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Possible Signs Of False Flag In Brussels Now Emerging

By Brandon Turbeville – Activist Post – March 23, 2016

Yet another terrorist attack in Europe to be blamed on Islamic extremists and ISIS and yet another instance of the suspects in the attacks being previously known to security services and intelligence agencies in the years, months, weeks, and days leading up to the event. That is exactly what happened in Brussels, Belgium on March 22, 2016.

Lending credence to those who suggest that the Brussels attacks were false flags (meaning directed, orchestrated, or allowed by Western intelligence agencies), it is being reported that, yet again, the perpetrators were known to police and security services prior to the attack suggesting a number of possibilities in the false flag vein such as 1.) That the security services knew an attack was being planned and allowed it to continue 2.) That the intelligence agencies organized the attack from the very beginning.

Building a case for the false flag argument sees a number of points to be made that, while not conclusively proving that such is the case, they do provide a good reason to question the official narrative.

The identities, criminal history, and jihadist history of the assailants were already known to security services prior to the attacks.

Khalid and Brahim El Bakraoui, the two men suspected of being blowing themselves up during the attack on the airport, had been arrested for violent crimes in Belgium prior to the attacks but were both curiously released.

Brahim El Bakraoui was convicted in 2010 of shooting at police officers with a Kalashnikov during the process of committing an armed robbery. Brahim was sentenced to nine years but was curiously free and able to commit a terrorist attack only six years later.

Khalid was convicted for a number of carjackings in 2011 but only received probation and was thus also free to commit terrorist acts in 2016.

While records of violent crimes is not a direct connection to terrorism, both brothers were known to authorities prior to the attacks and were considered “wanted” by police. Indeed, an anti-terror raid at the brothers’ apartment complex took place in mid-March where an Algerian immigrant with ties to ISIS was killed.

Consider how the killers were represented in The Telegraph on March 23. The paper reports:

Khalid Bakraoui, 27, is suspected to have rented a house under a false name in the Forest suburb of Brussels which was raided by police last week in connection with the Paris attacks.

Mohamed Belkaid, a key member of the Paris plot who had accompanied Salah Abdeslam on a trip to Hungary and who transferred cash to the plot’s mastermind, was killed in the raid, and an Isil flag found next to him. Two men got away.

According to local media, both El Bakraoui brothers were known to the police.

In October 2010, Ibrahim was sentenced to nine years in prison for opening fire on police with a Kalashnikov rifle during an armed robbery on a stockbroker.

Khalid was sentenced to five years probation in February 2011 for car-jackings. He was found to have Kalashnikovs when arrested.

He is now one of Europe’s most wanted men who gave police the slip last year when he returned from Syria.

He was also in the car with Belkaid on the return trip from Hungary. [emphasis added]

The Incriminating Material Found After The Attacks

As any good pair of patsies would do, the suicide bombers were careful to leave a trail of bombs, ISIS flags, and suicide notes behind them ensuring that their connections to ISIS would be found and used to maximum effect.

According to the Associated Press, Belgian police found nail bombs, ISIS flags, and “chemical products” in an apartment where the brothers were picked up by a taxi.

Perhaps the most interesting “coincidence” is the discovery of the suicide note on the computer of Brahim el Bakroui which was allegedly found in a trash can by a cleaning crew . . . or by investigators. Media reports have actually been unclear as to who actually found the computer and the note.

RT reports:

Brussels suicide bomber Ibrahim El Bakraoui has left a note on a computer found in a trash can during an anti-terrorist raid, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said. The terrorist reportedly wrote that he felt increasingly unsafe, didn’t know what to do and feared going to prison.

. . . . .

Before the attacks Ibrahim left a note, where he wrote that he felt increasingly unsafe and feared landing up in prison. El Bakraoui said he was “in a hurry, doesn’t know what to do” and was “surrounded by all sides.”

The note was found on a computer in a trash can in Brussels’ Schaerbeek neighborhood.
Earlier reports in Belgian media emerged that a computer with messages allegedly related to Islamic State militants had been found in Brussels. The contents of the computer were described by police as “interesting.”

It is not yet clear whether the computer found by cleaning services was the same one mentioned by the prosecutor.

The trove was found by Bruxelles Propreté cleaning team, Dernier Heure newspaper reported. The company’s employees immediately contacted officers from the Montgomery area in Brussels.

While the information above is not evidence enough to conclusively demonstrate that the Brussels attacks were false flags, it is enough to suggest that the official narrative of the events be looked at through skeptical lenses, particularly when western intelligence agencies and governments have repeatedly sponsored false flag terror attacks in the past in order to justify wars or police state crack downs at home.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President.

March 24, 2016 Posted by aletho | False Flag Terrorism | ISIS | Leave a comment

Reporting (or Not) the Ties Between US-Armed Syrian Rebels and Al Qaeda’s Affiliate

By Gareth Porter | Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting | March 21, 2016

A crucial problem in news media coverage of the Syrian civil war has been how to characterize the relationship between the so-called “moderate” opposition forces armed by the CIA, on one hand, and the Al Qaeda franchise Al Nusra Front (and its close ally Ahrar al Sham), on the other.

But it is a politically sensitive issue for U.S. policy, which seeks to overthrow Syria’s government without seeming to make common cause with the movement responsible for 9/11, and the system of news production has worked effectively to prevent the news media from reporting it fully and accurately.

The Obama administration has long portrayed the opposition groups it has been arming with anti-tank weapons as independent of Nusra Front. In reality, the administration has been relying on the close cooperation of these “moderate” groups with Nusra Front to put pressure on the Syrian government.

The United States and its allies – especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey – want the civil war to end with the dissolution of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by U.S. rivals like Russia and Iran.

Reflecting the fact that Nusra Front was created by Al Qaeda and has confirmed its loyalty to it, the administration designated Nusra as a terrorist organization in 2013. But the U.S. has carried out very few airstrikes against it since then, in contrast to the other offspring of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or ISIS (Daesh), which has been the subject of intense air attacks from the U.S. and its European allies.

The U.S. has remained silent about Nusra Front’s leading role in the military effort against Assad, concealing the fact that Nusra’s success in northwest Syria has been a key element in Secretary of State John Kerry’s diplomatic strategy for Syria.

When Russian intervention in support of the Syrian government began last September, targeting not only ISIS but also the Nusra Front and U.S.-supported groups allied with them against the Assad regime, the Obama administration immediately argued that Russian airstrikes were targeting “moderate” groups rather than ISIS, and insisted that those strikes had to stop.

The willingness of the news media to go beyond the official line and report the truth on the ground in Syria was thus put to the test. It had been well-documented that those “moderate” groups had been thoroughly integrated into the military campaigns directed by Nusra Front and Ahrar al Sham in the main battlefront of the war in northwestern Syria’s Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

For example, a dispatch from Aleppo last May in Al Araby Al-Jadeed (The New Arab), a daily newspaper financed by the Qatari royal family, revealed that every one of at least ten “moderate” factions in the province supported by the CIA had joined the Nusra-run province command Fateh Halab (Conquest of Aleppo). Formally the command was run by Ahrar al Sham, and Nusra Front was excluded from it.

But as Al Araby’s reporter explained, that exclusion “means that the operation has a better chance of receiving regional and international support.” That was an indirect way of saying that Nusra’s supposed exclusion was a device aimed at facilitating the Obama administration’s approval of sending more TOW missiles to the “moderates” in the province, because the White House could not support groups working directly with a terrorist organization.

A further implication was that Nusra Front was allowing “moderate” groups to obtain those weapons from the United States and its Saudi and Turkish allies, because those groups were viewed as too weak to operate independently of the Salafist-jihadist forces — and because some of those arms would be shared with Nusra Front and Ahrar.

After Nusra Front was formally identified as a terrorist organization for the purposes of a Syrian ceasefire and negotiations, it virtually went underground in areas close to the Turkish border.

A journalist who lives in northern Aleppo province told Al Monitor that Nusra Front had stopped flying its own flag and was concealing its troops under those of Ahrar al Sham, which had been accepted by the United States as a participant in the talks. That maneuver was aimed at supporting the argument that “moderate” groups and not Al Qaeda were being targeted by Russian airstrikes.

But a review of the coverage of the targeting of Russian airstrikes and the role of U.S.-supported armed groups in the war during the first few weeks in the three most influential U.S. newspapers with the most resources for reporting accurately on the issue—the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal – reveals a pattern of stories that tilted strongly in the direction desired by the Obama administration, either ignoring the subordination of the “moderate” groups to Nusra Front entirely or giving it only the slightest mention.

In an Oct. 1, 2015 article, Washington Post Beirut correspondent Liz Sly wrote that the Russian airstrikes were being “conducted against one of the few areas in the country where moderate rebels still have a foothold and from which the Islamic State was ejected more than a year and a half ago.”

To her credit, Sly did report, “Some of the towns struck are strongholds of recently formed coalition Jaish al Fateh,” which she said included Nusra Front and “an assortment of Islamist and moderate factions.” What was missing, however, was the fact that Jaish al Fateh was not merely a “coalition” but a military command structure, meaning that a much tighter relationship existed between the U.S.-supported “moderates” and the Al Qaeda franchise.

Sly referred specifically to one strike that hit a training camp in the outskirts of a town in Idlib province belonging to Suquor al-Jabal, which had been armed by the CIA.

But readers could not evaluate that statement without the crucial fact, reported in the regional press, that Suquor al-Jabal was one of the many CIA-supported organizations that had joined the Fateh Halab (“Conquest of Aleppo”), the military command center in Aleppo ostensibly run by Ahrar al Sham, Nusra Front’s closest ally, but in fact under firm Nusra control. The report thus conveyed the false impression that the CIA-supported rebel group was still independent of Nusra Front.

An article by New York Times Beirut correspondent Anne Barnard (co-authored by the Times stringer in Syria Karam Shoumali — Oct. 13, 2015) appeared to veer off in the direction of treating the U.S.-supported opposition groups as part of a new U.S./Russian proxy war, thus drawing attention away from the issue of whether the Obama administration support for “moderate” groups was actually contributing to the political-military power of Al Qaeda in Syria.

Under the headline “US Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia,” it reported that armed opposition groups had just received large shipments of TOW anti-tank missiles that had to be approved by the United States. Quoting the confident statements of rebel commanders about the effectiveness of the missiles and the high morale of rebel troops, the story suggested that arming the “moderates” was a way for the United States to make them the primary force on one side of a war pitting the United States against Russia in Syria.

Near the end of the story, however, Barnard effectively undermined that “proxy war” theme by citing the admission by commanders of U.S.-supported brigades of their “uncomfortable marriage of necessity” with the Al Qaeda franchise, “because they cannot operate without the consent of the larger and stronger Nusra Front.”

Referring to the capture of Idlib the previous spring by the opposition coalition, Barnard recalled that the TOW missiles had “played a major role in the insurgent advances that eventually endangered Mr. Assad’s rule.” But, she added:

“While that would seem like a welcome development for United States policy makers, in practice it presented another quandary, given that the Nusra Front was among the groups benefiting from the enhanced firepower.”

Unfortunately, Barnard’s point that U.S.-supported groups were deeply embedded in an Al Qaeda-controlled military structure was buried at the end of a long piece, and thus easily missed. The headline and lead ensured that, for the vast majority of readers, that point would be lost in the larger thrust of the article.

The Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous approached the problem from a different angle but with the same result. He wrote a story on Oct. 5 reflecting what he said was anger on the part of U.S. officials that the Russians were deliberately targeting opposition groups that the CIA had supported.

Entous reported that U.S. officials believed the Syrian government wanted those groups targeted because of their possession of TOW missiles, which had been the key factor in the opposition’s capture of Idlib earlier in the year. But nowhere in the article was the role of CIA-supported groups within military command structures dominated by Nusra Front even acknowledged.

Still another angle on the problem was adopted in an Oct. 12 article by Journal Beirut correspondent Raja Abdulrahim, who described the Russian air offensive as having spurred U.S.-backed rebels and the Nusra Front to form a “more united front against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian allies.” Adbulrahim thus acknowledged the close military collaboration with Nusra Front, but blamed it all on the Russian offensive.

And the story ignored the fact that those same opposition groups had already joined military command arrangements in Idlib and Aleppo earlier in 2015, in anticipation of victories across northeast Syria.

The image in the media of the U.S.-supported armed opposition as operating independently from Nusra Front, and as victims of Russian attacks, persisted into early 2016. But in February, the first cracks in that image appeared in the Washington Post and New York Times.

Reporting on the negotiations between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on a partial ceasefire that began on Feb. 12, Washington Post associate editor and senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung wrote on Feb. 19 that an unresolved problem was how to decide which organizations were to be considered “terrorist groups” in the ceasefire agreement.

In that context, DeYoung wrote, “Jabhat al-Nusra, whose forces are intermingled with moderate rebel groups in the northwest near the Turkish border, is particularly problematic.”

It was the first time any major news outlet had reported that U.S.-supported armed opposition and Nusra Front front troops were “intermingled” on the ground. And in the very next sentence DeYoung dropped what should have been a political bombshell: She reported that Kerry had proposed in the Munich negotiations to “leave Jabhat al Nusra off limits to bombing, as part of a ceasefire, at least temporarily, until the groups can be sorted out.”

At the same time, Kerry was publicly demanding in a speech at the Munich conference that Russia halt its attacks on “legitimate opposition groups” as a condition for a ceasefire. Kerry’s negotiating position reflected the fact that CIA groups were certain to be hit in strikes on areas controlled by Nusra Front, as well as the reality that Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and Ahrar al Sham were central to the success of the U.S.-backed military effort against Assad.

In the end, however, Lavrov rejected the proposal to protect Nusra Front targets from Russian airstrikes, and Kerry dropped that demand, allowing the joint U.S./Russian announcement of the partial ceasefire on Feb. 22.

Up to that point, maps of the Syrian war in the Post and Times had identified zones of control only for “rebels” without showing where Nusra Front forces were in control. But on the same day as the announcement, the New York Times published an “updated” map, accompanied by text stating that Nusra Front “is embedded in the area of Aleppo and northwest toward the Turkish border.”

At the State Department briefing the next day, reporters grilled spokesman Mark Toner on whether U.S.-supported rebel forces were “commingled” with Nusra Front forces in Aleppo and northward. After a very long exchange on the subject, Toner said, “Yes, I believe there is some commingling of these groups.” And he went on to say, speaking on behalf of the International Syria Support Group, which comprises all the countries involved in the Syrian peace negotiations, including the U.S. and Russia:

“We, the ISSG, have been very clear in saying that Al Nusra and Daesh [ISIS] are not part of any kind of cease-fire or any kind of negotiated cessation of hostilities. So if you hang out with the wrong folks, then you make that decision. … You choose who hang out with, and that sends a signal.”

Although I pointed out the significance of the statement (Truthout, Feb. 24, 2016), no major news outlet saw fit to report that remarkable acknowledgement by the State Department spokesperson. Nevertheless, the State Department had clearly alerted the Washington Post and the New York Times to the fact that the relationships between the CIA-supported groups and Nusra Front were much closer than it had ever admitted in the past.

Kerry evidently calculated that the pretense that the “moderate” armed groups were independent of Al Nusra front would open him to a political attack from Republicans and the media if they were hit by Russian airstrikes. So it was no longer useful politically to try to obscure that reality from the media.

In fact, the State Department now seemed interested in inducing as many of those armed groups as possible to separate themselves more clearly from the Nusra Front.

The twists and turns in the three major newspapers’ coverage of the issue of relations between U.S.-supported opposition groups and Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria thus show how major news sources slighted or steered clear of the fact that U.S.-client armed groups were closely intertwined with a branch of Al Qaeda — until they were prompted by signals from U.S. officials to revise their line and provide a more honest portrayal of Syria’s armed opposition.

Gareth Porter, an independent investigative journalist and historian on US national security policy, is the winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. His latest book is Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, published in 2014.

March 24, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ahrar al Sham, al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, ISIS, John Kerry, Obama, Syria, TOW anti-tank missiles, United States | Leave a comment

Is the ISIS Behind the Brussels Attacks? Who is Behind the ISIS?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research | March 22, 2016

Dramatic loss of life in the terror attacks in Brussels: 34 killed and more than 180 wounded according to the latest reports.

Prior to the conduct of a police investigation, in the hours following the attacks, the Western media went into overdrive, intimating without evidence that the Islamic State (ISIS) operating out of Raqqa, Northern Syria was responsible for the attacks.

According to the Independent “Isis supporters have been celebrating the Brussels attacks online [social media] as speculation mounts that the group is behind a wave of deadly attacks in the Belgian capital.”

The report is based on information emanating from social media, which does not constitute a reliable source of information.

An unkown self-proclaimed news agency (Amaq Agency ) allegedly representing the ISIS provided the following report:

This mysterious agency was then immediately quoted by Reuters in an authoritative report.

In turn, alleged supporters of ISIS on twitter were quoted. According to the Jerusalem Post (March 21, 2016):

The “tears of joy” that were shed by ISIS supporters on Twitter are also related to the fact that the terrorists succeeded in paralyzing the activity in the airport attacked. One of ISIS’ main declared goals is to devastate the Western economy and replace the dollar with its own coin as the only international legal tender.

Who Controls the ISIS social media and twitter accounts?

Police and intelligence are often aware of the identity of ISIS social media, IP addresses, geographic location.

According to London’s Mirror (December 16, 2015):

Hackers have claimed that a number of Islamic State supporters’ social media accounts are being run from internet addresses linked to the [UK government] Department of Work and Pensions.

A group of four young computer experts who call themselves VandaSec have unearthed evidence indicating that at least three ISIS-supporting accounts can be traced back to the DWP.

Every computer and mobile phone logs onto the internet using an IP address, which is a type of identification number.

The hacking collective showed Mirror Online details of the IP addresses used by a trio of separate digital jihadis to access Twitter accounts, which have been used to spread extremist propaganda.

At first glance, the IP addresses seem to be based in Saudi Arabia, but upon further inspection using specialist tools they appeared to link back to the DWP. ..

[T]he British government sold on a large number of IP addresses to two Saudi Arabian firms.

After the sale completed in October of this year, they were used by extremists to spread their message of hate.

Jamie Turner, an expert from a firm called PCA Predict, discovered a record of the sale of IP addresses, and found a large number were transferred to Saudi Arabia in October of this year.

He told us it was likely the IP addresses could still be traced back to the DWP because records of the addresses had not yet been fully updated.

What the Daily Mirror report suggests (as well as other reports) is that the IP addresses of the ISIS are indirectly linked to the British government, i.e. 1) the identity of the ISIS social media is invariable known to police authorities, and 2) The ISIS social media are sponsored by Saudi Arabia, which is also involved in the recruitment and training of terrorists in liaison with US-NATO.

It is worth noting that the British government has acknowledged its responsibility:

The Cabinet Office has now admitted to selling the IP addresses on to Saudi Telecom and the Saudi-based Mobile Telecommunications Company earlier this year as part of a wider drive to get rid of a large number of the DWP’s IP addresses. (Mirror, op cit cit, emphasis added)

The State Sponsors of Terrorism

The events in Brussels raises the broader question: who is behind the ISIS?

Israel intelligence sources (DEBKA) in a 2011 report confirmed the role of NATO operating out of its Brussels headquarters and Turkey’s high command in the training and recruitment of terrorists:

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.

And then in August 2014, Obama launched his counter-terrorism campaign. Yet the evidence confirms that instead of destroying the ISIS, the US and its allies including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel were in fact protecting the ISIS.

Again according to the Daily Mirror in a 2015 report, the counterterrorism campaign was conducive to ISIS doubling the territory under its control, until the launching of the Russian intervention in late September 2015.

Sheer Incompetence of the US Air Force (doubtful) or Washington’s complicity in protecting the terrorists?

Recently the release of the Hillary Clinton email archive as well as leaked Pentagon documents confirm that the US and its allies were supportive of ISIS, which are according to press reports, the alleged architects of the Brussels attacks.

The 7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated August of 2012, points to US complicity in supporting the creation of an Islamic State:

March 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Al Nusrah, ISIS, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Iraqi Shiite militias say US troops ‘forces of occupation,’ demand withdrawal

RT | March 21, 2016

Iran-backed Shiite militia forces in Iraq have strongly opposed new US troops deployed in the country. The militias warned that if Washington does not withdraw its forces “immediately,” they will deal with them “as forces of occupation.”

The US military are “making a new suspicious attempt to restore their presence in the country under the pretext of fighting their own creation, Daesh [acronym for Islamic State, IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL],” the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia said on its TV channel, al-Ahd on Monday, as quoted by Reuters.

The Shiite group added that “if the US administration doesn’t withdraw its forces immediately, we will deal with them as forces of occupation.”

Additional troops deployed by Washington on Sunday were also strongly objected to by Iraqi Hezbollah on Monday.

The Hezbollah movement in Iraq said the new deployment of US marines is a plot to help IS terrorists.

Stressing its resistance against Washington’s “occupation of the regional states,” Hezbollah said the US has sent its forces to Iraq to further assist IS, the Iranian Fars news agency reported, citing the al-Mayadeen news channel.

Despite Baghdad saying it doesn’t need foreign assistance in fighting jihadists, the Pentagon announced the new deployment on Sunday, saying it has sent a detachment of US Marines to Iraq to bolster the fight against IS.

A group of Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), was on the ground in Iraq, the US military said, without specifying exactly how many personnel have been sent to Iraq. The move followed the killing of a US marine in an IS rocket attack last week.

March 21, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Da’esh, Iraq, ISIL, ISIS, United States | Leave a comment

New US Training Program for Syrian Rebels ‘Just Another Waste of Money’

Sputnik – 20.03.2016

The US Defense Department reportedly plans to launch a new train-and-equip effort in Syria. The new effort will focus on preparing a small contingent of rebels outside Syria.

The rebels will reportedly be trained in infantry tactics and then sent back to their homeland. The spokesman for the US-led military operation against Daesh, Colonel Steve Warren, said the new effort was part of the Pentagon’s adjustments to the train-and-equip program built on prior experience.

However, many details about the new program remain unclear, including its cost, the number of fighters it aims to train as well as the exact date of its launch, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

Michael Maloof, former Pentagon official and senior security policy analyst in the office of the Secretary of Defense, was not too optimistic about the Pentagon’s ability to learn from the mistakes, saying that his hopes for the new programs were pretty low.

“The program is very vague, no details are being given as to where the training will be conducted and smaller contingents doesn’t necessarily mean a success. The problem has been as to who would be available to fight ISIS as opposed to wanting to take down the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. That has been the problem. Also what countries would actually conduct the training, before it was Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey? Those countries generally are against the government of Syria as it now stands.”

“It is going to be questionable as to how effective this so-called revised program is going to be. I don’t hold much hope for it and it’s just another waste of money frankly at this point,” Maloof said.

Talking about what the Pentagon’s exact goal was for launching this new train-and-equip program, the official said, “The concept is to fight ISIS, but in reality the people that they are recruiting are Sunnis, they are sympathetic to the Sunni ISIS fighters and even though they may not agree with them wholeheartedly, they are Sunnis and Sunnis will not be fighting Sunnis. That’s just the way it goes.”

He further spoke about the reluctance of Turkey in going after ISIS and instead are venting against the Kurds. “The consequences of these actions are questionable and the success is highly dubious and I don’t hold much faith in them.”

Maloof also discussed Saudi Arabia’s position in this situation. He said, “Saudi’s don’t like ISIS either but they are bank rolling, funding them outside the Kingdom but if they start pointing inward that’s another problem for them because ISIS is fundamentally against monarchy.”

March 21, 2016 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | ISIS, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

The Caesar photo fraud that undermined Syrian negotiations

By Rick Sterling | American Herald Tribune | March 4, 2016

A 30 page investigative report on the “Caesar Torture Photos” has been released and is available online here. The following is a condensed version of the report. Readers who are especially interested are advised to get the full report which includes additional details, photographs, sources and recommendations.

Introduction

There is a pattern of sensational but untrue reports that lead to public acceptance of US and Western military intervention in countries around the world:

* In Gulf War 1, there were reports of Iraqi troops stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. Relying on the testimony of a Red Crescent doctor, Amnesty Interenational ‘verified’ the false claims.

* Ten years later, there were reports of yellow cake uranium going to Iraq for development of weapons of mass destruction.

* One decade later, there were reports of Libyan soldiers drugged on viagra and raping women as they advanced.

* In 2012, NBC broadcaster Richard Engel was supposedly kidnapped by pro-Assad Syrian militia but luckily freed by Syrian opposition fighters, the “Free Syrian Army”.

All these reports were later confirmed to be fabrications and lies. They all had the goal of manipulating public opinion and they all succeeded in one way or another. Despite the consequences, which were often disastrous, none of the perpetrators were punished or paid any price.

It has been famously said “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” This report is a critical review of the “Caesar Torture Photos” story. As will be shown, there is strong evidence the accusations are entirely or substantially false.

Overview of ‘Caesar Torture Photos’

On 20 January 2014, two days before negotiations about the Syrian conflict were scheduled to begin in Switzerland, a sensational report burst onto television and front pages around the world. The story was that a former Syrian army photographer had 55,000 photographs documenting the torture and killing of 11,000 detainees by the Syrian security establishment.

The Syrian photographer was given the code-name ‘Caesar’. The story became known as the “Caesar Torture Photos”. A team of lawyers plus digital and forensic experts were hired by the Carter-Ruck law firm, on contract to Qatar, to go to the Middle East and check the veracity of “Caesar” and his story. They concluded that “Caesar” was truthful and the photographs indicated “industrial scale killing”. CNN, London’s Guardian and LeMonde broke the story which was subsequently broadcast in news reports around the world. The Caesar photo accusations were announced as negotiations began in Switzerland. With the opposition demanding the resignation of the Syrian government, negotiations quickly broke down.

For the past two years the story has been preserved with occasional bursts of publicity and supposedly corroborating reports. Most recently, in December 2015 Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report titled “If the Dead Could Speak” with significant focus on the Caesar accusations.

Following are 12 significant problems with the ‘Caesar torture photos’ story.

1. Almost half the photos show the opposite of the allegations.

The Carter Ruck Inquiry Team claimed there were about 55,000 photos total with about half of them taken by ‘Caesar’ and the other half by other photographers. The Carter Ruck team claimed the photos were all ‘similar’. Together they are all known as ‘Caesar’s Torture Photos’.

The photographs are in the custody of an opposition organization called the Syrian Association for Missing and Conscience Detainees (SAFMCD). In 2015, they allowed Human Rights Watch (HRW) to study all the photographs which have otherwise been secret. In December 2015, HRW released their report titled “If the Dead Could Speak”. The biggest revelation is that over 46% of the photographs (24,568) do not show people ‘tortured to death” by the Syrian government. On the contrary, they show dead Syrian soldiers and victims of car bombs and other violence (HRW pp2-3). Thus, nearly half the photos show the opposite of what was alleged. These photos, never revealed to the public, confirm that the opposition is violent and has killed large numbers of Syrian security forces and civilians.

2. The claim that other photos only show ‘tortured detainees’ is exaggerated or false.

The Carter Ruck report says ‘Caesar’ only photographed bodies brought from Syrian government detention centers. In their December 2015 report, HRW said, “The largest category of photographs, 28,707 images, are photographs Human Rights Watch understands to have died in government custody, either in one of several detention facilities or after being transferred to a military hospital.” They estimate 6,786 dead individuals in the set.

The photos and the deceased are real, but how they died and the circumstances are unclear. There is strong evidence some died in conflict. Others died in the hospital. Others died and their bodies were decomposing before they were picked up. These photographs seem to document a war time situation where many combatants and civilians are killed. It seems the military hospital was doing what it had always done: maintaining a photographic and documentary record of the deceased. Bodies were picked up by different military or intelligence branches. While some may have died in detention; the great majority probably died in the conflict zones. The accusations by ‘Caesar’, the Carter Ruck report and HRW that these are all victims of “death in detention” or “death by torture” or death in ‘government custody” are almost certainly false.

3. The true identity of “Caesar” is probably not as claimed.

The Carter Ruck Report says “This witness who defected from Syria and who had been working for the Syrian government was given the code-name ‘Caesar’ by the inquiry team to protect the witness and members of his family.” (CRR p12) However if his story is true, it would be easy for the Syrian government to determine who he really is. After all, how many military photographers took photos at Tishreen and Military 601 Hospitals during those years and then disappeared? According to the Carter Ruck report, Caesar’s family left Syria around the same time. Considering this, why is “Caesar” keeping his identity secret from the western audience? Why does “Caesar” refuse to meet even with highly sympathetic journalists or researchers?

The fact that 46% of the total photographic set is substantially the opposite of what was claimed indicates two possibilities:

* Caesar and his promoters knew the contents but lied about them expecting nobody to look.

* Caesar and his promoters did not know the contents and falsely assumed they were like the others.

The latter seems more likely which supports the theory that Caesar is not who he claims to be.

4. The Carter Ruck Inquiry was faulty, rushed and politically biased.

The credibility of the “Caesar” story has been substantially based on the Carter-Ruck Inquiry Team which “verified” the defecting photographer and his photographs. The following facts suggest the team was biased with a political motive:

* the investigation was financed by the government of Qatar which is a major supporter of the armed opposition.

* the contracted law firm, Carter Ruck and Co, has previously represented Turkey’s President Erdogan, also known for his avid support of the armed opposition.

* the American on the legal inquiry team, Prof David M. Crane, has a long history working for U.S. Dept of Defense and Defense Intelligence Agency. The U.S. Government has been deeply involved in the attempt at ‘regime change’ with demands that ‘Assad must go’ beginning in summer 2011 and continuing until recently.

* Prof Crane is personally partisan in the conflict. He has campaigned for a Syrian War Crimes Tribunal and testified before Congress in October 2013, three months before the Caesar revelations.

* by their own admission, the inquiry team was under “time constraints” (CRR, p11).

* by their own admission, the inquiry team did not even survey most of the photographs

* the inquiry team was either ignorant of the content or intentionally lied about the 46% showing dead Syrian soldiers and attack victims.

* the inquiry team did their last interview with “Caesar” on January 18, quickly finalized a report and rushed it into the media on January 20, two days prior to the start of UN sponsored negotiations.

The self-proclaimed “rigor” of the Carter Ruck investigation is without foundation. The claims to a ‘scientific’ investigation are similarly without substance and verging on the ludicrous.

5. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is involved.

In an interview on France24, Prof. David Crane of the inquiry team describes how ‘Caesar’ was brought to meet them by “his handler, his case officer”. The expression ‘case officer’ usually refers to the CIA. This would be a common expression for Prof. Crane who previously worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency. The involvement of the CIA additionally makes sense since there was a CIA budget of $1Billion for Syria operations in 2013.

Prof. Crane’s “Syria Accountability Project” is based at Syracuse University where the CIA actively recruits new officers despite student resistance.

Why does it matter if the CIA is connected to the ‘Caesar’ story? Because the CIA has a long history of disinformation campaigns. In 2011, false reports of viagra fueled rape by Libyan soldiers were widely broadcast in western media as the U.S. pushed for a military mandate. Decades earlier, the world was shocked to hear about Cuban troops fighting in Angola raping Angolan women. The CIA chief of station for Angola, John Stockwell, later described how they invented the false report and spread it round the world. The CIA was very proud of that disinformation achievement. Stockwell’s book, “In Search of Enemies” is still relevant.

6. The prosecutors portray simple administrative procedures as mysterious and sinister.

The Carter Ruck inquiry team falsely claimed there were about 11,000 tortured and killed detainees. They then posed the question: Why would the Syrian government photograph and document the people they just killed? The Carter Ruck Report speculates that the military hospital photographed the dead to prove that the “orders to kill” had been followed. The “orders to kill” are assumed.

A more logical explanation is that dead bodies were photographed as part of normal hospital / morgue procedure to maintain a file of the deceased who were received or treated at the hospital.

The same applies to the body labeling / numbering system. The Carter Ruck report suggests there is something mysterious and possibly sinister in the coded tagging system. But all morgues need to have a tagging and identification system.

7. The photos have been manipulated.

Many of the photos at the SAFMCD website have been manipulated. The information card and tape identity are covered over and sections of documents are obscured. It must have been very time consuming to do this for thousands of photos. The explanation that they are doing this to ‘protect identity’ is not credible since the faces of victims are visible. What are they hiding?

8. The Photo Catalog has duplicates and other errors.

There are numerous errors and anomalies in the photo catalog as presented at the SAFMCD website.

For example, some deceased persons are shown twice with different case numbers and dates.

There are other errors where different individuals are given the same identity number.

Researcher Adam Larson at A Closer Look at Syria website has done detailed investigation which reveals more errors and curious error patterns in the SAFMCD photo catalog.

9. With few exceptions, Western media uncritically accepted and promoted the story.

The Carter Ruck report was labeled “Confidential” but distributed to CNN, the Guardian and LeMonde.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour gushed the story as she interviewed three of the inquiry team under the headline “EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime”. Critical journalism was replaced by leading questions and affirmation. David Crane said “This is a smoking gun”. Desmond de Silva “likened the images to those of holocaust survivors”.

The Guardian report was titled “Syrian regime document trove shows evidence of ‘industrial scale’ killing of detainees” with subtitle “Senior war crimes prosecutors say photographs and documents provide ‘clear evidence’ of systematic killing of 11,000 detainees”

One of the very few skeptical reports was by Dan Murphy in the Christian Science Monitor. Murphy echoed standard accusations about Syria but went on to say incisively, “the report itself is nowhere near as credible as it makes out and should be viewed for what it is: A well-timed propaganda exercise funded by Qatar, a regime opponent who has funded rebels fighting Assad who have committed war crimes of their own.”

Unfortunately that was one of very few critical reports in the mainstream media.

In 2012, foreign affairs journalist Jonathan Steele wrote an article describing the overall media bias on Syria.. His article was titled “Most Syrians back Assad but you’d never know from western media”. The media campaign and propaganda has continued without stop. It was in this context that the Carter Ruck Report was delivered and widely accepted without question.

10. Politicians have used the Caesar story to push for more US/NATO aggression.

Politicians seeking direct US intervention for ‘regime change’ in Syria were quick to accept and broadcast the ‘Caesar’ story. They used it to demonize the Assad government and argue that the US must act so as to prevent “another holocaust’, ‘another Rwanda’, ‘another Cambodia’.

When Caesar’s photos were displayed at the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress, Chairman Ed Royce said “It is far past time that the world act…. It is far past time for the United States to say there is going to be a safe zone across this area in northern Syria.”

The top ranking Democrat in the House Foreign Affairs Committee is Eliot Engel. In November 2015 he said “We’re reminded of the photographer, known as Caesar, who sat in this room a year ago, showing us in searing, graphic detail what Assad has done to his own people.” Engel went on to advocate for a new authorization for the use of military force.

Rep Adam Kinzinger is another advocate for aggression against Syria. At an event at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in July 2015 he said, “If we want to destroy ISIS we have to destroy the incubator of ISIS, Bashar al-Assad.”

The irony and hypocrisy is doubly profound since Rep Kinzinger has met and coordinated with opposition leader Okaidi who is a confirmed ally of ISIS. In contrast with Kinzinger’s false claims, it is widely known that ISIS ideology and initial funding came from Saudi Arabia and much of its recent wealth from oil sales via Turkey. The Syrian Army has fought huge battles against ISIS, winning some but losing others with horrific scenes of mass beheading.

11. The Human Rights Watch assessment is biased.

HRW has been very active around Syria. After the chemical attacks in greater Damascus on August 21, 2013, HRW rushed a report which concluded that, based on a vector analysis of incoming projectiles, the source of the sarin carrying rockets must have been Syrian government territory. This analysis was later debunked as a “junk heap of bad evidence” by highly respected investigative journalist Robert Parry. HRW’s assumption about the chemical weapon rocket flight distance was faulty. Additionally it was unrealistic to think you could determine rocket trajectory with 1% accuracy from a canister on the ground. To think you could determine flight trajectory from a canister on the ground that had deflected off a building wall was preposterous.

In spite of this, HRW stuck by its analysis which blamed the Assad government. HRW Director Ken Roth publicly indicated dissatisfaction when an agreement to remove Syrian chemical weapons was reached. Mr. Roth wanted more than a ‘symbolic’ attack.

In light of the preceding, we note the December 2015 HRW report addressing the claims of Caesar.

HRW seems to be the only non-governmental organization to receive the full set of photo files from the custodian. To its credit, HRW acknowledged that nearly half the photos do not show what has been claimed for two years: they show dead Syrian soldiers and militia along with scenes from crime scenes, car bombings, etc…

But HRW’s bias is clearly shown in how they handle this huge contradiction. Amazingly, they suggest the incorrectly identified photographs support the overall claim. They say, “This report focuses on deaths in detention. However other types of photographs are also important. From an evidentiary perspective, they reinforce the credibility of the claims of Caesar about his role as a forensic photographer of the Syrian security forces or at least with someone who has access to their photographs.” (HRW, p31) This seems like saying if someone lies to you half the time that proves they are truthful.

The files disprove the assertion that the files all show tortured and killed. The photographs show a wide range of deceased persons, from Syrian soldiers to Syrian militia members to opposition fighters to civilians trapped in conflict zones to regular deaths in the military hospital. There may be some photos of detainees who died in custody after being tortured, or who were simply executed. We know that this happened in Iraqi detention centers under U.S. occupation. Ugly and brutal things happen in war times. But the facts strongly suggest that the ‘Caesar’ account is basically untrue or a gross exaggeration.

It is striking that the HRW report has no acknowledgment of the war conditions and circumstances in Syria. There is no acknowledgment that the government and Syrian Arab Army have been under attack by tens of thousands of weaponized fighters openly funded and supported by many of the wealthiest countries in the world.

There is no hint at the huge loss of life suffered by the Syrian army and supporters defending their country. The current estimates indicate from eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand Syrian soldiers, militia and allies having died in the conflict. During the three years 2011 – 2013, including the period covered by Caesar photos, it is estimated that over 52,000 Syrian soldiers and civilian militia died versus 29,000 anti-government forces.

HRW had access to the full set of photographs including the Syrian army and civilian militia members killed in the conflict. Why did they not list the number of Syrian soldiers and security forces they identified? Why did they not show a single image of those victims?

HRW goes beyond endorsing the falsehoods in the ‘Caesar’ story; they suggest it is a partial listing. On page 5 the report says, “Therefore, the number of bodies from detention facilities that appear in the Caesar photographs represent only a part of those who died in detention in Damascus.”

On the contrary, the Caesar photographs seem to mostly show victims who died in a variety of ways in the armed conflict. The HRW assertions seem to be biased and inaccurate.

12. The legal accusations are biased and ignore the supreme crime of aggression.

The Christian Science Monitor journalist Dan Murphy gave an apt warning in his article on the Carter Ruck report about ‘Caesar’. While many journalists treated the prosecutors with uncritical deference, he said, “Association with war crime prosecutions is no guarantor of credibility – far from it. Just consider Luis Moreno Ocampo’s absurd claims about Viagra and mass rape in Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya in 2011. War crimes prosecutors have, unsurprisingly, a bias towards wanting to bolster cases against people they consider war criminals (like Assad or Qaddafi) and so should be treated with caution. They also frequently favor, as a class, humanitarian interventions.”

The Carter Ruck legal team demonstrated how accurate those cautions were. They were eager to accuse the Syrian government of “crimes against humanity” but the evidence of “industrial killing”, “mass killing”, “torturing to kill” is dubious and much of the hard evidence shows something else.

In contrast, there is clear and solid evidence that a “Crime against Peace” is being committed against Syria. It is public knowledge that the “armed opposition” in Syria has been funded, supplied and supported in myriad ways by various outside governments. Most of the fighters, both Syrian and foreign, receive salaries from one or another outside power. Their supplies, weapons and necessary equipment are all supplied to them. Like the “Contras” in Nicaragua in the 1980’s, the use of such proxy armies is a violation of customary international law.

It is also a violation of the UN Charter which says “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other matter inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.

The government of Qatar has been a major supporter of the mercenaries and fanatics attacking the sovereign state of Syria. Given that fact, isn’t it hugely ironic to hear the legal contractors for Qatar accusing the Syrian government of “crimes against humanity”?

Isn’t it time for the United Nations to make reforms so that it can start living up to its purposes? That will require demanding and enforcing compliance with the UN Charter and International Law.

March 4, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Carter Ruck and Co, Carter Ruck Report, Central Intelligence Agency, Christiane Amanpour, CIA, CNN, David M. Crane, Eliot Engel, Erdogan, Human rights, ISIS, LeMonde, Middle East, Qatar, Syria, The Guardian, Turkey, United States | Leave a comment

‘UK secretly deployed military advisers in Libya to battle ISIS’

RT | February 28, 2016

A “small number” of UK military advisers are secretly operating in Libya along with US special troops, sources told the Telegraph. The aim of the operation is to battle Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) militants in the conflict-ravaged country.

“Special forces commandos” are reportedly working with their “US counterparts” in the city of Misrata, northwestern Libya, the paper said Saturday.

The Telegraph cited Western officials and sources on the ground who claimed that a “small number” of British troops are currently on a “low key mission” in the city.

Also, the US military in Libya have started “giving tactical training” to several local militias, the sources said.

The paper obtained confirmation that “training” of local rebels had been taking place in recent weeks from separate officials close to Western governments. It is not yet clear which EU countries took part in this “training.”

The British government has so far refused to comment on the Telegraph report.

In January, Jonathan Powell, the UK Special Envoy to Libya, was speaking about battling Islamic State terrorists.

“There are a number of armed groups there sitting next to Isil who have the capacity to deal with it. But they need to be united and have a common cause if they are to do something,” he said.

The UK is not the only country said to be operating in the war-stricken state. On Wednesday, it was revealed that France is also using their special forces and commandos to battle Islamic State there.

“The last thing to do would be to intervene in Libya. We must avoid any overt military engagement, but act discreetly,” a senior military source told Le Monde.

In the meantime, Federica Mogherini, EU top diplomat, said that the EU will only intervene against the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Libya if it receives an official invitation from the legitimate government of the country.

Libya has been in turmoil following the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. Since the spring of 2014, two governing groups are in a war for power over the country. Islamic State took advantage of the situation and seized some territories in the center of the country – including the port of Sirte.

Five years on from the start of the uprising, Libya is in a markedly worse position. Its oil revenues have halved, while it is also facing a growing threat from Islamic State, which is looking to capitalize on the lack of political stability and political infighting.

February 28, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | France, ISIL, ISIS, Libya, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Leading America… to defeat

By Finian Cunningham | American Herald Tribune | February 26, 2016

A soldier is supposed to defend his or her country and people. The honorable duty is even more onerous on a General, one would think. Yet Air Force General Philip Breedlove, as with most of the Pentagon top brass, is leading America inexorably to historic defeat.

Not deliberately mind you. But through incompetence and purveying a futile, crass worldview, which misleads America to grossly mis-spend its national resources.

With a $600 billion a-year allocation, the Pentagon devours over half of the total US national budget. What could be spent on creating jobs, building civil infrastructure and providing top class public services in education and heath care is instead pumped into the dead-end military. Year after year after year.

And for what? Only for this same military to lead America further into defeat as a country mired in debt and non-productive warmongering, which in turn leads to more vital resources being thrown into this bottomless pit. It’s a death knell for the nation.

General Breedlove, who is Supreme Commander of US forces in Europe (EUCOM), as well as the top officer of the NATO military alliance, was giving testimony to Congress this week before the House Armed Services Committee.

His pitch was that the US faces a combination of three global threats. They included: a “resurgent, aggressive” Russia, mass migration of refugees in Europe, and the threat of terrorism from the ISIS or ISIL group.

“This year’s budget request reflects our solemn commitment to the security of our allies and partners and to protecting our homeland forward,” said Breedlove.

Now, you would think that a US General might be basing his “threat assessments”on sound information. After all isn’t that what military leaders are supposed to be about, making sure that the homeland and allies are kept safe in the most effective way. Especially, when the money for the Pentagon amounts to over half of the country’s total annual spend.

Breedlove’s worldview could not be more removed from reality, if not downright riven with falsehood.

On the ISIS terror group, this head-chopping barbaric network of takfirists is without doubt a dangerous outfit. But what Breedlove seems oblivious to, or disingenuous about, is that the ISIS terrorists were fomented and weaponized in the first place by his Pentagon covert warmongers in the CIA. This terror network, as with its Al Qaeda precursors, are the Pentagon’s proxy army for regime change and pretext for waging “war against terror”across the globe.

As for the refugee crisis destabilizing Europe, Breedlove admits that the refugees mainly emanate from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But what he astoundingly fails to comprehend is that the US has ravaged these same countries with criminal wars for regime change over the past two decades. We can add Libya too. Yet, the General has the gall to accuse Russia and the Syrian government of “weaponizing the refugee crisis”.

He told Congress: “Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve.”

It takes a certain obtuseness to describe the humanitarian crisis in this way. The five-year war in Syria was instigated by Washington and its NATO partners, Britain and France, and fueled by US client regimes, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, for the purpose of regime change. The terror brigades of ISIS and myriad others, including the so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army, were infiltrated into Syria to plunge that country into a bloodbath and so topple the government of President Bashar al Assad.

That up to 11 million Syrians have been displaced –nearly half the population –is solely due to the machinations of Washington and its accomplices.

On the third alleged global danger, EUCOM Supreme Commander Breedlove warned that Russia poses an “existential threat”. He said: “Russia wants to rewrite the agreed rules of the international order… EUCOM, working with allies and partners, is deterring Russia now and preparing to fight and win if necessary.”

Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced that it was quadrupling its military spend in Europe to $3.4 billion. This will be used to expand NATO forces in Eastern Europe on Russia’s borders. Despite the hysterics of Breedlove and other Pentagon chiefs, Russia is threatening no-one. This is just a myth that America’s military-industrial complex thrives on and has milked the US economy with for the past 70 years, since the end of the Second World War.

The only people who have invaded Ukraine are the Neo-Nazi junta and militias that the US used to overthrow an elected government there in February 2014.

Let’s move on here. The American people show signs of waking up to the propaganda that has for too long been billowing out of Washington. Democrat presidential contender Bernie Sanders is a sign that people are no longer frightened by such words as “socialism”and hopefully other such bogeyman concepts. What the people need is an economy that serves their democratic needs: jobs, education, health, social development, public ownership.

It is not clear if Sanders really gets the task ahead. He has said some corny things in support of US foreign war-making and apparently buying into Russia scaremongering in particular.

What Sanders needs to realize is what many ordinary citizens are increasingly attuned to. America’s leviathan, blood-sucking, warmongering military needs to be sacked. The crass views of military top brass like General Breedlove show that this outsized excrescence is not only leading America to defeat; it is, ironically, the biggest threat to American and world security.

If Americans do embark on a political revolution, as Bernie Sanders implores, they need to not only sack the big banks. They need to sack the big tanks and all the other elements of the freeloading military gravy train that is destroying the country.

February 27, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | ISIL, ISIS, NATO, Philip Breedlove, United States | Leave a comment

War crimes or peace dividends – Do we have a choice?

By Mark Taliano | American Herald Tribune | February 20, 2016

One of the most important books about post 9/11 war and peace will likely be one of the least read books published in recent times.

War sells; peace does not.

War has its own Public Relations (PR) agencies, its own state-subsidized industry, and its own mythology. Peace does not.

The cowboy stories of “good guys” versus “bad guys” has been promulgated and exploited by the West and its agencies (and blindly accepted by media “consumers”) to such a degree, that the truth has literally been inverted. White is Black, and Black is White.

Not only is Canada at least partly responsible for mass murder, the total destruction of foreign countries, waves of refugees, but we are paying a price at home in terms of lost freedoms, and increasing impoverishment. Today’s Illegal wars of aggression are a plague on humanity that, at best, enrich the transnational oligarch class, as they reduce target countries to ashes.

But the lies are smothering the truth.

For example, we live in a world where, on the one hand, we profess to be fighting ISIS, even as sustainable evidence has shouted for years that ISIS and all the terrorists invading Syria, including the “moderates”, are Western proxies.

Prof. Tim Anderson clearly explains in the Preface to his recent e-book, The Dirty War On Syria:

“Although every war makes ample use of lies and deception, the dirty war on Syria has relied on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory.”

Our repeated failures to diagnose the root causes of our current dystopia is the basis of our degeneracy. And the root causes include psychological operations (psy ops).

The age-old military strategy of false flag terrorism has triggered our expertly disguised degeneracy. False flag terrorism involves the false attribution of a crime to a designated enemy, and most, if not all wars, are triggered by false flag terrorism.

Thus the book, Another French False Flag?|Bloody Tracks From Paris To San Bernardino, Edited and Introduced by Kevin Barrett should be a “must read” for anyone attempting to understand, and act on, the current state of permanent war afflicting humanity.

The book is actually a compilation of essays from a host of prominent public intellectuals, all of whom, with the notable exception of two, elaborate upon the tactics of false flag deceptions that are herding masses of people to embrace both racism, and permanent war:

Gilad Atzmon
Rasheedal Hajj abu Mutahhar
Ajamu Baraka
Kevin Barrett
Ole Dammegard
A. K. Dewdney
Philip Giraldi
Anthony Hall
Zaid Hamid
Imran N. Hosein
Kujahid Kamran
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei
Barry Kissin
Nick Kollerstrom
Stephen Lendman
Henry Makow
Brandon Martinez
Gearoid O Colmain
Ken O’Keefe
James Petras
Paul Craig Roberts
Catherine Shakdam
Alain Soral
Robert David Steele
James Tracey
Eric Walberg

Another French False Flag?|Bloody Tracks From Paris To San Bernardino analyzes the root causes of synthetic terror events (i.e. false flags) and puts the onus on state authorities to prove the theorists wrong – which they have yet to do – through judicial public inquiries. Straw man arguments and “conspiracy theory” smears are becoming increasingly stale.

If the masses want peace and a “peace dividend”, where tax dollars are actually spent to improve their lives, local economies, and a return to democracy, then Barrett’s book is a “must read”.

If, on the other hand, we want the status quo of domestic police-state legislation, ruined economies, destroyed countries, and an overseas holocaust perpetrated by a globalized cabal of criminal warmongers, then the book would be best left unopened.

Let’s hope that humanity’s better nature prevails. A first step is the truth.

February 20, 2016 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Militarism | ISIS, United States | Leave a comment

DoD, State Dept. struggle to explain Libya strike legality with 15yo authorization & some intl law

RT | February 20, 2016

A view shows damage at the scene after an airstrike by U.S. warplanes against Islamic State in Sabratha, Libya, in this February 19, 2016 handout picture. © Sabratha municipality media office

A view shows damage at the scene after an airstrike by U.S. warplanes against Islamic State in Sabratha, Libya, in this February 19, 2016 handout picture.
© Sabratha municipality media office / Reuters

Having confirmed a strike on an ISIS camp in Libya, Washington officials had difficulties explaining under which legal authority the US acts. While the Pentagon cites post-9/11 legislation, stripped of such powers, the State Department refers to unnamed international laws.

On Friday, the US announced that its warplanes targeted a training camp near the Libyan city of Sabratha, reportedly killing up to 40 people. The Pentagon has treated the attack as a success as it declared the elimination of a Tunisian national, Noureddine Chouchane, who was an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) facilitator in Libya.

Also known as “Sabir,” the militant is believed to be behind the deadly attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March 2015.

However, regardless of its achievement, the US authority to carry out strikes on Libyan soil has again come into question. It has appeared that Washington does not have a single answer.

After briefing reporters on Friday, the Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook was asked to clarify under what authority the US came to Libya, given that no Americans had been killed in the 2015 Tunisia attack.

“We have struck in Libya previously under the existing Authorization for the use of [military] force,” Cook replied.

The Pentagon’s spokesperson allegedly referred to the AUMF, which was passed and then signed by President George W. Bush shortly after 9/11, in September 2001, to target al-Qaeda. It authorized United States Armed Forces to carry out attacks against those responsible for September 11.

However, the Defense Department “believes” that the AUMF can be used 15 years later to fight ISIS.

“We believe that this was carried out under international law and, specifically, that this operation was consistent with domestic and international law,” Cook said, while not explicitly referring to any particular legislation.

In February 2015, President Obama did propose his own AUMF, which “does not address the 2001 AUMF”, but the draft was rejected by the Congress in December.

Other AUMF drafts, including for example, one of the most recently submitted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have not gotten Congressional approval either.

RT has also tried to clarify the US’s authority for the attack with the State Department, but failed to get a conclusive answer.

RT’s Gayane Chichikyan: “Under what legal authority did the US carry out strikes in Libya this morning?”

State Department’s Mark Toner: “It was in full accordance with international law. We’ve talked about this many times. I’d refer you to the Department of Defense to speak about specifics.”

Chichikyan: “So not the AUMF? It’s – it was international law?”

Toner: “Exactly. I mean – exactly.” He then refused to “get into details here,” again readdressing the question back to the Pentagon.

Approved by ‘some Libyan authority’?

At the same time both departments unanimously stress that “the Libyan authorities were aware” about the US’s strike. However, when asked to specify what “Libyan authorities” he referred to, Toner seemed to be at a loss, saying that “there is some governmental structure present” there.

“The new – well, I mean, there’s obviously Libyan authorities on the ground,” he replied to a question about Libya’s recently announced unity government. “It’s not – we’re still working to stand up the Government of National Accord. We want to see it returned and establish itself in Tripoli.”

Meanwhile, as experts tell RT, until its approval, the UN-backed unity government does not have powers to authorize foreign intervention.

“There is really no Libyan authority in existence that’s able to invite them [the US], so I think they did it on their own authority,” Oliver Miles, former UK ambassador to Libya, said. Miles believes the Libyans would oppose “very strongly” any foreign intervention.

Five years after the US-led force toppled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains in a power vacuum, which dragged the country into a civil war and let terror groups gain a foothold in the region.

There is a glimpse of hope for improvement and stability as the unity government, consisting of 13 ministers and five ministers of state, was formed Sunday and is currently expecting Libya’s eastern parliament’s approval.

The State Department “disagrees” that the US’s devastating intervention in Libya in 2011 has been a reason for its current involvement in Libya.

“We’re very clear-eyed in our assessment that when we see ISIL take these kinds of actions, we need to be able to strike at them,” Toner said, stressing that it is not “second intervention.”

In the meantime, the Pentagon has announced that it “will go after ISIL whenever it is necessary, using the full range of tools at our disposal.”

February 20, 2016 Posted by aletho | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Africa, ISIL, ISIS, Libya, Obama, United States | Leave a comment

Obama admits US-ISIS terror link

By Finian Cunningham | American Herald tribune | February 18, 2016

Call it a Freudian slip, but US President Barack Obama appears to have come clean, for once, on the connection between American foreign policy and the so called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.

In an address earlier this week to the leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), gathered in California, Obama was answering questions from news reporters on various international topics. On the matter of terrorist groups expanding their foothold in Libya, the president said the following: “With respect to Libya… we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way we went after al Qaeda wherever they appeared.”

In casual parlance the phrase “go after” can mean “to destroy”. But the more literal meaning and perhaps the one that Obama inadvertently let slip is simply “to follow”–as in a partnered way.

In that case, what Obama is referring to is the actual foreign policy function of ISIS and its related al Qaeda terror network. Wherever these groups appear, then Washington appoints itself to follow them under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

This pretext works very efficiently to nullify problems of international law. When the US sends its military into a foreign country to ostensibly combat terrorism then it is untrammeled by legal objections that it is violating other countries’ sovereignty. What would normally be seen as a gross violation –a military invasion by the US –is neatly transformed into an “anti-terror”operation. And if the incumbent foreign government complains about the “benevolent US assistance” then it can be toppled because it is “siding with the terrorists”.

This is, of course, the whole rationale behind the so-called War on Terror that Washington crafted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Just uttering the phrase War on Terror gives Washington license to invade and ransack any foreign state it chooses, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than one million people were killed by US forces “hunting down terrorists”.

Before that, the official pretexts were “War on Communism”or “War on Drugs”. But with the collapse of the “Evil Soviet Empire”, the first of these pretexts became redundant. Although, Washington and its NATO allies are trying their best to revive the “Russian Scare” by demonizing Vladimir Putin as the “new Hitler in Europe”. As for the War on Drugs, it didn’t quite have the required kick to pump up the Pentagon’s $600 billion annual budget, or to enthuse the American public, many of whom rather enjoy drugs anyway.

But the War on Terror, now that is, or at least was, a satisfying wheeze. It also has the added benefit of allowing federal authorities to crack down on civil rights and make all sorts of invasive controls over individual liberty, as in the latest controversy of the FBI demanding that Apple give them a digital key for unlocking phones and computers.

The primary function, however, remains: the terror groups, whether they go by the name of al Qaeda or ISIS, give Washington the convenient cover to militarily invade any country on the globe. The real agenda being regime change or commandeering the natural resources of the target country for the gratification of Wall Street banks and other American corporations –in the exact same scam that pertained in the old days of Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who later confessed to being a henchman on behalf of US capitalism, by overthrowing governments in Central America and the Caribbean during the early 1900s.

Admittedly, sometimes the terrorists do get whacked by the Pentagon. No doubt about it that Obama and his generals have killed numerous al Qaeda-linked operatives with assassination drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Many more innocent civilians have also been murdered along the way by US drones.

The assassination of terror cadres by Washington may seem like a contradiction to the overall argument here that there is a mutual connection between the two. However, we shouldn’t think of Washington as a monolith. There are no doubt people within the US establishment who are dedicated to genuinely fighting terrorism, and sometimes they succeed.

But that doesn’t negate the central point that the US has covertly created these same terrorist groups to expedite its own foreign policy and geopolitical ambitions. We can’t go into the full history here, but it is well documented that the CIA engendered, mobilized and weaponized al Qaeda “the database” to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. It wasn’t just the CIA. British MI6, French DGSE and Pakistani ISI were involved, as were the Saudi regime who provided the billions of dollars of finance and fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology that perversely empowers cadres to kill anyone –men, women and children –whom is designated an “infidel”. In other words, perfect proxy killers for the powers-that-be.

Despite the propaganda pumped out in the Western mainstream media of a US-led coalition “fighting terrorism” in Syria, the hard fact is that al Qaeda, ISIS and a plethora of other terrorist mercenary brigades were sent into Syria by the same US-led coalition for the purpose of regime change against the Russian and Iranian-allied government of President Bashar al-Assad. Readers can look up the candid admission of Lt General Michael Flynn, the former chief of US Defense Intelligence Agency as to the cynical calculations that Washington made in unleashing the terrorists on Syria.

If the US were really fighting terrorism in Syria then how do you explain this headline from McClatchy News referring to the huge discrepancy in Russian bombing raids compared with American. “Russia hit 1,888 targets in Syria in a week; the US count? Just 16”.

Face it. Until Russia intervened last September, the ISIS terror network had proliferated under US “bombing” to such an extent that Syria was in danger of being overthrown (as according to Washington’s plan).

Having failed in that mission largely because of Russia’s military intervention over the past five months, the fallback option provided by the terror groups is that they could be used to justify an outright military invasion of Syria by the US-led coalition, in the form of NATO-member Turkey and Saudi Arabia along with the other American-Arab puppet-regimes.

As Obama let slip at the ASEAN summit this week: “Wherever ISIS or al Qaeda appears, we will go after them.”

Well said Mr President. For once, you told the plain truth.

PS. The ASEAN venue where Obama was speaking at in Sunnylands, California is called “Rancho Mirage”. Kind of appropriate, don’t you think?

February 20, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Afghanistan, Africa, al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, ISIS, Libya, MI6, Middle East, Obama, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

No strategic divide between US & Turkey – only a division of labor

By Dan Glazebrook | RT | February 19, 2016

No one should be fooled into thinking the recent Turkish shelling and pressure for a ‘no-fly zone’ put it at odds with the US – rather they fulfill US strategic goals whilst simultaneously providing ‘plausible deniability’.

One week ago, on February 10, units from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance captured Menagh airbase and several surrounding villages in northwest Syria from Al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat Al-Nusra and their allies Ahrar Al Sham, who had held it since August 2013. One might think the liberation of such a significant asset would be a cause for celebration amongst the NATO powers who are, after all, supposedly facing an existential threat from Al-Qaeda and its various offshoots.

But apparently not. By the weekend, NATO member Turkey was shelling the base and its surrounding regions, with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu vowing to render it “unusable” unless the SDF withdraw – that is to say, hand it back to Al-Qaeda. Their bombardment has continued ever since, hitting Syrian government forces in the town of Deir Jamal, as well as the SDF. Davutoglu promised “the harshest reaction” if the SDF were to take the town of Azaz – currently controlled by, you guessed it, Ahrar al Sham and Al-Qaeda – towards which they were rapidly advancing. “We will not allow Azaz to fall,” he said, ‘fall’ here being a euphemism for liberation from the Wahhabi death squads.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been regularly briefing the media about their desire to send their armies into Syria, to establish a ‘safe zone’ on the Turkish-Syrian border aimed at keeping open the supply lines to rebel-controlled territories such as Aleppo (dominated, according to the Institute for the Study of War, by Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Ahrar Al Sham). Turkish military sources have subsequently announced that Saudi jets are to be deployed at the Incirlik airbase in Turkey within the coming weeks.

For some commentators, all of this demonstrates that Turkey has somehow gone ‘rogue’, putting it at odds with the US and straining the sinews of its alliance. Turkey is facilitating militant jihadis, it is argued, whilst the US is trying to fight them; and it is attacking the SDF, who the US is supporting. The SDF is, after all, an official ally of the US, who has been advancing thanks in part to US air support – yet is viewed by Turkey as a terrorist group due to the presence in their ranks of the Kurdish YPG, who have fraternal relations with the PKK, with whom the Turkish state has been at war for decades. For the Guardian, “the Turkish strikes… triggered alarm in Washington”, whilst a Reuters headline suggested that the “Kurdish advance in Syria divides US and Turkey”. “Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks calling on the US to choose between its ally Turkey and “the terrorists in Kobani,” wrote the Turkish newspaper Sunday’s Zaman “Ankara is now not on good terms with the US”.

The reality, however, is that Turkey appears to have had US approval every step of the way.

Take, for example, the official US reaction to the Turkish shelling. Statements by State Department spokesman John Kirby have generally been depicted as ‘admonishing’ Turkey for its actions. In fact, he called for “de-escalating tensions on all sides,” adding that “we have urged Syrian Kurdish and other forces affiliated with the YPG not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory.” In other words, he has repeated Turkey’s demands that northwest Syria be left under Al-Qaeda control. This hardly qualifies as a major dressing down.

Also hugely important to note is that right between the seizure of Menagh on Wednesday and the beginning of Turkish shelling on Saturday, NATO had 2 important meetings: one formal, one informal. On Thursday, buried deep in an announcement about NATO operations in the Aegean Sea, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg mentioned that NATO had also agreed “to intensify intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at the Turkish-Syrian border.”

That was the formal meeting. Later that day – that is just one day before the International Syria Support Group announced plans for a “cessation of hostilities” – the defense secretaries of the US, the UK, Turkey and the Gulf states met at NATO HQ to discuss the possibility of inserting ground troops into Syria and establishing a “no-fly zone” on the Syrian-Turkish border. Talking in advance of this meeting, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter appeared to relish such action, welcoming the prospect of “strong contributions” from the Gulf States, which he said would be a “good thing”. “There are lots of different ways that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain can contribute,” he noted, “one of them is on the ground – and we’ll definitely be discussing that – but there are lots of other ways as well.” Two days later, Turkey began shelling Syria.

Ostensibly, these were meetings of the ‘anti-ISIS’ coalition. But, as the Guardian innocently noted, “Given that the US and its allies have been in action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq since September 2014, it is remarkable that the meeting on Thursday afternoon is the first to be held by the defense ministers from the anti-ISIS coalition.” What has really prompted their sense of urgency has nothing to do with the ‘phony‘ war against ISIS, and everything to do with the growing military success of the Syrian government.

Rhetorical nonsense about the need to ‘combat ISIS’ notwithstanding, it is clear that Turkey and the West remain very much on the same page over Syria. There is indeed a red line for both, and that red line is the prospect of a Syrian government victory – which, following Russia’s decisive intervention now seems like a very real possibility. The major rebel supply line to Aleppo was cut off on February 3, meaning that both the recapture of Aleppo and the sealing of the Turkish-Syrian border now lie visibly within the government’s grasp. As Reuters has correctly noted, “That would amount to its most decisive victory of the war so far, and probably put an end to rebel hopes of removing Assad by force, their goal throughout years of fighting that has driven 11 million people from their homes.”

Such an outcome would have monumental consequences for the entire globe. It would mark the first decisive defeat for a Western-sponsored regime change operation since the end of the Cold War, perhaps since Vietnam. It would demonstrate that the new ‘4+1’ alliance (of Iran, Iraq, Russia, Syria and Hezbollah) are able to inflict defeat on Western-backed forces, rendering US sponsorship and protection all but worthless. It would provide states over the world with the military rationale (the economic rationale is already obvious) for aligning themselves with the BRICS rather than the US. And it would make sectarian death squads throughout the region, for long the ‘cheap power’ arm of US and British foreign policy, wary of ever again relying on Western backing. In short, it would mark an unprecedented and irreversible shift in power from West to East.

There is no way that the Western powers are going to allow this to happen lying down. And plans are rapidly being drawn up to avoid this. The aim is to ensure the Syrian-Turkish border stays open, to guarantee that the rebels supply lines are not jeopardized; this is the only way to avoid defeat in, not only, Aleppo, but in Syria as a whole. How to do this?

First, Turkey is filling the Syrian side of its border crossing with refugees to act as human shields. Last week, for the first time, President Erdogan closed the border to fleeing refugees, instead setting up camps inside Syria. These will provide the ‘collateral damage’ necessary to paint any Syrian government-Kurdish – Russian moves to take the territory and seal the border as a massacre and humanitarian emergency. Erdogan’s comments last week that the United Nations needed to step in to prevent “ethnic cleansing” are clearly part of the ideological groundwork to prepare for a ‘humanitarian intervention’ which, in reality, will serve to create a NATO-backed, Turkish and Saudi-enforced, occupation zone in northwest Syria designed to keep the border open, keep the death squads supplied with weapons and fighters, and, in short, keep the war going.

Far from angering Washington, Turkey’s actions put it right at the vanguard of US strategic designs. Make no mistake; the US is preparing to fight Russia – right down to the last Turk.

Dan Glazebrook is a freelance political writer who has written for RT, Counterpunch, Z magazine, the Morning Star, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Independent and Middle East Eye, amongst others. His first book “Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis” was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. It featured a collection of articles written from 2009 onwards examining the links between economic collapse, the rise of the BRICS, war on Libya and Syria and ‘austerity’. He is currently researching a book on US-British use of sectarian death squads against independent states and movements from Northern Ireland and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to the Middle East and Africa today.

February 20, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | al-Qaeda, ISIS, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United States | Leave a comment

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A view shows damage at the scene after an airstrike by U.S. warplanes against Islamic State in Sabratha, Libya, in this February 19, 2016 handout picture.
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