There is a vast industry in the United States that wants a hot war with Syria and Iran as well as increased confrontation with Russia and China. It is appropriate to refer to it as an industry because it has many components and is largely driven by money, much of which itself comes from Wall Street and major corporations that profit from war related business. Some prefer to refer to this monster as the Military Industrial Complex, but since that phrase was coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961, it has grown enormously, developing a political dimension that includes a majority of congressmen who are addicted to receiving a tithe from the profits from the war economy to finance their own campaigns, permitting them to stay in office indefinitely and retire comfortably to a lobbying position or corporate directorship.
The defense industry also has spawned hundreds of so-called think-tanks whose sole business is promoting war. Some, like the neoconservative Institute for the Study of War, have a clear agenda, but the most powerful rely on euphemisms to conceal what they are doing. They include the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, both of which promote a hard-line foreign policy directed against Iran and Russia, to include intensified confrontation with both in Syria.
The national media, which also benefits from the same food chain, is also complicit in the process, knowing that the public can easily be deceived by pronouncements coming from alleged experts in Washington. Leading politicians like Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain lead the pack but there is no shortage of lesser known congressmen to also raise the cry about foreign threats to national security. Regarding developments in Syria, Graham advised last weekend that Trump must attack and destroy the Syrian Air Force or “look weak” while McCain said White House talk of pulling troops out of the country had “emboldened” al-Assad.
Unenlightened self-interest prevails in the White House over the formulation of policy, with the public interest completely lost from sight as high officials jockey in support of the agendas being promoted by those with money and access to those in power. There is no other explanation for the astonishing performance last weekend, which pushed the United States closer to a new war in spite of Trump’s earlier expressed claims that he wants to exit from Syria, a comment that he quickly backed away from under pressure from the Israelis and Congress.
But now we have a dubious narrative of a horrible new chemical weapon attack in Syria and the Israelis, who have spent the past two weeks shooting two thousand unarmed demonstrators, have attacked a Syrian airbase, killing 14, pretending that they care about civilian casualties when all they really want to do is jumpstart a seven-year war which has been winding down.
Anyone could see there was something not quite right about this latest “chemical attack,” supposedly implemented by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops are about to finish off the last rebels near Damascus. But Donald Trump apparently could not appreciate that the Syrian government had no motive to use chemical weapons, while the rebels, who control the space where the attack supposedly took place, have every reason to motivate an international coalition to attack the Syrian Army.
At 8 a.m. on Sunday morning the President of the United States sent out this tweet:
Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay…
Donald Trump could not have possibly known who staged the gas attack so soon after it occurred, but he felt compelled to tweet something anyway. And it was not as if other observers hadn’t suspected that a big lie was coming. Days before the staged attack, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that a false flag incident was being prepared.
One hour later, the Sunday morning talk shows in the US were full of reports about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons. No one contradicted that narrative and the news was soon headlined in the late editions of the Sunday newspapers. “Fake news” had won out again, in spite of a complete lack or evidence or credibility. This is completely crazy. There is something very wrong with what is going on currently in the United States.
Referring to President Trump’s condemnation of the Justice Department’s violation of attorney-client privilege with its subpoena on Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, the New York Times writes in an editorial today, “Anyway, one might ask, if … Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?”
Of course, one has to ask why the Times doesn’t address the same question to the CIA with respect to the upcoming April 26 deadline for the release of official records relating to the JFK assassination: If the CIA has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does it care whether the National Archives releases the records that the CIA has been keeping secret for more than 50 years? Why does it continue fighting the release of those long secret records?
Trump would probably respond to the Times by saying: The principle of the attorney-client privilege is such an important part of a free society that it is worth fighting to preserve even if someone has nothing to hide.
The CIA, on the other hand, can’t make the same type of argument. The best it can do is come up with the standard “national-security” justification for continued secrecy, which, as everyone knows, has been used to cover up all sorts of official crimes and other wrongdoing ever since the federal government was converted into a national-security state after World War II.
After all, let’s state the patently obvious: If the National Archives complies with the JFK Records Act and releases the CIA’s long-secret JFK assassination-related records, the United States is not going to fall into the ocean and the federal government is not going to fall to the communists.
In other words, no matter what definition is placed on that nebulous term “national security,” the United States and the federal government will continue to exist.
After all, think of all the secret records that the JFK Records Act and the Assassination Records Review Board succeeded in getting disclosed back in the 1990s. The CIA, the Pentagon, the Secret Service, the FBI, and other federal agencies had succeeded in keeping those records secret for some 30 years, on grounds of “national security.” When they were released, nothing happened. The United States continued standing.
After the lapse of 50 years, even the old tried-and-true justification for secrecy — that somebody might retaliate against some CIA assassin — doesn’t hold muster. That’s because CIA assassins in the 1960s are either dead or sitting in some retirement home waiting to die.
There is only one conceivable reason for the CIA’s wish for continued secrecy in the JFK assassination: It does have something illegal and untoward to hide: that it conspired to effect a domestic regime-change operation against President Kennedy, the president that decided to go to war against the Pentagon, the CIA, and the rest of the U.S. national security establishment over the future direction of the United States. (See JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.)
That’s why “national security” and secrecy surrounded the JFK assassination from the get-go. Secrecy was absolutely essential to the success of the plot and the cover-up.
Think about the official story: A lone-nut assassin suddenly decides to kill the president. He in turn is killed two days later. End of story. The investigation is quickly shut down. Everything is shrouded in secrecy. Even the Warren Commission hearings are held in secret. “National security” is cited.
Does any of that make sense? If it’s just some lone nut that has killed the president, why any secrecy at all? How could “national security” apply to a random murder?
In fact, as one begins to critically analyze the evidence in the case, a mosaic begins forming: Everything is just too pat. As it would be in a frame-up and cover-up.
Indeed, as the circumstantial evidence in the case has slowly been released over the decades, especially in the 1990s, it has overwhelmingly pointed in the direction of a frame-up of Lee Harvey Oswald, the purported assassin.
For one thing, no motive. Proponents of the lone-nut theory have always maintained that Oswald killed Kennedy because Oswald was a little man who wanted to kill a big man. Really? Then why did he deny having committed the offense?
In fact, Oswald did more than deny it. He himself alleged that he was being framed. That’s what he meant when he called himself a “patsy.”
The circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly points to the fact that Oswald was working in some capacity for U.S. intelligence, either CIA, FBI, or Naval Intelligence. After all, he was a U.S. Marine. How many communist Marines have you ever heard of? Why would a genuine communist even join the Marines, especially in the 1950s when Marines could easily be sent back to Korea or to Vietnam to kill communists? It makes no sense.
But if you have an intelligence agent whose job it is to pose as a communist, then you have a perfect patsy to frame, especially because no one outside a very tight intelligence circle would know that Oswald was, in fact, an intelligence agent or informant.
As former Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley has discovered from an investigation and close examination of long-secret CIA records, the CIA, contrary to what it has stated ever since the assassination, was closely monitoring Oswald ever since he left the Marines and moved to the Soviet Union. That tight surveillance continued all the way up to the weeks preceding the assassination.
There are two possible reasons for the surveillance.
One possibility is because they considered Oswald to be a threat to “national security.” But if that was the case, why not indict, harass, and abuse him, like they were doing to suspected communists like Martin Luther King? And why not advise the FBI and Dallas authorities prior to JFK’s visit to Dallas? And why keep the existence of that surveillance secret for decades?
The other possibility: They were monitoring their intelligence agent and then, later, setting him up as a patsy in the JFK assassination. A frame-up would have required keeping the patsy under close watch, not only to place him in a position to be framed but also to make sure that he didn’t figure out what they were doing to him.
There were two major things that pointed to Oswald’s supposed bona fides as a communist after the assassination: his activities in New Orleans and his trip to Mexico City, both of which, interestingly enough, have connections to the CIA.
In New Orleans, Oswald was pamphleteering for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which the CIA and the FBI were intent on destroying. While engaged in that activity, Oswald made contact with an organization named the DRE, which, as it turns out, was being secretly funded and supervised by the CIA.
That’s another thing that Morley uncovered: that a CIA agent named George Joannides was the CIA’s liaison with the DRE. The CIA knowingly and intentionally kept that fact secret from threee different official organizations that investigated the JFK assassination: the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee, and the ARRB.
Why the secrecy regarding Joannides? Because the DRE was the very first organization that began advertising Oswald’s communist bona fides immediately after the assassination, with the support of Joannides and the CIA. The CIA didn’t want anyone to know that they were behind the DRE’s post-assassination advertising campaign.
To this day, the CIA steadfastly refuses to release its files relating to Joannides. Such files are apparently not even part of the CIA records that are set to be released on April 26. The CIA never turned over its Joannides records at all to the National Archives, notwithstanding the fact that the JFK Records Act required it to do so.
What’s the CIA hiding and why?
Oswald’s trip to Mexico City was also intended to show that he was a genuine communist. Instead, however, the official investigation into that trip was quickly shut down and today it is still shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the reason is because everything that could go wrong with that part of the operation did.
The CIA’s records relating to Mexico City are part of the records that the National Archives is set to release on April 26. My prediction: Those records will never see the light of day. The American people will not — cannot — be permitted to view them. There can be only one reason for that — no, not “national security” — but rather because the records show that the CIA has something to hide — its participation in the assassination of president Kennedy and its cover-up involving the framing of a U.S. intelligence agent who had been trained to pose as a communist.
When the JFK Records Act was enacted, it was the last thing the U.S. national-security establishment wanted. As far as they were concerned, they wanted everything to remain secret forever. But they did get a 25-year extension for secrecy, which must have felt like an eternity to CIA officials back then.
That 25-year period expired last October. When it arrived, the CIA pleaded for President Trump for more time and more secrecy. Trump gave them 6 more months, which expires on April 26. My prediction: The CIA will plead for even more time and more secrecy. It really has no other choice. That’s because it really does have something to hide. My other prediction: that for some reason Trump will give them what they want, which will ensure that the JFK cover-up will continue.
Yaser Murtaja was a Palestinian journalist acting in his professional capacity when he was murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). He was covering the second Great Return March in Gaza and was clearly identified as press when an Israeli sniper fired a fatal shot.
Yaser Murtaja should not be forgotten. His death must be uppermost in our minds when the Syrian government is accused of deliberately murdering a journalist and is sued for $300 million in a United States court. Marie Colvin was covering the Syrian war in 2012 for the British newspaper The Sunday Times. She was killed when the Syrian army shelled the building where she and others were embedded with the Free Syrian Army, a group committed to regime change. The court filing claims that the Syrian government tracked Colvin’s movement and assassinated her. Ordinarily foreign governments can’t be sued in United States courts but as a designated “terrorist” state the rule does not apply to Syria.
War propaganda is the order of the day in the ongoing effort to continue war in Syria. President Bashar Assad has been accused of carrying out chemical weapons attacks against his people ever since the American backed effort began in 2011. We are told to believe that he would carry out these attacks on the same day that United Nations inspectors arrive or whenever he is winning on the battlefield.
The real issue is that Assad is still the president of Syria with the help of his Russian and Iranian allies. He has defeated the terrorists sent to unseat him and he and his allies are forces to be reckoned with. NATO governments know that their people will not support war against his country unless they believe that he is an evil dictator who gasses babies every day.
His opponents are armed with money and contacts at the highest levels of the American and European governments. There is an entire media industry devoted to disparaging him and in so doing making the case for continued war. The White Helmets are a fiction, a creation of al Qaeda, an organization we are otherwise told to hate and fear. Far from being disinterested rescuers the White Helmets are part of the terror network that has nearly destroyed Syria and killed thousands of people. They routinely stage footage of their rescues and of gas attacks but only the leftist media dare to point out that easily provable fact.
The White Helmets are not alone. Every anti-Assad lie comes with the seal of approval from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Despite the grandiose name the SOHR is just one man living in the U.K. named Rami Abdel Rahman. Rahman is a native Syrian who actually hasn’t been inside his homeland in 16 years.
This week the SOHR reports chlorine gas attacks carried out against the civilian population by the Assad government. The moment is very opportune but there is no evidence that the latest reported attack took place at all. The terrorists use these charges to regroup and to be given safe passage so that they may attack another day. The lies are not just propagandistic. They are tools for continuing this horrible conflict.
The corporate media share in the culpability. They have chosen sides and repeat verbatim every outlandish fiction that will make the case for imperialism. None of them allow a counter narrative to see the light of day. There are many knowledgeable people whose expertise would call into question charges of gas attacks and assassinated reporters. But they are disappeared from discourse and casual followers of the news have no idea that they exist.
The lawsuit in the Marie Colvin case is nothing but war propaganda. Her family will never collect from the Syrian government but that isn’t the point of this case. Is it meant to create a compliant population who will believe anything they are told and not ask questions when the United States starts a hot war with Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies.
Who will file a lawsuit on behalf of Yaser Murtaja? He died covering protests that Palestinians have a right to hold according to international law. But Israel doesn’t need to respect the law because of American financial and military support. If there were justice both of those governments would be sued or better yet their leaders would be tried at the Hague as war criminals.
The Israelis brag that they “know where every bullet lands.” This ghoulish statement is a confession that they knowingly shot and killed a member of the press corps. His family will have no right to sue that government or its patron the United States. There is no hand wringing for Murtaja in the corporate media or from liberals who think themselves humanitarian.
Marie Colvin was killed because she was covering a war zone and was embedded with a group devoted to Assad’s overthrow. Ms. Colvin had already lost the sight in one eye after covering another war in Sri Lanka. She knew the risks of her profession and continued to take them. There is no comparison between her death and Murtaja, a man who was trapped in Gaza with 2 million other people and who devoted himself to chronicling their oppression.
Some victims are considered worthy and others are thought to be unworthy. Some are ignored and others are elevated so that the rulers can get away with advocating evil deeds. Of course no one would have died in Syria if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton hadn’t joined with NATO and monarchy states to destroy another nation after their gruesome success in Libya. Perhaps the next lawsuit should target them and their cronies. That would be true justice.
The Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) label is a powerful tool used by the US; it is as a form of hostage-taking in a political sense, says Brian Becker, national coordinator at the Answer Coalition.
The leader of the Lebanese political party and militant group, Hezbollah, has revealed that Washington offered to remove it from the terrorism watch-list and give the group financial aid if it dropped its resistance to Israel.
“Following the 2000 victory, the Israeli enemy, along with the US, had realized that Lebanon’s real power lies within its resistance, which has managed to force the Israeli occupation out of Lebanon without any condition,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday, as cited by Iran’s Press TV. “We were offered money and to be part of the authority in Lebanon on condition that we cede resistance,” he continued, adding that it was his fault at that time that he “didn’t accept to take his paper, so that it would be a proof now.”
According to Nasrallah, the offer was made by former vice-president Dick Cheney via US-Lebanese businessman George Nader.
RT asked Brian Becker how he could comment on what – according to Nasrallah – was the US’ attempt to “bribe” Hezbollah.
“I think the report from the Lebanese resistance Hezbollah leadership is extremely instructive and revealing. The designation by the US government of an organization or a country as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) is a form of hostage-taking in a political sense,” he said.
“When the US makes that designation, which is largely for political purposes, it puts the entity that has been designated into a terrible position: no one can do business with it, they can’t trade with it, it is persona non grata diplomatically, its leaders could be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. And then the US can say ‘But, if you do what we want you to do or for some other political purpose we choose to lift this designation, then you are no longer subject to all of these economic, social and even criminal penalties.’ It is really just a weapon, it is a tool, it is an instrument, a blunt tool used by the US diplomacy. It shows that is not very diplomatic,” Becker explained.
For the US government to designate another country or organization as a foreign terrorist organization is an immensely powerful instrument, yet, it’s purely political. “It is a form of bullying on a grand scale,” Becker explained.
“It doesn’t really say anything about terrorism or about the people who are sanctioned under the FTO label,” Becker told RT. “The label doesn’t really correspond or correlate to reality, it is purely a political exercise.”
Often entities that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US are “the governments that seek to be independent from the US or have challenged US hegemony in their area or in their country,” the analyst said. At the same time, he noted, some of the terrorist organizations like the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization), “in the case of Iraq, as long as they are fighting Iran, then the US says ‘It is ok, they are fighting our enemies.”
“So, even though they have an FTO label, it is not really applied. They have a sort of immunity from application. It is completely discreet or discretionary on the part of the US powerful government about how it should be used and who it should be used against,” Becker said.
The images flooding US news sources are the stuff of nightmares. Children gasping for air, their chests heaving in pain, strange foam flooding from their mouths. This time, the images are coming out of Douma, one of the last strongholds of the opposition rebels resisting the Assad regime’s reconquest of Syrian territory.
Already, as if singing in chorus, shrill cries are flooding throughout all of the mainstream US news outlets and self-righteous rhetoric employed in lengthy articles, all calling in unison for a new war in Syria on the basis of moral outrage with the ultimate goal of regime change.
On Monday, a few days after announcing that the US would be pulling its troops out of the Syrian theater, President Donald Trump castigated the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian and Iranian allies and promised a swift and powerful military response to this attack.
All this as the offices of his lawyer, Michael Cohen, were raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Meanwhile Israeli jets pounded the T4 airbase used by Syrian and Russian forces as war cries were echoed by France and the United Kingdom.
It is precisely during times like this when the fog of emotion is being deployed so hysterically by powerful political and media forces to build public consent, that it is absolutely critical to step back and analyze the narrative being thrusted upon us Americans and examine precisely our interests in fighting another war in the Middle East.
Deja vu
What is clear is that the sequence of these events nearly mirror the circumstances of previous attacks attributed to Assad back in 2017 in Khan Shaykhun and in 2013 in Ghouta. During each incident, Assad was immediately castigated as the guilty party before any facts were proved and indeed, against all logical motives on his part. Along with this judgment came a loud chorus calling for a massive and immediate military intervention to remove his regime from power.
However, despite the enormous pressure applied on the White House for a hawkish response, both Barack Obama and Trump respectively resisted deepening American involvement in a conflict. Their actions were vindicated months later in each instance by the results of United Nations inspection teams who, in both instances, determined that there did not exist any evidence that Assad had deployed chemical weapons, thus supporting allegations that these attacks were false-flag operations planted by the rebel forces in order to elicit Western military support.
Assad’s regime and his Russian allies have made significant ground in the last few years in winning the long-running Syrian civil war. In Douma, the opposition is surrounded and desperately putting in a last act of resistance before the Syrian government’s impending victory. A chemical attack by Assad at this point, which would only open the door for Western military punishment, would be political suicide and defeat all logical motives.
The voices calling for war completely ignore this simple logic and instead insist on further demonizing Assad. However, even demons would want to win, and a chemical attack by Assad at this time would only threaten his impending victory. There is absolutely no compelling motive for Assad to use chemical weapons.
Today in Washington, we are faced with an unpredictable situation in which an embattled President Trump, who as candidate blasted the very type of military intervention he now purportedly supports, is facing a historically unprecedented challenge to his office by the very government organs in which he supposedly presides over.
Weakened by endless scandals tied to allegations of collusion with the Russians and details of his sordid sexual past, the recent raid on the offices of Michael Cohen and the violation of attorney-client privileges open the gates to his possible impeachment.
These events coincide with the recent elevation of John Bolton, a renowned warmonger obsessed with endless conflict, as the new national security adviser. Thus the ground is set for a prolonged escalation of US military involvement in the Syria theater.
Not in the US interest
This is the moment when every American citizen must ask themselves, what exactly is our interest in a Syria war? Will American security, or indeed, security in the West, be improved with military escalation in Syria?
Clearly, the evidence of years prior when turmoil in Syria created waves of migrants entering Europe at German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s behest has proved otherwise. A strong body of evidence from recent history demonstrates that war will only create more refugees, more chaos, more radicalism and more opportunities for terrorism.
Will the removal of Assad’s regime improve peace in the region? Again, the evidence points otherwise. Despite all of his faults, Assad’s regime is a force for secularism in a region where religious extremism is rife.
A Syria without Assad will likely be a theater of chaos where ISIS and other Islamist extremists will fill the power vacuum and turn the country into a training ground for future terrorists – terrorists who may very well come to haunt us within our own shores. We have seen this cycle innumerable times before, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya – let’s not make the same mistake again.
Will an invasion of Syria increase American prosperity? Again, we only need to remind ourselves of the US$6 trillion that was spent in the calamitous debacle known as the Iraq war, likely one of the greatest geopolitical mistakes in recent history.
According to the 2017 US federal budget, spending on Medicare and health totaled $1.17 trillion, transportation was $109 billion, education was $85 billion and science was $32 billion. These numbers are all dwarfed by the amount that we spent on the Iraq war. That amount would have been able to pay for universal medical coverage, a national high-speed-rail system, revamping of our education system and enhanced government support for scientific research many times over.
The hubris of empire
During this period in history where US national debt is soaring past $21 trillion, growing economic insecurity amid ever growing costs of living and unprecedented social and economic divisions are challenging American society, a war in Syria should not even make it to the list of national priorities.
Another war in the Middle East, one in which we depose another secular regime to create a power vacuum for Islamist extremists, will not improve the security of the American public but will endanger it.
Another war in the Middle East will not enhance American prosperity but will only damage it. It will significantly increase American national debt and detract valuable resources away from investing in crucial infrastructure that will be necessary to maintain economic competitiveness.
Another war in the Middle East will bring us face to face to the brink of war with Russia, a major nuclear power, and for what? So we can play judge and kingmaker in the endless geopolitical struggles among Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel in a region that is thousands of kilometers away from our shores?
As any student of history knows, it is through arrogance and hubris that empires fall. It is through the over-extension of power and reckless adventurism, often perpetrated by manipulative elites who use the smokescreens of emotion and anger to fuel public support to further their own goals, that empires are led to the long journey of their own demise.
With the rise of the information age and the vast resource of alternative narratives, there is no excuse for ignorance. There is no excuse for a citizenry to support a national effort that so threatens their own interests.
A war in Syria is clearly not in the American interest, and a major military escalation will only lead to disastrous consequences.
The events in Syria are likely to escalate into a regional conflict. USS Donald Cook already deployed in the Mediterranean can deliver a limited missile attack against Syria but a large-scale operation is unlikely to be launched until USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group (CSG) arrives in roughly 10-14 days. The CSG left the home base in Norfolk on April 11. The land strike-capable USS Portercan reach the Syria’s shore pretty soon. USS Laboon and USS Carney, two more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, as well as USS Georgia and USS John Warner submarines, are in close proximity to add more punch if an order to strike is given.
The composition of the carrier group includes at least five warships (one cruiser and 4 destroyers) capable of cruise missile attacks against land targets. Each US destroyer or cruiser can carry over 50 land attack missiles. It could be more, depending on the mission. USS Georgia is an Ohio class submarine (SSGN) to carry 154 land attack missiles. USS John Warner is a Virginia-class submarine to carry 12 Tomahawks. The USS Iwo Jima amphibious strike group can deploy to Syria in a few days from the Arabian Sea.
The UK, France, perhaps some other NATO and Middle East allies, including Israel, will join a US-led operation in Syria. The British Air Force can operate from Cyprus. A RAF KC2 air tanker is already there. The talks between the US, the UK and France are underway. Syrian armed forces are taking precautionary measures expecting strikes any time now.
US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hailey, sounds like if a sustained operation, not a one-off strike, is a done deal. The envoy says America will strike with or without a UN resolution. The voices are heard calling for striking Syrian command and control sites as well as “regime’s political centers”, despite the fact that where Russian advisers could be there. That’s something the US military has not done before.
A proposal to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty to contain Moscow without military actions has been floated. No actual war, but Russia will be considered an enemy. John Bolton’s warnings that an Islamic State ouster would allow Syrian President Assad to remain in power, with Iranian influence intact in Iraq are remembered to bolster the calls for action. In 2015, the newly appointed national security adviser called for carving out an independent Sunni Muslim state in northeastern Syria and western Iraq. He has his chance now.
A US-led multinational operation in Syria has become a predominant idea in Washington. On April 10, President Trump postponed his visit to Latin America because of the events in Syria. One can assume that the provocation in Douma was staged to make President Trump reconsider the decision to pull forces out in favor of confronting Russia, Syria and Iran. Those who did it hoped the US president would bite it. And bite he did.
There is no way to get rid of Assad but launch an international invasion. Washington’s global standing has received a strong blow after the unimpressive operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A US-led intervention could boost it if it were a success. America would present itself as a defender of Syrians suffering from the “atrocities of Assad’s dictatorship”. Heading an international coalition would help restore America’s image as the world leader. This is the way to make Washington a friend of Sunni Muslims who allegedly need protection from Tehran.
Invading Syria is the way to weaken Iran’s influence in Iraq. Such an operation would meet the goals of the Russia containment policy. An intervention could bring the US-led force and Turkey together in their desire to oust Assad. That would distance Ankara from Moscow, which will not leave its Syrian ally in lurch. From Washington’s view, these are the pros to bolster the plan to invade.
And now about the cons. After the failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, you name it, the US would once again get tied up in the messy situation in the region. It may need to go beyond the Syria’s borders. For instance, the US-led coalition would have to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon. There is a big chance the US and its allies would get involved in another protracted bloody war with no final victory in sight.
Suppose, the intervention ends up as a quick, victorious operation in purely military terms, what about the prospects of winning war to lose peace, like in Iraq? Washington will be responsible for the outcome of nation building in a country divided along religious and ethnical lines. The US will be rebuked for failure and accused of depriving Syria of the chance provided by the Astana peace process. Invading Syria means fighting Iranians. The Washington’s goal is to incite them to rebellion. An invasion of Syria could backlash to make all Iranian people united behind the ayatollahs’ regime.
Finally, invading Syria is a great risk as Russia would not stand idly if the lives of its servicemen were threatened there. The possibility of clash will grow immensely. But if the US-coalition applies de-confliction efforts, there will be no containment. To the contrary, the world will see that Moscow cannot be ignored. It isn’t now. Despite all the tensions souring, Russia’s Chief of General Staff will meet the NATO Supreme Commander in a few days. No doubt, they will discuss Syria.
If Iran gets united and stronger, Russia remains to be an actor to reckon with, nation building fails and Assad keeps on fighting back to make the coalition suffer casualties, then there will be only cons with no pros. And that will take place against the background of failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Risks are too great to ask the question – why should the US get involved in the faraway Syria’s conflict at all? By no stretch of imagination could such an operation be considered a move to enhance US and West’s security and meet the goals of “America First” policy.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Donald Trump’s attempts to talk to Russia through a barrage of tweets on Wednesday, and warned that the US president risked worsening “an already fragile situation.”
“We don’t do Twitter diplomacy. We are proponents of a serious approach,” Peskov told the media in Moscow. “We still think it is important to avoid steps that could harm what is already a fragile situation.”
In his earlier missives, Trump veered between intimidation and encouragement towards Moscow. He warned Russia to “get ready” for “nice, new and ‘smart’” missiles as a result of supporting Bashar Assad, who he described as “a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it.” This suggested that a US military response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria on April 7 is imminent.
However, Trump later wrote that there is “no reason” for the relationship between the Kremlin and the White House to be “worse now than it has ever been,” and asked “all nations to work together.” He also enjoyed a sideswipe at the “Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation” for causing “much of the bad blood with Russia.”
Since Friday 30 March 2018, thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have protested across the Gaza Strip in commemoration of Land Day, demanding an end to the 11-year long closure, and reaffirming their right of return. In response, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) deployed additional forces and equipment in the area, and issued explicit orders to use live fire against Palestinian protestors. Hundreds of fully armed IOF members, including tens of snipers and military vehicles, spread behind the border area in these locations. The IOF resorted to excessive and lethal force, by shooting live ammunition, rubber bullets, heavy tear gas fired by drones and military vehicles, targeting Palestinian protestors. Since Friday 30 March, 32 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, 25 during the protests, and thousands have been injured, hundreds with live ammunition.
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Israel’s attack on the Syrian Arab Air Force’s (SyAAF) Tiyas airbase in Homs province was nothing less than a provocation, Turkish analysts opined, drawing attention to the fact that the airstrike occurred following unconfirmed reports about the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta.
“While Damascus’ position and its influence in Syria is growing and Syrian government forces are making considerable progress on the fronts, it is completely unconvincing and illogical to claim that the Syrian authorities conducted a chemical attack,” ex-Lieutenant General of the Turkish Armed Forces, Erdogan Karakus, told Sputnik Turkey. “Israel is doing everything possible to destabilize and confuse the situation in the region. These steps are part of yet another provocation on the part of the West.”
Karakus drew parallels between the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 under a false pretext and the reported chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta. On April 7, a number of media outlets accused Damascus of using chemical arms in the town of Douma, citing sources among Syrian jihadi militants. The next day the Trump administration dropped the hint that it did not rule out the military option as a response to the supposed incident.
Moscow denied the allegations, referring to the fact that the Russian Defense Ministry had repeatedly warned about upcoming chemical provocations in the region amid the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) successful advance. The Russian Foreign Ministry highlighted that “that military intervention under far-fetched and fabricated pretexts in Syria… is absolutely unacceptable and might lead to very severe consequences.”
The retired lieutenant general pointed out that the West is hiding the real state of affairs while spreading false information as the truth.
“There is a serious struggle for power and influence, which affects the UN,” he said. “Turkey, Russia and Iran are on the one side. On the opposite side are the West, the US and Israel.”
‘Israel Seeking to Provoke War Between US and Iran’
Major General Beyazit Karatas, a retired Turkish Air Force officer who previously served as a military attaché in Washington, recalled that it is not the first time that Israel has attacked the Tiyas (T-4) airbase, where Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are reportedly located.
“Israel’s major task for a long period of time has been to provoke a war between the US and Iran,” Karatas opined. “This desire of Israel is supported by Saudi Arabia. But the United States behaves cautiously, taking into account the potential reaction of Russia, Turkey, Iran and China. Therefore, they [the US] do not engage in clashes in the region directly, but provide support to local players, using them for their own purposes.”
Why Alleged Douma Attack Appears to Be a Staged Provocation
“It is presumed that the sarin gas was used that during the [alleged] chemical attack, but in fact it was not used,” Karatas said. “If you look at the photos published in Western media, you will clearly see that it was a staged event. If, as it claimed, sarin was used [in Douma], neither the father depicted in the photo could take the child in his hands, nor anyone actually could take these pictures. This is a staged farce.”
The former Turkish military official highlighted that the Russian Defense Ministry had repeatedly warned about possible staged provocations in the region.
At the same time, the US, Israel and their Western allies are trying to present chlorine as a chemical weapon, Karatas continued. According to the retired major general, these claims do not hold water: Being a toxic substance, gaseous chlorine is by no means a weapon of mass destruction, he says.
“In order to kill people located in one building, you will need to use at least 50 tons of chlorine. In a word, this is not a substance that can be used as a weapon of mass destruction,” he explained.
As for sarin, if this gas was actually used in Eastern Ghouta, no one could be there in ordinary masks, without special protective gear, as they would have died from poisoning, Karatas stressed.
“All of the above shows that the allegations and photographs are nothing more than a staged performance,” he pointed out. “As you know, Russia has been previously accused by the West of poisoning [former spy Sergei] Skripal. However, it turned out to be a lie. Today few people in the world believe the West’s false statements.”
The retired major general underscored that it is quite obvious for “reasonable people” that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would never use chemical weapons under current conditions.
“In addition, if sarin — a gas with high volatility — was used, the biggest losses would be suffered by the Syrian military [deployed in the region] in the first place,” Karatas elaborated.
On April 9, two Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets attacked the T-4 airfield from Lebanese airspace, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The ministry pointed out that five out of eight strikes were repelled by Syrian air defenses. Israel’s envoy to Russia was summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry on April 10 over the incident.
On April 9, federal agents raided the office, home and hotel room of Michael Cohen, personal attorney to US president Donald Trump. Cohen has come under fire, with potential legal implications, for paying $130k to silence adult film actress and alleged Trump paramour Stephanie Clifford, better known as “Stormy Daniels.”
That hush money seems to be the excuse for the raids, but as the Washington Post reports, they are “part of an investigation referred by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to federal prosecutors in New York …”
Poor Mueller. After nearly a year as special counsel in the “Russiagate” probe, he has yet to accomplish either of his missions.
His putative job is to expose “Russian meddling” in the 2016 presidential election, especially with respect to possible collusion between the campaign of now-president Donald Trump and the regime of Vladimir Putin.
His real goal, of course, is to overturn that election by “getting” Trump on something — anything will do — that Congress can treat, and that the public will accept, as impeachable/indictable.
So far Mueller’s secured indictments of a few Trump associates on charges having little or nothing to do with his overt mission, and of a few Russians for running an Internet “troll farm” that posted some cheesy social media ads. But he has yet to put real meat on his mandate and doesn’t seem to be getting much closer to Trump himself than when he started.
Now he’s hitching his wagon to Stormy Daniels’s star. Why? There are two plausible reasons.
One is that he hopes to get Trump on something other than “collusion with Russia.” Trump has publicly denied the affair with Daniels, and has also denied knowledge of Cohen’s payment to Daniels. If he’s lying, and if the payment violated any laws, proof of that might be enough to get impeachment proceedings rolling in Congress and move a grand jury to indict.
The other possibility is that Mueller is baiting Trump to fire him, something sure to be followed by the usual suspects crying “obstruction!” and “constitutional crisis!” then demanding Trump’s head on a platter, and possibly getting it.
No one is likely to mistake me for a Trump supporter. I wouldn’t be at all sorry to see him go. But there are larger and more troubling implications here.
If attorney-client privilege can be so casually breached versus the president of the United States, just how secure do you think it will remain for the rest of us?
And if this president is successfully removed, will there ever again be a presidential election that isn’t immediately followed by an open-ended “find something, anything” probe like Mueller’s?
The decline and fall of the American empire seems to be speeding up.
There’s no arguing that recently we’ve witnessed an abrupt increase of public interest in chemical weapons and the top-secret British laboratory Porton Down due to the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the so-called Salisbury incident.
Back in 2004, the Guardian would announce that this laboratory had conducted experiments on people using weaponized chemical agents, including highly volatile ones.
In this regard, it must be recalled that the United Kingdom began using chemical weapons almost immediately after the invention of this weapon. England would unleash deadly chemical attacks during the First World War, only to take advantage of the experience it accumulated of the process to utilize mustard gas against Arab insurgents in the 1920s. Moreover, historic documents show that London had an intention of using chemical agents against Germany’s densely populated cities during the Second World War.
The First World War was the time when the UK created the top-secret Porton Down chemical weapons laboratory. Over the course of its existence, more than 20,000 people were subjects of thousands of chemical and biological agents, as well as all sorts of drugs. According to various estimates, at least 8,000 people were exposed to the effect of mustard gas, and more than 3,000 people to sarin nerve gas poisoning. A renowned British historian Ulf Schmidt would explore the story of “survivors of Porton Down” in his book “Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare.”
By 1918, a quarter of all English shells would contain poisonous substances – phosgene, diphosgene, mustard, and chloropicrin, bringing the total amount of chemical weapons that British troops had at their disposal to 25,400 tons. In 1919, the British Royal Air Force in a bid to suppress the Bolsheviks in northern regions of Russia would unload diphenylchloroarsine on their heads, a highly toxic substance that causes severe suffocation.
In 1920, Winston Churchill ordered the suppression of Muslim uprisings in Iraq with the help of mustard gas. Some analysts still remember the phrase he used in a secret memorandum :
I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes…
As a consequence, Iraqi villages populated by “uncivilized” people that dared to revolt against the British Empire were wiped out with the use of mustard gas. Seventy years after these events, the survivors said that their villages were bombed three times a day. In addition to mustard gas, British troops would also deploy napalm against peaceful Iraqis along with new types of high-explosive and phosphorous bombs.
From 1930 to 1940, Britain tested the effect of mustard gas on Indian soldiers. Later these inhumane tests were dubbed “Rawalpindi experiments”, even though the area referred to in this name is now a part of the Punjab province in Pakistan. The purpose of these “experiments” was to study the effects and establish the dosages of mustard gas that could be used in combat operations. In the course of these “experiments” Indian soldiers were locked in gas chambers and then poisoned with mustard gas. After 10 years of continuous torture of Indian soldiers hundreds suffered from the consequence of severe exposure to mustard gas.
In 1942, the British developed the so-called Operation Vegetarian. They planned to scatter linseed cakes infected with anthrax spores over German pastures. The UK “baked” over 5 millions of such cakes for the attack. However, before launching it the UK decided to test their effectiveness on the Scottish Gruinard Island, the anthrax exposure was so “successful” that until 1990 any access to the island was strictly forbidden, but even today the consequences of this “experiment” haven’t been studied.
From 1939 to 1989, the United Kingdom was engaged in the development and research of new chemical warfare agents which became a pivotal part of the work done at the Porton Down chemical weapons laboratory. It was experts from this same laboratory that had subjected Indian soldiers to mustard gas exposure in the 1930s.
However, the tests of chemical agents on people within the confinements of Porton Down wasn’t something out of the ordinary. According to the El Pais newspaper, in 1963 this research center decided to test how vulnerable public infrastructure was to chemical and biological attacks. To do this, they unleashed an unknown bacteria in the London Underground, that was originally considered harmless, but later turned out to be capable of causing sepsis. However, no one was held responsible for such inhumane “research”.
One can also recall the experiments conducted in 1963 that studied the effect of LSD drugs on British soldiers.
There’s been hundreds of former subjects of such “chemical experiments” that have demanded London to tell the truth about what is happening behind the closed doors of Porton Down, and to compensate for the harm inflicted by such “experiments”. In 2008, British authorities recognized individual facts of all sorts of harmful incidents and issued compensations to 359 of nearly 22,000 soldiers who were subjected to tests at Porton Down.
Recently, the British Medical Association (BMA) has released a report on the use of drugs as weapons, after examining the ongoing militarization of drugs. This has been a matter of grave public concern for decades now, but the highly technical nature of the above mentioned report has been kept out of the public eye.
It’s curious that according to various reports, the US Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency has been funding a number of military projects performed by the chemical weapons laboratory of Porton Down. Among them: experimental respiratory infection with Anthrax, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Western equine encephalitis virus, and Eastern equine encephalitis virus.
As for the latest reports about British chemical projects, it’s noteworthy that last year Syrian armed forces came across ISIS warehouses filled with weaponized chemical substances produced by the US and UK. Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad would announce that the poisonous substances found at the said warehouses were produced by such American and British companies as Federal Laboratories, Cherming Defense UK and NonLethal Technologies. According to his reports, Syrian soldiers retrieved hand grenades and grenade launchers filled with CS and CN toxins. Such warehouses were located in the liberated city of Aleppo and the eastern suburb of Damascus.
But, in addition to the documented use of chemical weapons, Britain is well known for its false-flag provocations in this field. Among them is the so-called White Helmets organization in Syria. When Britain needs to blame Russia, Iran or the Syrian armed forces for the ongoing bombing of allegedly peaceful international radical terrorists, it orders them to destroy hospitals and schools, while using alleged chemical weapons in the process before carrying out “rescue operations” under direct supervision of British special services. Injured children are always on hand as props, with professional cameramen capturing the staged events. It is noteworthy that the founder of this group was James Le Mesurier, a British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record. He’s a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, who saw deployment in some well-known military operations, including in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. In general, he’s been everywhere the West needed to stage a humanitarian catastrophe, with a subsequent “humanitarian intervention” leading to long sought after Western geopolitical objectives. He is still in the service of Her Majesty, to be more specific – British military intelligence.
So, after a careful examination of the role chemical weapons play in the operations ordered by the UK, including false-flag attacks, everything becomes clear. Therefore, there can hardly be any doubts about the responsibility of British special services in the staging of the Salisbury incident which was designed to be yet another anti-Russian provocation, just as false-flag Syrian attacks have been.
It is unlikely that in this regard, Britain and its ruling political elite will be able to publicly refute the facts mentioned above in any way.
Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar Jaafari raises important questions during UNSC session on Monday, 9 April 2018 to discuss reports of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria.
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
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