.
The documents, which confirmed the EC had met with lobbyists paid to peddle the interests of Big Tobacco, were published in late August.
This glaring lack of transparency sparked widespread fear among TTIP’s critics that the trade deal would empower tobacco giants to sue governments that seek to regulate the tobacco industry more stringently.
Powerful tobacco firms have previously used comparable trade deals to sue the governments of other states, who sought to crack down on its advertising.
US tobacco giant Phillip Morris previously took legal action against the Australian government after it introduced mandatory plain cigarette packaging. The firm is also embroiled in a $25-million lawsuit against Uruguay’s government in a bid to stop it from enlarging health warnings on cigarette packaging.
The US’ obsessive insistence that “Assad must go” is the most dangerous expression of American arrogance in years.
White House Press Secretary Joshua Earnest channeled President Obama’s famous chant that “Assad must go” when he claimed during a regular press briefing that:
“The international community has decided that it’s time for Assad to go. He clearly has lost legitimacy to lead. He has lost the confidence of those citizens of his country — at least the ones that — or I guess I should say particularly the ones that he is using the resources of the military to attack.”
The arrogance on display is both stupefying and dangerous. The problem in Syria isn’t, nor ever has been, President Assad – it’s always been the US’ arrogance in dictating demands and then militarily enforcing them after they’ve been rejected.
American Arrogance
Syria’s ills are directly traceable to the failure of American foreign policy in the Mideast. The US rabidly went on a regime change streak that began during the Bush years, with former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe for NATO General Wesley Clark revealing in his 2007 memoirs that a senior general showed him a memo and said:
“‘Here’s the paper from the Office of the Secretary of Defense [then Donald Rumsfeld] outlining the strategy. We’re going to take out seven countries in five years.’ And he named them, starting with Iraq and Syria and ending with Iran.”
Earlier that year, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an expose in The New Yorker in which he detailed, among other proposed regional regime change specifics, that the Bush Administration was planning to use the Muslim Brotherhood to launch a Gulf-funded sectarian war against the Syrian government.
At the time, the reason was supposedly because of Damascus’ closeness to Tehran, but later information as reported by The Guardian reveals that the decision to build a Friendship Pipeline between Iran, Iraq, and Syria in 2010, and Damascus’ rejection of a similar one from Qatar, likely had a lot to do with why the anti-government terrorist plan was pushed forward for activation the year after.
Beginning in 2011, the Mideast was rocked by the so-called “Arab Spring”, which Russian General Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov would in hindsight categorize as a theater-wide Color Revolution during an official conference on the topic last year in Moscow.
What the US had wanted to do is overthrow all of the Mideast’s republics (even those allied with the US such a Egypt) in order to bring a transnational Muslim Brotherhood clique to power in each of them that would thus make it a lot easier to control the entire region.
Think of it as the neocons’ version of a 21st-century communist party, but directed towards control of the Mideast and not Europe (which has the EU for that).
The Gulf Monarchies were not targeted because of their staunch pro-American allegiance and the potential that any domestic disruption would have in upsetting the US’ economic interests there.
Between the pro-American Gulf Monarchies and the pro-American EU thus lay a handful of republics that weren’t so firmly under the US’ sway (or not at all influenced by it like Syria), so in order for the US to securely control the broad swatch of Afro-Eurasia stretching from Iceland to Yemen, it needed to overthrow those governments, ergo the “Arab Spring” Color Revolutions.
The People’s Will
But something went wrong as it always does with the US’ plans, and it was that the Syrian people wholeheartedly rejected the Muslim Brotherhood’s ploy at regime change, instead favoring to preserve the secular and multicultural society that Syrian civilization is historically known for.
For this simple reason, the Color Revolution attempt was a dismal failure from the very beginning, hence why the US and its allies (notably Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) sought to transform it into an Unconventional War by arming their proxies and ordering them to escalate their soft coup attempt into a hard one.
The resultant Hybrid War that’s been raging for the past four and a half years is thus a manifestation of the US’ geopolitical obsession for regime change. Far from realizing that the people had resoundingly rejected such an approach from the very beginning, the US and its allies dug in by reinforcing their proxy elements inside the country and allowing foreign fighters to flood into Syria via the Turkish border.
Amidst this external onslaught being launched against them, the Syrian people continued to bravely soldier on and democratically show the rest of the world that they supported their government.
A constitutional referendum in 2012 passed by an 89% margin and with the participation of 57% of the population, while President Assad was reelected in 2014 with 88.7% of the vote in which 73% of the electorate took part.
Both sets of numbers trump the civil society participation and political legitimacy of Western countries and their leaders, and as President Assad once said, there is no way he could remain in office during this war if he didn’t truly have the support of the vast majority of the population.
It’s also telling that most of the country’s refugees haven’t fled the country, but have instead decided to stay in their homeland and seek safety under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army, which currently provides security to around 80% of Syria’s citizens.
Be that as it is, the US and its allies stubbornly ignored the people’s will, and instead continued to blindly pump weapons and fighters into the country in clear confirmation of the adage that insanity is “repeating the same thing over again but expecting different results”.
Ground Zero In The War On Terror
All of those fighters and weapons that the US and its allies were shipping into Syria were bound to lead to some major problems, chief among them the rise of ISIL, but this was actually predicted and supported by the US government a couple years ago. Judicial Watch published a declassified report that it received in May from a Freedom Of Information Act request that proves that the Pentagon’s Defense Information Agency thought that:
“If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”
This bombshell dovetails with what Syrian Ambassador to Russia Riyad Haddad recently said in an interview where he accused the US of using terrorism to promote regime change in his country. President Putin followed up at the CSTO summit by warning countries of the risks inherent in employing double-standards towards terrorists and directly or indirectly using them to further certain tactical objectives.
In order to stem the tide of terror that the US unleashed in the Mideast, Russia is rapidly moving forward with assembling an inclusive anti-ISIL coalition, and President Putin is expected to use his keynote speech at the UN General Assembly later this month to make his case that the situation is far too pressing to care about regime change, and that the world must unite in supporting Syria as it fights on its behalf on the frontlines against terror.
American arrogance got the world into this mess, but if you ask Russia, it’ll be Syrian humility that gets it out in one piece.
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
