MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?
We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”
We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandum immediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.
The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond … the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today.
Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you.
We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.
Intelligence Summary or Political Ploy?
That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.”
This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”
Déjà Fraud: This brings a flashback to the famous Downing Street Minutes of July 23, 2002, on Iraq, The minutes record that Richard Dearlove, then head of British intelligence, reporting to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials that President Bush had decided to remove Saddam Hussein through military action that would be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” Dearlove had gotten the word from then-CIA Director George Tenet whom he visited at CIA headquarters on July 20.
The discussion that followed centered on the ephemeral nature of the evidence, prompting Dearlove to explain: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” We are concerned that this is precisely what has happened with the “intelligence” on Syria.
The Intelligence
There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.
According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.
We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.
In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.
At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government
The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.
Cui bono?
That the various groups trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have ample incentive to get the U.S. more deeply involved in support of that effort is clear. Until now, it has not been quite as clear that the Netanyahu government in Israel has an equally powerful incentive to get Washington more deeply engaged in yet another war in the area. But with outspoken urging coming from Israel and those Americans who lobby for Israeli interests, this priority Israeli objective is becoming crystal clear.
Reporter Judi Rudoren, writing from Jerusalem in an important article in Friday’s New York Times addresses Israeli motivation in an uncommonly candid way. Her article, titled “Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria,” notes that the Israelis have argued, quietly, that the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome. Rudoren continues:
“For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.
“‘This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,’ said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. ‘Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.’”
We think this is the way Israel’s current leaders look at the situation in Syria, and that deeper U.S. involvement – albeit, initially, by “limited” military strikes – is likely to ensure that there is no early resolution of the conflict in Syria. The longer Sunni and Shia are at each other’s throats in Syria and in the wider region, the safer Israel calculates that it is.
That Syria’s main ally is Iran, with whom it has a mutual defense treaty, also plays a role in Israeli calculations. Iran’s leaders are not likely to be able to have much military impact in Syria, and Israel can highlight that as an embarrassment for Tehran.
Iran’s Role
Iran can readily be blamed by association and charged with all manner of provocation, real and imagined. Some have seen Israel’s hand in the provenance of the most damaging charges against Assad regarding chemical weapons and our experience suggests to us that such is supremely possible.
Possible also is a false-flag attack by an interested party resulting in the sinking or damaging, say, of one of the five U.S. destroyers now on patrol just west of Syria. Our mainstream media could be counted on to milk that for all it’s worth, and you would find yourself under still more pressure to widen U.S. military involvement in Syria – and perhaps beyond, against Iran.
Iran has joined those who blame the Syrian rebels for the August 21 chemical incident, and has been quick to warn the U.S. not to get more deeply involved. According to the Iranian English-channel Press TV, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif has claimed: “The Syria crisis is a trap set by Zionist pressure groups for [the United States].”
Actually, he may be not far off the mark. But we think your advisers may be chary of entertaining this notion. Thus, we see as our continuing responsibility to try to get word to you so as to ensure that you and other decision makers are given the full picture.
Inevitable Retaliation
We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. “Mission” in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled “Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria – Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.”
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Thomas Drake, Senior Executive, NSA (former)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan
Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
W. Patrick Lang, Senior Executive and Defense Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
Todd Pierce, US Army Judge Advocate General (ret.)
Sam Provance, former Sgt., US Army, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, Division Council & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
September 6, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | George W. Bush, John Kerry, Syria, Tony Blair |
Leave a comment
Introduction
As President Obama announces plans for another war, adding Syria to the ongoing and recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, a profound gap has emerged between the highly militarized state and US public opinion.
A Reuters/IPSOS poll taken August 19-23 (2013) revealed that 60 percent of Americans surveyed stated that the United States should not intervene in Syria, while 9 percent said Obama should act. Even when the question was ‘loaded’ to include Obama’s bogus and unsubstantiated claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces “used chemicals to attack civilians”, almost twice as many Americans oppose US military intervention (46 percent to 25 percent). In panic and haste several pro Administration media outlets contracted new polls to better the results. What is striking about this finding is that despite the mass media and the Obama spokespeople’s saturation of the airwaves with atrocity images of “victims”, the US public is becoming more vehemently opposed to another imperialist war. Reuters/IPSOS poll of August 13 found 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if toxic chemicals were used, while 41.6 percent did not. In other words, as the Obama regime intensified preparations for war, opposition increased by over 16 percent.
Current and past polls and studies document that a substantial and enduring majority of Americans are opposed to ongoing wars (Afghanistan), even as the Executive Branch and Congress continue to finance and dispatch US troops and engage in aerial assaults in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
If, as some scholars argue, militarism and ‘national security’ have become the secular religion of the State, it is clear that the majority of civil society are ‘non-believers’. The ‘true believers’ of militarism as the true path to empire building are firmly ensconced in Washington’s political establishment, among high powered ‘lobbies and influential propaganda mills’ known as “think tanks”. The militarist beliefs are embraced and are especially pervasive among highly placed officials with deep and long-standing ties to the Israeli power structure. The myths propagated by cynical political pundits that “the US public opinion gets the elected officials it deserves”; that “Congress and the President reflect the values and sentiments of the electorate”; flies in the face of the divergent attitudes and interests showing up in repeated polls. The vast majority of Americans are concerned with domestic economic issues such as deteriorating job opportunities and living standards, growing inequalities, the concentration of wealth (the Wall Street 1% issue), growing indebtedness of college graduates, the savage cuts in social programs in the face of soaring military expenditures and Wall Street bailouts. In other words the values, attitudes and interests of the vast majority of Americans diverge from those of the Washington establishment, the mass media and the power brokers who penetrate and surround the political elite.
War and Peace: Oligarchy and Democracy
This divergence raises fundamental questions about the nature of the American political system, the role and influence of the mass media and the power of minorities over majorities. Divergences, deep differences between rulers and ruled, has become the norm in the United States on all the big issues, domestic and foreign, of our day.
As the differences accumulate, deepen and grind, they ‘wear’ on our public; political “differences” become outright personal dislike, turning hostility to anger and even hatred of the O-man. His deceptions, the very words he mouths are repeated and jeered. Nothing is more irritating than to listen to a stale confidence man who still tries to fool a knowing public. They are onto him. His newly recruited Cabinet members of both sexes are seen as promoters of toxic lies who try their hand at justifying war crimes via moral ejaculations that resonate in their own ears and with the President, but not beyond.
Executive Prerogatives as Dictatorial Rule
The Presidential declarations of war against the opinion of vast majorities; the dictates to finance bank bailouts behind the backs of the 99%; the proclamations ending ongoing wars which continue; fabrications that serve as pretexts for new wars which resonate with the lies of the previous wars… all speak against a constitutional democracy.
It’s a dictatorship stupid! Nothing “constitutional” – that’s toilet paper! Legal hacks scratch their crotch and come up with past illegal executive orders to back new arbitrary declarations of war.
Electorates are ignored. Who calls the US a democracy except during electoral campaigns? War is the prerogative of the President, we are told. Sequential wars are the alternative to a national health plan. When the President mouths moral platitudes most ignore him, others jeer, curse and wish he would die.
The Case for Impeachment
When in the course of human history a President perpetuates and extends his power beyond the restraints of a constitutional order and willfully commits the American people to perpetual suffering and empties the public treasury of the wealth of its citizens, the question of impeachment rises to the fore. And it ill behooves the climbers and clamorers from foreign lands to flatter, cajole and threaten a President whose imperial pretensions nurture the ambitions of their Chosen State.
Profound and lasting divisions between rulers and ruled accompanied by unending and onerous hardships at a time when our people lack redress in petition and protest, sooner or later, will lead the American people to demand his impeachment. A trial via judicial procedures, condemnation according to judge and jury and incarceration for multiple and grave violations of the constitutional order will ensue. Executives, usurping the rights of the American people at the service of empire and their collaborators with traitorous intent, will not pass with impunity
Why and How the American Public is disenfranchised: the Tyranny of the Minority
It is not the military who choose to disenfranchise and ignore the vast majority of Americans opposed to new Middle East wars. The usurpers are mostly civilians, some of whom shed a foreign rifle to ply our President. Nor is the exclusion of the majority a hidden conspiracy of petrol companies – they have lost hundreds of billions to wars, not of their making, disrupting trade and production.
Idle chatter, flowing from leftist monthlies, liberal weeklies and a multitude of pundits, academics and ‘critical’ public intellectuals, decry the “military-industrial complex”. True their lobbyists seek military contracts, but they did not draw up ‘position papers’ for invading Iraq, nor submit and secure sanctions, and resolutions in Congress against Iran.
If we seek to identify the minority which secures its militarist agenda in the White House and Congress against the majority of Americans, it is clearly identifiable by its consistent, frequent and intrusive presence. It is a new version of the 1%– its called the Zionist power configuration.
One can be 99% sure that among the scant 11% of Americans who support US military intervention in Syria, the pro-Israel crowd and its acolytes are over-represented.
The evidence is clear: they are the most actively engaged in promoting war with Syria at the national and local levels. They are the pundits’ and news commentators promoting the Syrian government toxic gas ploy. They and other mass media pundits and publishers totally ignored the interview quoting the armed Syrian opposition admitting they “mistakenly set off the toxic gas”.
To the degree that we have moved from democracy to oligarchy, from a democratic to a militarist foreign policy, the powerful Zionist power structure has accumulated power and influence and in turn furthered the tyranny of the minority over the majority. Not alone, but certainly with their approval and to their advantage, the Zionist power configuration has marginalized Americans of all creeds, races and religions (including the majority of Jews and apostates).
Oligarchy facilitates minorities’ access to power: it is far easier to buy and blackmail a handful of corrupt wealthy legislators and a coterie of senior administration officials, than millions of citizens suffering the double onus of wars and declining living standards.
Limits of Mass Media Manipulation
The arbitrary power of the oligarchy and its collaborators, and their growing distance from the ruled, no longer is bridged by mass media propaganda. The Obama regime and most Washington think tanks have repeatedly saturated the print and electronic media with the most lurid images and horrendous atrocity stories of Syrian ‘war crimes’ to induce the American citizens to support US military intervention. Daily reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and all the major and minor television networks repeat ad nauseum the ‘need for war’, “our humanitarian war mission” to no avail. The mass media, the high powered propaganda campaign run by and for the war mongers in Washington and Tel Aviv has failed to gain any more than 10% of the US citizenry.
We have been told by media experts about the power of the mass media to manipulate the US public, as if it was a blank blackboard: the media write the script for the oligarchy and the masses repeat it. In fact, time and time again, a majority of US citizens have rejected “the line” of the mass media, especially on questions of peace and war, living standards and bank bailouts. The credibility of the mass media is near zero.
The public’s rejection of the Obama regime’s move to war with Syria is another example of the limits of mass propaganda. The public supported the Afghan and Iraq wars at the start. But as the wars ground on, became costly and new wars spread; and as the police state grew and living standards plunged, the public became wary. The domestic crises drove the message home: domestic decay accompanies imperial wars. No amount of empty rhetoric or high powered Zionist lobbying for wars for Israel could convince the American majority to continue to sacrifice their lives and their children’s and grandchildren’s living standards to endless wars, spiraling costs and harmful economic consequences.
The Quiet Rebellion of the Democratic Majority
No doubt the word is out: throughout Europe, vast majorities reject their ruler’s imperial wars, particularly the war in Syria. Even the British Parliament rose on its hind legs and said no. Only the decrepit French regime under Hollande, the colonial whore master, sided with Obama for a few days before Parliament convened. The media and their editorial writers, sense ‘trouble’. They start to quote doubting military officers, and to ask questions. “What are the consequences of bombing Assad and aiding al Qaeda?” … asks a retired General.
Obama faces the taunt of the Zionists, “not to waver and cower”. The printing presses of the White House Propaganda Office runs off thousands of reports of intercepted Syrian military directives ordering the use of toxic chemicals…. taken from ‘rebel’ sources; documents that nobody reads, or gives credence.
The White House declares red lines: the public cries ‘big lies’. Deception by the media and White House has been going on too long. The majority is fed up with the fabrication of weapons of mass destruction leading to the Iraq war, the phoney Libyan “atrocities”, the blatant cover-up of Israeli land grabs.
The specter of economic insecurity, of accumulating debts and precarious employment stalks the cities and towns of America. Anger and fear at home, so far, is focused against new wars abroad and their most visible exponent. The Obama regime is facing “a fall” sooner or later. Will his willing accomplices slink away to their think tanks? Will the oligarchs decide he is expandable, no longer useful, too far from the people, too arrogant? Too many ‘wars for Israel’? (Oh my god how did that slip in?) Not enough attention to ‘rebuilding America’? Time for a new election: all aboard. The people have spoken! A new president, less effusive, more mainstream is on order from the Oligarchy
With Obama’s fall, we learn that the mass media are not all powerful and that Israel’s well-wishers will not temper their demands for power even though they are a 1% minority. The majority can bring down a regime but can the create an alternative?
September 6, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Americans, Obama, Syria, United States |
Leave a comment
The deactivation of the Lebanese public institution, the deterioration of the socio-economic and security conditions in Lebanon as well as the regional challenges that threaten the local stability topped the agenda of the meeting that was held by the Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc.
The bloc asserted, in a statement, the importance of taking the necessary measures to cope with the consequences of the Dahiyeh and Tripoli blasts and to reduce the economic loads that overburden all the Lebanese.
“The paralysis and the recession that strikes the Lebanese public institutions seriously endangers Lebanon as March 14 forces have decided to deactivate the government and the parliament, betting on regional changes to subdue the national partners,” the statement read.
“Rejecting the national dialogue and the harmony among the main factors of the strategic equation that protects Lebanon-the army, the people and the resistance struck the Lebanese security and stability as the sectarian language is publicly used,” the statement added.
Loyalty to Resistance also condemned the arrogant US threats against Syria and all the Arab countries.
“The American aggression against Syria represents an organized terrorism that threatens the regional as well as the international stability and aims at strengthening the Zionist arm and the colonial grip to control the whole region.
The direct involvement of the American administration asserts that the crisis in Syria is an international conspiracy whose target is the foreign dominance over the region,” the statement read by the bloc member, MP Hassan Fadlallah, underlined.
September 6, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Al-Manar, Dahieh, Hassan Fadlallah, Lebanon, Middle East, Syria, United States |
Leave a comment
Israelis initially criticized the Obama administration when he referred the approval of a military strike on Syria to the Congress last week.
Israeli officials are expecting that US President Barack Obama will get Congressional approval for a military strike on Syria next week when the Congress reconvenes.
Israeli media reports said that the Israel lobby is working hard to convince lawmakers to support this decision.
Israelis initially criticized the Obama administration when he referred the approval of a military strike on Syria to the Congress last week.
However former head of the Security and Foreign Affairs Committee in the Knesset Tzahi Hangbi told Israel’s military radio on Wednesday that calling the Obama administration “dead” was premature.
Hangbi, who is close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, praised Obama’s decision to seek congressional support. He stated that Obama’s request would unite the administration and the congress, and the practical result of this step would be to widen the scope for any potential strike.
September 5, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Wars for Israel | Congress, Israel, Obama, Syria, United States |
Leave a comment
Barack Obama greets board members of the AIPAC conference following his speech to the group in 2012
Three influential pro-Israel pressure groups in the United States pressed Congress on Tuesday to authorize an attack on Syria.
Signaling an increased lobbying effort for American military action, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) issued statements that they support US military intervention in Syria, Reuters reported.
The groups also had a 45-minute meeting at the White House on Tuesday with administration officials, according to government sources. But they have been careful as not to be seen encouraging Washington to go to war for the sake of Israel’s interest.
The lobby groups generally wanted the war debate to focus on US national security rather than how the decision to attack Syria might help Israel.
The Israel lobby is a diverse coalition of individuals and groups that seek to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Israel. Commentators in the US have asserted that the lobby has undue or pervasive influence over US foreign policy in the Middle East.
US President Barack Obama and some members in Congress want to attack Syria over recent accusations that the Arab country used chemical weapons against militants. Syrian authorities have categorically rejected the allegation that it had any role in the chemical attack.
September 4, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | ADL, AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Israel, Republican Jewish Coalition, Syria, United States |
Leave a comment
President Obama is now saying his administration has decided to attack Syria but will seek Congressional approval before doing so. This sets up a really interesting situation if Congress doesn’t agree, as seems quite possible.
The idea of Obama ordering an act of war on Syria without significant international support and without a Congressional mandate always was a head scratcher. Here’s our far left president advocating yet another war in the Middle East after opposing the Iraq war when he was a senator. The same president who has a frosty relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and has repeatedly fallen short of the demands of the Israel Lobby.
Of course the rationale is framed in moral terms—like all American wars, but there was more than a touch of that in the run-up to the Iraq war as well. Here the case for the hawks is made more difficult because the WMD story turned out to be false. Lest we forget, this story was manufactured by strongly identified ethnically Jewish, pro-Israel operatives linked to the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense, including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Abraham Shulsky, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, David Schencker, and Michael Rubin, with the close cooperation of Israeli intelligence (see here, p. 47ff).
The Weekly Standard’s usual neocon suspects — including many of the same people who promoted for the Iraq war — are pressing for a very large U.S. involvement in Syria. It’s mind-boggling to read in the statement of these so-called “experts” that the president must act “to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America.” Shades of how Iraq under Saddam Hussein was going to destroy the U.S. with his WMD’s. How Assad is going to unleash his chemical weapons on America is anybody’s guess.
Given the strong support of the neocons for action against Syria, we must assume that Israel is entirely on board with a U.S. campaign. So it’s not surprising that, as in the case of the run-up to the Iraq war, Israeli intelligence is front and center: “The bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime’s deployment of chemical weapons – which would provide legal grounds essential to justify any western military action – has been provided by Israeli military intelligence, the German magazine Focus has reported” (see here). This includes the much-discussed intercepted phone call between Syrian officers discussing the use of chemical weapons (Ibid.) and the claim that chemical weapons were moved to the site of the attack (see here).
I am unaware of evidence for a heavy involvement of Israel Lobby operatives on the U.S. side responsible for verifying this intelligence, as was the case when the Israel Lobby manufactured the rationale for the Iraq disaster — doubtless the most treasonous and corrupt such episode in American history. Nevertheless, one would have to be naive indeed not to be suspicious of Israeli involvement.
As many have noted, it would make no sense for Assad to unleash chemical weapons in a conflict he was winning; no point in killing women and children; no point in attacking just as UN investigators arrived in Syria; no point in incurring the wrath of the U.S. moralizers by crossing Obama’s idiotic red line — idiotic because it is an open invitation to a false flag operation carried out by the opponents of the Assad regime.
Uri Avnery claims that “practically all Israeli political and military leaders” want the Syrian civil war to “go on forever.” The other obvious motive for Israel and its fifth column in the U.S. is to strike a blow against Iran, as many have noted. The anti-Iran motive is front and center at the AIPAC website (“Syria proves Urgency to Stop Iran“). This article assumes as true that Assad did use chemical weapons:
The use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime highlights the danger of allowing the world’s most dangerous regimes to possess weapons of mass destruction. As Israel prepares its citizens for the possible ramifications of a chemical attack from Syria, the United States must consider potentially catastrophic ramifications if Iran, who is actively backing Assad, acquires a nuclear weapons capability. … We cannot allow Assad to operate with the support of his greatest ally in Tehran backed by a nuclear weapons capability. The Islamic Republic is already expanding its influence throughout the region, moving military equipment and resources into Syria and Lebanon.
In a statement from June, 2013, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, like AIPAC, emphasizes the implications of failure to act in Syria for the larger question of Iran:
Rather than deterring Syria or Iran from using or pursuing illicit weapons, the administration’s red lines appear to be eroding U.S. credibility and national security. The lesson learned from Syria is that preventing a nuclear Iran will require an actionable and verifiable red line. This should include a credible mechanism for assessing Iran’s progress toward the red line and warning of its crossing.
The ADL statement engages in double talk on who is responsible for using chemical weapons (“Use of chemical weapons in Syria ‘an immoral crime of the first order‘”). On one hand, it states that the attack was performed “reportedly by the Syrian government.” On the other hand, Abe Foxman clearly blames the Syrian government for “the horrific events of last week,” a claim that goes much further. And as usual, the Holocaust is invoked as establishing a special Jewish moral posture useful for achieving Jewish interests:
For more than two years, the world has been witness to President Bashar al-Assad’s slaughtering of his own citizens. Following the horrific events of last week there is no longer any doubt about the brutal and evil nature of Assad and his regime.
We welcome Secretary Kerry’s clear statement of condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the U.S. commitment to work with allies to ensure those responsible are held accountable. The world failed to act during the Holocaust and stood by through the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda. It is a moral imperative that the international community act now to prevent further atrocities in Syria.
From Foxman’s perspective, it’s hard to see how “preventing further atrocities” could happen short of regime change.
Clearly, the organized Jewish community will not be satisfied with a mere gesture against Assad, but wants something in the general vicinity of regime change. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has numerous articles with the message that a U.S. attack needs to be linked to strategic goals. An article by Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal advocates an “asymmetrical” response in which the U.S. would cause far more damage to Syria than caused by the chemical weapons attack: “if Washington orders an operation against the Assad regime, it should not hold back from breaking a few eggs on the way into Syria to ensure easier access in the future. This approach would send a credible and menacing message to the regime to amend its behavior or face further strikes.”
Also on the WINEP site, Robert Satloff (one of the most despicable neocons) makes a ridiculous case that regime change in Syria is in American interests:
Given the strategic stakes at play in Syria, which touches on every key American interest in the region, the wiser course of action is to take the opportunity of the Assad regime’s flagrant violation of global norms to take action that hastens the end of Assad’s regime. Contrary to the views of American military leaders, this will also enhance the credibility of the president’s commitment to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability, not erode America’s ability to enforce it.
Likewise, neocons like Charles Krauthammer (also high on the list of most despicable neocons) want the U.S. campaign to change the balance of power — “a sustained campaign aimed at changing the balance of forces by removing the Syrian regime’s decisive military advantage — air power.” What the neocons don’t want is a brief attack that serves little more than to show U.S. displeasure, leaves Assad in power, and doesn’t change the military situation
So from the Israeli and (what is the same) the neocon point of view, it’s win-win. A serious U.S. intervention would minimally prolong a war that Assad is winning, weakening Syria and Hezbollah far into the future. And perhaps it could lead to the fall of Assad and a Sunni government severed from Iran. Iran and its allies are seen as a far more dangerous enemy of Israel than the Arab nations and the mainly Sunni rebels opposing the Assad government, no matter how fanatically Muslim, Israel-hating, and in bed with al Qaeda they turn out to be.
The decision by Obama to consult with Congress may actually benefit the Israel Lobby because it could quite possibly provide a mandate for much more than a brief attack that is little more than a gesture—like Bill Clinton lobbing a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan to protest the bombing of American embassies in Africa. Without a congressional mandate and without support from the U.K., Obama would have been unlikely to carry out the sort of attack desired by the Lobby. Now there’s a chance.
The delay provides an opportunity for the Israel Lobby to get into high gear in order to bump up the poll numbers and exert its power over Congress. At this time, there is clearly no popular mandate for a war; only 42% favor a “broad military response”, and only 16% favor the regime change desired by the Israel Lobby. A much higher percentage but still far from a mandate (50%) favor the sort of action detested by the Israel Lobby — a limited response involving only U.S. naval ships directed at the chemical weapons.
Congressional approval is also iffy. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) has stated that the odds are “50/50″ that the House will approve force, but that the Senate will “rubber stamp what [Obama] wants.” Others believe that even the Senate will be an “uphill battle.”
So the Israel Lobby has a challenge ahead, but it’s certainly doable. Expect a blizzard of propaganda emanating from the most elite media in the U.S., and a lot of arm-twisting in Congress. The Israel Lobby sees this as a preliminary battle prior to the really serious campaign for a war with Iran. If the Lobby loses this test, it would be a clear indication that the U.S. lacks the determination to attack Iran.
The pressure will be intense. Don’t bet against the Lobby.
September 4, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | ADL, AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, David Wurmser, Iran, Iraq, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Syria, United States, WINEP |
Leave a comment
By DIANA JOHNSTONE | September 3, 2013
The American people do not want US armed forces to get involved in the civil war in Syria. The United Nations will not back US bombing of Syria. The British Parliament does not want to get involved in bombing Syria. World public opinion is opposed to US bombing Syria. Not even NATO wants to take part in bombing Syria. So who wants the United States to bomb Syria?
The same people who brought us the war in Iraq, that’s who.
On August 27, the Foreign Policy Initiative, a reincarnation of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that dictated the Bush 2 administration’s disastrous foreign policy, issued its marching orders to Obama. In an open letter to the President, the FPI urged “a decisive response to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s recent large-scale use of chemical weapons”.
The neocon “foreign policy experts” skipped over the pathos designed to arouse feelings of guilt in ordinary Americans for sitting in front of their television sets and “doing nothing”. Rather, their argument is based on power projection. Once Obama set a “red line”, he must react to “show the world”.
“Left unanswered, the Assad regime’s mounting attacks with chemical weapons will show the world that America’s red lines are only empty threats.”
The FPI told Obama that the United States should consider “direct military strikes against the pillars of the Assad regime”, not just to get rid of the chemical weapons threat, “but also to deter or destroy the Assad regime’s airpower and other conventional military means of committing atrocities against civilian non-combatants.”
At the same time, “the United States should accelerate efforts to vet, train, and arm moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition, with the goal of empowering them to prevail against both the Assad regime and the growing presence of Al Qaeda-affiliated and other extremist rebel factions in the country.” The United States should “help shape and influence the foundations for the post-Assad Syria”.
In short, what is called for is a full-scale regime change, getting rid of both the existing regime and its main military opposition, and putting in power supposed “moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition”, who by all accounts are the weakest in the field.
So, after failing to produce such nice, moderate results in Iraq or Afghanistan, try, try again.
The most familiar names among the 78 signatories included Elliott Abrams, Max Boot, Douglas J. Feith, Robert Kagan, Lawrence F. Kaplan, Joseph I. Lieberman, Martin Peretz, and Karl Rove. No surprises there.
The novelty on the list was the signature of Bernard-Henri Levy.
Not surprising either, when you stop to think about it. After all, Bernard-Henri Levy is widely credited with having persuaded former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to lead the charge that overthrew Kaddafi and delivered Libya to its current chaos. After such an accomplishment, the Parisian dandy naturally feels entitled to tell the United States President what to do.
I vividly recall Bernard-Henri Levy reacting with the mock indignation that serves as his usual shield from criticism to claims that the Benghazi rebels included Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda. Outrageous! he vociferated. He had been to Benghazi and seen for himself that the folks there were all liberal democrats who just wanted to enjoy free elections and multicultural harmony. Not so very much later, liberated Benghazi was sending Islamist fighters to destabilize Mali, recruiting Islamists to fight in Syria and assassinating a U.S. ambassador. This turn of events has not fazed the media star the French call “BHL” in the slightest. Although widely ridiculed and even hated in France, his influence persists.
In 2010, the writer Jacob Cohen published a novel entitled “Le Printemps des Sayanim”*. Despite the usual disclaimer, the novel was a roman à clés. A main character, named MST, was described in this fiction by an Israeli diplomat in Paris as follows: “MST is of capital importance to us. He is worth more than a hundred sayanim. […] He covers a large part of the left for us. Inasmuch as he ‘criticizes’ Israel, what he says is taken seriously. That way he can get our interests into a lot of media. […] Moreover, that man has incredible networks, in the most influential circles in Europe, in America. He can call Sarkozy whenever he wants, or the king of Morocco, or the president of the European Commission. […]”
No French reader would have any trouble recognizing BHL, although, of course, this was fiction.
But the question deserves to be raised: why has the real BHL been so keen to overthrow governments in Libya and Syria? Even if the countries fall apart?
Perhaps this flashy dilettante thinks these wars are good for Israel. BHL’s devotion to Israel is as conspicuous as his white v-neck shirts and back-swept hairdo. Perhaps he fantasizes that if all the surrounding countries are in hopeless shambles, “the only democracy in the Middle East” will be the only tree left standing in the forest.
But even Israeli intelligence, which is a major source of US assessment of happenings in the region, doubts that Assad’s chemical weapons are a threat to Israel.
Giora Inbar, the former head of the IDF’s liaison unit in southern Lebanon, was quoted by the August 27 Times of Israel as saying that “there would be no logic in Assad attacking Israel”.
Inbar said that Israeli military intelligence made a priority of intelligence-gathering in Syria, was very well-informed, and was widely trusted. The United States was “aware of” Israel’s intelligence on the doings of the Syrian regime, “and relies upon it.”
Still, Israeli officials are not hyping the incident the way John Kerry did, insisting on deliberate murder of children.
The New York Times on Tuesday quoted an Israeli official as saying: “It’s quite likely that there was kind of an operational mistake here […] I don’t think they wanted to kill so many people, especially so many children. Maybe they were trying to hit one place or to get one effect and they got a much greater effect than they thought.”
All that is speculation. But the most plausible hypothesis so far is that the incident was an accident. Indeed, rebel sources themselves have been quoted as saying that the incident occurred as a result of their own mishandling of chemical weapons obtained from Saudi Arabia. In that case, the victims were the “collateral damage” so frequent in war. War is a series of unintended consequences. The most obvious unintended consequence of US air strikes on Syria, if they happen, will be the total collapse of whatever pro-American sentiment may be left in the world, and a furious backlash against Israel, which is widely seen as the influence behind US policy in the Middle East. Some Israelis are fully aware of this.
The New York Times quoted former Israeli ambassador to the United States Itamar Rabinovich as warning that it would be “a mistake to overplay the Israeli interest” in striking Syria. “It’s bad for Israel that the average American gets it into his or her mind that boys are again sent to war for Israel. They have to be sent to war for America.”
If not for Israel, why do boys, or girls, or missiles, have to be sent at all?
And the best way to prevent the backlash against Israel and its supporters is to call a halt to the whole project of using US military force in Syria.
But whatever happens, the reckless adventurer Bernard-Henri Levy can retire to his palatial villa in Marrakech, and dream up some new scheme.
*Sayanim is a Hebrew word (singular sayan) defined by Wikipedia “passive agents most usually called “sleeping agents” established outside Israel, ready to help Mossad agents out of feelings of patriotism toward Israel.
Diana Johnstone can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
Source
September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Bernard Henri Lévy, Israel, Lawrence F. Kaplan, Nicolas Sarkozy, Syria, United States, Zionism |
Leave a comment
The GCHQ listening post on Mount Troodos in Cyprus is arguably the most valued asset which the UK contributes to UK/US intelligence cooperation. The communications intercept agencies, GCHQ in the UK and NSA in the US, share all their intelligence reports (as do the CIA and MI6). Troodos is valued enormously by the NSA. It monitors all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East, ranging from Egypt and Eastern Libya right through to the Caucasus. Even almost all landline telephone communication in this region is routed through microwave links at some stage, picked up on Troodos.
Troodos is highly effective – the jewel in the crown of British intelligence. Its capacity and efficiency, as well as its reach, is staggering. The US do not have their own comparable facility for the Middle East. I should state that I have actually been inside all of this facility and been fully briefed on its operations and capabilities, while I was head of the FCO Cyprus Section in the early 1990s. This is fact, not speculation.
It is therefore very strange, to say the least, that John Kerry claims to have access to communications intercepts of Syrian military and officials organising chemical weapons attacks, which intercepts were not available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee.
On one level the explanation is simple. The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad, according to my own well placed source in the Washington intelligence community. Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.
But the inescapable question is this. Mossad have nothing comparable to the Troodos operation. The reported content of the conversations fits exactly with key tasking for Troodos, and would have tripped all the triggers. How can Troodos have missed this if Mossad got it? The only remote possibility is that all the conversations went on a purely landline route, on which Mossad have a physical wire tap, but that is very unlikely in a number of ways – not least nowadays the purely landline route.
Israel has repeatedly been involved in the Syrian civil war, carrying out a number of illegal bombings and missile strikes over many months. This absolutely illegal activity by Israel- which has killed a great many civilians, including children – has brought no condemnation at all from the West. Israel has now provided “intelligence” to the United States designed to allow the United States to join in with Israel’s bombing and missile campaign.
The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple. Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them. John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks. More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts. It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel.
September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Craig Murray, GCHQ, Israel, John Kerry, Middle East, Troodos, United States |
Leave a comment
When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry invokes the specter of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler in order to scare Democrats into voting for war on Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, it seems like a good time to recall George Bush’s pre-Iraq War “axis of evil” association of Saddam Hussein with Nazi Germany’s Holocaust against the Jews. Although Bush was initially credited — and ultimately discredited — with the hyperbolic reference to the defeated World War II powers, it later leaked out that the phrase had been carefully crafted by the president’s speechwriter David Frum. Frum’s passionate attachment to Israel — a country with an unfailing record of casting its Middle Eastern enemy du jour as the reincarnation of Hitlerian evil — no doubt helped inspire the Canadian-born writer’s creative process.
Perhaps someday we will discover too that Kerry’s “Munich moment” was scripted by another partisan of the supposedly besieged “Jewish state” with hegemonic pretensions. The Secretary of State’s chief speechwriter, Stephen Krupin, is, after all, a former intern of the Solomon Project, a pro-Israel think tank affiliated with the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC). While working on a 2004 book entitled “Jews in American Politics,” Krupin’s director of research was Ira N. Forman. Forman, the NJDC’s longtime executive director, previously worked as legislative liaison and political director of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. With people like Krupin working inside the State Department, it makes it just that little bit easier for the Israel lobby to maintain the pretense that it has no position on U.S. intervention in Syria.
Follow Maidhc Ó Cathail on Facebook and Twitter @O_Cathail.
September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel, John Kerry, Middle East, National Jewish Democratic Council, Syria |
Leave a comment
September 2, 2013
Passage removed, H/T Niqnaq:
Administration officials said the influential pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC was already at work pressing for military action against Assad, fearing that if Syria escapes US retribution for its use of chemical weapons, Iran might be emboldened in the future to attack Israel. House majority leader Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, has long worked to challenge Democrats’ traditional base among Jews. One administration official called AIPAC “the 800 lb gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying:
If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, we’re in trouble.
NewsDiffs reports that the article had no less than nine edits:
President Gains McCain’s Backing On Syria Attack (NYT), Change Log
By JACKIE CALMES, MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT | First archived on September 2, 2013, 1:18 p.m.
| Headline |
Date/Time EST Archived |
Diff |
| President Gains McCain’s Backing On Syria Attack |
September 3, 2013, 7:25 a.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| President Gains McCain’s Backing On Syria Attack |
September 2, 2013, 11:22 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| President Gains McCain’s Backing On Syria Attack |
September 2, 2013, 10:50 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| President Gains McCain’s Backing On Syria Attack |
September 2, 2013, 10:11 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| President Gains McCain’s Backing On Syria Attack |
September 2, 2013, 9:33 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| McCain Urges Lawmakers to Back Obama’s Plan for Syria |
September 2, 2013, 5:27 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| McCain Urges Lawmakers to Back Obama’s Plan for Syria |
September 2, 2013, 4:57 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| Obama Plans to Meet With Key Lawmakers to Push Syria Plan |
September 2, 2013, 3:18 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| Obama Plans to Meet With Key Lawmakers to Push Syria Plan |
September 2, 2013, 2:50 p.m. |
(Compare with previous) |
| Obama Plans to Meet With Key Lawmakers to Push Syria Planhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/world/middleeast/syria.html |
September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Eric Cantor, MICHAEL R. GORDON, Obama, Syria |
Leave a comment
President Barack Obama’s decision to delay the US offensive against Syria opened the window for negotiating a non-military solution to the issue of chemical weapons, a step that worried Israel for various reasons, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on Monday.
Israel’s worries are not just related to Syrian chemical weapons, but also to the consequences that a non-military solution will have on the Iranian nuclear issue and on Hezbollah.
Israel believes that the proposed attack would have a deterrent message to Iran and Hezbollah that the US is still effective in the region, according to Maariv.
The newspaper reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced fears that Obama’s hesitation could send a message to Iran and Hezbollah that the US would not use military power to undermine Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu also said this could also increase Hezbollah’s motivation to carry on threatening the security situation in the region, resulting in Israel standing alone in face of the Iranian and Hezbollah threats without any expected military interference by the US.
According to the newspaper, Netanyahu wanted a military operation to regain the credibility of the US’s deterrent power in the region.
Meanwhile, observers suggest that the time span for a potential US attack against Syria is actually longer than what Obama initially announced. While Congress is expected to discuss the issue within eight days, the eyes of the world are also looking to the UN General Assembly to convene on 17 September, when the UN inspection mission is scheduled to disclose the results of its investigations in Damascus about the use of chemical weapons.
The newspaper said that Obama’s decision also opened the door for a prospective meeting on diplomatic solutions for the Syrian crisis with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during the Summit of the Group 20, which is to convene in Petersburg later this week.
One of the expected solutions, the newspaper reported, is what Russia has already been working on. Russia is seeking to preclude a military attack on Syria and instead suggesting the destruction of chemical weapons under the authority of UN inspectors.
Another proposed solution is to take the chemical weapons out of Syria as a prelude to an international conference on the Syrian issue. The US accepts the participation of the Syrian regime in the proposed conference.
September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Syria, United States |
Leave a comment
Israeli writer Chemi Shalev predicts today in Haaretz that Israel and the Jewish Lobby will be putting pressure on congressmen. In practice they will push for a war against Syria.
“Supporters of Israel will likely be told that at this critical juncture, neutrality is a luxury that neither the lobby nor the Administration can afford. Time to put up or shut up, get off the fence and spend some of the precious political capital that Israel supporters have amassed in order to fight in the Washington trenches for something that most Israelis contend is crucial to their national interests.”
And the verdict is clear, if you have a powerful Jewish lobby in you country, you don’t really need an enemy, you will end up fighting a war with no end…
September 2, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Wars for Israel | Chemi Shalev, Gilad Atzmon, Israel, Jewish Lobby, Syria, United States Congress, Zionism |
Leave a comment
Aletho News
Aletho News 