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A Lawless Plan to Target Syria’s Allies

By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | August 20, 2016

On Aug. 17, TV interviewer Charlie Rose gave former acting CIA Director Michael Morell a “mulligan” for an earlier wayward drive on Aug. 8 that sliced deep into the rough and even stirred up some nonviolent animals by advocating the murder of Russians and Iranians. But, alas, Morell duffed the second drive, too.

Morell did so despite Rose’s efforts to tee up the questions as favorably as possible, trying to help Morell explain what he meant about “killing” Russians and Iranians in Syria and bombing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad into submission.

In the earlier interview, Morell said he wanted to “make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. … make the Russians pay a price in Syria.”

Rose: “We make them pay the price by killing Russians?”

Morell: “Yeah.”

Rose: “And killing Iranians?”

Morell: “Yes … You don’t tell the world about it. … But you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran.”

In the follow-up interview, some of Rose’s fretful comments made it clear that there are still some American non-neocons around who were withholding applause for Morell’s belligerent suggestion.

Rose apparently has some viewers who oppose all terrorism, including the state-sponsored variety that would involve a few assassinations to send a message, and the notion that U.S. bombing Syria to “scare” Assad is somehow okay (as long as the perpetrator is the sole “indispensable” nation in the world).

Rose helped Morell ‘splain that he really did not want to have U.S. Special Forces kill Russians and Iranians. No, he would be satisfied if the U.S.-sponsored “moderate opposition” in Syria did that particular killing. But Morell would not back away from his advocacy of the U.S. Air Force bombing Syrian government targets. That would be “an okay thing” in Morell’s lexicon.

The FBI defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” That would seem to cover Morell’s plan.

But Morell seems oblivious to international law and to the vast human suffering already inflicted in Syria over the past five years by government forces, rebels, terrorists and outside nations trying to advance one geopolitical goal or another.

What is needed is a serious commitment to peace talks without unacceptable preconditions, such as outside demands for “regime change.” Instead, the focus should be on creating conditions for Syrians to make that choice themselves through elections or power-sharing negotiations.

Morell prefers to think that a few more U.S.-directed murders and some more aerial-inflicted mayhem should do the trick. Perhaps he thinks that’s the sort of tough-guy/gal talk that will impress a prospective President Hillary Clinton.

A Slight Imprecision?

Charlie Rose begins the “mulligan” segment with the suggestion that Morell might have slightly misspoken: “Tell me what you wanted to say so we understand it … Tell me what you meant to say … perhaps you did not speak as precisely as you should have or I didn’t ask the right questions.”

Morell responded, “No, no, Charlie, you always ask the right questions,” and then he presented his killing plan as a route to peace, albeit one in which the United States dictates “regime change” in Syria: “So there’s not a military solution to this, there is only a political solution. … And that political solution is, in my view, a transition of power from Assad to a, a, a transitional government that represents all of the Syrian people.

“That is only going to happen if Assad wants it to happen, if Russia wants it to happen, if Iran wants it to happen. So … we need to increase our leverage over those … three people and countries, in order to get them more interested in having a conversation about a transition to a new government.

“And sometimes you use military force for military ends. Sometimes you use military force to give you political leverage. … So what I tried to say was, Look, we need to find some ways to put some pressure on Assad, or put some pressure on Russia, and put some pressure on Iran. Now, with regard to Russia and Iran, what I said was, what I wanted to say was: Look, the moderate opposition, which the United States is supporting (everybody knows that, right?), the moderate opposition is already fighting the Syrian government, and they’re already fighting Russians and Iranians. …

“So … the Syrian military, supported by Russia and the Iranians, is fighting the moderate opposition. And the moderate opposition is already killing Iranians and Syrians. What, what I said is that’s an okay thing, right, because it puts pressure on Iran and Russia to try to see some value in ending this thing politically. And what I said is that we should encourage the moderate opposition to continue to do that and perhaps get a lot more aggressive.” (Emphasis added)

Rose: “You weren’t suggesting that the United States should do that, but the moderate forces on the ground.”

Morell: “And I think I came across as saying U.S. Special Forces should go in there and start killing Iranians and Russians. I did not say that. …

“So that’s Russia and Iran. Now, Assad. How do you put some pressure on Assad, right? And here I did argue, Charlie, that the U.S. military itself should take some action, and what I would see as valuable is limited, very, very, very limited U.S. airstrikes against those assets that are extremely important to Assad personally. So, in the middle of the night you destroy one of his offices; you don’t kill anybody, right, zero collateral. … You do this with the same rules of engagement we use against terrorists. … (Emphasis added)

“You take out his presidential aircraft, his presidential helicopters, in the middle of the night, right, just to send him a message and get his attention that, that maybe your days are numbered here, just to put some pressure on him to think about maybe, maybe the need to think about a way out of this.

“Now these issues that I’m talking about here, right, are talked about in the sit room. They’re talked about in national security circles all the time, right. These are debates that people have, and I certainly understand that there are people on the other side of the argument from me, right. But I wasn’t talking about the U.S. starting a major war with Iran and Russia, and I think that was the way people interpreted it.”

Acts of Illegal War

Not to put too fine a point on this, but everything that Morell is advocating here violates international law, the rules that – in other circumstances, i.e. when another government is involved – the U.S. government condemns as “aggression” or as an “invasion” or as “terrorism.”

Remember, after the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine in February 2014, when Russia intervened to allow Crimea to hold a referendum on splitting away from the new regime in Kiev and rejoining Russia, the U.S. government insisted that there was no excuse for President Vladimir Putin not respecting the sovereignty of the coup regime even if it had illegally ousted an elected president.

However, regarding Syria, the United States and its various “allies,” including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel, have intervened directly and indirectly in supporting various armed groups, including Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, seeking the violent overthrow of Syria’s government.

Without any legal authorization from the United Nations, President Barack Obama has ordered the arming and training of anti-government rebels (including some who have fought under Nusra’s command structure), has carried out airstrikes inside Syria (aimed at Islamic State militants), and has deployed U.S. Special Forces inside Syria with Kurdish rebels.

Now, a former senior U.S. intelligence official is publicly urging bombing of Syrian government targets and the killing of Iranians and Russians who are legally inside Syria at the invitation of the internationally recognized government. In other words, not only does the U.S. government operate with breathtaking hypocrisy in the Syrian crisis, but it functions completely outside international law.

And, Morell says that in attacking Syrian government targets — supposedly without causing any deaths — the United States would employ “the same rules of engagement we use against terrorists,” except those rules of engagement explicitly seek to kill targeted individuals. So, what kind of dangerously muddled thinking do we have here?

One can only imagine the reaction if some Russian version of Morell went on Moscow TV and urged the murder of U.S. military trainers operating inside Ukraine – to send a message to Washington. And then, the Russian Morell would advocate Russia bombing Ukrainian government targets in Kiev with the supposed goal of forcing the U.S.-backed government to accept a “regime change” acceptable to Moscow.

Rather than calls for him to be locked up or at least decisively repudiated, the American Morell was allowed to continue his fawning audition for a possible job in a Hillary Clinton administration by extolling her trustworthiness and “humanity.” – Full article

August 21, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Western Propaganda is Paid for in Syrian Blood’ – Dr Bouthaina Shaaban Talks to Vanessa Beeley

By Vanessa Beeley | 21st Century Wire | August 20, 2016

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~ George Orwell.

The media furore surrounding the now viral image of wounded Syrian child, Omran Daqneesh, in terrorist-held eastern Aleppo, Syria is still raging, while the push back against the tide of western-sponsored anti-Syrian State propaganda reveals itself to be strengthening with each new spike in pro-terrorist hyperbole designed to provoke a knee-jerk foreign policy response that is either advocating a “No Fly Zone”, or some form of escalation foreign military intervention inside of Syria.

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Today I had the honour to meet with Dr Bouthaina Shaaban, political and media advisor to Syrian President Bashar al Assad. We discussed many issues including this most recent heart wrenching image that is appearing across all main stream media channels. As we opened the discussion, Dr Shaaban said immediately: “We are paying for this propaganda with our blood.”

Dr Shaaban went on to describe how the “corporate media is distorting reality in Syria,” while also explaining why she was reluctant at the beginning of the NATO member and allies war on Syria, to speak to western mainstream media:

“They came here with accusatory questions, they didn’t come here to know what is going on. They came here to ask me why are you working with a man who is ‘killing his own people.’ What an ugly start for an interview. I said there is no point, they come here to gain credibility but only to re-confirm their own story rather than to find out what is really going on.  I didn’t want to be used to ‘re-confirm’ their own story or to give them credibility.”

Dr Shaaban believes that there is a need to ensure voices like hers that resonate with passion for her country and its people, which should be heard across a far wider range of media platforms to counter what might be described as a vast Zionist and Gulf State (GCC) funded media network that is driving the propaganda train though the US and Europe. Dr Shaaban mentioned a weekly column that she is writing in Arabic and suggested that perhaps she should translate it for English media.

What follows is the transcript of Dr Shaaban’s statements on various subjects:

Why is our country being destroyed?

“I wrote that really we are going through a third world war, without naming it a third world war but this time it’s a global war between two projects and two ways of thinking – between western concepts that they want to promote: their own way of life, their own ideology, their own way of thinking even at the expense of other lives and the innocence of our countries while the old civilisations like the Chinese, the Indian, the Arab civilisation are struggling to keep their identity and to pass this identity to their children and grand-children

Personally I no longer believe that the way the system is working in the west has any ‘democracy’ for us, or has any ‘human rights’ for us, or that there is any ‘free press’ for us in their official media system. If  you know how we feel now you would be really surprised.

I have two daughters and a son. One daughter is doing a PhD in architecture in London and the other is doing a PhD in the US in international relations and politics. The one in London has a three year old girl, the one in the States has a four year old boy. They have been here for a month, every time they go to the Old City, they come back crying. They say, is it possible that our children cannot live the way we lived, cannot know the Syria we knew, cannot enjoy the Syria we enjoyed? Why?

Why are we being prevented from passing on our experience, our culture, our livelihood to our children? Why are our families being destroyed? Why is our country being destroyed? This is a daily struggle for our children. My children take their children and show them everything because they are afraid that tomorrow this will not be here anymore.

This is a terrible thing to happen to any country, to any people on earth. We have the right to live the way we think, to live our own culture. You might find Paris exciting, I find Damascus the most beautiful place on earth. This is us, this is who we are. I was asked many times to leave as an Ambassador but I cannot leave Damascus, can you believe it? I do not want to live one year out of Damascus, I can never get enough of this city.

So, leave us alone – that is really our message and unfortunately the calculus of politics in the west has no consideration whatsoever for the way people feel or for their aspirations.”

Western Exceptionalism

“The problem with the western system is that they think they are superior and they think that they want to “civilize” us and they want us to come up to their “standards”, and I hate when I hear Obama or any US official talking about American exceptionalism. What do they mean American exceptionalism?

God created us as people. We belong to the same humanity, we belong to the same world. In the Quran God spoke about the differences between us and we should understand that we should celebrate and cherish these differences. This idea of supremacy is basically rooted in racism because it believes in the supremacy of one sect, colour or nationality over another.

I feel it is bad for the west too because racism is now producing bad results for western countries especially as there are so many different religions living everywhere in the world. The only salvation for all of us is to say there is one world, one humanity and to apply this rule to everybody. We must truly believe in that not only talk about it in the media and then practice racism in the law. There is a huge area for dialogue but we need people who believe in similar values.

We are fighting a war on the ground but it is also a clash of values.”

Reshaping our world and the problems we face.

“The Gulf States are a huge problem. With the petro dollar they are feeding the arms industry in the US, UK and France and prolonging this conflict. It is going to be a long process, we are living through a transitional stage in world history.  It is going to be a long process in order to reshape our world. That is why we all have the obligation to be active so our new world is based on better values, better ethics, better ways of dealing with each other.

To achieve this new world, co-operation between east and west is crucial.

Where are the leaders in the US, or even in Europe, who are visionary and who are thinking about their countries for the next fifty years and who are doing the right thing for the people from an historical perspective? So perhaps we are living through a crisis of leadership.”

The Destruction of the Middle East is to protect Israel. NATO is trying to impose an Islamist extremist state onto Syria’s secular state.

“I think there are two explanations for that. First the west should be embarrassed to be supporting countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar against Syria, Iraq or Sudan. We were the secular republics who produced books, scientists, intellectuals etc. I think there is a reason for that. The reason for what the west is doing, in my opinion as an Arab woman, could be summed up by the Arab-Israeli conflict. I feel that the western support for Israel against the Palestinian people and the destruction of a whole people and their identity by Israel shows that what the west cares about is for Israel to be the powerful state in the region for the next fifty or a hundred years. In order for Israel to be the prevailing force in the Middle East it is necessary to destroy Arabic culture.

Unfortunately, now I can see a union of evil between the Gulf States and Israel and western systems. I use the word systems to divorce this evil from the western people.

I respond as an Arab woman, who grew up knowing that my country was part of Bilad al-Sham, Greater Syria. I do not say this in an aggressive tone, but in a loving tone because Syria was Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and I can’t understand why as a Syrian woman, I cannot visit Al Aqsa. Its very close geographically, yet its impossible for me to get there because Israel has been planted in the Middle East.

Israel is a major focus for western countries and all these wars against Arab countries and what they call the ‘Arab Spring’ is to destroy Arab armies and to prevent any Arab country being able to resist Israel in the future. They do not want us to be able to liberate our Golan Heights, or Palestine, or to simply assure the rights of the Arab people.

By the way, there are at least 50 UN resolutions that give the Palestinians at least half of Palestine and the world is doing nothing about that – on the contrary the US used 37 vetoes in order to prevent the Palestinians getting their rights. Western hypocrisy is amazing.

That is where the supremacy in the west is turned against Arabs because it is the Zionist media that tells the west that the Arabs are ‘backwards’ or primitive. People are persuaded by this propaganda and they treat us as the Zionists wish us to be treated. This is racism against Arabs and emanates from the Zionists.

Hillary Clinton has spoken about working with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is extensively documented that the Muslim Brotherhood has had connections to the CIA since they were created. Even if we read nothing but we apply the western proverb, “who is the beneficiary” – you will find Israel is the beneficiary from all this destruction.

You can see that the army and our intellectuals are the major targets for Israel.  They dont want any intellectuals or any army left in our country. They destroyed the Iraqi army. There is a war of attrition against the Syrian army, against the Libyan army, the Sudanese, the Lebanese.

Unfortunately some who call themselves Arab in the Gulf use the petro-dollar in order to serve this project against our culture and our civilization because as a Syrian woman I feel the Gulf has no culture, no history. This is Bilad al-Sham continually inhabited for ten thousand years. The Gulf is forty years old and therefore they have no right to speak in the name of the Arabs

We are the Arabs, we are history, we are civilization.

What they are doing is against our civilization, against our history and against our future but I feel this is a very dangerous project that reminds me of how the American Indians were treated. They have destroyed Palmyra, they have destroyed our history and our culture.

khaled-asaad-isis-palmira003-1000x600
Khaled al Assad. Photo:Screenshot

Khaled al-Assad is the only archaeologist in the world who was writing about who was here in the past, in Palmyra. He was proving that the Zionists were never here. They killed him, they burned his library, they burned his books so we have nothing left of his work. From an observers’ perspective, they are focusing on history, material history, cultural history, identity, army.  Any power that keeps you as an entire state, or any statesman that represents strength or unity will be demonized and destroyed.

Even Ramadan al Bouti a Sunni scholar who was speaking sense was murdered because they want to destroy anybody who speaks the truth or who is influential and can gather people around him.

What is the significance of President Assad? He is credible, people believe in him, Arab people believe in him. They do not want anybody like that to have influence. I feel there is a huge plan against all of us.

They operate by buying people, Arab people, people in powerful positions who serve the Zionist project against our culture and identity because they can be bought by money.

I am talking to you from experience, I was subjected to a huge amount of pressure by many countries to be bought by money and all the temptations you can think of were offered to me but I am somebody who cannot be bought by money. I am somebody who believes in my country and in my people. Even if I die, I can die for a cause. If I can’t live for it I can die for it.

Most of the defections that happened in Syria were driven by money. None of them has a cause or an ideology or any credibility with our people.

As you said quite rightly, the western people do not see any of this, they only see the shadow. Those people bought by money, they are the shadow state.

Nobody wants to know who we really are.”

The reason nobody knows the real Syria and the real Syrians, is because the western media has routinely lied and deceived us from the very beginning of the war against Syria – led by the US, NATO members and funded by the Gulf states, supported and encouraged by Israel who, as Dr Shaaban states, stands to benefit most from the perpetual chaos being maintained inside their strongest enemy in the region.

August 21, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

MSM promotes dodgy docs as well as child-exploitation in drive for war

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By Catte | OffGuardian | August 20, 2016

Overshadowed by the recent attempts to create a faux media storm out of an unverified video produced by the pro-terrorist “Aleppo Media Center”, a recent article in the Guardian by Patrick Wintour reminds us that, when it comes to war-propaganda, the media doesn’t just do child-exploitation to order – it also promotes dodgy documents without question or analysis.

Wintour’s piece focuses on the – as usual – uncorroborated open  letter to President Obama allegedly written by a group of doctors in terrorist-controlled eastern Aleppo, calling for US “intervention” to “stop the bombardment of hospitals in the besieged city by the Russian-backed Syrian air force”, and is another shining example of spineless obedience to an intellectually bankrupt narrative.

The article doesn’t give the text of the letter in full, but here it is:

Dear President Obama,

We are 15 of the last doctors serving the remaining 300,000 citizens of eastern Aleppo. Regime troops have sought to surround and blockade the entire east of the city. Their losses have meant that a trickle of food has made its way into
eastern Aleppo for the first time in weeks. Whether we live or die seems to be dependent on the ebbs and flows of the battlefield.

We have seen no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians.

For five years, we have faced death from above on a daily basis. But we now face death from all around. For five years, we have borne witness as countless patients, friends and colleagues suffered violent, tormented deaths. For five years, the world has stood by and remarked how ‘complicated’ Syria is, while doing little to protect us.  Recent offers of evacuation from the regime and Russia have sounded like thinly-veiled threats to residents – flee now or face annihilation ?

Last month, there were 42 attacks on medical facilities in Syria, 15 of which were hospitals in which we work. Right now, there is an attack on a medical facility every 17 hours. At this rate, our medical services in Aleppo could be completely destroyed in a month, leaving 300,000 people to die.

What pains us most, as doctors, is choosing who will live and who will die. Young children are sometimes brought into our emergency rooms so badly injured that we have to prioritize those with better chances, or simply don’t have the equipment to help them. Two weeks ago, four newborn babies gasping for air suffocated to death after a blast cut the oxygen supply to their incubators. Gasping for air, their lives ended before they had really begun.

Despite the horror, we choose to be here. We took a pledge to help those in
need.

Our dedication to this pledge is absolute. Some of us were visiting our families when we heard the city was being besieged. So we rushed back – some on foot because the roads were too dangerous. Because without us even more of our friends and neighbors will die. We have a duty to remain and help.

Continued US inaction to protect the civilians of Syria means that our plight is being wilfully tolerated by those in the international corridors of power. The burden of responsibility for the crimes of the Syrian government and its Russian ally must therefore be shared by those, including the United States, who allow them to continue.

Unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry. Death has seemed increasingly inescapable. We do not need to tell you that the systematic targeting of hospitals by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes is a war crime. We do not need to tell you that they are committing atrocities in Aleppo.

We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action. Prove that you are the friend of Syrians.

Yours,

1 Dr. Abu Al Baraa, Pediatrician
2 Dr. Abu Tiem, Pediatrician
3 Dr. Hamza, Manager
4 Dr. Yahya, Pediatrician and head of Nutrition Program
5 Dr. Munther, Orthopedics
6 Dr. Abu Mohammad, General Surgeon
7 Dr. Abu Abdo, General Surgeon
8 Dr. Abd Al Rahman, Urologic Resident
9 Dr. Abu Tareq, ER Doctor
10 Dr. Farida, OBGYN
11 Dr Hatem, Hospital Director
12 Dr. Usama, Pediatrician
13 Dr. Abu Zubeir, Pediatrician

Even while admitting that “it has not been possible to verify the names of all the doctors listed in the letter,” Wintour doesn’t investigate or even interrogate its authenticity. His only comment on the subject is an airy claim that “[the] account tallies with evidence given by US doctors to the UN after a working visit to Aleppo’s hospitals in the past fortnight.”

He doesn’t quite dare say this offers any kind of validation (because of course it doesn’t), he simply hopes his readers will take it that way while he turns to his real task, which is sanctifying the West’s strategic fears for the loss of a corridor to eastern Aleppo as a sudden rush of humanitarian concern for the fate of the civilians living there. His casual assumption that only Western-led forces and Western-led humanitarians will have the decency to treat civilians with respect is almost Victorian in its colonial appropriation of moral ascendancy.

Wintour doesn’t ask why a group of disinterested doctors on the ground in Aleppo would write a letter that exactly mirrors the dishonest and incomplete western narrative, and repeats discredited or unsubstantiated claims such as the “systematic targeting of hospitals by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes.” He doesn’t ask why they would dismiss the recent offer from Russia and the Syrian government for safe conduct out of the war zone as “a thinly-veiled threat” rather than welcome it as a way of saving valuable lives. He doesn’t ask why a group of humanitarians would condemn Russia and the Syrian government for “crimes” because they have been bombing Aleppo, while saying nothing about the fact the US is also bombing Aleppo.

Neither does he mention that the supposed medics’ primary demand – for a “permanent lifeline” to Aleppo – is exactly what the “rebels” (ie Al Nusra terrorists) have been fightng for in recent weeks, in order to break the “siege” of eastern Aleppo by government forces and put pressure on government-held western Aleppo. Keeping this corridor “permanently” open would make the difference between success or failure for the rebels/terrorists in this key strategic area.

So, naturally these fifteen concerned medical professional have that item at the top of their list, over and above a ceasefire, or indeed an evil Russian evacuation of civilians, or evil Russian aid drops.Wouldn’t anyone rather die than accept help from America’s ‘enemies”? Wouldn’t anyone welcome slaughter when it’s wrapped in a US flag?

Wintour doesn’t state the obvious – that this letter is pushing an agenda that has nothing to do with alleviating human suffering. He doesn’t point out that it reads like a Washington fantasy version of reality. On the contrary he’s more than happy to exist in that fantasy where US intervention is a humanitarian response to the imploring of care-ravaged doctors, and for the purposes of saving people from evil Putin and his sidekick Assad. The letter must be endorsed because it in turn endorses the delusional dreamworld of moral righteousness where most western journalists spend most of their time these days. The only place their consciences don’t trouble them.

Meanwhile, the Twitter account known as @TheLemniscat took a look at the names of the letter’s signatories and made these annotations…

https://twitter.com/theLemniscat/status/764052010404503552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The fact six of these alleged doctors have signed with only their last name is maybe slightly odd, as is the fact six others are namesakes of prominent members of ISIS and al Qaeda, and one has the same name as a well-known shop. But until the signatories can be positively identified that’s about all we can say. Then again identifying them should not be too difficult, given that several of them identify as paediatricians and, as Moon of Alabama points out, the “last pediatrician” in rebel-held Aleppo was supposed to have been killed weeks ago. If these guys are the real deal they must have turned up in the rebel-held part of Aleppo since April, and they are likely the only paediatricians working there. How hard could it be to track them down? Has anyone tried?

Regardless of the deeper realities of the letter it’s the absolute abdication of scepticism by the Western media coverage that continues to be the real issue.

Imagine if an open letter appeared calling for the Russian government to “stop US bombardment of hospitals”, signed by fifteen alleged but unverified “doctors”, six of whom refused to give a first name, another six of whom were the namesakes of prominent terrorists and one who signed himself with the Syrian equivalent of “T K Maxx”.

What would the Guardian say about that? How many column inches of scorn would Walker, Harding et al rightly pour on a document with such clear potential for being a clumsy fraud? How would Wintour’s article have read then? How many veiled or direct suggestions of Kremlin fakery would he have made? How much Twitter mileage would the MSM and its obedient pundits have gotten out of those coincidental names?

Yet about the shortcomings of this letter they have been entirely and unforgivably silent.

August 20, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon sends jets, warning as Syria bombs near US-backed Kurds

RT | August 19, 2016

The US-led coalition scrambled planes near the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, after Syrian SU-24 airplanes dropped bombs “dangerously near” the US Special Forces operators embedded with the Kurdish YPG militia in the area.

Two Syrian Su-24 jets struck Kurdish positions in and near Hasakah, in northeastern Syria, on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.

The strike came close to US Special Forces operators, who were embedded with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprised of the Kurdish YPG and local Arab militias.

By the time the US jets arrived, the Syrian bombers had already departed. No Americans were wounded in the bombing, according to Davis. The Special Forces were ordered to retreat from the area as a precaution.

When the strikes began, the “coalition forces on the ground” tried reaching the Syrian jets on a common radio frequency, but received no response, Davis added. US forces then reached out to the Russian military, using a previously established channel, and the Russians confirmed their aircraft were not involved.

The Americans made it clear that the US would “take whatever action is necessary” to defend the special operators on the ground, Davis said.

The US has increased air patrols in the area, Davis said.

Local media report that the fighting in Hasakah broke out earlier this week between the pro-government National Defense Forces (NDF) militia and the Kurdish forces, with the Syrian Army role limited to 10 airstrikes against the Kurds.

In a statement, the Syrian Army said it “responded appropriately” to the attempt by Kurdish militias to take over the city.

The US-backed SDF was set up in October 2015, as a proxy force against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). The militia recently succeeded in ousting IS from Manbij, a strategic city in northern Syria near the Turkish border.

While the Russian aerospace forces have been invited by the government in Damascus, the presence of US forces in Syria is not authorized under international law.

August 19, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Could a Russian-Led Coalition Defeat Hillary’s War Plans?

By Gary Leupp | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016

Joe Scarborough this morning on MSNBC was inveighing against the “ransom” the U.S. supposedly paid to Tehran in return for the release of U.S. prisoners (“hostages”) in Iran. Two other talking heads also used that term “ransom” matter-of-factly to describe what happened while acknowledging that the money had been owed to Iran by the U.S. since the days of the Shah. Just more knee-jerk anti-Iran, anti-nuclear agreement rhetoric.

Then Joe turned to Syria, bemoaning the U.S. “silence” and lack of action to end the carnage, absolutely ignoring the fact that the U.S. has repeatedly tried and failed to recruit and train Syrian allies to fight the regime, is bankrolling rebel groups, and has provided them with arms that have wound up in the hands of al-Nusra and ISIL. He acts as though further U.S. action in Syria (which he imagines the world cries out for, from this last best hope of mankind) would produce better results than it did in Iraq or Libya. It is frightening to see the mainstream media line up with the 51 State Department “dissidents” and Hillary on Syria, while it continues to promote crude anti-Russian and anti-Iranian propaganda.

The representation of Russia as an “existential threat” to the U.S. is preposterous fantasy. Just like the depiction of Iran as a nuclear threat is preposterous, and the notion that Bashar al-Assad’s secular government in Syria is the cause for the emergence of ISIL is sheer delusion.

Russia with 12% the U.S. military budget has military bases in precisely 8 foreign countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan (all nations bordering Russia, and former soviet socialist republics) plus Syria and Vietnam. Its only foreign naval facilities are in the latter two countries. The Sevastopol base in Crimea used to be on Ukrainian territory, but Russia has of course annexed the Crimean Peninisula to ensure continued control of the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet.

The U.S. in contrast has over 650 military bases abroad, and five naval bases on the Mediterranean coast alone, in Spain, Italy and Greece. There are 10,000 sailors stationed at NSA Naples. In that same region the Russians have only their resupply station in Tartus, Syria operative by treaty since 1971, typically with a tiny garrison.

The Russian air force base in Latakia, Syria is a modest operation, incapable of supporting those Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers used to bomb ISIL and al-Nusra targets a few days ago in Aleppo and elsewhere. Those took off instead from Sahid Nojeh air base near Hamadan, Iran, causing some Pentagon concern and (false) accusations that the mission somehow violated a UNSC resolution about arming Iran. Moscow is boasting of mission success. (Morning Joe’s upset about that true.)

Russian forces have already done more damage to ISIL, dismissed in January 2014 by President Obama as a minor problem, than the U.S. The U.S. started its bombing of ISIL months before the Russians but Russian strikes have turned the tide of battle in Syria.

One is struck simultaneously with Russia’s relative weakness vis-a-vis the hyperpower, and its creativity in reacting belatedly (just since September 2015) to the U.S.-orchestrated destruction of the Middle East.

Moscow is well aware that pro-Hillary forces in the State Department are rallying in favor of short-term, Libya-like regime change in Syria. But everybody knows there will be no UN fig leaf this time, as there was in 2011. Russia, (and as looks likely, China also) active in the Syrian skies will not accept a “no-fly zone” unilaterally proclaimed by the Exceptional Nation, restricting a sovereign government’s right to deploy aircraft in its own air space.

Moscow has basically carved out a coalition against regime change in Syria, united in abhorrence of ISIL and al-Nusra (now Fateh al-Sham) but pledged to the defense of the existing secular Syrian state and specifically to support for its professional, mostly Sunni and Sunni-led army. The pro-Assad forces now include the Syrian Arab Army and assorted militia, Lebanese Hizbollah fighters, Iraqi Shiite militia fighters, Russia, and Iran. India has repeatedly offered support for the government, and China has just vowed to provide aid and military training.

The Kill Assad Now Coalition on the other hand consists of the Hillary wing of the U.S. State Department, absolute monarchs of Gulf nations where Sharia is the law, and some NATO allies including Turkey. They want to prioritize the destruction of the Assad regime over the destruction of terror groups in Syria. But Turkey’s president Erdogan is reconsidering his foreign relations generally. After the recent coup attempt in which he believes the U.S. was complicit he has met with Putin in Moscow and mended relations strained by the Turkish shooting down of a Russian fighter plane over Syria last November.

Turkey’s foreign minister has intimated that a normalization of relations with Syria is also in the cards. Especially if Turkey shifts (perhaps in return for Russian help in preventing the establishment of a Syrian Kurdistan), it might become well nigh impossible for Hillary to bomb Assad out of power.

Unless of course she wanted to show how strong she is and start World War III. That could be even worse than a Trump presidency, arguably, don’t you think?

August 19, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

George Schwartz Soros – The Oligarch Who Owns The Left

By Gilad Atzmon | August 18, 2016

An email leaked recently by Wikileaks reveals that in 2011, Jewish oligarch George Schwartz Soros gave step by step instructions to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on how to handle unrest in Albania.

Soros even nominated three candidates whom he believed to “have strong connections to the Balkans.”

Not surprisingly, several days after the email was sent to Clinton, the EU sent one of Soros’ nominees to meet Albanian leaders in Tirana to try to mediate an end to the unrest.

Soros’ email sheds light on who really sets the tone for the West. Clearly it isn’t our so-called ‘democratically elected’ politicians. Instead, it is a small cadre of oligarchs, people like Soros, Goldman and Sachs. People who are driven by mammonism – Capitalism that is based on trade as opposed to production. The mammonites are interested in the pursuit of mammon (wealth) purely for the sake of mammon.

Soros is, without doubt, the most illustrious mammonite of our time. The Jewish billionaire is the “man who broke the Bank of England,” an adventure that made him more than $1 billion in one day in September of 1992. In 2002, a Paris court found Soros guilty of using inside information to profit from a 1988 takeover deal of Bank Societe Generale. In the days leading to the Brexit vote the speculative capitalist used The Guardian’s pages in an attempt to manipulate the Brits into following his advice on Brexit. Apparently the Brits didn’t heed Soros’ wisdom. And, so far, it seems that Soros’ predictions of doom were far fetched, verging on phantasmic. Still open is the question of why the Guardian provided a platform for the speculative capitalist oligarch. Is it a news outlet or an extension ofMammonism’s long arm?

The Jewish oligarch has developed a huge infrastructure that assists him in pursuing his speculative capitalist agenda. Soros realised many decades ago that it is very easy to buy leftist institutions and activists. Since the 1980s, Soros has used his Open Society Institute to invest a fraction of his shekels in some ‘left leaning’ political groups and NGOs worldwide. Soros funds NGOs, activists and Left institutions that are willing to subscribe to his agenda. They support a cosmopolitan philosophy and are dedicated to Soros’ anti nationalist mantra. The outcome has been devastating. Instead of uniting working people, Soros funded ‘left’ organisations divide workers into sectarian groups defined by gender, sex orientation and skin colour.

Many of those who support Palestinian causes were shocked to discover that Soros funded the BDS movement although he was simultaneously invested in Israeli industry and Israeli factories operating in the West Bank such as Soda Stream.

Soros also bankrolls J Street, the American Jewish lobby group that controls the opposition to the ultra Zionist AIPAC. Looking at the huge list of Soros’ supported organisations reveals that the light Zionist oligarch supports some good causes that are particularly good for the Jews and Soros himself.

Soros seems to believe in the synagogueisation of society. He supports the breaking of society into biologically oriented tribes: e.g., Blacks, Women, LGBT, Lesbians. He has invested millions in dividing the working class. Divide and rule is what it is.

Traces of his destructive Open society Institute can be identified in Iran’s failed Velvet Revolution,  anti Assad NGO activity in Syria, behind  anti Putin intense activism and of course the Gazi Park events in Turkey. These so called ‘civilian’ and ‘popular’ uprisings have at least one common denominator. They attempt to destabilise regimes that oppose Zio-cons as well as the mammonite world order.

August 18, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Open Letter Of Aleppo Doctors Is Easily Torn Apart – Bottom Of The Barrel Propaganda

By Brandon Turbeville | Activist Post | August 16, 2016

In 2016, we have become accustomed to relatively childish and easily deconstructed propaganda narratives that are circulated by the U.S. State Department and its mainstream media mouthpieces in order to discredit the Syrian government and drum up support for a NATO-led war on the secular government of Bashar al-Assad.

From scares related to chemical weapons (later demonstrated to be the work of NATO’s terrorists), unproven and largely discredited claims that Assad is “killing his own people” or even that Assad is “supporting ISIS” has become the order of the day in American media. Recently, however, the State Department, office of origin of the “Ghaddafi is handing out Viagra to rapists” propaganda line, has issued yet another pathetic propaganda ploy against the Syrian government – an alleged letter written by alleged doctors alleging that the Syrian military is encircling Aleppo in order to allegedly kill civilians.

Are you sick of the word allegedly yet? Imagine how Syrians must feel. The only truth in the propaganda narrative of the West is that the Syrian military is encircling Aleppo. Beyond that, it has been demonstrated over and over again that Assad’s forces are not targeting innocent civilians. Neither have the doctors in question been confirmed as actually being doctors or even that the letter was written by whoever these individuals might turn out to be. In other words, the whole story of the letter is merely a . . . well, allegation.

Still, the letter has been reported by the Guardian and a host of other Western mainstream media outlets as fact that conveniently tugs at the heartstrings. The letter is being referred to as the Open Letter Of Aleppo Doctors.

In reality, the letter is a semi-carefully crafted act of pro-war propaganda which calls on the United States and the West to “do something” and includes accusations against the Russian and Syrian governments as well as claims of Assad’s (and Russia’s) alleged targeting of hospitals. The letter even has incubator babies for extra effect!

The letter reads:

Dear President Obama,

We are 15 of the last doctors serving the remaining 300,000 citizens of eastern Aleppo. Regime troops have sought to surround and blockade the entire east of the city. Their losses have meant that a trickle of food has made its way into eastern Aleppo for the first time in weeks. Whether we live or die seems to be dependent on the ebbs and flows of the battlefield.

We have seen no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians. For five years, we have faced death from above on a daily basis. But we now face death from all around. For five years, we have borne witness as countless patients, friends and colleagues suffered violent, tormented deaths. For five years, the world has stood by and remarked how ‘complicated’ Syria is, while doing little to protect us.  Recent offers of evacuation from the regime and Russia have sounded like thinly-veiled threats to residents – flee now or face annihilation ?

Last month, there were 42 attacks on medical facilities in Syria, 15 of which were hospitals in which we work. Right now, there is an attack on a medical facility every 17 hours. At this rate, our medical services in Aleppo could be completely destroyed in a month, leaving 300,000 people to die.

What pains us most, as doctors, is choosing who will live and who will die. Young children are sometimes brought into our emergency rooms so badly injured that we have to prioritize those with better chances, or simply don’t have the equipment to help them. Two weeks ago, four newborn babies gasping for air suffocated to death after a blast cut the oxygen supply to their incubators. Gasping for air, their lives ended before they had really begun. Despite the horror, we choose to be here. We took a pledge to help those in need.

Our dedication to this pledge is absolute. Some of us were visiting our families when we heard the city was being besieged. So we rushed back – some on foot because the roads were too dangerous. Because without us even more of our friends and neighbors will die. We have a duty to remain and help.  Continued US inaction to protect the civilians of Syria means that our plight is being wilfully tolerated by those in the international corridors of power. The burden of responsibility for the crimes of the Syrian government and its Russian ally must therefore be shared by those, including the United States, who allow them to continue.

Unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry. Death has seemed increasingly inescapable. We do not need to tell you that the systematic targeting of hospitals by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes is a war crime. We do not need to tell you that they are committing atrocities in Aleppo.
We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action. Prove that you are the friend of Syrians.

The letter was signed by the following names:

Dr. Abu Al Baraa, Pediatrician
Dr. Abu Tiem, Pediatrician
Dr. Hamza, Manager
Dr. Yahya, Pediatrician and head of Nutrition Program
Dr. Munther, Orthopedics
Dr. Abu Mohammad, General Surgeon
Dr. Abu Abdo, General Surgeon
Dr. Abd Al Rahman, Urologic Resident
Dr. Abu Tareq, ER Doctor
Dr. Farida, OBGYN
Dr Hatem, Hospital Director
Dr. Usama, Pediatrician
Dr. Abu Zubeir, Pediatrician
Dr. Abu Maryam, Pediatric Surgeon
Dr. Abo Bakr, Neurologist

Of course, the doctors are calling for war and, in this, there is no question. They want the U.S. to intervene directly in Syria and no doubt “liberate” Syria and spread the “democracy” that has left every other “liberated” country the burning heaps of rubble and savagery that they are today. They are calling for the forces of Bashar al-Assad to be defeated so that “rebels,” aka al-Qaeda, al-Nusra (excuse me, Jobhat Fatah al-Sham), Ahrar al-Sham, ISIS, etc. can take over take over the city and impose their pre-historic Sharia rule over civilized people, all with the requisite amount of rape, murder, torture, and pedophilia to go along with “rebel” liberation. Nice work, docs.

But, perhaps I should sarcastically congratulate the State Department instead? After all, there is little evidence these doctors actually exist. Even the Guardian itself was quick to point out that “It has not been possible to verify the names of all the doctors listed in the letter.”

Proving the names of the letter writers is no doubt a difficult task. After all, most of these doctors are pediatricians and, the Telegraph as well as a number of other mainstream outlets told us that the last pediatrician in Aleppo was killed on April 28 (by Assad’s forces of course – rebel bullets are incapable of harming doctors even if they wanted to). Thus, they will truly be difficult to track down.

Not only that, but the names of the doctors who signed on to the letter appear to also be names of well-known terrorists. One name is not even that of a person, but a well-known parlor in Aleppo. What significance this has remains to be seen but, needless to say, we must getting very close to the bottom of the barrel of propaganda narratives.

As Ali Ornek writes for Moon Of Alabama :

We are used to quite a lot of warmongering propaganda against Syria. The “last hospital in Aleppo gets destroyed” – week after week after week, reports by Physicians For Human Rights on Syria turn out to be scams, videos and pictures of “children rescued” by the U.S./UK payed media group “White Helmets” are staged.

. . . . .

Our “western” and Gulf governments pay a lot of our taxpayer money for such anti-Syrian warmongering. The “White Helmets” alone receive $60 million. We should at least demand better fakes and more plausible lies for such large expenditures of our money.

There are three options to consider after analyzing the latest FAIL! of the U.S. propaganda machine. Either the State Department is running out of money, Americans are so dumbed down that cheap narratives such as this one actually work, or the war machine is simply throwing everything against the wall in its march toward Syria and its Path To Persia.

August 18, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Erdogan to Visit Tehran Next Week to Launch Turkey-Iran-Russia Coalition

Al-Manar | August 17, 2016

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing to take a high-profile trip to Tehran next week in a move seen by mainstream Arab media as the official launchpad for kickstarting the Turkey-Iran-Russia coalition on Syria.

Erdogan made a half-a-day trip to Russia after the recent coup in Turkey to meet and hold negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg. Their talks were mainly focused on finding a way to end the war in Syria while both countries have set up a joint commission to implement the results of their talks.

“Given the reports claiming that Erdogan had come to Iran the night of coup and then returned to Turkey after its failure, the Turkish president’s visit to Tehran is highly important in establishing new relations between Tehran and Ankara,” Arabic language al-Hayat newspaper said in a report, according to Fars news agency.

Sources told al-Hayat daily that a trilateral meeting, consisting of the Iranian, Turkish and Russian officials, is due to be held to confer on ways to terminate the Syria war, adding that part of Erdogan’s trip to Tehran will be focused on this issue.

Also, the London-based al-Arab daily referred to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent visit to Turkey, and said the trip was made within the framework of the goals pursued by Erdogan during his visit to Moscow.

According to al-Arab, the triangle of Iran-Turkey-Russia is forming an international coalition to confront the West.

The daily underlined that Zarif’s trip showed that rapid and important developments are being formed in the region which will marginalize the Arab states.

Al-Arab quoted analysts as saying that the Arabs’ foreign policy, specially on Syria, has failed deeply.

After the Turkish prime minister said it’s time for his country to improve ties with Damascus, top diplomats in Tehran said that Ankara is likely to initiate a major shift in policy on Syria and move to ally with Iran and Russia.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim suggested a three-pronged road map for a solution to the five-year-old war in Syria, which has not only affected neighboring countries but also many parts of the world with the flight of more than 4 million refugees.

Stating that he was optimistic that a solution was at hand due to the changing nature of Turkish foreign policy, in which Ankara aims to make more friends and decrease its number of enemies, Yildirim said the time had come for Turkey to mend relations with Syria.

He added that Turkey would overcome the Syrian problem together with the regional actors.

After his remarks, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hussein Jaberi Ansari said that Turkey will be invited to join Iran and Russia’s efforts to bring stability to Syria.

Addressing reporters in a press conference with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov, Jaberi Ansari said that Turkey was an important country and influential in the Syrian crisis.

“The Iranian and Turkish officials agreed to continue talks in implementation of bilateral agreements in detail; we will soon send an invitation to Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Umit Yalcın and alternatively, I will pay a visit to Ankara to talk about the regional issues in detail,” he added.

Jaberi Ansari expressed the hope that new developments in the region would help the establishment of new grounds for Iran, Russia and Turkey to act in coordination to end the stalemate and humanitarian crisis in Syria, especially in Aleppo.

The Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif had earlier this month visited Turkey.

In remarks made upon his arrival in Ankara, Zarif said, “Iran, Russia, and Turkey are considered important players in the region, and they need to engage in dialogue and cooperation.”

Pointing to the failed coup bid in Turkey, Zarif said, “We believe that the era of bullying and coups is over and such things no longer have a place in our region. People’s choice and will cannot be suppressed by a military group.”

During his one-day visit to Ankara, Zarif also met with President Erdogan.

Also, Zarif and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a telephone conversation on Thursday discussed bilateral ties and the latest developments in Syria.

In the phone talks, the Iranian and Russian foreign ministers exchanged views on the latest developments in the region, specially Syria.

The two sides called for resolving the regional crises through political means.

August 17, 2016 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey harmonises with Russia, Iran on Syria

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | August 15, 2016

The reported remarks Monday by Turkish Prime Minister Binaldi Yildirim regarding a 3-step road map for ending the Syrian conflict would be the latest indication that Ankara is tiptoeing toward restoring Turkish-Syrian relations at the diplomatic and political level.

Yildirim’s road map envisages future Syria to be a unitary state that has an inclusive political system with constitutional safeguards that prevent domination by any sectarian, ethnic or regional groups. Its constructive ambiguity over the core issue of the fate of President Bashar Al-Assad is absolutely delightful. It abandons the pre-condition that President Assad should step down in any transition.

Yildirim instead leaves it to the Syrian electorate’s majority will to decide on Assad’s political future. He thinks Assad may not get a popular mandate, but then, he won’t deny Assad the right to seek one, either. Now, isn’t that a leap of faith? (Hurriyet )

To be sure, with the Turkish-Russian rapprochement in hand and a new-found rapport with Iran in the air, President Recep Erdogan is preparing to address the Syrian question, which is the root cause of the instability in Turkey. (See my recent articles in Asia Times Putin, Erdogan have a deal on Syria and Iran taps into Turkish-Russian reset.)

The road map suggested by Ildirim means that Turkey seeks convergence with the Russian and Iranian stance. Ildirim didn’t say so as many words, but implied that Turkey is abandoning the ‘regime change’ project in Syria. There are signs that Turkey is rolling back its support for the rebel groups fighting the Syrian government forces.

Unsurprisingly, there is a sense of urgency on the part of Turkey against the backdrop of the capture of Manjib from the control of the Islamic State in the weekend by the predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) with the support of US Special Forces and air cover. (Associated Press )

Turkey had sought and obtained an assurance from the US in May that the Syrian Kurds will not be allowed to occupy Manjib and will be asked to leave the town after defeating the IS. However, much water has flown through the Bosphorous since then. US-Turkish relations have come under great stress following the coup of July 15. Suffice it to say, Turkey will be anxiously watching whether Washington will keep its word in the changed circumstances.

Indeed, the reports from Manjib should be highly worrisome for Turkey since the Syrian Kurds are now planning another military campaign to move further westward toward Al Bab, an important city in northern Syria, which will mean a significant expansion of their influence in the regions adjacent to the Turkish border. It would appear that the US is backing the Syrian Kurds in the new offensive on Al Bab. (VOA)

If so, Ankara’s worst fears seem to be coming true. A commentary by Deutsche Welle says that the Syrian Kurds are creating new “facts on the ground”. (German intelligence is active among Kurds.) The following excerpts suggest that the Syrian Kurds with US backing may be creating a fait accompli for Turkey:

  • The SDF’s growing political and military clout is likely to further enrage neighboring Turkey, which views the YPG (Syrian Kurds) as a terrorist group because of its close relations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighting in Turkey. Ankara has repeatedly had its redlines crossed by the Syrian Kurds and the United States. The latest iteration is in Manbij, where first the SDF crossed the Euphrates, thereby crossing one “redline,” then again when the YPG led the recapture of the city. This appears to have broken a reported understanding between Ankara and Washington that Arab forces would take the lead in Manbij.
  • The Syrian Kurds’ ultimate goal is to clear IS-controlled ground to the west of Manbij in order to unite their territories in the northeast, the so-called cantons of Kobani and Jazira, with Afrin… Uniting the cantons would give the Kurds an uninterrupted stretch of territory along the Turkish border, a prospect that the Syrian regime and Russia could welcome, as it would also weaken the rebel groups they are fighting. The question remains whether the United States will go along with an SDF offensive to unite the cantons and equally important, Turkey’s response to the prospect of a contiguous Kurdish mini state on its border and what that would mean for any future political solution in the country. (Deutche Welle )

Clearly, Yildirim’s accent on Turkey remaining a unitary state under any settlement needs to be put in the above perspective. Turkey will be dependent on Russia and Iran to prevent the emergence of a Kurdistan straddling its border regions with Syria.

On the other hand, Turkey also cannot antagonize Washington, since it is the US which is active on the ground in northern Syria and is equipping and helping the Syrian Kurds in their military campaign. Turkish Foreign Minister Mavlut Cavusoglu publicly demanded on Monday that the US should keep its word and have the Syrian Kurds vacate the regions to the west of Euphrates (which is Ankara’s ‘red line).

It is possible to see a degree of testiness in Cavusoglu’s words: “The U.S., even President [Barack] Obama, assured Turkey that the PYD (Syrian Kurds) would return to east of the Euphrates River after Manbij’s liberation. We expect them to keep their word.” (Anadolu )

Simply put, yet another fault line is appearing in US-Turkish relations in the run-up to the visit by US Vice-president Joe Biden to Ankara on August 24. Of course, Turkey holds a trump card insofar as the US operations in Syria are largely conducted from the Incirlik air base. But it will play the Incirlik card only if push comes to shove.

August 17, 2016 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah Leader reveals WHY the US created Daesh

August 17, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘What we saw in Syria goes against everything we read in the United States’

By Mark Taliano | American Herald Tribune | August 15, 2016

Patterns have long since emerged.  We know that each illegal war of conquest is prefaced by a Public Relations campaign that demonizes the target country’s leader and its government as it lies about on-the-ground realities. Muammar Gaddafi, for example, was presented to Western media consumers as a lunatic and despot. The Western narratives, however, were contradicted by the fact that he earned broad-based support from Libyans, all of whom enjoyed public services such as free healthcare and schooling, and a high standard of living.

The same demonization campaign is being waged against the hugely popular Dr. Bashar al-Assad, the democratically –elected President of Syria.

Terrorist –embedded propagandists teach us that he is an evil dictator who kills his own people, and that “he must go”; however, credible evidence inverts this logic.

Henry Lowendorf, a member of the Executive Board of the U.S Peace Council’s Peace and Fact-Finding Delegation to Syria — recently returned from Syria — reports, that, “What we saw (in Syria) goes against everything we read in the United States.”

He repudiates the Western media’s demonization campaign against the government of President Assad and the Syrian Arab Army in these words:

“When you go to Syria, which I did last month, the popularity of the government and the Syrian Arab Army is rampant. It’s not out of some dream fantasy. It comes obviously from the government and the army being the only thing between living a secular life on the one hand and the hatred and violence of ISIS and the various other terrorist groups underwritten by the terrorist Saudis and US and their allies on the other. The refugees who don’t leave Syria do not flee to the terrorist side, they flee to the government side, in huge numbers. So would all of us in similar circumstances. Syrians do not want their country turned into Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, or any of the other countries the US has liberated.”

The reality is an inversion of the propaganda lies fed to Western audiences.  In fact, President Assad must stay, for the sake of civilization, and for the sake of destroying Western-backed terrorism.  Each time Empire succeeds in destroying another country, the problem of terrorism worsens – as might be expected. The destruction of Libya, for example, set the stage for the attempted destruction of Syria.

Weapons stolen from Libyan armouries, thanks to the invasion, were covertly shipped to Syria – all beneath the radar of the U.S Congress.

A recently declassified Department of Defense document indicates that,

“Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the Port of Benghazi, Libya, to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria”

And none of this is accidental. Sustainable Western open-source documentation demonstrates that the growth of terrorism is willful, and according to Western plans.

The fall back story 9044b

The propaganda lies, the false flags,  the terrorist-embedded NGOs , and the use of terrorist proxies to criminally destroy one country after another, is not only empowering terrorism world-wide, but it is also leading us to engineered conflict with nuclear-armed countries, in particular, Russia.

Whereas the propaganda lies further the causes of barbarity and ignorance, we need a redirection towards the polar opposite: towards trajectories that support civilization, progress, and the rule of law.

Prof. Chossudovsky explains in “America’s ‘Humanitarian War’ against the World” that

“What is consequently required is a massive redirection of science and technology towards the pursuit of broad societal objectives. In turn, this requires a major shift in what is euphemistically called ‘US Foreign Policy’, namely America’s global military agenda.”

We need to shift from Death Industries of the Military Industrial Complex, to Life Industries that serve, rather than destroy, humanity. We also need a strong anti-war movement based on a broad-based support of the truth, and a broad-based rejection of the “governing” lies.

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August 16, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Deploys Jets at Iranian Base to Combat Syria Terrorists

Al-Manar | August 16, 2016

Russian warplanes have been deployed to the Hamedan Air Base in western Iran in a bid to take part in the fight against Takfiri insurgents in Syria.

Al-Masdar News (AMN ) reported the newly signed military agreement between Russia and Iran, noting that such move will allow Russia to reduce flight time by 60%, saving the Kremlin both money and improving airstrike effectiveness.

Currently, the strategic TU-22M3 bombers take flight from southern Russia at Modzok airfield, AMN reported.

The distance of these flights equal roughly 2,150km to reach a target near Palmyra. In comparison, the Hamedan Air Base in Iran is roughly 900km from Palmyra.

The Hmeimim (or Khmeimim) Airbase in Latakia province, which Russia was granted access to in late 2015, is not suitable for the massive TU-22M3, one of the largest bomber jets in the world.

The Russian military is yet to announce how many TU-22M3 will be operating from the Iranian airbase.

Russia has earlier requested Iraq and Iran airspace allowance to transport cruise missiles into Syria.

This development indicates significantly improved political relations between Iran and Russia.

August 16, 2016 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment