Recent protests held across North America and Europe staged by supporters of armed militants in Syria have staged scenes in Western streets eerily similar to those featured in the photos and videos of the US-European funded “Syrian Civil Defence” also known as the “White Helmets.”
This is not Aleppo, Syria, but rather the streets of Europe where a recent “save Aleppo” protest was staged. Actors posing in fake dust and blood proved just how easy it is for anyone to create “war victims” anytime, anywhere.
The stalling talks between international powers on Syria – with Russia ramping up its air raid campaign – has ignited worldwide protests calling for an end to the horror in Aleppo.
Protestors in Turkey, France, Netherlands, America and Canada took to the streets opposing Bashar al-Assad’s and Russia’s crimes in Aleppo, carrying posters that read “Stop bombing Aleppo” and “Save Aleppo”.
Al Arabiya’s ironic hand-wringing over Syria as Riyadh devastates Yemen with its own aerial bombardment and ground incursion, attempts to portray eastern Aleppo as a horrific cauldron where “where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped without food or clean water.”
And while undoubtedly war is raging in eastern Aleppo, it should be noted that the vast majority of Aleppo’s population – 1.75 million in fact – live in the government-controlled majority of Aleppo. But despite this reality, the West and its allies – including Saudi Arabia – have attempted to use their sway over international public opinion to exaggerate Syrian security operations and fabricate a “humanitarian catastrophe” to serve as yet another pretext for wider Western intervention.
Central to this appeal to public opinion has been the so-called “White Helmets,” also referred to as the “Syrian Civil Defence” despite the nation of Syria already having a legitimate, professional civil defense force.
Posing as an impartial rescue force, the “White Helmets” are transparently auxiliaries serving exclusively side-by-side armed militants including US State Department, UN, and EU designated foreign terrorist organizations. Their primary function is not “rescuing” anyone, but to manage a public relations campaign aimed at swaying public and political opinion, leveraging “humanitarian” sympathy worldwide.
Their primary means of doing this is publishing photos and videos of their members – wearing elaborate, matching uniforms and driving brand new ambulances – pulling dust and blood covered victims from rubble allegedly brought down upon them by Syrian and Russian airstrikes.
The veracity of their photos, videos, and many claims have never been independently verified, and in many cases, evidence suggests that much of what they present to the public across their extensive, well-funded social media presence has been fabricated.
The recent coordinated “save Aleppo” protests held across Europe and North America, perhaps revealed just how transparently fabricated and fictional the “White Helmet’s” work really is. During one protest, photos retweeted by the official “White Helmet’s” Twitter account showed actors dressed up as “war victims,” covered in fake dust and blood, appearing almost indistinguishable from the alleged “victims” the “White Helmets” regularly “save” in Syria.
The protest, staged in European streets far from the Syrian conflict, even included children – likewise covered in fake dust and blood – cradled in the arms of adults, posing with despondent looks upon their faces. Also part of the staged scene were actors dressed like the “White Helmets” themselves.
The only difference between admittedly staged scenes in European streets during a recent “save Aleppo” protest, and the daily output of the Western created and funded “White Helmets” acting troupe in Syria is that in Syria, the devastation of war provides a much more convincing “set” for the actors to perform on.
While the acting troupe that organized this protest may have thought they were cleverly “bringing the conflict to the streets of Europe” to invoke global sympathy for their cause, what they really proved was just how easy it really is for the “White Helmets” to create “war victims” anytime, anywhere.
In Syria, where years of US-backed violence has left many parts of the country devastated, such staged scenes playing out with the devastation of war as a backdrop become all the much more convincing. With “White Helmet” videos heavily edited before reaching the public, they are able to create tragic scenes of war, anytime, anywhere – even in the streets of Europe thousands of miles away from where Syrian and Russian warplanes are operating.
Their primary goal and that of the special interests funding them tens of millions of dollars, is to manipulate the hearts and minds of the global public in support of Western-backed armed militants – not “save lives” nor bring peace to Syria.
On 29 April, 2016, Syria Solidarity Movement member Vanesa Beeley placed the following petition on Change.org. On or about 27 September, Change.org removed the petition, citing “violation of community standards”. What community standards? Judge for yourself.
DO NOT GIVE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2016 TO THE SYRIAN WHITE HELMETS
To do so would prolong the suffering of the Syrian people and reward the White Helmets for being US and UK Government funded and trained agents of “regime change” in Syria.
The White Helmets have received over $ 40 million in funding from the US Government [USAID] and the UK Foreign Office despite their claims of being “fiercely independent and accepts no money from governments, corporations or anyone directly involved in the Syrian conflict”
The UK and US governments are involved in the illegal war against Syria and are intent upon “regime change” in Syria, therefore they are “directly involved in the conflict”.
The White Helmets claim to be “unarmed and neutral” while embedded in areas occupied solely by Al Nusra [Al Qaeda] and ISIS.
They are armed.
They have been photographed and filmed supporting Al Nusra/Al Qaeda who are foreign mercenaries massacring the Syrian people.
The White Helmets foment sectarianism in Syria, calling for the “burning of Kafarya and Foua”, Shia villages in the Idlib area besieged for 5 years by US NATO backed terrorist mercenaries, Ahrar al Sham and Al Nusra.
The White Helmets have assisted in Al Nusra/Al Qaeda executions of civilians in Aleppo [please see evidence in the video]
The White Helmets have been responsible for the majority of anti Syrian Army and Government propaganda, calling for the familiar “No Fly Zone” which, if it had succeeded, would have reduced Syria to the same failed state scenario as we have seen in Libya.
The White Helmets leader, Raed Saleh has just been deported from the US where White Helmet backers USAID [US Government] were about to present him with an award. The US State Department have stated possible connections to “extremist organisations” as the reason.
However the US State Department have made the extraordinary statement that although the White Helmet leader and chief spokesperson to UN and White House is linked with terrorism, the White Helmet Group is miraculously unaffected.
Please bear in mind that George Bush destroyed Iraq and Libya on the pretext of nothing more than their “connections to Al Qaeda”
The White Helmets are Al Qaeda “with a facelift”. They are terrorism and neocolonialism under the umbrella of Humanitarianism.
For the sake of Syria, please do NOT give the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Qaeda aka the Syrian White Helmets.
Washington’s quest for perpetual world power is underwritten by systematic and perpetual propaganda wars. Every major and minor war has been preceded, accompanied and followed by unremitting government propaganda designed to secure public approval, exploit victims, slander critics, dehumanize targeted adversaries and justify its allies’ collaboration.
In this paper we will discuss the most common recent techniques used to support ongoing imperial wars.
Propaganda Techniques of Empire
Role Reversal
A common technique, practiced by the imperial publicists, is to accuse the victims of the same crimes, which had been committed against them. The well documented, deliberate and sustained US-EU aerial bombardment of Syrian government soldiers, engaged in operations against ISIS-terrorist, resulted in the deaths and maiming of almost 200 Syrian troops and allowed ISIS-mercenaries to overrun their camp. In an attempt to deflect the Pentagon’s role in providing air cover for the very terrorists it claims to oppose, the propaganda organs cranked out lurid, but unsubstantiated, stories of an aerial attack on a UN humanitarian aid convoy, first blamed on the Syrian government and then on the Russians. The evidence that the attack was most likely a ground-based rocket attack by ISIS terrorists did not deter the propaganda mills. This technique would turn US and European attention away from the documented criminal attack by the imperial bombers and present the victimized Syrian troops and pilots as international human rights criminals.
Hysterical Rants
Faced with world opprobrium for its wanton violation of an international ceasefire agreement in Syria, the imperial public spokespeople frequently resort to irrational outbursts at international meetings in order to intimidate wavering allies into silence and shut down any chance for reasonable debate resolving concrete issues among adversaries.
The current ‘US Ranter-in-Chief’ in the United Nations, is Ambassador Samantha Power, who launched a vitriolic diatribe against the Russians in order to sabotage a proposed General Assembly debate on the US deliberate violation (its criminal attack on Syrian troops) of the recent Syrian ceasefire. Instead of a reasonable debate among serious diplomats, the rant served to derail the proceedings.
Identity Politics to Neutralize Anti-Imperialist Movements
Empire is commonly identified with the race, gender, religion and ethnicity of its practitioners. Imperial propagandists have frequently resorted to disarming and weakening anti-imperialist movements by co-opting and corrupting black, ethnic minority and women leaders and spokespeople. The use of such ‘symbolic’ tokens is based on the assumption that these are ‘representatives’ reflecting the true interests of so-called ‘marginalized minorities’ and can therefore presume to ‘speak for the oppressed peoples of the world’. The promotion of such compliant and respectable ‘minority members’ to the elite is then propagandized as a ‘revolutionary’, world liberating historical event – witness the ‘election’ of US President Barack Obama.
The rise of Obama to the presidency in 2008 illustrates how the imperial propagandists have used identity politics to undermine class and anti-imperialist struggles.
Under Obama’s historical black presidency, the US pursued seven wars against ‘people of color’ in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Over a million men and women of sub-Saharan black origin, whether Libyan citizens or contract workers for neighboring countries, were killed, dispossessed and driven into exile by US allies after the US-EU destroyed the Libyan state — in the name of humanitarian intervention. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs have been bombed in Yemen, Syria and Iraq under President Obama, the so-called ‘historic black’ president. Obama’s ‘predator drones’ have killed hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani villagers. Such is the power of ‘identity politics’ that ignominious Obama was awarded the ‘Nobel Peace Prize’.
Meanwhile, in the United States under Obama, racial inequalities between black and white workers (wages, unemployment, access to housing, health and educational services) have widened. Police violence against blacks intensified with total impunity for ‘killer cops’. Over two million immigrant Latino workers have been expelled – breaking up hundreds of thousands of families — and accompanied by a marked increase of repression compared to earlier administrations. Millions of black and white workers’ home mortgages were foreclosed while all of the corrupt banks were bailed out – at a greater rate than had occurred under white presidents.
This blatant, cynical manipulation of identity politics facilitated the continuation and deepening of imperial wars, class exploitation and racial exclusion. Symbolic representation undermined class struggles for genuine changes.
Past Suffering to Justify Contemporary Exploitation
Imperial propagandists repeatedly evoke the victims and abuses of the past in order to justify their own aggressive imperial interventions and support for the ‘land grabs’ and ethnic cleansing committed by their colonial allies – like Israel, among others. The victims and crimes of the past are presented as a perpetual presence to justify ongoing brutalities against contemporary subject people.
The case of US-Israeli colonization of Palestine clearly illustrates how rabid criminality, pillage, ethnic cleansing and self-enrichment can be justified and glorified through the language of past victimization. Propagandists in the US and Israel have created ‘the cult of the Holocaust’, worshiping a near century-old Nazi crime against Jews (as well as captive Slavs, Roma and other minorities) in Europe, to justify the bloody conquest and theft of Arab lands and sovereignty and engage in systematic military assaults against Lebanon and Syria. Millions of Muslim and Christian Palestinians have been driven into perpetual exile. Elite, wealthy, well-organized and influential Zionist Jews, with primary fealty to Israel, have successfully sabotaged every contemporary struggle for peace in the Middle East and have created real barriers for social democracy in the US through their promotion of militarism and empire building. Those claiming to represent victims of the past have become among the most oppressive of contemporary elites. Using the language of ‘defense’, they promote aggressive forms of expansion and pillage. They claim their monopoly on historic ‘suffering’ has given them a ‘special dispensation’ from the rules of civilized conduct: their cult of the Holocaust allows them to inflict immense pain on others while silencing any criticism with the accusation of ‘anti-Semitism’ and relentlessly punishing critics. Their key role in imperial propaganda warfare is based on their claims of an exclusive franchise on suffering and immunity from the norms of justice.
Entertainment Spectacles on Military Platforms
Entertainment spectacles glorify militarism. Imperial propagandists link the public to unpopular wars promoted by otherwise discredited leaders. Sports events present soldiers dressed up as war heroes with deafening, emotional displays of ‘flag worship’ to celebrate the ongoing overseas wars of aggression. These mind-numbing extravaganzas with crude elements of religiosity demand choreographed expressions of national allegiance from the spectators as a cover for continued war crimes abroad and the destruction of citizens’ economic rights at home.
Much admired, multi-millionaire musicians and entertainers of all races and orientations, present war to the masses with a humanitarian facade. The entertainers smiling faces serve genocide just as powerfully as the President’s benign and friendly face accompanies his embrace of militarism. The propagandist message for the spectator is that ‘your favorite team or singer is there just for you… because our noble wars and valiant warriors have made you free and now they want you to be entertained.’
The old style of blatant bellicose appeals to the public is obsolete: the new propaganda conflates entertainment with militarism, allowing the ruling elite to secure tacit support for its wars without disturbing the spectators’ experience.
Conclusion
Do the Imperial Techniques of Propaganda Work?
How effective are the modern imperial propaganda techniques? The results seem to be mixed. In recent months, elite black athletes have begun protesting white racism by challenging the requirement for choreographed displays of flag worship… opening public controversy into the larger issues of police brutality and sustained marginalization. Identity politics, which led to the election of Obama, may be giving way to issues of class struggle, racial justice, anti-militarism and the impact of continued imperial wars. Hysterical rants may still secure international attention, but repeated performances begin to lose their impact and subject the ‘ranter’ to ridicule.
The cult of victimology has become less a rationale for the multi-billion dollar US-tribute to Israel, than the overwhelming political and economic influence and thuggery of billionaire Zionist fundraisers who demand US politicians’ support for the state of Israel.
Brandishing identify politics may have worked the first few times, but inevitably black, Latino, immigrant and all exploited workers, all underpaid and overworked women and mothers reject the empty symbolic gestures and demand substantive socio-economic changes – and here they find common links with the majority of exploited white workers.
In other words, the existing propaganda techniques are losing their edge – the corporate media news is seen as a sham. Who follows the actor-soldiers and flag-worshipers once the game has begun?
The propagandists of empire are desperate for a new line to grab public attention and obedience. Could the recent domestic terror bombings in New York and New Jersey provoke mass hysteria and more militarization? Could they serve as cover for more wars abroad …?
A recent survey, published in Military Times, reported that the vast majority of active US soldiers oppose more imperial wars. They are calling for defense at home and social justice. Soldiers and veterans have even formed groups to support the protesting black athletes who have refused to participate in flag worship while unarmed black men are being killed by police in the streets. Despite the multi-billion dollar electoral propaganda, over sixty percent of the electorate reject both major party candidates. The reality principle has finally started to undermine State propaganda!
US and EU sanctions against Syria are punishing the population and make aid work in the war-torn country almost impossible, a leaked UN report and internal letters have revealed.
The restrictive measures contributed to the destabilization of every sector of the economy in Syria that used to be self-sufficient before the war began in 2011.
The country now heavily depends on aid, which is hard to deliver as sanctions make medicine, food, fuel, spare parts and other essentials unreachable, a 40-page UN report, cited by The Intercept, stressed.
The paper entitled ‘Humanitarian Impact of Syria-Related Unilateral Restrictive Measures’ was published in mid-May, but The Intercept got hold of it now, adding other materials on the issue.
The report blasted US and EU restrictions as “some of the most complicated and far-reaching sanctions regimes ever imposed.”
According to the UN, the sanctions introduced by Washington are extremely harsh regarding provision of humanitarian aid. The American restrictions made money transfers into Syria almost impossible, preventing aid groups from paying salaries and purchasing supplies “in both government and besieged areas,” the report said. It stimulated the creation of a shady, unofficial network of money exchange, which is actively being used by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists.
The trade restrictions ban the export to Syria of all goods, containing at least 10 percent of US-made content. This puts the aid groups in a difficult situation as, in order to transfer specific items, they are forced to apply for a special license, which is very hard to obtain due to bureaucratic barriers, according to the report.
An internal UN email, also obtained by The Intercept, blamed the US and EU restrictions for food shortages in the country.
Wheat production has dropped 40 percent in the country since 2010, raising the price of wheat flour by 300 percent and rice – by 650 percent. An August letter from “a key UN official” also said that the restrictions were a “principal factor” in the crippling of the Syrian health care.
The medication factories, which weren’t destroyed during the hostilities, still had to close due to absence of raw materials and foreign currency caused by the sanction, the official wrote.
The Intercept contacted the US State Department on the issue, which refused to acknowledge any of the claims or that the sanctions are hurting civilians in Syria.
“US sanctions against [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, his backers, and the regime deprive these actors of resources that could be used to further the bloody campaign Assad continues to wage against his own people,” the State Department said in emailed response.
“The true responsibility for the dire humanitarian situation lies squarely with Assad, who has repeatedly denied access and attacked aid workers. He has the ability to relieve this suffering at any time, should he meet his commitment to provide full, sustained access for delivery of humanitarian assistance in areas that the U.N. has determined need it,” the email added.
Sanctions have been gradually introduced against Syria since 1979 when Washington labeled the country sponsor of terrorism. But the harshest restrictions came in 2011 when the uprising and military conflict in the country started.
Are anarchists carrying water for Uncle Sam? SubMedia, a website that publishes “anarchist news and resistance updates” in video form, is now featuring a 5 minute video, “What Is Mutual Aid?” Toward the end of the video the narrator tells us that “glimpses of the anarchist ideal of mutual aid can be seen in . . . the bravery of the White Helmets of Aleppo who risk their lives to pull children from the collapsed ruins of buildings hit by Assad’s barrel bombs.” Really? This is hard to square with reporting from journalists like Vanessa Beeley, who has researched the White Helmets on the ground in Syria, and found that most people there have never heard of them, that they are a creation of western propaganda.
Vanessa Beeley reports that “with over $60 million in their back pocket courtesy of USAID, the UK Foreign Office and various EU nations like the Netherlands, this group is possibly one of the most feted and funded entities within the west’s anti-Syrian NGO complex, a pivotal part of the clandestine shadow state building enterprise inside of Syria. Like many other ‘NGOs’, the White Helmets have been deployed by the west to derail the Syrian state, first by undermining existing civic structures and by disseminating staged PR to facilitate regime change propaganda, through western and Gulf state media outlets.”
Felicity Artbuthnot in another recent article quotes the Ron Paul Institute as saying: ”We have demonstrated that the White Helmets are an integral part of the propaganda vanguard that ensures obscurantism of fact and propagation of Human Rights fiction that elicits the well-intentioned and self righteous response from a very cleverly duped public. A priority for these NGOs is to keep pushing the No Fly Zone scenario which has already been seen to have disastrous implications for innocent civilians in Libya, for example.”
SubMedia has not responded to a query as to whether it was simply mistaken in promoting the White Helmets, nor has it edited the video. As things now stand, it appears SubMedia is part of an effort to promote these poseurs as humanitarians, coincidentally in sync with that much larger other video outlet, Netflix, who has just rolled out an exclusive documentary promoting the White Helmets as heroes. According to Rick Sterling, the group Code Pink actually put out a press release promoting the Netflix movie.
Where there are PR campaigns, there are suddenly awards. According to Sterling,
“on 22 September 2016 it was announced that the Right Livelihood Award, the so called ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, is being given to the US/UK created White Helmets ‘for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war.’ Sterling continues: “
The Right Livelihood organizers may come to regret their selection of the White Helmets because the group is not who they claim to be. In fact, the White Helmets are largely a propaganda tool promoting western intervention against Syria. Unlike a legitimate rescue organization such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent, the ‘White Helmets’ only work in areas controlled by the armed opposition.”
One must beware of radicals sneaking a bit of poison into an otherwise good message. The famous anarchist Noam Chomsky decried the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, but agreed with the major premise of that attack, which was that Slobodan Milosevic was a brutal dictator who had to be stopped. This went a long way to defusing an antiwar effort leading up to the NATO bombing campaign. Likewise, SubMedia has lots of good information on anarchist principles, but inserts talking points straight out of the US State Department, like the one about “Assad’s barrel bombs.” We are led down a moral road, only to be confused.
In another SubMedia video, “Requiem for Syria“, an anonymous narrator called “Stimulator” would have us believe that an anarchist revolution is struggling to be born in Syria, on a par with that in 1930′s Spain, and that Bashar al-Assad is responsible for destroying that revolution. According to Stimulator, “leftists believe that Assad has been targeted for regime change by the United Snakes and its allies and that Syria is being protected by staunchly anti-imperialist homies, Russia and Iran. But putting aside the fact that Russia and Iran are both gangsta imperialist states in their own right who oppress the fuck out of their own citizens, there’s an even more obvious flaw in this logic — the fact that the United States isn’t trying to overthrow Assad at all. The real threat to Assad’s fascist fucking regime has come from Syrians themselves, who, after growing sick and motherfucking tired of having their peaceful protests bombed and machine-gunned, launched a popular fucking uprising, and it’s racist as fuck to ignore that.”
Hidden amid the hip language is another US State Department talking point — that the war in Syria was started by Assad attacking his own people. SubMedia is attempting to deny the fact that Israel, the US, Saudi Arabia, and NATO are indeed seeking regime change and have demonized Assad in order to bring that about. Stimulator is in perfect agreement with the main premise of the aggressors: Assad is a brutal dictator, killing legitimate protestors trying to free themselves from his oppression. According to Stimulator, “there’s only one person who can end this civil war in Syria – I’m talking about Syria’s greasy, sunken-eyed, goose-necked dictator himself, Bashar al-Assad.” We are led to believe that one man is the sole cause of this country’s problems. We heard the same with Milosevic, Saddam, and Gaddafi.
Stimulator goes on to interview Robin Yassin-Kassab, British author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, who agrees with Stimulator that the left has been duped into believing “that this is a regime change plot directed by the United States against the glorious resistance regime in Syria, and the facts don’t bear that out at all.” The people of Syria are in revolt, he claims, and Assad is trying to put down the revolt. Yassin-Kassab asserts, without evidence, that “women have been subjected to a mass rape campaign which the regime organized.” This was a propaganda talking point in the attack on Libya, and, for that matter, Yugoslavia.
People living outside Syria lack first-hand knowledge, but a number of sources in Syria have said that Assad actually has the support of the majority of the people there. Lily Martin writes that
“as an eye witness to the entire war in Syria, from March 2011 to present, I can state this was no revolution. I am an American citizen living permanently in Syria, which is my husband’s birthplace. I have been here 24 years. A real revolution would have the support of the people, inside Syria, not Syrians living in Paris and London for the past 40 years. To have a real grassroots uprising, you need the support of the people living inside Syria, who would share your views. If it had been a real uprising/revolution, the whole process could have taken 3-6 months, because the Army would have followed the will of the people, given the fact the Syrian Army is made up of Syrians of all ethnic and religious sects. The Syrian Army is a true representative of the Syrian population. If the population wanted the goals stated by the ‘protesters’, which was to establish Islamic law in Syria, and to abolish the current secular government, the Army would have eventually followed along, expressing the will of the people.”
Lily Martin and Vanessa Beeley are, finally, more credible than the anonymous figures at SubMedia. SubMedia is also, like Chomsky, silent about Israeli and US government partnership in the September 11, 2001 attacks, when such perceptive radicals as these should certainly know better. It is not above the practitioners of deception to create an opposition that says a lot of the right things, but does the essential dirty work. Indeed, this is an important part of their trade. The avalanche of lies provided in the mainstream media can be organized by run-of-the-mill propagandists. The real propagandists are the ones who cultivate people who actually look like they’re on our side.
If there ever was a revolution in Syria, it was quickly overwhelmed by Zionist manipulation of the United States into destroying yet another country on the list of nations that threaten Israel, and, for good measure, getting the US and Russia to destroy each other so that Israel will emerge as the world’s new superpower, presiding over the ashes. Such is the insanity of current world events.
Going from bad to even worse: The very strident and harsh rhetoric coming out of Washington and directed towards Russia is unprecedented. Bilateral relations have reached a dangerous low. What happens now?
CrossTalking with Gilbert Doctorow, Brian Becker, and Daniel McAdams.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford warned Congress that the implementation of a No Fly Zone, a centerpiece of Hillary’s foreign policy strategy, would result in World War III.
During testimony before the Senate Committee on Armed Services last week General Joseph Dunford rang the alarm over a policy shift that is gaining more traction within the halls of Washington following the collapse of the ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia in Syria saying that it could result in a major international war which he was not prepared to advocate on behalf of.
Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) asked about Hillary Clinton’s proposal for a no fly zone in Syria in response to allegations that Russia and Syria have intensified their aerial bombardment of rebel-held East Aleppo since the collapse of the ceasefire.
“What about the option of controlling the airspace so that barrel bombs cannot be dropped? What do you think of that option?” asked Wicker.
“Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia. That is a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggesting the policy was too hawkish even for military leaders.
Despite the ramifications of the policy, Hillary Clinton has argued in favor of a no fly zone throughout her presidency starting in October 2015 just days after Russia began a bombing campaign aimed at maintaining the stability of the Syrian government.
“I personally would be advocating now for a no fly zone and humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air, to try to provide some way to take stock of what’s happening, to try to stem the flow of refugees,” said Clinton in an interview with NBC’s Boston affiliate at the time.
The former Secretary of State, who has a well-known hawkish position towards regime change and matters related to Russia, has continued to advocate this position which has gained traction in recent weeks among top US diplomats.
More than 50 US diplomats demanded in June, in a notorious dissent memo, that the Obama administration employ military options against Assad, such as the implementation of a no fly zone if not a direct attack against the Syrian regime.
The argument from the diplomats is that the situation in Syria will continue to devolve without direct action by the US military, an argument of dubious legality if undertaken unilaterally without a UN Security Council resolution but which the US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has been laying the groundwork for under the controversial “right to protect” theory of international law arguing that Russia’s opposition to a resolution should be ignored because they are a party to the conflict.
Russia counters that if the Assad regime falls then terrorist groups including Daesh (or ISIS) and al-Nusra Front (the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda) will likely fill the resulting power vacuum descending the country into an even greater harbor for international terrorism.
Another day; another terrorist attack: it seems that every day I wake up at the minute there is a new terrorist attack that has shook the European continent, with France being the scene of frequent attacks over the past 19 months. The most recent attack in France (at the time of writing anyway) was on a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, reportedly carried out by two so-called Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists.
One of the assailants is believed to be Adel Kermiche, an individual who was well known to the French authorities. Kermiche was being monitored by police and was wearing an electronic tag at the time of attack, after being arrested twice last year trying to reach Syria to fight for ISIS. The second attacker is reported to be 19-year-old Abdel Malik Petitjean, an individual who was also known to French authorities and was on a terror watch list after trying to enter Syria via Turkey in June.
This came shortly after the Nice attack on the 14th of July, when a truck was driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing 84 people and injuring over 300. The attack was reportedly carried out by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian-born delivery driver who was living in France, with ISIS claiming responsibility for the attack. Similar to many other purported terrorist attackers, Bouhlel was shot dead by police before any questions could be asked. Multiple other individuals have also been arrested in relation to the incident.
More to the Official Story?
With the frequency of terror attacks in Europe, there is often a temptation by many who claim to be in the independent media not to ask logical questions and challenge the official narrative in relation to these incidents. There are multiple suspicious elements regarding the official narrative of the Nice attack, which deserve to be highlighted for those interested in uncovering the truth.
As Paul Craig Roberts has reported, the French anti-terrorist police have ordered the authorities in Nice to delete the CCTV footage which recorded the attack. This of course raises some serious questions about what the anti-terrorist police are trying to cover up, and why they are pressuring the authorities to memory-hole such crucial evidence. Roberts has also raised questions regarding the lack of blood in many of the photos of the supposed attack.
Secondly, the officer in charge of Nice’s CCTV control room at the time of the incident, Sandra Bertin, recently revealed that she was “harassed” by an official from the Interior Ministry to alter her report on the attack by adding in the presence of local and national police at the scene. According to Bertin, the official “ordered” her “to put in (the report) the specific positions of the national police” that she “had not seen on the screen.” Did the police have prior knowledge of the attack? Is that why they weren’t at the scene?
Thirdly, the cousin of Bouhlel’s ex-wife has revealed that the reported attacker drank alcohol, ate pork, took drugs and didn’t pray – all strange things for a supposed Muslim extremist to do. Bouhlel also suffered from depression and has had a history of mental health problems. If Bouhlel doesn’t sound like a patsy to you, I don’t know who does.
The fourth suspicious element of the attack was the timing. France has been in a state of emergency since the Paris attacks of November, 2015, with armed troops patrolling the streets. On the 21st of July, French lawmakers voted to extend the state of emergency until the end of January, 2017 – with the emergency powers including giving the authorities the ability to conduct searches without a court authorization, in addition to increasing digital surveillance of phones and computers.
Interestingly, the French President, François Hollande, had planned to lift the state of emergency on the 26th of July. With the Nice attack on the 14th however, the government had no problems passing the extension, with the recent attack on the church ensuring there would be no questions raised on the excessive powers given to the government.
Supporting Terror Externally; Produces Terror Internally
France has played a pivotal role in the destabilization of Syria, through their support for the Syrian rebels who are comprised of extremists and terrorists. Hollande admitted that France delivered weapons – including cannons, machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles – to the opposition in 2012. France has also been funding the rebels in Syria, delivering vast amounts of cash that is then used to buy weapons and ammunition.
Hollande has been a vocal proponent of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, stating as recently as September of last year that “Assad is the origin of this problem, and cannot be part of the solution.” Imagine if Assad had been overthrown at the end of 2015, Syria would be completely handed over to ISIS and other similar terrorist forces, exacerbating the threat for terrorism and the refugee problem even more.
If France (and the wider West) had not pumped arms and money into the Syrian opposition, there is no chance that ISIS would be at the level it is (supposedly) at today. The wave of terror that has hit Europe is a direct result of Western foreign policy, with the 19 months of terror in France starting with an attack carried out by terrorists who had just returned from fighting in Syria. That is even if we accept the official story on Charlie Hebdo, considering the fact that one of the police commissioners involved in investigating the attacks suspiciously committed suicide shortly before his report was going to be released on the incident.
Suicidal Policies of the French State
France’s involvement in funding and arming terrorists in Syria is particularly suicidal for the country, considering the fact that France has a large Muslim population, high rates of unemployment in predominately Muslim areas, increasing levels of discrimination against Muslims, in addition to hardly having a shortage of people with a deep hatred of France’s colonial past. Even if we accept (for a moment) the official story of all the terror attacks on French soil in the last 19 months, the government has created the perfect climate for young, disenfranchised men to be radicalized by a group that France helped to empower in the first place.
With the emergency powers extended into 2017, France could very possibly be in a state of emergency up until the presidential election in April and May of 2017. Is there a chance that the election could be delayed if (or when) more terror attacks take place in the country? Will the spate of terror attacks increase the chances that Marine Le Pen will win the election? Is France really on the brink of civil war? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: any semblance of liberté is increasingly becoming impossible to find in France.
It is hard to imagine a more resilient, more heroic nation than Syria!
With only 17 million inhabitants (according to the 2014 estimate), Syria is now facing the mightiest coalition on Earth – a coalition that consists of virtually all traditional Western colonialist and neo-colonialist nations.
It is also facing some of the cruelest and deadliest inventions of the West – the extremist and murderous post- and pseudo-Islamic groupings, similar to those that were already unleashed against the Soviet Union during the war in Afghanistan.
Because of the tremendous determination of its people, Syria is still standing! But it is standing against all odds. Its Golan Heights are illegally occupied by Israel, its borders constantly violated by the Turkish military, and by the West’s ‘special forces’ and air force.
Syria’s “political opposition” was created, then groomed and financed by the United States and Europe, in the style of “Color Revolutions”, as has happened in all other socialist countries that the West has been trying to destabilize and return under its deadly rule. Millions of Syrian people have been, during the last six deadly years, terrorized, slaughtered and intimidated by jihadi cadres, implanted by the West and its regional allies: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Israel and others.
It is a terrible and uneven fight! Some of the greatest historical cities on Earth, like Aleppo and Palmira, now lie in ruins and ashes. What the European Christian crusaders failed to fully destroy, is now collapsing under the imperialist onslaught. Like everywhere else on Earth, everything that dares to struggle against Western colonialism is being consistently devastated and burned. Almost everyone who resists is mercilessly slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian people have already lost their lives. And with each new day, the awful count is rising.
But Syria is standing!
5 million Syrian people have already been forced to leave their country. Now they are being scattered all over the Middle East: throughout Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Turkey. Some have even gone as far as Europe, Canada and Chile.
How much more can one country endure?
And how can the rest of the world just stand by and watch as it is put through hell?
The answer is obvious: the rest of the world does not know; it does not understand! The propaganda coming out of the Western mass media outlets and indoctrination-spreading institutions is so thorough, so professional, that to most people all over the world everything related to Syria appears to be blurry, murky, and incredibly complex. President al-Assad is demonized on a daily basis. Heroic resistance is called the “regime’s brutal actions”, pro-western terror groups are described as “moderate opposition.”
In reality, Syria is suffering because it is refusing to kneel; because it is unwilling to prostitute itself; because it will never beg its torturers to stop, allowing them to grab everything above and under the surface.
The Empire never forgives disobedience. Its fundamentalist terror methods are the most brutal ever invented and implemented on Earth.
All around Syria, countries already lie in ashes. The Middle East hardly exists, anymore. And most of the Syrian people understand: it is perhaps better to die standing, than to live in shackles, on one’s knees, controlled by the kleptomaniacal Western colonialist states!
*
The more terrible the terror that the West is spreading worldwide in general and in this part of the world in particular, the more vicious its vitriolic propaganda is, the brainwashing indoctrination that flows incessantly from London, New York and Paris.
If one watches the BBC, there is no hint of objectivity left, anymore. The ranks are closed and the West is united in its final drive to discredit absolutely everything that is still fighting for survival, against its global terrorist exploits.
President al-Assad of Syria, the heroic Syrian army and the closest Syria’s allies – Russia and Iran – are being relentlessly demonized, as if it were them who began that monstrous war! And Hezbollah, which is fighting countless epic battles against the ISIS, sits firmly on the West’s terrorist list.
Everything seems to be twisted and perverted, upside down.
But what really should one expect from the expansionist hordes, from the bastions of imperialism? Or has the British (or French) propaganda been any different, when their colonialist countries have for centuries been grabbing and devastating countless foreign states and territories, slaughtering hundreds of millions of innocent people? Wasn’t anyone who resisted Western conquest always thoroughly ridiculed and demonized?
Countries like UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal and others, have centuries of experience in how to humiliate victims, how to justify their own heinous acts, how to brainwash their own populations and even some of their victims! And the United States, the direct product of Europe, its muscular offspring, is just using the same, only a bit more vulgar, propaganda tactics.
Nothing rational and objective can be expected from the people of Europe or North America, anymore. Except for a few of those insignificant protests and rebellious acts, the Western population is in a total slumber, indifferent towards the horrors that are being administered by its regime all over the globe. There is hardly any pressure to stop acts of terror against Syria. The only thing that seems to matter to Europeans is how to stop the flow of refugees from the devastated countries.
What a shame! What a thorough shame, people of Europe and North America! Your regime is murdering millions, in one country after another, and you are not even capable of recognizing what goes on… instead you are blaming the victims and those rushing to their rescue!
Now your biggest enemy is Russia. Because Russia (same as China) is clearly unwilling to dance to your fatal tune! Because Russia, for many decades, stood by almost all oppressed countries, and supported the de-colonization of the world, in all of its corners. Like China, Cuba and North Korea have always done.
Russia is now defending Syria. Not because it needs natural resources, not because it wants to plunder. It is doing so simply because it is right thing to do. It does it because if the world is abandoned fully to Western imperialism, there will actually soon be no world at all, or at least there will be no world worth inhabiting!
*
“Our country is a socialist country. For us it’s more important to consider the benefits to the entire nation than to particular individuals. I have spent more than 50 years dedicating my life to education, which is the backbone of our country, especially now… Sometimes I feel like quitting my job and returning to teaching at Damascus University, but I know that I am still needed where I am now,” I was told by Dr. Farah Motlak, Deputy Minister of Education of the Syrian Arab Republic.
We met in Cairo, Egypt, at a regional conference. I asked him about the Western propaganda against his country. He replied, shaking his head:
“I am not even angry… I am just endlessly sad. The media attacks; the propaganda that is pouring from the West is clearly designed to destroy our country. But we have hope, and we will continue our struggle.”
The international meetings and conferences clearly show how divided even the Arab world is itself. Syria is a symbol. To some, it is a symbol of resilience, of heroism. To others, mainly to those who are funded and consequently conditioned by the West, it represents everything that is evil.
*
But Egypt itself (where I’m writing this essay), just three years after the pro-Western military coup, is in ruins. Economically it has become a basket case. It is completely devastated, socially.
Of course its destruction is on a “lighter scale”, compared to Iraq, Libya or Yemen. But it is still bad enough: during the coup in 2013, at least 1,000 but most likely 2,000 people were murdered by the junta, while tens of thousands were injured. An estimated 10,000 people are now in prisons all over the country; most of them in terrible conditions; many are being tortured, women prisoners are habitually raped.
“The counter revolution has triumphed,” explained Dr. Mohammed Shafik, a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Movement. “All opposition parties and organizations have been squashed. Thousands of revolutionaries have been imprisoned; hundreds executed by court orders or liquidated by the police… Neoliberalism is taking hold… people are suffering.”
But Western propaganda shows no appetite for criticizing the Egyptian military junta. It is, after all, essentially pro-Western; it is capitalist and to a great extent it is submissive to the Empire and to its allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
As with almost all ‘client’ states of the West, Egypt will never be able to truly improve the lives of the majority of its citizens. The country is already stuck deeply and has been, for decades, in a perpetual social slumber. Those benefiting from the situation are the Western powers and their regional allies, as well as the servile Egyptian elites and the grotesquely colossal, omnipotent military.
If Syria were to surrender, the Egyptian scenario would be ‘the best’ it could hope for. But most likely, it would meet the terrible fate of Iraq or Libya.
*
62 Syrian soldiers were reported killed in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike on the Syrian military base Deir el-Zour, on September 17, in Eastern Syria.
The planes destroyed the base housing soldiers that were involved in a battle with ISIS. Almost immediately, the ISIS took over the hill and the area, in what appeared to be a clearly coordinated operation between the West and the “Islamic State”, against the Syrian government forces.
A few days later, a humanitarian convoy was hit near the city of Aleppo. Without presenting any evidence, the West immediately pointed a finger at the Syrian government and Russia. But the Russian Ministry of Defense released images of a US predator drone operating in the area during the attack, and called for a thorough investigation.
The war goes on. The suffering of Syrian people continues.
There is one simple point that is being constantly overlooked by the West:
The legitimate government of Syria invited Russia, its close ally. It asked Moscow for help, to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups implanted by the West and its allies.
Nobody invited the West!
Or perhaps those groups that the West itself created and supported inside Syria invited it?
Both Syrian government forces and Russia are fighting brutal foreign invaders who are attempting to destroy one of the oldest nations on Earth and take control over the entire Middle East.
Syria is at the frontline of the battle against Western imperialism. And so is Russia. And also Iran, while China is joining!
The sacrifice made by the Syrian people is tremendous. But against all odds, the deadly advance of the imperialists may be stopped here, after all.
As I wrote earlier, the price may be terrible. Aleppo is turning into the Middle-Eastern Stalingrad. But the heroic Syrian nation has made its choice: it will fight brutal and barbaric invaders, as it fought the crusaders under the leadership of great Sultan Saladin.
The alternative would be slavery, something unacceptable for the Syrian people!
Russia has warned that any “direct aggression” by the US against the Syrian government or army would lead to “frightening, tectonic shifts” in the Middle East.
The warning by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Saturday came after US officials said Washington had begun considering tougher responses to an ongoing Syrian assault on Aleppo, including military options.
Russia has been supporting the Syrian government in its push to take back Aleppo from Takfiri terrorists.
The US is backing what it calls “moderate” militants fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad besides carrying out airstrikes against what it calls Daesh targets.
However, with Syrian advances on Aleppo gaining momentum, US officials have hinted at direct attacks on Syrian troops.
US aircraft recently bombed Syrian army positions in Dayr al-Zawr, killing 83 soldiers. The airstrike, which helped Daesh briefly overrun government positions in the area, was characterized by Washington as unintentional but Syria rejected the allegation.
“How could they (Daesh) know that the Americans are going to attack that position in order to gather their militants to attack right away and to capture it one hour after the strike?” Assad asked during an interview with the Associated Press.
Last week, the Middle East Eye news portal cited a source close to militants as saying that the US was resolved to prevent the fall of Aleppo.
The US State Department has warned it was considering the suspension of “bilateral engagement” in Syria unless Russia took “immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo.”
A US-Russian brokered ceasefire recently fell apart after the American airstrike on Syrian troops.
An ambassador is a … gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.
— Attributed to Sir Henry Wotton, 1568-1639
When Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (“We the people of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war …”) rose to speak at the UN to address Syria’s ongoing tragedy, on Sunday September 25th, US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, François Delattre, Permanent Representative for France and British Permanent Representative, Matthew Rycroft, metaphorically threw their toys out of the pram and walked out. Anything more infantile and further away from the UN’s founding aspirations would be hard to find.
They would have done well to hear Mr Churkin’s full address. It lays out home truths and the reality of international State sponsored terrorism – resulting in Syria’s living nightmare – in succinct detail. He began:
It is the sixth year that the Syrian people have been suffering a grave tragedy. In 2011, Washington and some other Western capitals decided to continue the reshaping of the geopolitical space of the Middle East and North Africa, which started with the US and UK criminal invasion in Iraq in 2003. Besides, both in Libya and Syria they continued to ‘use an axe’ without any disdain for the support of terrorist groups … consequences of countries’ break-ups and flows of millions of refugees were qualified as an unforeseen ‘irritant’.
Samantha Power, however, has never seemingly found a conflict she would not embrace (safely, from afar, of course.) The Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria, “liberation” by annihilation seemingly ever her preferred option. The UN welcomes some unlikely Representatives to uphold its founding aspirations.
“What Russia is sponsoring and doing in Aleppo is not counter terrorism, it is barbarism”, railed Ms Power. Clearly she has forgotten the US led, multi-country barbarisms above and further that Russia has been invited to work with Syria to attempt to resolve the country’s terrorist crisis. The US and their “allies” – in the air and on the ground – are illegals, in contravention of a swathe of international law.
She appears to also have forgotten the numerous substantiations of the US (and allies) funding and arming the head chopping, organ eating, child murdering and other illegal immigrants from over one hundred foreign countries, according to varying analysts. Another irony is America appointing itself the “world’s policeman” – as the world is seeing what its policemen are doing at home.
Also dropped through Ms Powell and her fellow UN absconders memory hole seems to be General Wesley Clark’s near immediate post 9/11 revelation from a Pentagon colleague that:
… we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” Moreover, not to be forgotten is that the plans for Syria’s destruction were plotted in detail from within the then US Embassy in Damascus.
Interesting is also the UK walkout Representative’s background, recalling that the UK is ever a willing killer-in-arms with the US. Matthew Rycroft has trailed around varying war zones or war enablers in a “diplomatic” capacity since graduation from Oxford University in 1989.
An early placement was at the NATO desk in the British government’s bailiwick, Whitehall. After various Foreign Office placements he joined the British Embassy in Washington in 1998, from where he was seconded to both the US State Department and US Congress. On returning to the UK he became, in February 2002, Private Secretary Foreign Affairs, to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, according to his evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry on Iraq.
February 2002 was, of course, the time the planning in the Foreign Office was concentrating on Tony Blair’s now infamous meeting with George W. Bush in Crawford Texas in the coming April. Rycroft denied having any involvement in those plans; however, he had integral involvement in the infamous Downing Street memo of July 23rd, 2002.
The memo related to the plans to overthrow Saddam Hussein, discussed at a meeting held by Tony Blair at which Rycroft was one of the attendees. His memo began:
“SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL – UK EYES ONLY
“DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER’S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest (Joint Intelligence Committee) assessment. Saddam’s regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action …
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. (Emphasis added.)
In the memo’s “Conclusions” Rycroft’s first is:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action …
The rest is Nuremberg’s “supreme international crime …” and bloody, genocidal history. Ongoing.
Rycroft has now turned his attentions to Syria. On walk-out day, September 25th, in a speech to the UN which includes too many inaccurate and misleading statements (many might say mistruths) to address here, he includes:
… the death and destruction that the sectarian Assad regime has unleashed upon them. Nor will they forget that Russia aided and abetted this ruthless sectarian dictator in waging war against his own people.
Goodness, word for word out of the US-UK Saddam Hussein hand book – “waging a war against his own people”, “sectarian dictator.” As Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Syria is secular and the government is fighting a war to rid the country of the terrorists who flooded in as a result of the fruition of the US plans formulated in 2006.
Rycroft also alleged the use by the government of chlorine bombs – he had clearly not read, or chosen to ignore the various reports, including by the UN, categorically disproving this.
Iraq had the US inspired “Iraq Liberation Act” of 1998 held over the nation’s head until destroyed by the US and UK in 2003. Syria has the “Syria Accountability and Liberation Act” of July 2009. Apart from imposing draconian sanctions of the sort that resulted in the deaths of half a million children between August 6th 1990 and May 12th 1996 in Iraq, the Act:
Sets forth diplomatic measures intended to isolate the government of Syria.
And:
Authorizes the (US) President to provide assistance to support a democratic transition in Syria.
In another re-run of the Iraq lies, Rycroft adapts the “Saddam starves his own people” line – when, in fact, the US-UK driven embargo even denied baby formula – and accuses President Assad of “failing to stop starvation.”
Incidentally, in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, Matthew Rycroft was awarded the CBE: “… an honour awarded to an individual by the Queen for a leading role at a regional level or a prominent … role at a national level in any activity. The definition of CBE is Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.” The cynic might speculate that his part in “Empire’s” Iraq slaughter might have been a contributory factor.
But he has not lost talent for plotting and economy with the truth, it would seem. But then, between experience in the Foreign Office, the State Department and Congress would be a peerless education. An example:
On 12 September, the eve of the ill-fated ceasefire:
President Dr. Bashar Al-Assad vowed to regain every inch of Syria from the terrorist forces.
The Syrian President made this promise during his visit to the rural Damascus town of Darayya on Monday.
In addition to his promise to recover every inch of the country, the Syrian President stated that his government will rebuild Darayya after the four year long battle left the town in ruins.
On September 15th, Matthew Rycroft translated this statement in a address to the UN as:
Earlier this week, Assad said it was his objective to regain the entire country by force …
He surely learned well from his part in Iraq plotting.
Meanwhile, on September 25th (clearly a very busy plotting day) the UK’s new Foreign Secretary (it is hard to think of anyone less suitable to be a diplomat) was in Turkey. He tweeted:
Boris Johnson
@BorisJohnson
Follow #Turkey is a vital partner to the UK. Pleased to visit for first time as Foreign Sec for talks with Govt, civil society & #Syrian Opposition 9:34 AM – 25 Sep 2016
Meeting “opposition” head choppers, eh? Another shocking international conspiracy against a small, proud nation, which threatens no one. The onslaught against Syria, the betrayal of a fellow Member of the United Nations will be added to the list of crimes of enormity laid at the feet of the “Special relationship” – the barbarism of the US-UK alliance.
Incidentally, diplomacy: “The art of dealing with people in a sensitive and tactful way.”
A senior Turkish official says Ankara’s military incursion into Syria could last for years if necessary.
Turkish troops entered the Syrian territory in a sudden incursion which resulted in the occupation of Jarablus after Daesh left the city without resistance earlier this month.
Turkey has indicated that its eyes were now set on the Syrian city of Raqqah which is controlled by Daesh.
The senior Turkish official said on Friday a planned US offensive to retake Raqqah using Kurdish militia fighters would trigger an ethnic conflict there.
He said driving out Daesh from the Syrian city of al-Bab is also among the targets of Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey was planning to send troops deeper into Syrian territory to establish what it calls a safe zone.
Damascus has condemned the incursion, denouncing it as a “flagrant breach” of its sovereignty.
Syria’s envoy to the UN Bashar Ja’afari said last week Turkey, along with the US and Israel, have moved from a proxy war to a “personal” one on the Arab state.
Turkey and Israel will mutually name ambassadors within 10 days as part of the normalization of ties, the Turkish official said.
“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
While it’s been brushed off as a loony conspiracy theory for years, there’s compelling evidence showing it did, in fact, happen, and there’s nothing to prevent it from happening again. … continue
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