Mainstream Media, Warmongering

Obama’s Dark Theatrics

By PAUL GOTTINGER | August 30, 2013

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate himself, Obama, weighed in on the human rights abuses being carried out by the U.S. trained and funded General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt on August 23 saying “We care deeply about the Egyptian people,” and “We deplore violence against civilians.” These statements came after a vicious attack on protestors on August 14 that Human Rights Watch called, “most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history.”

The day of the Egyptian security forces attack on the non-violent protestors John Kerry did his best to conjure up indignation in response to the events. In the stiff and passionless manner of a marionette, which is convincing only in that he is “deeply concerned” with not forgetting his lines, he stated, “The violence is deplorable.”

So one would imagine this peacenik president who is deeply troubled by the violence in Egypt would unleash the hoards of humanitarians to protect the Egyptian civilians he cares so much about. But instead Obama stated, “America cannot determine the future of Egypt. That’s a task for [Egyptians].”

Then on August 19 Chuck Hagel changed the tone slightly (he’s the Secretary of Defense, so he has to sound tough) by focusing on America’s impotence in regards to Egypt. He stated, “[The U.S.’] ability to influence the outcome in Egypt is limited” and that “All nations are limited in their influence in another nation’s internal issues”.

On August 22 the LA Times echoed much the same stating, “Obama’s inability to ease the crisis reflects America’s diminished ability to influence political outcomes in [Egypt].”

The media continued the theme of failing U.S. influence in Egypt by focusing on the fact that the three richest monarchies in the gulf pledged $12 billion in cash and loans to Egypt. The Wall Street Journal wrote, ‘The U.S.’s closest Middle East allies undercut American policy in Egypt by encouraging the military to confront the Muslim Brotherhood rather than reconcile, U.S. and Arab officials said.’

The idea we’re supposed to have about Obama’s policy towards Egypt couldn’t be clearer: Obama would really love to stop all that awful violence in Egypt, but unfortunately America just isn’t powerful enough to save everyone. Come on, Obama isn’t superman.

The consistency with which the mainstream media adhered to this message demonstrates the strict discipline the major newspapers maintain in their role as ideological managers.

But just as the population of most of the planet was about to collectively erupt in simultaneous celebration at the end of American military hegemony, Obama stated he was considering a military strike on Syria.

We’re supposed to swallow that the situation in Egypt is beyond the realm of American power, but Syria, where the U.S. has significantly less influence, is within the capabilities of the U.S.

Apparently the forecast of the decline of American power from the mainstream media was a bit premature. Perhaps there is a lesson here: whatever the mainstream media is saying about U.S. foreign policy, you can be almost certain it’s not true.

However, it is true that U.S. power has been in decline since the end of World War II when it was at its most powerful, but the U.S. still is far and away the most powerful country in the world. This will likely be the case for a long time to come.

In order to understand the cynicism of Obama’s rhetoric, one must be familiar with the U.S.’ long record of support for brutal dictators with awful human rights records. This is especially the case in Egypt where the U.S. supported Anwar El Sadat beginning in the early 1970s, and also supported his successor Hosni Mubarak until nearly the end of the 2011 protests.

If the Peace Laureate president had any sincerity with regards to stopping the human rights abuses in Egypt he could pressure the military government there. With Egypt’s small economy (a GDP of around 260 billion dollars) the military government could be easily bought, or enticed with a long stalled IMF deal and debt forgiveness. This is especially true because the Egyptian economy has suffered serious unemployment and inflation for years.

Even if the U.S. didn’t want to spend a dime on Egypt it could take Turkey’s suggestion and bring the issue of violence against civilians to the UN Security Council and Arab League with the hopes of influencing the military government.

The U.S. could also assert its influence on its close allies the Gulf States and Israel. But the U.S. is fine with the military government in Egypt and allows the aid from the Gulf States to reach Egypt.

Another instructive element to the political crisis in Egypt was the Obama administration’s fake attempts to resolve the situation diplomatically.

The New York Times reported that Chuck Hagel made, “17 personal phone calls” to the Egyptian military government, but they “failed to forestall” the crisis. Perhaps Hagel would have had more luck if he tried contacting the General el-Sisi on Facebook.

The next act in the made for New York Times special was the diplomatic trip of John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Egypt on behalf of Obama. The New York Times reports Graham spoke to John McCain about General el-Sisi saying, “If this guy’s voice is indicative of the attitude, there’s no pulling out of this thing.”

This conjures up the image of the Egyptian military commander as a runaway train and all the bros from Washington are pulling as hard as they can on the break, but somehow the general is just too strong for them.

You see it’s imperative that the media portray the U.S. as powerless to stop the violence of dictators the U.S. likes. However, when the U.S. doesn’t care for the leader, be they democratically elected like Hamas in 2006, or Chavez in 2002, or a dictator like Saddam, Qaddafi, or Assad, then the U.S. is capable of anything, usually devastating violence.

Just when you think there is not a sensible member of the U.S. government John McCain stated that he recommended the U.S. cut aid to Egypt. But the reason he gave for why he recommended this was telling. He said, “[the U.S.] has no credibility. ”We know that the administration called the Egyptians and said, ‘look, if you [have] a coup, we’re going to cut off aid because that’s the law.’ We have to comply with the law. And … this administration did not do that after threatening to do so.”

McCain’s reasoning for supporting a cut to aid has nothing to do with protecting human rights in Egypt, but is solely about American credibility. The logic is this: if the U.S. makes threats, we have to follow threw with them. This is the same logic used when raising a child, which tells us much about how the U.S. views its relationship to Egypt and much of the rest of the world.

When we put aside the dark theatrics of the Obama administration’s rhetoric it is obscenely obvious that el-Sisi and the Egyptian military have very close connections to the U.S. and serve U.S interests.

For decades the Egyptian leaders have played an important role for the U.S. by allowing U.S./Israel to act with impunity against the Palestinians.

The closeness of the ties between the Egyptian military and the U.S. is demonstrated by the fact that General el-Sisi spent a year at the Army War College in Pennsylvania in 2006. The same Army War College trains 500-1000 Egyptian military officers every year.

Since 1979 Egypt has received the 2^nd most bilateral aid, behind only Israel, totaling 68 billion dollars. The U.S. buys relationships with the militaries of countries like Egypt to insure influence.

This is why Obama has allowed and will continue to allow the human right abuses to continue in Egypt. Despite his pretty talk and composed outrage, he actually is just fine with protestors being gunned down in the street, the brutal repression of a political party (Muslim Brotherhood), the prevention of freedom of speech, and the destruction of Egypt’s brief experiment with democracy (which resulted from the sacrifice of 800 hundred lives with 6,000 injured and 12,000 hauled before military courts).

Obama is A okay with military curfews and a state of emergency. Obama has no problem with attacks on Christian churches, attacks on journalists, and “Nightmare scenes that Egyptians could never have imagined could take place in [their] country.” Obama sees nothing wrong with tear gas being fired into hospitals, and Islamists being portrayed as terrorists or even animals.

Obama has no problem with any of this because he knows he can count on el-Sisi to follow U.S. orders. Egyptian civil society’s destruction simply makes controlling the country easier for the U.S. […]

Whether or not the U.S. knew about the military coup ahead of time the U.S. seems to be following a predictable PR plan.

1. The Obama administration strongly condemns the violence and calls for a return to democracy. 2. There is a semantic battle waged over whether or not to classify the events as a coup. 3. When it looks bad to support a thug overtly, you engage in superficial detachment from the leader of the coup. (This is the canceling of the joint military operations) 4.Then if necessary, as in the 2009 coup to the somewhat progressive Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, cut some amount of aid as a slap on the wrist, but then quietly restore it later.

Obama’s policies are all predictable. It’s the same story once again: the U.S. destroys yet another country. The revolution in Egypt is back at square one. Morsi is detained and Mubarak has been released from prison. The U.S. has done its best to destroy the progress of the Arab Spring.

But more protests are being called for in Egypt on Friday, August 30. The question is can Egypt regain the spirit of the January 25 revolution and continue to fight for basic rights? Perhaps for us as Americans the more important question is how much longer will Americans tolerate the dark theatrics of our government’s foreign policy? When we witness the immense bravery of the Egyptians challenging their government and getting massacred don’t we have a responsibility to challenge our government when the risks for us are far less? As Americans we must work to protect victims of U.S. violence, and the best way for us to do that is to get off the Internet and get in the street.

Paul Gottinger can be reached at paul.gottinger@gmail.com

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August 30, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Chuck Hagel, Egypt, Egyptian Armed Forces, Human rights, John McCain, New York Times, Obama, United States | Leave a comment

Only Bad Guys Ignore Public Opinion, Right? Not to Mention International Law

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | August 29, 2013

It is conventional wisdom in U.S. government officialdom and among our mainstream punditry that popular opinion in Iran has absolutely no impact on the decision-making of that country’s leadership. The common refrain is that the policies, namely with regard to foreign affairs and national security, pursued by Iran’s political and military elite have little relation to – and are often at odds with – the will of the Iranian people.

Despite this assumption, in fact, most public opinion polls of Iranian citizens demonstrate a wide range of perspectives and attitudes, much like that of any other diverse and informed population, and consistently find that government policies track closely with public opinion, especially when it comes to foreign policy, relations with the West, sanctions, perceptions of the United States government and the nuclear program.

There are naturally large segments of the Iranian population who disagree with their government’s handling of many different issues, from the economy to international relations, just as there are anywhere. One need only look at public opinion polls here in the United States to see similar, if not far more striking, public opposition to official policies.

Nevertheless, the politicians and the media continue to push the idea that Iran is an anomaly in this regard – a dictatorial authoritarian state in no way beholden to its oppressed citizenry; a virtual security state in which government officials make life and death decisions of war and peace with no regard to the will of the masses.

Before the recent Iranian presidential election this past Spring, Secretary of State John Kerry presaged, “Ultimately, the Iranian people [will] be prevented not only from choosing someone who might have reflected their point of view, but also taking part in a way that is essential to any kind of legitimate democracy.”

Once Western observers were shocked by the result of the June 14 vote – the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani – the White House issued a statement of congratulations to the Iranian people for “making their voices heard.”

“It is our hope that the Iranian government will heed the will of the Iranian people and make responsible choices that create a better future for all Iranians,” it read.

With the bloody civil war in Syria now driving headlines and drawing battle lines over the alleged use of chemical weapons, this perception has once again been articulated when it comes to Iran’s continuing support of the Syrian government and efforts to avoid the escalation of military conflict in the region.

Writing this week for the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reporter Golnaz Esfandiari remarked:

Iran’s support for Syria, which has already come under criticism by many Iranians, could become even more unpopular as more and more countries point the fingers at the Syrian regime over the suspected chemical attack on August 21.

That does not mean that Iran will discontinue its support for Syria — public opinion doesn’t count for much in a country like Iran — and for now Iran appears to be determined to stand by Assad.

The implications here are obvious. We are told that the Iranian public doesn’t support its own government’s policies on Syria, and the Iranian government simply doesn’t care, instead forging ahead with what a Western readership is supposed to immediately dismiss as destructive and wrongheaded policy.

The very same day that Esfandiari published her story, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf – Jen Psaki’s late summer pinch-hitter – defended the Obama administration’s increased threats of military intervention – mostly likely in the form of airstrikes – on behalf of anti-Assad rebels, which may occur in a matter of days.

During her daily press briefing, Harf was asked whether she was “aware that most – in fact, if not all – public polls show that the American people, by a very large majority, oppose to any kind of intervention? Should that factor in in any kind of decision?”

The reporter posing the question was referring to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between August 19 and 23 and released the previous day, which found that a mere 9 percent of respondents currently supported American military intervention in Syria. According the Washington Post, “this is the lowest support for intervention since the poll began tracking opinion on the issue.”

So, considering countries like Iran – y’know, the brutal, myopic, dictatorial kind – supposedly don’t make foreign policy calculations based upon public opinion (in contrast, presumably, to noble, responsive democratic nations like the United States), how did Ms. Harf reply?

Here’s how:

I think the President’s been clear that he makes decisions about our national security based on what’s best for national security interests of this country, and I think it’s clear here that there are core national security interests at stake for the United States. Clearly, the mass-scale use of chemical weapons or a potential proliferation of these weapons flagrantly violates an important international norm and therefore threatens American security.

Apparently, what is demanded of other nations simply doesn’t apply when it comes to our own policy-making.

Back in June, Obama spokesman Jay Carney explained that, when it comes to Syria, “the ultimate goal here is to bring about a political transition — one that results in a governing authority that respects the rights of all Syrians” and “that reflects the will of the Syrian people — all of the Syrian people.” The Obama administration, he said, is “working with our partners and allies and the opposition to help bring that about.”

Yet earlier that same month, Carney told the press just how the governing authority of his own boss – the Commander-in-Chief of the United States – would react to the will of the American people when it comes to arming Syrian rebels or possible militarily enforcing a no-fly zone against Assad’s air force. “The President makes a decision about the implementation of national security options based on our national security interests,” Carney said, “not on what might satisfy critics at any given moment about a policy.”

A reporter followed up. “Public opinion would not factor into that?,” he asked. In response, Carney was clear:

Of course not. What does factor in is what’s in the national security interests of the United States and what has the best chance of working — not satisfying an urge to do something today, but beyond today and next week and the following week — what actually has the potential to help bring us closer to the achievement of the goal.

A similar statement was made almost exactly a year ago by then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak when faced with popular protests and polling data reflecting strong Israeli opposition to a potential military attack on Iran. “The prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister have the authority…and the decision will be made as necessary by the government of Israel. That’s how it is and how it needs to be — not a group of civilians or even newspaper editorials,” Barak declared.

It is obvious that stark issues of foreign policy not be left solely to the whims of public opinion; every military decision can not be made via popular referendum. This is not the issue. The issue, rather, is that American rhetoric with regard to how other nations should operate is wholly disregarded when it comes to our own expectations for ourselves or our allies.

It’s called a double standard. It’s called hypocrisy. It’s called American exceptionalism.

Meanwhile, in a striking blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to assemble a willing coalition to attack Assad’s military installations, the British Parliament voted today against immediate involvement in a military strike against Syria. The decision, won by a margin of just 13 votes, was primarily based on outstanding questions regarding the ultimate culpability for the recent use of chemical weapons based on available evidence.

Reacting to the vote, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that, despite his personal belief “in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons” he would respect the will of the representatives. “It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action,” he said. “I get that, and the government will act accordingly.”

When it comes to Syria, the real question yet remains: American public opinion and the war cheerleading from both neoconservative hawks and supposedly liberal voices in the mainstream media aside, will Barack Obama heed not only the mandate of the U.S. Constitution, but also the tenets of international law, which unequivocally prohibit a military strike? What about the fact that such attacks could certainly do far more harm than good by putting even more Syrian civilians lives in danger and exacerbating an already devastating humanitarian crisis?

So far, the signs don’t look good.

As Marc Lynch recently wrote in Foreign Policy,

The rumored air strikes would drag the United States across a major threshold of direct military involvement, without any serious prospect of ending the conflict or protecting Syrian civilians (at least from non-chemical attacks). They likely would not accomplish more than momentarily appeasing the whimsical gods of credibility. The attack would almost certainly lack a Security Council mandate. Meanwhile, the response from Arab public opinion to another U.S. military intervention has been predictably hostile; even the very Arab leaders who have been aggressively pushing for such military action are refraining from openly supporting it. And nobody really believes that such strikes will actually work.

According to the New York Times, even in the face of “a stinging rejection” of military action “by America’s stalwart ally Britain and mounting questions from Congress,” unnamed U.S. “administration officials made clear that the eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike.”

Like his much-maligned predecessor, a lack of solid evidence and respect for legality may not deter this new Decider from launching another war, logic and democracy be damned.

August 30, 2013 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Iran, John Kerry, Obama, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

John Kerry’s Tender Sensibilities

By Kevin Carson | Center for a Stateless Society | August 29th, 2013

In response to Bashir Assad’s crossing of a “red line” by allegedly using chemical weapons against his own people, Secretary of State John Kerry cites his own fatherly feelings as justification for the all-but-inevitable looming US military intervention in Syria. “As a father, I can’t get the image out of my head, of a father who held up his dead child, wailing …”

Hopefully CNN will try extra hard to sanitize the war footage from Syria once the bombing starts, now that we know how badly dead Syrian kids upset Kerry. Because you can be sure there are a lot more dead Syrian kids on the way.

Of course, Kerry’s sensitivity to dead children is a bit like Carter having a problem with liver pills. This is the same John Kerry who served in Vietnam, and who backed two attacks on Iraq and one on Afghanistan, is it not? One of the most iconic images in the history of journalism is a little girl, naked and burning, running down a Vietnamese road after a chemical weapons attack by the United States. And the US all but condemned Al-Jazeera as a terrorist organization for airing images of Iraqi children incinerated in the American attack in 2003.

For that matter, US “redlining” of a country for using chemical weapons is also a bit odd. In the same press conference, Kerry spoke of holding Iraq accountable for violating international, historically established norms. But the US itself has quite a history of violating such norms. In WWII, for instance, the U.S. holds pride of place not only for the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, but for being the first and only military power in history to burn hundreds of thousands of civilians alive with atomic weapons in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As for chemical weapons, aren’t Agent Orange and napalm — the liquid fire used on that screaming little girl mentioned above — supposed to count? The cumulative effect of US chemical weapons use in Indochina is millions dead during the war in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — and millions more dead of cancer and genetic defects in the decades since.

While we’re on the subject of chemical weapons, the story just came out — at about the worst possible time for the US, as it’s rolling out its propaganda for another war — that the US actively aided Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in targeting Iranian troops with nerve gas. It was known for some time that the Reagan administration had shared intelligence with Iraq at the same time it was using chemical weapons in the Gulf War. But it turns out Washington was supplying intelligence in full knowledge that that intelligence would be used to identify Iranian troop concentrations for targeting with nerve agents. Iran was preparing for the strategic exploitation of a huge hole in Saddam’s defenses, which might well have turned the tide of the war and led to enormous Iranian gains at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates, increasing military pressure on Kuwait and other Arab Gulf states.

The overall American policy arc in Iraq from the ’80s on seems to be: 1) Help Saddam to make war on his neighbors; 2) help Saddam use weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors; 3) encourage Saddam to invade Kuwait; 4) bomb the hell out of Saddam in 1991 for invading Kuwait and making war against his neighbors; 5) bomb the hell out of Saddam in 2003 for possibly still having weapons of mass destruction.

In short, the United States simply does not give a rip about Saddam, Assad, or anyone else using chemical weapons or committing war crimes of any kind. The US routinely supports regimes that engage in war crimes — and then publicly condemns them for war crimes only when they stop taking orders from Washington or otherwise become a liability. War crimes by official enemies are just a propaganda point for selling wars to the public.

Consumer advisory: Don’t buy a used war from this man.

Selective ‘obscenity’: US checkered record on chemical weapons

August 30, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Agent Orange, Iraq, Iraq War, John Kerry, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

The New Crossfire: Where Both Sides Support War With Syria

By Peter Hart | FAIR | August 28, 2013

CNN is bringing back Crossfire next month, but viewers on August 27 got a taste of what they might expect: The left thinks we should bomb Syria, while the right thinks we should have started that a long time ago.

On the show The Lead, guest host John Berman moderated a “debate” between conservative S.E. Cupp and left-leaning Van Jones.

“Look, I want to commend the president for finally following through on our red line threats,” Cupp declared–before explaining that Obama’s plan was too timid:

We should absolutely intervene to stop the genocide of more than 100,000 people. We should absolutely intervene to stop Al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism from jihadizing yet another conflict. It is absolutely our obligation, and instead we do the bare minimum to save face and pat ourselves on the back for our civility and our diplomacy. I think it’s pathetic.

OK, and from the left? Jones said:

This president has now said there is a red line. It was not clear before whether the line was crossed. It’s crossed, he’s moving forward. I think we need to stand behind this president and send a clear message to Assad that this type behavior is not acceptable.

And:

If you kill Assad right now, wonderful. You have a huge power vacuum. Who is going to fill it? Listen, people have a nostalgia for 1953 when the U.S. could just sort of thump out dictators like in Iran. This is not the world we live in. It is a tough neighborhood over there, and the idea that we should have a more bloodthirsty and reckless president, I reject.

I’m not sure what “thumping out dictators like in Iran” is supposed to mean; in 1953, the United States supported a coup against Iran’s elected president.

But back to Syria: The American public is generally and overwhelmingly skeptical of military strikes on Syria. But in CNN‘s left/right debate, that point of view seems to be missing entirely.

August 29, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Assad, CNN, Iran, Peter Hart, Syria, United States, Van Jones | Leave a comment

The Guardian of What?: The Media and War Propaganda

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | August 28, 2013

If there is any comfort in how the Guardian has been reporting the Middle East, especially Libya and Syria, it is that many of its readers, judging from their remarks in ‘Comment is Free’, do not appear to believe or trust it.

The Guardian sells itself as the global beacon of liberal opinion. It is liberal on social issues and alongside the chatterers, it has some excellent political correspondents and commentators, notably Gary Younge and Seamas Milne. As liberals themselves, its readers around the world must think they are on safe ground when quoting from the Guardian but if so, where the Middle East is concerned, they are deluding themselves.

Throughout the crisis in Syria the Guardian has been not so much reporting the conflict as running a propaganda campaign against the government in Damascus, to the benefit of the armed Islamist groups and the outside governments sponsoring them. The wellsprings of its ‘reporting’ have been the unsubstantiated claims of ‘activists’ no matter how wild and improbable. Without any evidence it is now accusing the Syrian government of being responsible for the alleged nerve gas/chemical weapons attack in the Ghouta district around Damascus. The far greater likelihood that the armed groups were responsible for this atrocity scarcely rates a mention. Building on the unsubstantiated claim that it was the Syrian military, Martin Chulov argues in favor of another one, that it was Bashir’s brother Maher who was personally responsible (the same accusation is being made by the Israeli intelligence propaganda outlet Debkafile, from which Chulov may well have taken his lead). This is how propaganda works. Once set in motion it just needs a push to keep it rolling.

Buttressing its editorial and reports, Fawaz Gerges is given space to claim that it is up to the Syrian government to prove that it was not responsible for this atrocity. This is nonsense: if the Syrian government was not responsible for this atrocity, how can it prove what it did not do, especially when anything it says will be dismissed out of hand by the mainstream media and the governments arming, financing and training the ‘rebels’? The onus of proof lies on those making the accusations, and so far neither the Guardian nor the anti-Assad campaigning Kim Sengupta of the Independent (where Robert Fisk has provided balance with some reports giving the perspective of the Syrian government) nor William Hague nor anyone else making this accusation has produced a scrap of evidence that this attack was carried out by the Syrian military.

Probability points in the direction of the armed groups. The ‘rebels’ are known to have acquired stocks of sarin. They used a chemical weapons compound in their home-made missile attack on a military outpost at Khan al Assal in March that killed dozens of soldiers and civilians. (1) In May this year Carla del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria said investigators had evidence that the ‘rebels’ had used sarin gas. (2) In May also Turkish police seized sarin gas along with hand guns, grenades, ammunition and unspecified ‘documents’ from apartments where Jabhat al Nusra members were living in Adana and Mersin. (3) Early in June the Syrian military seized two barrels of sarin gas from a ‘rebel’ hideout in Hama. (4)

On top of all this the armed groups have filmed themselves experimenting with chemical weapons on rabbits. As they have slaughtered thousands of civilians in the most barbaric fashion there is no argument that moral considerations would prevent them from taking this further atrocious step – and it is they who have every reason to take it. They are being ground down across the country and at this stage only direct military intervention is going to save them and save the project to destroy the Syrian government. It is a measure of the desperation of their outside sponsors that Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, was recently in Moscow with an offer from his government to buy $15 billion worth of Russian arms if Russia would just allow the passage of a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a military attack on Syria. Putin said no, and what a coincidence it is that a short time later there is a mass atrocity that gives the western-led collective the pretext it wants to attack Syria without a UNSC resolution behind them.

Clearing positions held by the armed groups a few days after the apparent nerve gas/chemical weapons attack, Syrian soldiers found stocks of chemicals, gas masks, syringes and anti-neurotoxin drugs in tunnels at Jobar, one of the three districts on the outskirts of Damascus, along with Ain Tarma and Zamalka, targeted in the attack. Several soldiers were taken to hospital in critical condition. The official Syrian news agency English-language news site, SANA ran photos of cylinders of chemicals and other material, including syringes, produced by the ‘Qatar-German Company for Pharmaceutical Industries’. There is no company of this name but there is a company called Qatar-German Medical Devices whose QG logo can be seen on a box found in the tunnel marked ‘Flow I.V. Cannula’. The army also found a basement stocked with quantities of chemical agents manufactured in Saudi Arabia and a number of European countries. The material included equipment for making chemical weapons and anti-neurotoxins in case the armed men poisoned themselves.

The discovery of this material was followed by the Medecins Sans Frontieres statement that three of the hospitals it supports in the Damascus governorate had received 3,600 patients displaying neuro-toxic symptoms in three hours on the morning of August 21, of which number 355 had died. While MSF cannot say who was responsible for this atrocity, its statement highlights the complete improbability of the Syrian government carrying out a mass chemical weapons/nerve gas attack on civilians in suburbs only a few kilometers from the center of Damascus, shortly after the arrival of UN chemical weapons inspectors and indeed only several kilometers from where they were staying, killing or wounding thousands and filling its own hospitals with the victims. At face value the accusation is ludicrous, yet such is the propaganda whipped up against the Syrian government over the past three years that some people will believe it to be capable of anything.

Not only do the armed groups, their backers and the media salesmen of their pitch, including the Guardian, want the world to believe that the Syrian government was responsible for this atrocity, they want the world to believe that Bashar is stupid, indeed so stupid that he would have ordered this attack within three days of the arrival of the UN chemical weapons inspectors. This canard is reminiscent of the accusation that the Syrian government arranged the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in 2005. The killing was a master stroke used as a lever to get the remaining Syrian troops out of Lebanon, and to blacken Syria’s name internationally. By the time all the four suspects had been freed and Syria cleared by the UN tribunal of any responsibility the media had moved on. It is a long time since it has shown any interest in who killed Hariri. Like the Hariri killing the first question to be asked in the wake of this latest atrocity is ‘who benefits?’ In both cases the answers are clear: in the first, Israel, the US and their proxies in Lebanon; in the second, the armed groups and the outside governments supporting them, including, of course, Israel, which is now leading the charge for a direct military attack on Syria.

By disseminating the deceit and lies put out by Libyan and then Syrian ‘rebels’ and ‘activists’, Al Jazeera ruined its reputation. The Guardian has run the same line as this mouthpiece of the government of Qatar yet remains protected by its mystique as a beacon of liberal opinion. Many of its readers are clearly confused when all they have to do is see that the emperor has no clothes: far from being the guardian of liberal opinion, this newspaper is the guardian of western, gulf and Israeli interests in the Middle East against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Its correspondents are still writing seriously and positively about a Palestinian ‘peace process’ that is a grotesque sham. Israel is playing with the Palestinians, as a cat plays with a mouse. It has Abbas in its pocket and by abandoning Syria and embracing Muhammad Morsi and the deposed ruler of Qatar, Ismail Haniyeh and Khalid Misha’al have found themselves without any backers. Not since its foundation has Israel enjoyed such a good run. If only the governments in Tehran and Damascus could be destroyed and Hezbollah extinguished life would be perfect.

The Guardian has never even attempted to provide balanced coverage of what is going on in Syria. There has been no counterweight – no antidote – to the anti-Assad and pro-rebel reporting and comment of Ian Black and Martin Chulov. The techniques will be familiar to all but the most inert readers. The paper runs headlines which are not justified in the text. The claims of ‘activists’ are given prominence and the claims of the Syrian government minimized, without there ever being any doubt about what the Guardian wants its readers to believe. It has downplayed or ignored the evidence of terrible atrocities by the armed groups (such as the massacres this August of hundreds of villagers in the Lattakia governorate (5) , of more than 100 people in Khan al Assal (6) and the massacre by Jabhat al Nusra of an estimated 450 Kurdish women and children around the Syrian-Turkish border town of Tal Abyad). (7) It has printed the wildest claims without any attempt to substantiate them, such as the allegation by a London-based ‘activist’ that the Syrian government was packing detainees into shipping containers and dumping them at sea. It has allowed ‘activists’ to shift the blame for car and suicide bombings on to the government even when it is government institutions that have been bombed and government employees who have been the victims. It has expected its readers to believe that the Syrian government is exploding bombs in densely populated residential areas in the middle of its own cities. It relies on the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights when it must know that it is a completely tainted source. The only explanation for this can be that this one-man band is saying what the Guardian wants to hear and what it wants its readers to believe.

The strategy of the armed groups has been to destroy infrastructure and terrorize the civilian population. This they have largely succeeded in doing. Syrians are pouring out of the country to get away from them. In the name of a twisted pseudo-revolution these armed men are supported by a collective of foreign governments. The line of the moment following the alleged chemical weapon/nerve gas attack is that ‘all red lines have been crossed’ when these governments crossed all red lines in international law long ago by financing and arming groups such as the brigades of the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat al Nusra. International law prohibits armed intervention in other countries and the use of mercenaries. International law forbids the application of economic sanctions against member states of the UN yet in all these categories the collective bent on the destruction of the Syrian government has shown complete contempt for international law. Of course this is merely standard procedure. International law is for other people, not the ‘international community’ as represented by the UK, France and the US [or Israel] and nowhere have they treated international law with more contempt than in the Middle East.

These governments are making the most strenuous effort in the history of the modern Middle East to destroy an Arab government. The reason has been clear from the beginning: Syria is Iran’s strongest regional ally and is being targeted as a second best option to targeting Iran itself. The takfiris inside Syria, demeaning Islam with their shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ every time they cut a throat, are doing the work of governments that have done nothing but damage to the Middle East for the past century. The prime losers are the Syrian people. About 100,000 have been killed in this conflict and much of their country’s infrastructure has been deliberately torn to shreds. The chief regional beneficiaries are Israel and Saudi Arabia, holding hands under the table. The destruction of the Syrian government would be an unparalleled strategic triumph for Israel and the ‘west’, which is why Russia and China have not budged in their position that it is the Syrian people who must decide their own future and not outside governments and armed gangs and why Russia in particular will be planning its riposte should Barack Obama be talked into launching a Cruise missile strike.

The Guardian’s propaganda cover for the Syrian ‘rebels’ follows its support for the Libyan ‘rebels’ against another dictator. The protest movement in Benghazi was seized upon by Britain, France and the US as the opportunity to intervene and destroy the government in Tripoli. There was no countrywide movement against Muammar al Qadhafi and the ‘rebels’ could not have advanced a yard beyond the city limits of Benghazi without the cover of NATO missiles. Qadhafi was brought down after a seven month blitz by the air forces of three of the most powerful militaries in the world and eventually murdered after several previous attempts to murder him by missile strike had failed, while killing members of his family. Thousands of innocent Libyans were killed during this prolonged aerial assault. This neo-imperialist adventure was fully underwritten by the mainstream media. None of the war crimes committed by NATO forces or ‘rebels’ on the ground had the same impact on editorials and ‘reporting’ as the claims that the Libyan leader was bombing his own people from the air, using black mercenaries and distributing Viagra to his troops. These sensational allegations were later shown to be lies, but by this time they had served their purpose in setting up Qadhafi as someone who deserved to be killed (rather than put on trial, embarrassing in the process Blair, Sarkozy and others who benefitted from Libyan money and oil concessions). With Libya out of the way the same western governments and the same mainstream media flapped on like vultures to Syria and another supposed dictator, leaving the Libyans to clean up the mess they had created as best as they could.

Having shed the shackles of balanced journalism in Libya and Syria, the Guardian is now defending media ethics and responsibility in the Edward Snowden- Glenn Greenwald affair. Greenwald has been revealing secrets from Snowden’s store of official documents. David Miranda, his partner, was detained for nine hours by British intelligence while in transit through London. If the purpose was to shut Greenwald up by putting pressure on his relationship, his scarcely repressed fury is an indication that it will not work. Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, had been having private conversations with British intelligence and only decided to take action, by destroying material the Guardian had on hard drives, when threatened with legal action. This was a significant exercise of the power of the surveillance state which had to be challenged, but how much more significant is media support for mass death and destruction delivered to Syria by groups of men financed, armed and trained by outside governments?

The Guardian does not actually call for war. It leaves that to other people. It merely sets the stage. It runs an editorial based on the assumption that this chemical weapons attack was the work of the Syrian government. The possibility that the armed groups might have done it is not even taken into account. It observes that ‘choosing between bad options is even more complex [supporting armed groups responsible for one atrocity after another is obviously not considered a bad option] … this paper has resisted the calls for military intervention in Syria [as if there is not already military intervention in Syria] … but we do appear to be coming ever closer to a tipping point with difficult judgments ahead.’ Without calling for war itself, this beacon of liberal opinion then quotes with approval the arch conservative William Hague, who talks of civilized values while pushing for a war that would bury them in further great mounds of bodies.

Behind the mask of asinine geniality Hague is a warmonger. He has wanted ‘intervention’ in Syria – a war kicked off with the declaration of a no-fly zone and now possibly a Cruise missile strike – for years and now sees it in his grasp. The Guardian should have been on to his smiling duplicity and double-speak like a terrier on to a rat. Instead it is joining the chorus line for war. That is the reality behind its own double-speak. The Syrian government agreed to allow UN inspectors into the districts targeted in this apparent nerve gas/chemical weapons attack but as soon they approached these districts, they were shot at by snipers. If it can be proven that it is the armed groups that carried out this attack it is a safe bet that we will hear no more talk of red lines being crossed. Obama said he would not take a decision until he had proof but now we are being told by an unnamed US official that the on the spot inquiry is too little and, not even a week after the event, too late. The British media is talking of a military attack being launched within days.

The US media is much more reserved: after all, their country is being pushed into the front line by governments that would never have the guts to attack by themselves but will only run in from behind once the US takes the lead. Obama is still holding back and has the intelligence and sense not to fall for this if, unfortunately, not necessarily the strength of character to resist the pressure being applied to him. Britain, France and Israel want to strike now, while the propaganda is running hot and strong and before the UN inspectors ruin their rush to war by concluding that this attack around Damascus either was or might have been the work of the armed groups.

This will not be Libya. This never was Libya. This will not begin and end with a few Cruise missiles fired at Syria from warships in the eastern Mediterranean. This may well spark a major war involving Turkey, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah and Russia for which those pushing for war must be held responsible right now and not just afterwards. If the decision is taken the Guardian will wring its hands about the horrors of war but it will still justify it on humanitarian grounds and the ‘responsibility to protect’. Amidst the smoke and carnage, the question of who fired the chemical weapons around Damascus will soon be forgotten.

– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

Notes:

1. See ‘Russia’s UN envoy says Syria rebels used chemical weapons’, Los Angeles Times,July 9,2013, reporting the statement by Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin that armed groups had used sarin gas in the attack at Khan Assal on March 15, killing 26 people, including 16 military personnel, and wounding 86.
2. See ‘UN’s Del Ponte says evidence Syrian rebels ‘used sarin’. BBC News Middle East, May 6, 2013.
3. See ‘Adana’da El Kaide operasonyu:12 gozalti ( Al Qaida operation at Adana: 12 arrested), Zaman, May 28, 2013.
4. ‘Syrian army seized sarin cylinders from militants in Hama’, Press TV, June 2, 2013.
5. See ‘Massacre in Latakia, August 2013. A documentary report on Al Nusra massacre in Lattakia’, Sham Times, August 8, 2013. Translated by Australians for Reconciliation in Syria.
6. See ‘UN rights chief calls for investigation into Syrian massacre’, Reuters.com., reporting on the ‘apparent’ massacre ‘carried out by Syrian opposition forces in the town’.
7. See ‘Defend the Kurds in Syria from massacre and ethnic cleansing’, Kurdistan Times, August 8,2013, reporting the massacre of 120 children and 330 women by Jabhat al Nusra at Tal Abyad on August 5. While the numbers have not been independently verified, the massacre triggered off an exodus of tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds into northern Iraq. Syrian Kurds have given details of massacres of Kurds carried out by Jabhat al Nusra across northern Syria.

August 28, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | Guardian, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Syria | Leave a comment

The NYT’s Evolving Drive to War on Syria

By Michael McGehee · NYTX · August 27, 2013

In George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984, Winston Smith, the protagonist, is a clerk for the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth. Winston’s job is to rewrite Oceania’s history, news article by news article, as official party policy changes. The idiom “down the memory hole” comes from this portion of Orwell’s book and refers to the destruction of Winston’s efforts, after making revisions.

When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. — George Orwell, 1984, Chapter 4

The website NewsDiffs.org shows us how this function exists today, in the real world, where articles by major news organizations are rapidly revised dozens of times following publication and without editors providing any explanatory note. By comparing and contrasting these revisions, what goes down the proverbial memory hole, along with what simply does not make it to publication, readers are provided with a keen insight into how major news outlets operate as the Records Department for dominant power systems in the West.

Take, for example, the New York Times’ article on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, “Kerry Cites Clear Evidence Of Chemical Weapon Use.”

According to NewsDiffs the article has gone through 22 revisions since yesterday. While some of them were for simple grammar corrections, like changing “to” to “too,” many of the changes were considerable, and offered a hawkish, pro-war, bias to the U.S. and its Western allies, particularly Washington’s usual partners: the United Kingdom and Israel.

The first major change was the addition of this remark made by U.K.’s Foreign Secretary William Hague: “Is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the U.N. Security Council? I would argue yes it is, otherwise it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes, and I don’t think that’s an acceptable situation.”

Already readers can see how the “paper of record” is shaping the article as a public relations piece on behalf of those who have been working tirelessly for years on bringing down the government in Syria. Worse, no space is provided to point out that, unless in response to a specific armed attack, use of force without a U.N. mandate is unlawful. Nor is space given to question the difference between “possible” and “legal.” Is it possible the West would violate international law? The historical record is affirmative.

The next significant revision included comments added by Israeli officials that it was “crystal clear” that Assad’s forces used chemical weapons. The evidence? None is provided.

The next two major revisions were updates about how the U.N. inspector team came under sniper fire (here and here). While the two edits show confusion as to who was likely behind the attacks it is noted that the U.N. convoy was being “escorted by Syrian security forces.” No commentary is provided as to what interests the rebels may have in preventing the investigation. This could have been an important moment to do so, especially considering that The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the U.S. was trying to stop the investigation.

Then there are the past incidences we have reported on: Washington signing off on a plan to use chemical weapons and then blame it on the Syrian government, as well as rebel fighters getting caught with sarin nerve gas in Turkey (see here and here).

In another significant revision space is provided to the U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his argument for intervention: “if there is any action taken, it will be in concert with the international community and within the framework of legal justification.”

The pattern continues: the NYT article is a morphing argument for war.

The following change provides space to Russia to warn against the use of military force and to indicate that the rebels might have been behind alleged chemical attack. But, this, like Syria’s account, doesn’t make it to the final edit that we have to-date.

When the NYT gets around to offering limited space to the Syrian government they still manage to warp the paragraph in derision:

[President Assad] said government troops would have risked killing their own forces if they had used chemical weapons. “This contradicts elementary logic,” news reports quoted him as saying. It is “not us but our enemies who are using chemical weapons,” he said, referring, as he usually does, to antigovernment rebels as “the terrorists.” [emphasis added]

And in the next edit the entire reference above is stricken out, leaving no space for the Syrian government to comment on the matter. While nearly all of the article has been given to anti-Assad officials to make threats, or shed crocodile tears over the war’s tragic costs, there is but one one-sentence paragraph that alludes to the possibility that the rebels were behind the attack, and even it is carefully constructed to cast doubt on the possibility:

“Obama administration officials said that Mr. Kerry’s statement was calculated to rebut the claims made by Syria and its longtime patron, Russia, that the rebels were somehow responsible for the chemical weapons attack, or that Mr. Assad had made an important concession by giving the United Nations investigators access.” [emphasis added]

Finally, the article is headlined as “Kerry cites evidence . . .,” but the final revision states: “In the coming days, officials said, the nation’s intelligence agencies will disclose information to bolster their case that chemical weapons were used by Mr. Assad’s forces.” In other words, no evidence is ever cited, just promised to be given later, much like was said with the last accusation that proved fruitless.

What we witness is the evolution of an article, not into a journalistic piece of integrity, truth, or impartial coverage, but into a mouthpiece for those who want war, and have invested years into the making. The Syrian conflict has been going for nearly three years, all during which the U.S. and its allies have been seeking to bring down the Assad government, turning a blind-eye to the crimes of the rebels, and thwarting efforts to reach a peaceful solution. The NYT article was so far revised and rewritten nearly two dozen times, with only minimal space provided to what could best be described as the “enemy” side of the conflict, and done so with contempt, showing that just as Washington has taken sides on the conflict, so too has the New York Times.

August 28, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Chuck Hagel, New York Times, Syria | Leave a comment

Western logic on Syria: ‘We need to bomb it to save it’

RT | August 27, 2013

The military buildup in the Mediterranean indicates that Assad’s opponents intend to militarily intervene in Syria under cover of ‘humanitarian intervention’, a disingenuous narrative that could not be further from the truth.

Pictures and videos that have surfaced following the alleged use of chemical agents in the eastern suburbs of Damascus are profoundly disturbing and a thorough and substantial investigation into what took place there is absolutely essential. However, it is conversely disturbing that those Western governments who have staunchly supported anti-government militants are using this opportunity to legitimize the use of force against the government in Damascus.

The United States, Britain, and France are unwavering in their assertions that the Assad government and the Syrian Arab army were the perpetrators of the chemical weapon attack, despite no evidence to substantiate these claims. These governments seem to be sure that Damascus is guilty on the basis of it preventing a UN investigation team from visiting the site, and when investigators eventually did reach the area, it didn’t matter to them because they argued that the Syrian government had destroyed all evidence of wrongdoing.

Assad’s opponents have constructed a deeply cynical and hysterical political narrative that Western leaders are now parroting in unison.

There are several reasons why Damascus showed hesitation in allowing UN inspectors to access the site, the most apparent being that this attack allegedly took place in rebel-held strongholds on the outskirts of the capital, and that the security of the UN team could not be guaranteed if rebels attacked them or launched more chemical weapons during their visit.

Syrian rebels have demonstrated their hostility to UN forces on previous occasions; anti-government groups kidnapped 21 UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights in March, and another four peacekeepers later in May. That the UN convoy was fired upon by unidentified snipers is hardly surprising in that it is another stunt in a series of moves to escalate the situation to provoke an international response.

The UN team eventually made it to the site to collect evidence and, contrary to Western assertions, the UN claimed that it was still possible for the team of experts to gather necessary evidence despite the time elapsed since the alleged attack.

Who benefits from using chemical weapons?

The narrative that the Assad government used chemical weapons, specifically while a UN team was in Damascus to investigate previous uses of chemical weapons, is tactically and politically illogical and in no way serves the interests of the Syrian government.

These attacks transparently serve the interests of anti-government militias who have long called for NATO intervention, as well as the Syrian political opposition who are now refusing to take part in any planned Geneva negotiations. Furthermore, allegations that the regime used chemical weapons benefits the international opponents of Assad, who have materially and financially aided and armed non-state actors and foreign fighters on an unprecedented scale.

Above all, the use of chemical weapons benefits the arms industry, as four US warships with ballistic missiles are moving into position in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, ready to shower Damascus with Tomahawk cruise missiles – all under the auspices of protecting civilians. Lockheed Martin’s stock prices have dramatically shot up since news of the chemical weapons attack.

There are numerous revelations that would suggest that anti-government militias have access to these weapons and are in fact guilty of using them. Carla Del Ponte, head of a UN commission of inquiry that looked into the use of chemical weapons in northern Syria in late March suggested that the evidence was stronger to implicate anti-government militants in using chemical weapons, not the Syrian government.

A handout image released by the Syrian opposition’s Shaam News Network shows people inspecting bodies of children and adults laying on the ground as Syrian rebels claim they were killed in a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013. (AFP Photo)

In May, Turkish police found cylinders of sarin nerve gas in the homes of Syrian militants from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front who were detained in the south near Syria’s northern border. In July, Russian experts submitted reports to the UN detailing how the missiles used in previous chemical weapon attacks were crude and not factory made, and that the chemical components found were not consistent with what the Syrian military has.

The Syrian military has just recently discovered chemical weapons in a rebel tunnel in the Jobar suburb of Damascus, including shells, gasmasks manufactured in the United States, chemical substances of Saudi Arabian origin. Arabic language reports also indicate that a former high-ranking Saudi Arabian member of Al-Nusra Front claimed that the group possessed chemical weapons in a tweet.

NATO intervention replicating the Kosovo model?

The speeches and statements from John Kerry, Laurent Fabius, or William Hague all imply that military action will be taken against Damascus despite lacking a legal basis of action. If ‘humanitarian intervention’ were to be undertaken, it would need approval from the UNSC in the form of a resolution, but such a resolution would not be passed because countries such as Russia believe that this kind of intervention would be used as a pretext to remove the legal government of Syria, as it has been used in the recent past in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya – all with undeniable abuses of force that have resulted in substantial civilian casualties.

Reports indicate that Obama’s team is now studying the NATO mission in Kosovo as a “possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations.” It is ominous, alarming and bizarre how NATO’s intervention in the former Yugoslavia could be used a positive reference point for anything. NATO rained down bombs for 78 straight days, effectively smashing civilian infrastructure in Serbia and Montenegro while hospitals, schools, and public utilities were damaged beyond repair, killing over 1,200 civilians and injuring 4,500 more.

Despite Obama’s cautious tone in recent interviews, all indications point to military intervention already being decided. Carla Del Ponte’s assessment was whitewashed, and any other evidence provided by the UN that does not fit conveniently into the Western narrative will be suppressed – the US position is that it is already “too late” for any evidence to be credible.

The huge military buildup of US and British ships and warplanes in the Mediterranean comes while the Pentagon is reportedly making the initial preparations for a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces.

The intransigence and cynical duplicity of Assad’s opponents is unparalleled, and their media outlets are complicit in pulling the heart strings of their audiences while offering a totally one-sided perspective in support of R2P, the ‘right to protect.’

The US, Britain, and France see themselves as righteous protectors, and rationality and evidence will not be enough to break their dangerous and ridiculous delusions; these states are the vanguards of militant corporatism and have demonstrated that they seek only their private economic and geopolitical objectives in the region.

Those countries that represent a balanced approach to this crisis should not stand idly by while the West ‘comes to the aid’ of the Syrian people with cruise missiles and airstrikes – they should not allow intervention under ‘humanitarian’ auspices to harm civilians and topple the legal authorities in Damascus.

Hysteria around chemical attack suits those who want military intervention in Syria – Lavrov (rt.com)
Russia ‘regrets’ US decision to shelve Syria talks (alethonews.wordpress.com)

August 27, 2013 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | NATO, Syria, United Nations, United States | Leave a comment

Tony Blair says UK and US should intervene in Syria

Press TV – August 27, 2013

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called on London and Washington to go to war in Syria to end what he claimed to be attacks on civilians “not seen since the dark days of Saddam”.

“People wince at the thought of intervention. But contemplate the future consequence of inaction and shudder,” said Blair who took Britain to the war in Iraq based on fabricated claims that Saddam had ready-to-launch weapons of mass destruction.

“Western policy is at a crossroads: commentary or action …. After the long and painful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, I understand every impulse to stay clear of the turmoil …. But we have collectively to understand the consequences of wringing our hands instead of putting them to work,” he wrote in an article for The Times on Tuesday.

Blair’s comments come as there are serious qualms that the claims, led by Britain, the US and France, of Syrian government having carried out the chemical attack that allegedly killed hundreds of people on Wednesday are nothing but another deception to justify war, as was the case in Iraq.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama have been rattling sabers since Wednesday, saying they should intervene to end what Washington described as a “moral obscenity”.

However, Britain and its western allies have so far offered no evidence to support their claims against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad.

The Conservative British PM will also have a hard time to persuade MPs to start a war after he was forced to promise to put any military action in Syria to parliamentary vote earlier this year after 82 Conservatives MPs signed a letter to demand such a process.

The opposition Labour party has also demanded the coalition government to ask for MPs’ approval before taking any military action.

Cameron has indicated he will consult the parliament with his office saying he could recall the parliament from a summer recess before it ends on Monday to discuss the situation in Syria.

London faces calls to make its case for a possible war before parliament

August 27, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | David Cameron, Iraq War, Syria, Tony Blair | Leave a comment

Russia ‘regrets’ US decision to shelve Syria talks

RT | August 27, 2013

Moscow has voiced “regret” over a US decision to put off bilateral talks over Syria. Russia has sought to placate calls for military action over the alleged use of chemical weapons, saying there is no evidence of the Assad regime’s complicity.

The US government announced it was postponing bilateral talks with Russia late Monday, citing “ongoing consultations” over the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

Russian and American officials had been scheduled to meet in The Hague on Wednesday for bilateral talks on the Syrian conflict.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov tweeted a response to the move Tuesday morning, expressing concern over Washington’s decision.

“It is a pity that our western partners have decided to cancel the bilateral US-Russian meeting to discuss calls for an international conference on Syria,” Gatilov wrote on Twitter. He added in a later post that discussing terms for a political solution were needed now more than ever in the face of possible military intervention in Syria.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennady Gatilov (RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko)

Foreign Affairs Committee chairman of the Russian Duma, Aleksey Pushkov also posted on his Twitter, alleging the US had already made the decision to strike Syria and they had gone too far.

A number of western countries including France, the US and the UK have condemned President Bashar Assad’s government for last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb and called for a response, hinting at possible military action. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minster David Cameron in a phone conversation that there was still no evidence the Assad government was behind the attack.

However, Cameron insisted that Assad’s forces were behind the “chemical weapons” attack, saying that the Syrian opposition did not have the facilities to orchestrate such an attack. Cameron also cited the Syrian government’s delay in allowing a team of UN experts to examine the site as an indication that it had something to hide.

Washington has also seen an increase in rhetoric, urging action against the Assad government. Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, decried the Assad government for the attack on her Twitter account, and demanded accountability:

“Haunting images of entire families dead in their beds. Verdict is clear: Assad has used CWs against civilians in violation of int’l norm.”

Meanwhile, the UN weapons inspectors are due to start their second day of investigations in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where the toxic attack happened last Wednesday. The team’s convoy of vehicles came under fire from unknown assailants Monday as they visited the area.

In spite of the sniper attack, the team managed to collect samples for analysis and gather witness testimonies at a local hospital. Contradicting claims from the US and UK that the probe was too late to yield accurate results, the UN stressed the mission was still valid, although almost a week has passed since the supposed attack.

The alleged attack took place last Wednesday in an eastern suburb of Syria’s capital. Media published conflicting reports on the death toll, ranging from “dozens” to over 1,300 dead. French charity Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) put the death toll at about 355.

August 27, 2013 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Middle East, Russia, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

US Uses Past Crimes to Legalize Future Ones

By Diana Johnstone | Ron Paul Institute | August 26, 2013

The liberal warhawks are groping around for a pretext they can call “legal” for waging war against Syria, and have come up with the 1999 “Kosovo war”.

This is not surprising insofar as a primary purpose of that US/NATO 78-day bombing spree was always to set a precedent for more such wars. The pretext of “saving the Kosovars” from an imaginary “genocide” was as false as the “weapons of mass destruction” pretext for war against Iraq, but the fakery has been much more successful with the general public. Therefore Kosovo retains its usefulness in the propaganda arsenal.

On August 24, the New York Times reported that President Obama’s national security aides are “studying the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations.” (By the way, the “air war” was not “in Kosovo”, but struck the whole of what was then Yugoslavia, mostly destroying Serbia’s civilian infrastructure and also spreading destruction in Montenegro.)

On Friday, Obama admitted that going in and attacking another country “without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence” raised questions in terms of international law.

According to the New York Times, “Kosovo is an obvious precedent for Mr. Obama because, as in Syria, civilians were killed and Russia had longstanding ties to the government authorities accused of the abuses. In 1999, President Bill Clinton used the endorsement of NATO and the rationale of protecting a vulnerable population to justify 78 days of airstrikes.”

“It’s a step too far to say we’re drawing up legal justifications for an action, given that the president hasn’t made a decision,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations. “But Kosovo, of course, is a precedent of something that is perhaps similar.”

Ivo H. Daalder, a former United States ambassador to NATO, suggests that the administration could argue that the use of chemical weapons in Syria amounts to a grave humanitarian emergency, just as the Clinton administration argued in 1999 that “a grave humanitarian emergency” presented the “international community” with “the responsibility to act”.

This amounts to creative legality worthy of the planet’s number one Rogue State.

An Illegal War as Precedent for More War

The US/NATO war against Yugoslavia, which used unilateral force to break up a sovereign state, detaching the historic Serbian province of Kosovo and transforming it into a US satellite, was clearly in violation of international law.

In May 2000, the distinguished British authority on international law, Sir Ian Brownlie (1936-2010), presented a 16,000-word Memorandum, evaluating the war’s legal status for the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the British Parliament.

Brownlie recalled that key provisions of the United Nations Charter state quite clearly that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

Brownlie added that the alleged right to use force for humanitarian purposes was not compatible with the UN Charter.

During the past decade, the Western powers have invented and promoted a theoretical “right to protect” (R2P) in an effort to get around the UN Charter in order to clear the way for wars whose final purpose is regime change. The use of R2P to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya gave the game away, ensuring Russian and Chinese opposition for any further such manoeuvre in the UN Security Council.

Concerning the Kosovo war, in his Memorandum Professor Brownlie reached the following major conclusions:

– The primary justification for the bombing of Yugoslavia was always the imposition of the NATO plans for the future of Kosovo. It was in this context that the bombing campaign was planned in August 1998.

–  The threats of massive air strikes were made in the same context and were first made public in October 1998. Neither the purpose of the planned air strikes nor their implementation related to events on the ground in Kosovo in March 1999.

–  The cause of the air strikes was quite simple: given that Yugoslavia had not given in to threats, the threats had to be carried out.

–  The legal basis of the action, as presented by the United Kingdom and other NATO States, was at no stage adequately articulated.

–  Humanitarian intervention, the justification belatedly advanced by the NATO States, has no place either in the United Nations Charter or in customary international law.

– If the view had been held that the Permanent Members of the Security Council would recognise the need for humanitarian action, then no doubt a resolution would have been sought.

– The intentions of the United States and the United Kingdom included the removal of the Government of Yugoslavia. It is impossible to reconcile such purposes with humanitarian intervention.

– The claim to be acting on humanitarian grounds appears difficult to reconcile with the disproportionate amount of violence involved in the use of heavy ordnance and missiles. The weapons had extensive blast effects and the missiles had an incendiary element. A high proportion of targets were in towns and cities. Many of the victims were women and children. After seven weeks of the bombing at least 1,200 civilians had been killed and 4,500 injured.

–  In spite of the references to the need for a peaceful solution to be found in Security Council Resolutions, the public statements of Mrs Albright, Mr Cook, Mr Holbrooke, and others, and the reiterated threats of massive air strikes, make it very clear that no ordinary diplomacy was envisaged.

The “Kosovo treatment”

As a final synopsis, Brownlie wrote a prophetic note on future use of “the Kosovo treatment”:

“The writer has contacts with a great number of diplomats and lawyers of different nationalities. The reaction to the NATO bombing campaign outside Europe and North America has been generally hostile. Most States have problems of separatism and could, on a selective basis, be the objects of Western ‘crisis management’. The selection of crises for the ‘Kosovo’ treatment will depend upon the geopolitical and collateral agenda. It is on this basis, and not a humanitarian agenda, that Yugoslavia is marked out for fragmentation on a racial basis, whilst Russia and Indonesia are not.”

He added: “Forcible intervention to serve humanitarian objectives is a claim which is only open to powerful States to make against the less powerful. The fate of Yugoslavia will have caused considerable damage to the cause of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The Brownlie Memorandum to the British Parliament is the most thorough assessment of the legal status of the Kosovo War. It is quite remarkable that the liberal warhawks around Obama talk of using that war as a “legal precedent” for a new war against Syria.

This amounts to saying that a crime committed once becomes a “precedent” to justify the crime being committed the next time.

How Many Times Can You Fool Most of the People?

If understood correctly, the Kosovo war was indeed a precedent that should act as a warning signal.

How many times can the United States use a false alarm to start an aggressive war? Non-existent “genocide” in Kosovo and Libya, non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and now what looks to much of the world like a “false flag” chemical weapons attack in Syria.

The United States habitually announces the presence of a desired casus belli, dismissing demands for concrete evidence.

In Kosovo, the United States obtained withdrawal of international observers who could have testified whether or not there was evidence of “genocide” of Kosovars. The accusations escalated during the war, and when, afterwards, no evidence of such mass murder was found, the matter was forgotten.

In Iraq, there was never any proof of WMD, but the US went ahead and invaded.

In Libya, the pretext for war was a misquoted statement of Gaddafi threatening a “massacre of civilians” in Benghazi. This was exposed as a fake, but again, NATO bombed, the regime was toppled, and the pretext falls into oblivion.

Sunday, just as the Syrian government announced readiness to allow international inspectors to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use, the White House responded, “too late!”

A senior Obama administration official demanding anonymity (one can reasonably guess the official was Obama’s hawkish National Security Advisor Susan Rice) issued a statement claiming that there was “very little doubt” that President Bashar al-Assad’s military forces had used chemical weapons against civilians and that a promise to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was “too late to be credible.”

In the world beyond the beltway, there is a great deal of doubt – especially about the credibility of the United States government when it comes to finding pretexts to go to war. Moreover, setting “chemical weapons” as a “red line” obliging the US to go to war is totally arbitrary. There are many ways of killing people in a civil war. Selecting one as a trigger for US intervention serves primarily to give rebels an excellent reason to carry out a “false flag” operation that will bring NATO into the war they are losing.

Who really wants or needs US intervention? The American people? What good will it do them to get involved in yet another endless Middle East war?

But who has influence on Obama? The American people? Or is it rather “our staunchest ally”, who is most concerned about rearranging the Middle East neighborhood?

“This situation must not be allowed to continue,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, expressing remarkable concern for Syrian civilians “who were so brutally attacked by weapons of mass destruction.”

“The most dangerous regimes in the world must not be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapons in the world,” Netanyahu added.

Incidentally, polls have been taken showing that for much of the world, the most dangerous regime in the world is Israel, which is allowed to possess the most dangerous weapons – nuclear weapons. But there is no chance that Israel will ever get “the Kosovo treatment”.

DIANA JOHNSTONE is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr

US cannot afford to wait for UN to attack Syria: Officials

August 26, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Kosovo, NATO, New York Times, Syria, United Nations Charter, United States, Yugoslavia | Leave a comment

Russia Warns US Again Against Syria Intervention

Al-Manar | August 26, 2013

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned US Secretary of State John Kerry over the “extremely dangerous consequences” of launching military action against Syria, the foreign ministry said Monday.

Russia, USLavrov told Kerry in a telephone call Sunday that Moscow was “deeply alarmed” by comments from US officials indicating a readiness to intervene in Syria over alleged use of chemical weapons which the Syrian government had strongly denied, it said in a statement.

“Sergei Lavrov drew attention to the extremely dangerous consequences of a possible new military intervention for the whole Middle East and North Africa region,” it added. Lavrov told Kerry that it appeared certain elements inside the United States wanted to launch military action in Syria outside of the United Nations to undermine joint US-Russia efforts to organize a peace conference.

The Russian minister urged his US counterpart “to refrain from using military pressure against Damascus and not to give in to provocations.” The ministry said Kerry promised to “attentively” study the arguments of the Russian side.

Russia underlined the necessity of an objective UN investigation into the claimed chemical attack and repeated its doubts that the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad was to blame. “There is mounting evidence that the incident was a pretence set up by the rebel opposition with the aim of accusing the Damascus government of everything,” the statement said.

August 26, 2013 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Middle East, Russia, Sergey Lavrov, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

Syria gives green light to UN chemical weapons team

Press TV – August 25, 2013

The Syrian government has given the green light to the UN team of chemical weapons inspectors to investigate the site of the recent alleged chemical attack in the country.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry made the announcement on Sunday, after an agreement was reached between the UN team and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.

“An agreement was concluded today in Damascus between the Syrian government and the United Nations during the visit of the UN High Representative for Disarmament Angela Kane,” the ministry said in a statement.

The accord would “allow the UN team led by Professor Aake Sellstroem to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Damascus Province,” the statement stated, adding that it “is effective immediately.”

The Syrian government and the UN also agreed that the UN team should start its investigation of the sites from Monday.

Damascus also promised to observe ceasefire during the UN team’s visit to the site of the attack.

“Syria is ready to cooperate with the inspection team to prove that the allegations by terrorist groups of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian troops in the Eastern Ghouta region are lies,” Muallem was quoted as telling Kane.

On August 21, the head of the so-called opposition Syrian National Coalition, George Sabra, claimed that 1,300 people were killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar.

The Syrian government, however, has vehemently rejected the allegation, saying the foreign-backed militants had carried out the attack.

On Saturday, the Syrian forces found chemical agents in tunnels dug by the militants in Jobar. A number of soldiers suffocated as they entered the area.

The UN investigators are staying at a hotel just a few kilometers away from the site of the attack. They arrived in Syria on August 18.

The US has reportedly said Syria’s permit for the UN inspection is too late to be credible. A senior American official has said the access should have been granted immediately after the attack.

Syria Opposition Preventing Chemical Attack Probe: Russia (syrianfreepress.wordpress.com)

August 25, 2013 Posted by aletho | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Syria, Syrian government, Walid Muallem | Leave a comment

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Zionism’s Violent Legacy

By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996

On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.

This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue

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