Why are UK &US so silent on the recapture of Palmyra from the clutches of Isis? Aren’t they supposed to be destroying Isis? Forget it. That’s Putin’s job. And Assad’s.

 

Robert Fisk,  Sunday 27 March 2016

In the end, it was the Syrian army – and its Hizballah chums from Lebanon, and the Iranians, and the Russians – who drove the Isis murderers out of Palmyra

The biggest military defeat that Isis has suffered in more than two years. The recapture of Palmyra, the Roman city of the Empress Zenobia. And we are silent. Yes, folks, the bad guys won, didn’t they? Otherwise, we would all be celebrating, wouldn’t we?
Less than a week after the lost souls of the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ destroyed the lives of more than 30 innocent human beings in Brussels, we should – should we not? – have been clapping our hands at the most crushing military reverse in the history of Isis. But no. As the black masters of execution fled Palmyra this weekend, Messers Obama and Cameron were as silent as the grave to which Isis have dispatched so many of their victims. He who lowered our national flag in honour of the head-chopping king of Arabia (I’m talking about Dave, of course) said not a word.
As my long-dead colleague on the Sunday Express, John Gordon, used to say, makes you sit up a bit, doesn’t it? Here are the Syrian army, backed, of course, by Vladimir Putin’s Russkies, chucking the clowns of Isis out of town, and we daren’t utter a single word to say well done.
When Palmyra fell last year, we predicted the fall of Bashar al-Assad. We ignored, were silent on, the Syrian army’s big question: why, if the Americans hated Isis so much, didn’t they bomb the suicide convoys that broke through the Syrian army’s front lines? Why didn’t they attack Isis?
“If the Americans wanted to destroy Isis, why didn’t they bomb them when they saw them?” a Syrian army general asked me, after his soldiers’ defeat His son had been killed defending Homs. His men had been captured and head-chopped in the Roman ruins. The Syrian official in charge of the Roman ruins (of which we cared so much, remember?) was himself beheaded. Isis even put his spectacles back on top of his decapitated head, for fun. And we were silent then.
Inside Isis secret tunnels
Putin noticed this, and talked about it, and accurately predicted the retaking of Palmyra. His aircraft attacked Isis – as US planes did not – in advance of the Syrian army’s conquest. I could not help but smile when I read that the US command claimed two air strikes against Isis around Palmyra in the days leading up to its recapture by the regime. That really did tell you all you needed to know about the American “war on terror”. They wanted to destroy Isis, but not that much.
So in the end, it was the Syrian army and its Hizballah chums from Lebanon and the Iranians and the Russians who drove the Isis murderers out of Palmyra, and who may – heavens preserve us from such a success – even storm the Isis Syrian ‘capital’ of Raqqa. I have written many times that the Syrian army will decide the future of Syria. If they grab back Raqqa – and Deir el-Zour, where the Nusrah front destroyed the church of the Armenian genocide and threw the bones of the long-dead 1915 Christian victims into the streets – I promise you we will be silent again.
Aren’t we supposed to be destroying Isis? Forget it. That’s Putin’s job. And Assad’s. Pray for peace, folks. That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? And Geneva. Where is that, exactly?

ISIS Twitter Accounts Traced to British Government

  
By Rudy Panko

Global Research, March 20, 2016

Russian Insider 20 March 2016

Twitter has blocked users accused of ‘harassing’ accounts linked to ISIS. Meanwhile, hackers have revealed that Twitter handles used by ISIS can be traced back to Saudi Arabia — and the British government. Surprise?
One of the central arguments used by governments looking to restrict internet freedoms and justify total surveillance is that social media and various other internet platforms allow “terrorists” to spread propaganda and incite violence. And of course, the only way to stop this horrible phenomenon — according to conventional wisdom — is to closely regulate speech on the internet, as well as adopt sweeping surveillance policies. Or at least so we’re told.

Twitter has blocked users accused of ‘harassing’ accounts linked to ISIS. Meanwhile, hackers have revealed that Twitter handles used by ISIS can be traced back to Saudi Arabia — and the British government. Surprise?
One of the central arguments used by governments looking to restrict internet freedoms and justify total surveillance is that social media and various other internet platforms allow “terrorists” to spread propaganda and incite violence. And of course, the only way to stop this horrible phenomenon — according to conventional wisdom — is to closely regulate speech on the internet, as well as adopt sweeping surveillance policies. Or at least so we’re told.
Made possible by Saudi Arabia and the UK

Made possible by Saudi Arabia and the UK
Which is why many were bewildered by Twitter’s decision to block “hacktivists” accused of “harassing” accounts linked to ISIS and other terrorist groups. The move made headlines earlier this month:
As quickly as ISIS sets up accounts and spreads propaganda, hackers from groups like Anonymous and Ctrl Sec are taking them down in their own online campaign #OpISIS.
The group updates followers, linking to the accounts they have spotted, while calling on other to join them and report Jihadi profiles.
But they have said the social media site is shutting them down.
In its own defense, Twitter has boasted that no less than 125,000 accounts linked to terrorist organizations have been removed. But internet activists say that Twitter has done little aside from acting on user-submitted complaints:
A statement from WauchulaGhost, an anti-terrorist hacker with the hacker collective Anonymous, said: “Who suspended 125,000 accounts? Anonymous, Anonymous affiliated groups, and everyday citizens.
“You do realise if we all stopped reporting terrorist accounts and graphic images, Twitter would be flooded with terrorists.”
After the announcement by Twitter angered Anonymous members revealed they have had their accounts banned – not ISIS.
In one day in February 15 hackers had their accounts shut down on Twitter, despite months of finding and reporting jihadis.
Why would Twitter ban users reporting accounts linked to ISIS? Maybe because some of these accounts can be traced back to Saudi Arabia, and even the British government. As it was reported in December 16 December 2015:
Hackers have claimed that a number of Islamic State supporters’ social media accounts are being run from internet addresses linked to the [UK] Department of Work and Pensions.
A group of four young computer experts who call themselves VandaSec have unearthed evidence indicating that at least three ISIS-supporting accounts can be traced back to the DWP.

But the story gets weirder. The British government allegedly sold a larger amount of IP addresses to “two Saudi firms”, which explains why ISIS uses IP addresses that can be traced back to the British government. Sounds legit:
[T]he British government sold on a large number of IP addresses to two Saudi Arabian firms.
After the sale completed in October of this year, they were used by extremists to spread their message of hate.
Jamie Turner, an expert from a firm called PCA Predict, discovered a record of the sale of IP addresses, and found a large number were transferred to Saudi Arabia in October of this year.
He told us it was likely the IP addresses could still be traced back to the DWP because records of the addresses had not yet been fully updated.
The Cabinet Office has now admitted to selling the IP addresses on to Saudi Telecom and the Saudi-based Mobile Telecommunications Company earlier this year as part of a wider drive to get rid of a large number of the DWP’s IP addresses.
So Saudi firms are using IP addresses purchased from the British government to spread ISIS propaganda on Twitter. Meanwhile, activists who try to get these accounts removed are themselves banned. To top it all off, David Cameron is now boasting of all the “brilliant” UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia. We’re sure the Saudis will use those British weapons and British IP addresses for the greater good.

Five Years Ago: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind The 2011 “Protest Movement”?

By Prof Michel ChossudovskyGlobal Research, March 16, 2016

Global Research 3 May 2011

  
Author’s note
The war on Syria started five years ago in Daraa on the 17th of March 2011.
The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.
It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan. 
Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington.
This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.
It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads? 
From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August14, 2011): 
NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011) 
This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war: 
Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)
These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS. 
The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).
In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad.
In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.
Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:
“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.
[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.
This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.
What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson.
The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protest
The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda affiliated insurgency integrated by death squads and professional snipers. President Bashar al Assad is then to be blamed for killing his own people. 
Does it Sound familiar? 
The same “false flag” strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine Maidan protest movement. On February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both demonstrators and policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor Yanukovych of “mass murder.”
It was subsequently revealed that these snipers were controlled by the opponents of president Yanukovych, who are now part of the coalition government. 
The “humanitarian mandate” of the US and its allies is sustained by diabolical “false flag” attacks which consist in killing civilians with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments which refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.
Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, March 16 2016
SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention”
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 3, 2011
There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification from the outset of the protest movement in southern Syria on March 17th [2011].
The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of the broader Arab pro-democracy protest movement, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria.
Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed forces, which are accused of indiscriminately shooting and killing unarmed “pro-democracy” demonstrators. While these police shootings did indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were shooting at both the security forces and the protesters.
The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated. Many of the reports are “according to witnesses”. The images and video footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not always correspond to the events which are being covered by the news reports.

  
There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased in recent year, social conditions have deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of sweeping economic reforms under IMF guidance. The IMF’s “economic medicine” includes austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the financial system, trade reform and privatization.
(See IMF Syrian Arab Republic — IMF Article IV Consultation Mission’s Concluding Statement, http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2006/051406.htm, 2006)
With a government dominated by the minority Alawite (an offshoot of Shia Islam), Syria is no “model society” with regard to civil rights and freedom of expression. It nonetheless constitutes the only (remaining) independent secular state in the Arab world. Its populist, anti-Imperialist and secular base is inherited from the dominant Baath party, which integrates Muslims, Christians and Druze.
Moreover, in contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, in Syria there is considerable popular support for President Bashar Al Assad. The large rally in Damascus on March 29, “with tens of thousands of supporters” (Reuters) of President Al Assad is barely mentioned. Yet in an unusual twist, the images and video footage of several pro-government events were used by the Western media to convince international public opinion that the President was being confronted by mass anti-government rallies.

  
Tens of thousands of Syrians gather for a pro-government rally at the central

bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)

  
Syrians display a giant national flag with a picture of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad during a

pro-government rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)
The “Epicenter” of the Protest Movement. Daraa: A Small Border Town in southern Syria
What is the nature of the protest movement? From what sectors of Syrian society does it emanate? What triggered the violence?
What is the cause of the deaths?
The existence of an organized insurrection composed of armed gangs involved in acts of killing and arson has been dismissed by the Western media, despite evidence to the contrary.
The demonstrations did not start in Damascus, the nation’s capital. At the outset, the protests were not integrated by a mass movement of citizens in Syria’s capital.
The demonstrations started in Daraa, a small border town of 75,000 inhabitants, on the Syrian Jordanian border, rather than in Damascus or Aleppo, where the mainstay of organized political opposition and social movements are located. (Daraa is a small border town comparable e.g. to Plattsburgh, NY on the US-Canadian border).
The Associated Press report (quoting unnamed “witnesses” and “activists”) describes the early protests in Daraa as follows:
The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a major challenge for President Bashar Assad, …. Syrian police launched a relentless assault Wednesday on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government protesters [Daraa], fatally shooting at least 15 in an operation that began before dawn, witnesses said.
At least six were killed in the early morning attack on the al-Omari mosque in the southern agricultural city of Daraa, where protesters have taken to the streets in calls for reforms and political freedoms, witnesses said. An activist in contact with people in Daraa said police shot another three people protesting in its Roman-era city center after dusk. Six more bodies were found later in the day, the activist said.
As the casualties mounted, people from the nearby villages of Inkhil, Jasim, Khirbet Ghazaleh and al-Harrah tried to march on Daraa Wednesday night but security forces opened fire as they approached, the activist said. It was not immediately clear if there were more deaths or injuries. (AP, March 23, 2011, emphasis added)
The AP report inflates the numbers: Daraa is presented as a city of 300,000 when in fact its population is 75,000; “protesters gathered by the thousands”, “casualties mounted”.
The report is silent on the death of policemen which in the West invariably makes the front page of the tabloids.
The deaths of the policemen are important in assessing what actually happened. When there are police casualties, this means that there is an exchange of gunfire between opposing sides, between policemen and “demonstrators”.
Who are these “demonstrators” including roof top snipers who were targeting the police.
Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) provide a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18. The Israel National News Report (which cannot be accused of being biased in favor of Damascus) reviews these same events as follows:
Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday.
…. On Friday police opened fire on armed protesters killing four and injuring as many as 100 others. According to one witness, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, “They used live ammunition immediately — no tear gas or anything else.”
…. In an uncharacteristic gesture intended to ease tensions the government offered to release the detained students, but seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report, quoting various sources, also acknowledges the killings of seven policemen in Daraa: They were killed “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a” 
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirm the following:
1. This was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media. Several of the “demonstrators” had fire arms and were using them against the police: “The police opened fire on armed protesters killing four”.
2. From the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than demonstrators who were killed: 7 policemen killed versus 4 demonstrators. This is significant because it suggests that the police force might have been initially outnumbered by a well organized armed gang. According to Syrian media sources, there were also snipers on rooftops which were shooting at both the police and the protesters.
What is clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson. The title of the Israeli news report summarizes what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests. The title suggests that the “demonstrators” rather than the police had the upper hand.
The Daraa “protest movement” on March 18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving, in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence. Government sources point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel)
Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement.
What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent clashes on 17-18 March, is the confrontation between the police and the armed forces on the one hand and armed units of terrorists and snipers on the other which had infiltrated the protest movement.
Reports suggest that these terrorists are integrated by Islamists. There is no concrete evidence as to which Islamic organizations are behind the terrorists and the government has not released corroborating information as to who these groups are.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), among others have paid lip service to the protest movement. Hizb ut Tahir (led in the 1980s by Syrian born Omar Bakri Muhammad) tends to “dominate the British Islamist scene” according to Foreign Affairs. Hizb ut Tahir is also considered to be of strategic importance to Britain’s Secret Service MI6. in the pursuit of Anglo-American interests in the Middle East and Central Asia. (Is Hizb-ut-Tahrir another project of British MI6? | State of Pakistan).

  
Hizb ut-Tahrir anti-Assad rally in Tripoli, Lebanon (40 km from Syrian border), April 22, 2011. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Syria
Syria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance, where Muslims and Christians have for several centuries lived in peace. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical political movement committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed objective is to destabilize the secular state.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as Israel’s Mossad have consistently used various Islamic terrorist organizations as “intelligence assets”. Both Washington and its indefectible British ally have provided covert support to “Islamic terrorists” in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to triggering ethnic strife, sectarian violence and political instability.
The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The insurrection in Eastern Libya is integrated by the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA. The ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and fabrications, is to create divisions within Syrian society as well as justify an eventual “humanitarian intervention”.
Armed Insurrection in Syria
An armed insurrection integrated by Islamists and supported covertly by Western intelligence is central to an understanding of what is occurring on the ground.
The existence of an armed insurrection is not mentioned by the Western media. If it were to be acknowledged and analysed, our understanding of unfolding events would be entirely different.
What is mentioned profusely is that the armed forces and the police are involved in the indiscriminate killing of protesters.
The deployment of the armed forces including tanks in Daraa is directed against an organized armed insurrection, which has been active in the border city since March 17-18.
Casualties are being reported which also include the death of policemen and soldiers.
In a bitter irony, the Western media acknowledges the police/soldier deaths while denying the existence of an armed insurrection.
The key question is how does the media explain these deaths of soldiers and police?
Without evidence, the reports suggest authoritatively that the police is shooting at the soldiers and vice versa the soldiers are shooting on the police. In a April 29 Al Jazeera report, Daraa is described as “a city under siege”.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.
Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him – neither with the secret police, paid thugs or the special forces of his brother’s military division – President Bashar al-Assad has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Deraa for an operation the regime wants nobody in the world to see.
Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut, including the Jordanian mobile service that reaches into the city from just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered firsthand accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from eyewitnesses inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.
The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being killed or wounded, in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is created the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating crackdown. (Daraa, a City under Siege, IPS / Al Jazeera, April 29, 2011)
The Al Jazeera report borders on the absurd. Read carefully.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out”, “thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Daraa”
This situation has prevailed for several weeks. This means that bona fide protesters who are not already inside Daraa cannot enter Daraa.
People who live in the city are in their homes: “nobody dares walk … the streets”. If nobody dares walk the streets where are the protesters?
Who is in the streets? According to Al Jazeera, the protesters are in the streets together with the soldiers, and both the protesters and the soldiers are being shot at by “plain clothes secret police”, by “paid thugs” and government sponsored snipers.
The impression conveyed in the report is that these casualties are attributed to infighting between the police and the military.
But the report also says that the soldiers (in the “thousands”) control all roads in and out of the city, but they are being shot upon by the plain clothed secret police.
The purpose of this web of media deceit, namely outright fabrications –where soldiers are being killed by police and “government snipers”– is to deny the existence of armed terrorist groups. The later are integrated by snipers and “plain clothed terrorists” who are shooting at the police, the Syrian armed forces and local residents.
These are not spontaneous acts of terror; they are carefully planned and coordinated attacks. In recent developments, according to a Xinhua report (April 30, 2011), armed “terrorist groups” “attacked the housing areas for servicemen” in Daraa province, “killing a sergeant and wounding two”.
While the government bears heavy responsibility for its mishandling of the military-police operation, including the deaths of civilians, the reports confirm that the armed terrorist groups had also opened fire on protesters and local residents. The casualties are then blamed on the armed forces and the police and the Bashar Al Assad government is portrayed by “the international community” as having ordered countless atrocities.
The fact of the matter is that foreign journalists are banned from reporting inside Syria, to the extent that much of the information including the number of casualties is obtained from the unverified accounts of “witnesses”.
It is in the interest of the US-NATO alliance to portray the events in Syria as a peaceful protest movement which is being brutally repressed by a “dictatorial regime”.
The Syrian government may be autocratic. It is certainly not a model of democracy but neither is the US administration, which is characterized by rampant corruption, the derogation of civil liberties under the Patriot legislation, the legalisation of torture, not to mention its “bloodless” “humanitarian wars”:
“The U.S. and its NATO allies have, in addition to U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO Active Endeavor military assets permanently deployed in the Mediterranean, warplanes, warships and submarines engaged in the assault against Libya that can be used against Syria at a moment’s notice.
On April 27 Russia and China evidently prevented the U.S. and its NATO allies from pushing through an equivalent of Resolution 1973 against Syria in the Security Council, with Russian deputy ambassador to the UN Alexander Pankin stating that the current situation in Syria “does not present a threat to international peace and security.” Syria is Russia’s last true partner in the Mediterranean and the Arab world and hosts one of only two Russian overseas naval bases, that at Tartus. (The other being in Ukraine’s Crimea.)” (Rick Rozoff, Libyan Scenario For Syria: Towards A US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention” directed against Syria? Global Research, April 30, 2011)
The ultimate purpose is to trigger sectarian violence and political chaos within Syria by covertly supporting Islamic terrorist organizations.
What lies ahead?
The longer term US foreign policy perspective is “regime change” and the destabilization of Syria as an independent nation-state, through a covert process of “democratization” or through military means.
Syria is on the list of “rogue states”, which are targeted for a US military intervention. As confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark the “[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark).
The objective is to weaken the structures of the secular State while justifying an eventual UN sponsored “humanitarian intervention”. The latter, in the first instance, could take the form of a reinforced embargo on the country (including sanctions) as well as the freezing of Syrian bank assets in overseas foreign financial institutions.
While a US-NATO military intervention in the immediate future seems highly unlikely, Syria is nonetheless on the Pentagon’s military roadmap, namely an eventual war on Syria has been contemplated both by Washington and Tel Aviv.
If it were to occur, at some future date, it would lead to escalation. Israel would inevitably be involved. The entire Middle East Central Asian region from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Chinese-Afghan border would flare up.
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Editor of globalresearch.ca. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. He spent a month in Syria in early 2011.

Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom

By GPD on February 21, 2016By: Sarah Chayes Alex de Waa

  
Saudi Arabia is no state at all. It’s an unstable business so corrupt to resemble a criminal organization and the U.S. should get ready for the day after.

For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.”
So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterrorism slush fund without a second thought. In a sea of chaos, goes the refrain, the kingdom is one state that’s stable.
But is it?
In fact, Saudi Arabia is no state at all. There are two ways to describe it: as a political enterprise with a clever but ultimately unsustainable business model, or so corrupt as to resemble in its functioning a vertically and horizontally integrated criminal organization. Either way, it can’t last. It’s past time U.S.decision-makers began planning for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom.
In recent conversations with military and other government personnel, we were startled at how startled they seemed at this prospect. Here’s the analysis they should be working through.
Understood one way, the Saudi king is CEO of a family business that converts oil into payoffs that buy political loyalty. They take two forms: cash handouts or commercial concessions for the increasingly numerous scions of the royal clan, and a modicum of public goods and employment opportunities for commoners.

Riyadh on the Brink: US Must Prepare for Collapse of its Mideast ‘Lynchpin’
The United States must start thinking of ways to mitigate the damage from the approaching collapse of the current Saudi Arabian monarchy.
A codependence between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US has existed for decades. A scheme in which oil from the Saudis was exchanged for US military might worked well for both. It worked so well, in fact, that the US turned a blind eye to consistent human rights violations in the kingdom, as well as the spread of Wahhabi religious extremism.
Unfortunately for America, this formula has an expiration date. Several factors predetermine the collapse of the current Saudi Arabian ruling monarchy, according to Defense One.
The first is that it operates more as a “family business” than an actual state, where the king, aka the CEO, converts oil into payoffs to buy political and military loyalty. It is widely accepted that the system is corrupt and cannot endure. What happens when the price of loyalty rises and a ravenous elite doesn’t limit its appetite now that oil prices keep dropping? The monarchy will face political insolvency.
Saudi citizens have begun to show hints of discontent with the heavy-handed ruling elite, especially those members of the Shiite minority. The highly educated Sunni majority is also showing dissatisfaction with the cake crumbs it is accustomed to receiving. And Saudi officials, exploiting ‘guest workers’ who currently heavily outnumber citizens and may soon see those indentured servants begin to claim rights.
In countries such as Nigeria, Brazil or Malaysia, when people protest government corruption, heads of state resign. Saudi King Salman’s ruling methods include executing dissidents, embarking on foreign wars, and whipping up sectarian rivalries to discredit Saudi Shiite demands. These and many other social issues, including the treatment of women as second class citizens, only contribute to the disaffection.
According to Defense One, there are three ways things could play out. One is a factional struggle within the royal family when it runs out of money, resulting in a new king who either continues the old ways or attempts reform.
Another possibility is additional foreign wars, as war is a popular option among the desperate to direct attention away from themselves. One war, against Yemen, is already in progress. The monarchy has hinted that it will fight in Syria as well.
Or there could be insurrection. It’s unlikely, as the ruling party holds all the resources, but it must, nonetheless, be considered. The US must be prepared for any of these scenarios and not get caught flat-footed when its Arab lynchpin in Mideast policy comes apart.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at Tuft University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Sarah Chayes is senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law and South Asia Programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is the author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security.

Syrian Army Completes East Aleppo Cauldron: 800 ISIS Fighters Trapped. Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

Syrian Army Completes East Aleppo Cauldron: 800 ISIS Fighters Trapped. Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide
  

Daesh Terrorists: A Multifunction Tool in Hands of Ankara, Riyadh, NATO

by EKATERINA BLINOVA

Sputnik.com 20.02.2016

  
The West and its Mideast partners are playing deceiving Machiavellian games in Syria, F. William Engdahl told Sputnik, adding that Russia is in a most risky situation if it believes that the other actors involved in the conflict, such as Recep Erdogan or King Salman and his impulsive son Prince Mohammed, are reasonable, as hate knows no reason.

While tensions are simmering over the prospect of a Turkish-Saudi invasion of Syria, six members of the UN Security Council, including the US, UK and France, have voiced their objections to a Russian draft resolution aimed at restoring the sovereignty of the Middle Eastern state, fanning the flames.

The draft resolution, which denounces any actions that undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and condemns any plans for a foreign military invasion, has been dismissed by the US and French UN ambassadors as “having no future.”
It is rather surprising that the proposed resolution, aimed at peace in Syria and the protection of the fundamental values of the UN charter, has immediately come under fire from Washington and the major European powers. However, there is an obvious explanation: the Western powers have repeatedly violated international law, having acted militarily in Syria without official permission from the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad.
In light of this, the contours of the Western strategy in Syria are getting clearer. The question then arises whether the Syrian Arab Army, backed by Russia’s Air Force, will help Damascus restore sovereignty and re-unite Syria?
“What I feel is that at present the energy in Syria is, regrettably, one of death and destruction, everywhere. This cannot easily be healed such that Syria becomes a healthy sovereign nation as it was perhaps a century ago, prior to World War I. This is the destructiveness of war. It is not a question of military reconquest of land lost in the past five years of war. Were it so easy, the world would have healed the scars of all wars centuries ago. No one side ‘wins’ in war, only in peace,” American researcher, historian and strategic risk consultant F. William Engdahl told Sputnik in an exclusive interview.
By stepping in in Syria, Russia has actually entered a geopolitical chess tournament with crafty Western players. Will Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad beat Washington’s geopolitical grandmasters at their own game?

“This is a very difficult question to answer. My honest feeling is that the American Patriarchs as I prefer to call them, not grandmasters, have a deep plan with their many wars in the Middle East. The plan is simple — spread hate, destruction, a killing energy, not only in the Middle East oil countries but also in the EU as well as inside the United States, in China, everywhere, with their wars over oil in the end,” Engdahl pointed out.
© AP Photo/
Fighters of the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul, Iraq. (File)
If the world is busy with such destruction, those Patriarchs have the misguided feeling they will prevail, the strategic risk consultant underscored, adding that we are in a kind of world war already.
“They ignited the Maidan Square coup in February 2014 to disrupt growing, positive economic and political relations, especially between Germany and Russia, to an extent between the EU and Russia. They have demonized Russia and her President in their media. China will be next in their sights,” Engdahl stressed.
Indeed, a belt of instability has stretched from North Africa and the Balkans to Central Asia and beyond. Five years have passed since the “Day of Rage” in Libya which was aimed against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. The uprising, enthusiastically supported by the West, has lured the country into constant turmoil. Meanwhile, in another part of the world, the Afghani failed state is still desperately fighting against Islamic extremists.  

“I believe that they felt they were losing their control to nations [which were] acting more independently and sovereign in recent years, like Russia, like Germany, like China, like Iran and other states encouraged to assert national autonomy against the wishes of NATO. Of course, in the end they will only lose, but if we are not conscious of who we are, and who they are, as Sun Tzu said, they will manage to create huge destruction before that point. Simply think about the deep scars of the war 75 years ago,” the researcher told Sputnik.
© Sputnik/ Iliya Pitalev
A soldier of the Syrian Arab Army is seen here in Aleppo
Does that mean the notorious Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) is a kind of “agent of destruction”?
“Daesh, simply said, is Saudi Arabia’s monarchy. In my most recent book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy, I describe in great detail the perverse ‘unholy alliance,’ brokered by the CIA in the early 1950s to mate the Egyptian death cult known as the Muslim Brotherhood with the primitive Saudi Wahhabist branch of Islam. The consequence of that was Mujahedeen, the Chechen wars, Bosnia’s Mujahedeen war against the Serbs, and now Al Qaeda-Al Nusra and Daesh. Erdogan’s family, supported in a perverse alliance by this Saudi monarchy, is embracing Daesh as a weapon to kill Kurds and create some kind of New Ottoman Sultanate, and to enable Saudi control of the oil and gas of Iraq, of Syria and of Yemen,” Engdahl elaborated.
“But they will fail,” the researcher remarked.
Despite the fact that the international community has repeatedly expressed its deep concerns over Daesh’s “extraordinary levels of funding” and the imminent danger this poses to the Western civilization, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman admitted on February 9 that the terror group continues to sell stolen oil on the global market.

Some experts believe it would be impossible, hadn’t a “tacit agreement” been concluded by European and American decision-makers. Back in June 2014 French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network Thierry Meyssan called attention to the fact that Daesh and al-Nusra Front were selling stolen crude on the international market, “so monitored by Washington,” without hindrance. That can only mean one thing, Meyssan suggested: they are either authorized by Washington or linked to storefront oil companies.
So, why do Washington and Western “oil barons” allow Daesh to continue selling stolen oil, replenishing its vaults with more money for war, terror and destruction?
“NATO uses Daesh and allows the oil to flow to that end, luring Erdogan and Salman into a well-planned trap. NATO, of course, is controlled by Washington and those American Patriarchs who steer the military-industrial complex and their oil barons. We need only to look at the statement recently of Hakan Fidan, head of Turkish MIT intelligence, urging the West to see Daesh as legitimate Muslims with a right to be respected and you get the idea,” Engdahl emphasized.
“Everyone in this war is deceiving, playing Machiavellian games — Erdogan, Salman and his son, Prince Salman, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, John Kerry, Obama, Cameron, Hollande. Russia is in a most risky situation in Syria if it and its leading people have any illusion that the other actors are reasonable. Hate knows no reason,” the researcher warned.

This Enormous VICTORY over ISIS, is Causing Sheer PANIC for Turkey and Saudi Arabia!

Source: http://thewealthwatchman.comBy 

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

  
The Vise Is Tightening
As things on the banking scene continue to spiral downward, with Deutsche bank on suicide watch…there’s another deadly situation, that’s threatening now to burn out of control. It’s getting quite serious, because major powers are actually beginning to commit military assets to Syria.
What’s worse, is that some major powers have even begun military strikes into this country, against the expressed wishes of the presiding government. For those who’re wondering, “why, why after all this time are neighboring countries finally threatening to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong?” Ah, that’s an easy one, one look at this map, and you’ll see why.

  
Right there, in the top left corner, is what’s causing serious conniption fits in the halls of Ankara, Turkey, as Erdogan is furious at the thought of losing A’zaz. Azaz is roughly 20 miles north of Aleppo, and remains one of the last major holdouts of the area, for terrorist forces backed by Turkey/US/UK/Saudis/Israel.
As you can see, Azaz is being surrounded by Kurdish forces, currently(specifically the YPG), and if the Kurdish people are able to occupy that last outpost, held by terrorist groups, backed by Turkey….then two things will occur:
1) The Kurdish people will be able to consolidate huge territorial gains made during the war, and have a complete network stretching across northern Syria, and
2) The last remaining supply lines to Turkish/Saudi-backed terrorists in Aleppo will be completely cut!

This is seriously tightening the screws on the holdout villages and cities, who are responsible for terrorizing Syria. Erdogan is now in a mess of his own making. His pet terrorists are not only in danger of being utterly destroyed here, but any moment he could effectively lose control of huge portions of southern Turkish territory to Kurdish forces!
The situation is also growing VERY dire for the poor, shellacked forces of ISIS/Nusra/Al-Fath/Daesh in Syria. Their dreams of a caliphate are dying, as thousands of laser-guided, pinpointed bombs are making mincemeat of US/UK-sponsored organizations all over the ancient countryside.
BREAKING, this news just came in: the last remaining supply lines to Aleppo have now been CUT OFF!
Look at this glorious map!

  
Yes, you see that right, folks: Assad and Putin have beaten back Daesh/Nusra/Jaysh Al-Fath/ISIS on nearly all Western fronts, and have now almost totally encircled Aleppo! The last, major supply lines have been eliminated!

Aleppo is one of the 3 major cities of Syria, and the country’s biggest. Assad, who was in danger of finally losing the war(until Russia came in), has now totally turned the tide, and is choking off all vital supplies coming into the city.
As I’ve said for months, Aleppo is the key to this war. If Assad’s forces can succeed in retaking Aleppo, this war is effectively over. ISIS may control much of eastern Syria, but there are no large cities in eastern Syria on the scale of Damascus, Homs, or Aleppo. These three cities form the core population, and are now nearly all safely in Assad’s control.
What brought the Syrian government to this stunning turnaround though, has been 4 months of insanely intense campaigning to retake every village, every airport, every highway, and every mountain range of importance across western Syria. With logistical ground support of Hezbollah, and superb bombing missions by the Russian Air Force, the Syrian army(which has now swelled to half a MILLION strong), is rolling like a juggernaut across the landscape. If you don’t believe me, just feast your eyes at the shortlist of places they’ve liberated from ISIS control:
Itmann
Rutyaan
Baashoora Village
Barlaheen
Al-Seen
Rasm Al-‘Alam
Kiffeen Village
Al-Hawar
Al-Ruwaysaat
Al-Suwaydiyya
Al-Waadi Al-Azraq
Zhahrat Al-Baydar Al-Mahrooq
Al-Kattaaf Properties
Tallat Ziyaarat Al-Baydha
Ibta
Daa’il
Maayer
Mannagh Airbase
Teebat Al-Ism
Al-Baab
Dhahrat Al-Qar’ah
Dhahrat Al-Qindeela
Aara Village
Billah Village
Shillif Village
Taadif….among others.
And just think brothers, these are just the places they’ve liberated in the last 2 weeks alone! There can be no doubt that the tag team of Assad and Putin has been devastating and completely effective.
The Syrian Army, backed by the Russian Air Force, and Hezbollah, is going from victory to victory. Many thousands of terrorists have been turned into fertilizer since Christmas. Their struggle to liberate Syria from the clutches of Western proxy armies has been utterly successful. A bit too successful for the Turkish President, who now finds himself with a deliciously, difficult problem!
Erdogan’s Dilemma

  
President Erdogan’s dreams of running the alternative gas pipeline that he, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia hoped to run through Syria and Europe, to weaken Russia….are all but dying. There are no good options left for this charlatan.
The entire western front is collapsing, on both the northern and southern ends. This is also why Saudi Arabia has now threatened to invade Syria…you know…to “fight ISIS”. *wink wink* Their hopes of having a large slice of the LNG pie through the pipeline wars, is going up in a mushroom cloud.
“But Watchman, Erdogan has already betrayed Russia, and shot down a Russian jet with its own fighters…can’t they just send in jets?”
Ahh, my brothers, they can no longer do that, because of what Putin did just after that treacherous act. The problem for Erdogan, is that these have now been liberally sprinkled all over Syria!

  
The Russian S400 “Growler”, the most advanced anti-aircraft missile system in existence, and which(in the largest category) has a range of over 250 miles! Putin could shoot down Turkish jets as far away as Cyprus or Iraq, without blinking an eye, if he had to! 

Putin has now placed these puppies at roughly a dozen spots across the country. If Erdogan tries to fly his jets into Syria to bomb the Syrian army, or the YPG Kurdish forces….they’ll most certainly be shot out of the sky, with effortless ease.
However, hilariously, if Erdogan tries to send his tanks and infantry venturing into Syrian lands, to stave off Kurdish or Syrian armed forces…those armored units will be instantly pulverized by Russian and Syrian jets, since they’re totally void of any air support of their own!
Ditto for Saudi Arabia, whose forces are already tied down in a quagmire war in Yemen, and getting their butts handed to them by ragtag forces, who don’t like to be bombed or occupied by foreigners! Saudi Arabia is screeching about the need to intervene, but they’re already tied down in other areas, and don’t have the manpower or capabilities to fight Russia and Assad in Syria.
However, I caution us all to be wary about this, because Erdogan is a cornered rat, and cornered rats are very, very dangerous creatures. It is possible this man could launch such a suicidal attack into Syria, just to force Syria and Russia to destroy them….in the hopes that NATO might be drawn into a much larger conflict in Syria.
It’s possible.
Erdogan and NATO, should be very cautious and wise about this. Putin holds all the cards in Syria, and now is the favored ally to fight ISIS in Iraq as well. He has all the hardware in place to make an air war impossible, and the allied forces in Syria have an enormous fighting force to stunt invasions in Syria’s sovereign territory.
For now, all eyes are on Azaz and Aleppo. If Aleppo falls, perhaps as little as in the next 2 weeks, Assad is sitting pretty, and Putin’s big gambit, to back him, has paid off in spades.
The only question left is: what will Erdogan do? Will he try something even more criminal, and foolish? Or will he cut his already sizeable losses, and run?
Conclusion
In just 4 short months, Russian help has not only turned the tide of the war on ISIS, but has all but threatened to end the largest battle of the war: the fight for Aleppo. The Syrian people, who’ve been raped, shot, tortured, and who’ve lost hundreds of thousands of lives, and countless, ancient cultural treasures to these vile henchmen, are on the cusp of an amazing victory.
I’m cheering for these people, as they fight the Jewish-backed, bankster forces of globalism. I’m also very thankful for Putin, a man, who has single-handedly stopped these sinister forces on at least 3 fronts(Syria, Ukraine, and the Caucasus). Without his courage and will to intervene, and his seemingly 6th sense for just the right moment to strike….many more terrible things would’ve happened in all those regions, and more.
Let’s hope and pray that the worst actions of terrorist, rogue states will be kept in check, and that the worst case scenario, of a larger regional war(involving NATO) does not materialize. If it doesn’t, Aleppo could be freed within several weeks.
Then….then Russian and Syrian jets will begin to pound Raqqa, the HQ of ISIS in Syria….and revenge will be sweet indeed.
God bless those who are giving their lives to liberate their homeland, and the very brave folks who came to their aid, in Syria. I wish them the very best of success!

  

What would be needed to kick Turkey out of NATO?

  
By Eybi Sulam with modifications

1- Funding terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, overtly. This would make Turkey condemned worldwide and most probably suspended from NATO if not expelled altogether. Turkey is supporting terrorist groups in Syria, opening their training camps for them, and opening the boarder to cross to Syria

2- Warring on another NATO member, this would definitely get Turkey some headache from the NATO but not necessarily mean expulsion from the alliance. The attacked NATO country could call other NATO members to its aid and Turkey would literally be squashed.

3- Genocide, ethnic cleansing and these sort of systemic crimes of humanity against millions. This would get Turkey suspended if not expelled from NATO immediately. Turkey did this for decades for the Kurds and Allawits.

The Paris Meeting of Conspirators in Support of Syria’s “Moderate Terrorists”: Talks Filled With Sinful Crime.

By Christopher BlackGlobal Research, January 24, 2016

New Eastern Outlook 24 January 2016
  

On January 20th a cabal of dependencies of the United States of America, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, France, and Italy, met in Paris to discuss war on Syria. One of a series of such meetings with a changing list of participants, it included the defence ministers of the countries supporting various proxy forces attacking Syria, either posing as “rebels” or allied with the American created and supported force ISIS. It was in fact a meeting of conspirators planning a war of aggression. There is no other way to put it. This was a criminal act under international law and another dramatic repudiation of the United Nations and everything the United Nations Charter stands for.
One nation that was not invited was Canada, a snub that has caused consternation among the war party in Canada, but is likely the result of the new prime minister’s pledge to withdraw Canadian forces from action in Syria and Iraq. The new Canadian government has not in fact withdrawn its small forces as promised but no doubt the Americans are doubtful of the new government’s reliability as a partner in crime and wanted to slap down the new government for daring to make even a mild move towards peace in our time.
The Canadian government’s pledge to withdraw its forces was a result of campaign promises made during the October elections in Canada where these military adventures are unpopular with large sections of the population which sees them as wasting their tax money fighting wars for American interests and domination of the world. The fact that such operations are not only illegal under international law but also under Canadian law as set out in the National Defence Act, and, therefore, should never have been conducted in the first place, is, inexplicably, never mentioned by any Canadian government figure, major political party or any of the tightly controlled and coordinated media, because, of course, law means nothing to criminals.
343422323
The Paris meeting was a criminal act, a war crime in fact, since the only international body that has the right to determine if, when and how military forces is to be applied in any situation is the United Nations Security Council. Any military action taken outside the mandate of the Security Council is prohibited and the Rome Statute, the statute that governs the International Criminal Court, defines such a meeting as a conspiracy to commit aggression, the worst of all war crimes, because it leads to all other war crimes that necessarily follow an act of aggression.
But the Paris meeting is not the first step in furthering this conspiracy to commit acts of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria. The first act was the attack made on Syria by the United States in 2011 after it and its co-conspirators attacked and destroyed Libya using the same proxy forces, the same techniques, and the same propaganda to mislead the public. Many of the same mercenaries, and thugs that they used against Libya were quickly reassigned and sent into Syria through Turkey, and Jordan where they soon linked up with armed groups from Iraq now known as ISIS. The United States, Turkey, Britain, France, and Saudi Arabia, brag about their open support for these groups, and have confessed that they have sent in their own special forces to “train” them. This act of aggression against Syria continues to escalate and came close to succeeding until Russia, at the request of the besieged government of Syria, decided to deploy its air forces in Syria in order to crush these American and allied proxy forces.
The reaction here in the west since September when the Russians began their very effective air operations has been a seething anger from Washington, to London, from Paris to Berlin, from Riyadh to Istanbul. The failure of the American attempt to conquer Syria will mean the failure of the American plan to kick Russia out of the Mediterranean, a failure to control the land routes from there to Iran for an eventual attack on Iran itself, an operation that cannot be mounted from the Persian Gulf, and a failure to place its forces on the southern flank of Russia in preparation for a pincer thrust into Russia from the south and the western plains of Poland and Ukraine. Others cite gas pipelines and war profits as reasons, but these are secondary to the principal strategy of the domination of Eurasia by the United States and those hoping to be thrown some scraps from the spoils, like the jackals they are.
None of these countries have any legal or moral right to attack Syria under the guise of going after ISIS, or Islamic State as they now call it. To obtain that right they would first have to be asked by the Syrian government for their assistance. The Syrian government does not want their “assistance”. They do not want their war. But these criminal nations refuse to talk to the Syrian government and insist on its overthrow and they refuse to take their case before the Security Council because they know they have no case and Russia and China will oppose their criminal plans. So they evade the United Nations and once again, create ad hoc “coalitions” of the criminal minded, who have no respect for international law, their own laws, the sovereign rights of the Syrian nation, or their own platitudes about peace and “human rights.”
The criminal nature and intent of the meeting was openly declared in the press conference after the meeting by the US Defense Secretary Carter who called for more forces to be gathered to “eject jihadist fighters from their headquarters in Raqqa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq and to maintain that planned defeat.” The latter phrase must be interpreted as meaning a permanent occupation of the region by American and allied forces. To back this up the America Army’s 101st Airborne Division has been assigned the role of re-entering Iraq. It seems Iraq will have no choice in the matter as the Americans continue their drive to establish a new protectorate out of western Iraq and eastern Syria which they can then use to control the region and attack Iran. Further meetings are to be held in Brussels in a few weeks.
In the meantime Russia continues to try to achieve a negotiated resolution of the war in compliance with international law and a further meeting of the Russian and American foreign ministers will be held in Geneva to discuss it but there is little hope of those talks going anywhere since the two countries approach the problem from completely opposite positions; the Russians on the basis of the national sovereignty of Syria and the recognition of the existing government as the only legitimate government, the Americans on the basis that might makes right and Syria must submit to its will. For them, international law and national sovereignty are phrases empty of all meaning.
And once again, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court remains in her office in The Hague, completely inert as nations that are within her jurisdiction plan these crimes. She has charged several African leaders for much less but then those prosecutions serve the interests of the same powers she should be prosecuting. She doesn’t even hold a press conference condemning these meetings, actions and plans for more war and insisting that these criminals adhere to international law. Nothing is said. Nothing is done. The ICC is shown to be as useless as the Security Council.
It is the Americans and their allies who are responsible for all the dead and dying in Syria, and it is they who “brought forth the monstrous mass of earthly slime, puft up with empty wind and filled with sinful crime” that is ISIS and it is clear that they will continue to use this monster of their creation as a device to escalate the war against Syria and increase their crimes but who, aside from the Syrian people, Russia and Iran can stop them? And so, the war will continue, the misery it brings will continue, and those responsible will continue to meet in beautiful settings, enjoying the fine things their crimes bring, bragging that they are saving the people from the very “terrorists” they created and control.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, he is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and he is known for a number of high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
The original source of this article is New Eastern Outlook

Syria is the Middle Eastern Stalingrad

New Eatern Outlook.cpm

02.01.2016 Author: Andre Vltchek

  

Day and night, for years, an overwhelming force has been battering this quiet nation, one of the cradles of human civilization.
Hundreds of thousands have died, and millions have been forced to flee abroad or have been internally displaced. In many cities and villages, not one house is left intact.
But Syria is, against all odds, still standing.
During the last 3 years I worked in almost all of Syria’s perimeters, exposing the birth of ISIS in the NATO-run camps built in Turkey and Jordan. I worked in the occupied Golan Heights, and in Iraq. I also worked in Lebanon, a country now forced to host over 2 million (mostly Syrian) refugees.
The only reason why the West began its horrible destabilization campaign, was because it “could not tolerate” Syria’s disobedience and the socialist nature of its state. In short, the way the Syrian establishment was putting the welfare of its people above the interests of multi-national corporations.
*
More than two years ago, my former Indonesian film editor demanded an answer in a somewhat angry tone:
“So many people are dying in Syria! Is it really worth it? Wouldn’t it be easier and better for Syrians to just give up and let the US have what it is demanding?”
Chronically petrified, this young woman was always searching for easy solutions that would keep her safe, and safe with significant personal advantages. As so many others in this time and age, in order to survive and advance, she developed a complex system resting on betrayals, self-defenses and deceptions.
How to reply to such a question?
It was a legitimate one, after all.
Eduardo Galeano told me: “People know when it’s time to fight. We have no right to tell them … but when they decide, it is our obligation to support them, even to lead them if they approach us.”
In this case, the Syrian people decided. No government, no political force could move an entire nation to such tremendous heroism and sacrifice. Russians did it during World War Two, and the Syrians are doing it now.
Two years ago I replied like this: “I have witnessed the total collapse of the Middle East. There was nothing standing there anymore. Countries that opted for their own paths were literally leveled to the ground. Countries that succumbed to the dictates of the West lost their soul, culture and essence and were turned into some of the most miserable places on earth. And the Syrians knew it: were they to surrender, they would be converted into another Iraq, Yemen or Libya, even Afghanistan.”
And so Syria rose. It decided to fight, for itself and for its part of the world.
Again and again, it retained itself through the elections of its government. It leaned on its army. Whatever the West says, whatever the treasonous NGOs write, the simple logic just proves it all.
This modest nation does not have its own powerful media to share the extent of its courage and agony with the world. It is always the others who are commenting on its struggle, often in a totally malicious way.
But it is undeniable that whilst the Soviet forces stopped the advance of the German Nazis at Stalingrad, the Syrians have managed to stop the fascist forces of Western allies in its part of the world.
Of course Russia got directly involved. Of course China stood by, although often in the shadow. And Iran provided support. And Lebanon-based Hezbollah put up, what I often describe as, an epic fight on behalf of Damascus against the extremist monsters invented and armed by the West, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
But the main credit has to go to the Syrian people.
Yes, now there is nothing left of the Middle East. Now there are more tears than raindrops descending on this ancient land.
But Syria is standing. Burned, wounded, but standing.
And as is being widely reported, after the Russian armed forces came to the rescue of the Syrian nation, more than 1 million Syrian people were able to return home … often to encounter only ashes and devastation, but home.
Like people returned to Stalingrad, some 70 years ago.
*
So what would my answer be to that question now: “whether it would be easier the other way”, to surrender to the Empire?
I guess something like this:
“Life has meaning, it is worth living, only if some basic conditions can be fulfilled. One does not betray great love, be it love for another person or love for one’s country, humanity or ideals. If one does, it would be better not to be born at all. Then I say: the survival of humankind is the most sacred goal. Not some short-time personal gain or ‘safety’, but the survival of all of us, of people, as well as the safety of all of us, humans.”
When life itself is threatened, people tend to rise and fight, instinctively. During such moments, some of the most monumental chapters in human history are written.
Unfortunately, during these moments, millions tend to die.
But the devastation is not because of those who are defending our human race.
It is because of the imperialist monsters and their servants.
Most of us are dreaming about a world without wars, without violence. We want true kindness to prevail on earth. Many of us are working relentlessly for such a society.
But until it is constructed, until all extreme selfishness, greed and brutality are defeated, we have to fight for something much more “modest” – for the survival of people and of humanism.
The price is often horrible. But the alternative is one enormous gaping void. It is simply nothing – the end, full stop!
In Stalingrad, millions died so we could live. Nothing was left of the city, except some melted steel, scattered bricks and an ocean of corpses. Nazism was stopped. Western expansionism began its retreat, that time towards Berlin.
Now Syria, quietly but stoically and heroically, stands against Western, Qatari, Saudi, Israeli and Turkish plans to finish the Middle East.
And the Syrian people have won. For how long, I don’t know. But it has proven that an Arab country can still defeat the mightiest murderous hordes.
Andre Vltchek is philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, he’s a creator of Vltchek’s World an a dedicated Twitter user, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.