U.S. steps up support of Turkey amid Syrian conflict

Washington Post
Craig Whitlock

The U.S. government is intensifying its intelligence sharing and military consultations with Turkey behind the scenes as both countries confront the possibility that Syria’s civil conflict could escalate into a regional war, according to U.S. and NATO officials.

The Obama administration has said it wants to avoid getting drawn militarily into Syria and for months has resisted pressure from Arab allies and some Republicans to back Syria’s rebel groups more forcefully.

But as Syria’s internal conflict has increasingly spilled across its northern border into Turkey, the U.S. government has stepped up cooperation with its key NATO ally. In recent weeks, military officials from both countries have met to make contingency plans to impose no-fly zones over Syrian territory or seize Syria’s stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, U.S. officials said.

U.S. intelligence agencies were also the source of a tip that led the Turkish military to intercept and ground a Syrian passenger plane en route from Moscow to Damascus last week on suspicions that it was carrying Russian-made military hardware, according to U.S. officials.

The Syrian plane was carrying “radar and electrical parts for Syria’s Russian-made antiaircraft systems,” one U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the sensitive operation. Syria has relied on Russia for decades to help build its radar and antiaircraft defenses, among the most extensive in the Middle East.

The plane grounding sparked a diplomatic dust-up among Turkey, Russia and Syria and further exacerbated tensions that erupted Oct. 3 when Syria fired shells across the border and killed five Turkish civilians.

Since then, cross-border shelling has continued as the Syrian military has attacked rebel groups along the frontier, with rounds sometimes landing in Turkish territory. Turkey has retaliated with artillery strikes, most recently on Friday, while warning Damascus that the risk of all-out war is increasing.

The United States and NATO have publicly supported Turkey, saying it has a right to act in self-defense. At the same time, they have called for restraint and repeated that neither Washington nor Brussels has any intention of getting involved militarily.

Behind the scenes, however, the border clashes have changed the strategic calculus and led U.S. military and intelligence officials in particular to collaborate more closely with Turkey.

“I can certainly assure you that our militaries, our military officers, are in contact,” Francis J. Ricciardone Jr. , the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, told journalists in Ankara on Tuesday. “This week I know there is a special focus of our military experts talking about Syria. And what militaries do well is plan for every contingency and every eventuality.”

Rational Iran and the Great Power Games

Steve Pieczenik

 Since the 1950’s when the CIA under the leadership of covert operatives F. Roosevelt Jr and Schwarzkopf Sr. initiated a coup against the Iranian Nationalist leader Mossadegh to install the Shah of Iran who was more "sympathetic" to our oil interest, the US has been playing games in Iran. Along with the US geopolitical partners - Britain, Russia, France, Russia, and Israel---Iran became a pawn as well as major power player in the Middle East for the next sixty five years. Not once in that period of time under Iran’s respective leaders—Shah Pahlavi, Ayatollah Khomeini and his son Ayatollah Khameini and President Ahmadenijad has there been any evidence of "irrational" or "crazy" thinking. In fact, Iran's leaders, except for the Shah, who was exceedingly weak and not very bright, have shown an uncanny ability to manipulate the US, Britain, and Israel into varying positions of confrontation and eventual cooperation.

During the brutal reign of the Shah and SAVAK (Iranian intel), the Iranian clergy convinced the CIA to place the Ayatollah Khomeini under safe keeping with our once ‘helpful’ ally Saddam Hussein for protection against SAVAK. In 1979, the Iranian clergy convinced our CIA again to return Khomeini to Iran where he was eventually installed as the leader of Iran after having overthrown the Shah without the help of the CIA who was completely caught off guard. In 1979, I had, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under the Carter Administration, four hundred members of our US Embassy of whom only eight spoke Farsi. Despite the entreaties by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher that Ayatollah Khomeini was ‘crazy’, I tried to explain to him that he was extremely ‘sane’ and would ‘carry out’ his long espoused agenda of making Iran into an Islamic State for the next six hundred years. Weeks later, the Iran Hostage began for the second time. Before the infamous Iranian Hostage Siege that began in April 30, 1980 and lasted for years, there was actually a hostage siege before that where our brave Ambassador Sullivan was taken hostage in his own house, again as a result of faulty US intelligence, specifically manipulated by a very effective Iranian Revolutionary Guard counter –intelligence effort.

The American hostages were released by Reagan on his inaugural day- no one had been aware that there had been illegal negotiations undertaken for months prior to the official release of the hostages which Reagan and other Republicans had initiated against the protests of Democratic officials in the Carter administration . The nefarious individuals involved in this illegal activity would become prominent in subsequent Republican administrations including Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle and many others. The Iran Contra Affair was an outcome of this intrigue involving American officials, Israel and the cunning ability of the Iranians to compromise everyone involved.

This cunning behavior of Iran would eventually lead to a war with Iraq for geopolitical concerns in which both the US and Israeli governments played integral parts. The First Iran-Iraq War [1980-1988] was directly precipitated by Secretary of State George Shultz, [my boss at the time], Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad [ an Afghani neocon and CIA asset] and SecDef Donald Rumsfeld, all of whom with Reagan’s administration support allowed Saddam Hussein to employ gas warfare. Our military supplied Saddam with Fighter Jets and in certain cases we even flew for the Iraqis against Iranian pilots. But what made this war particularly revealing of the underlying hypocrisy was the fact that with our encouragement [read Republican Neocons] Israel supplied the necessary ammunition, airplanes and even flew the F-4 Phantoms and F-5 Tiger planes for Ayatollah Khomeini. The idea of encouraging this war between Iraq and Iran for almost ten years, where countless millions of children, men and women died needlessly, was the strategy espoused by both Israel and the US, that it would benefit both countries if Iran and Iraq were weakened and Israel remained the predominant ‘democratic’ power in the Middle East.

For eight years Israel and their ‘inhumane’ Zionist leaders were in fact aiding and abetting the ‘crazy’ Iranian Ayatollahs and mullahs to vanquish a secular “Baathist Regime’. So again, there is no evidence up to this time that Israel nor Iran have considered each other barbaric or insane. In fact, what we see at this point in history and even later , is that Iran needs Israel and Israel needs Iran. One without the other cannot create the necessary ‘strategic tension’ in the Middle East to counter the power of Saudi Arabia or Turkey [both Sunni countries]. Then we enter the Second Persian War under Bush Sr which again was initiated under false pretenses. But that’s another story for the moment. And once again, Israeli fighter pilots [ in secret of course] fly US fighter jets and other unmarked planes attacking Iraqi bases in the Bush Sr’s ‘unified coalition’ for democracy and peace. That was lasted less than thirty –six hours. The next encounter that we have involving Israel, Iran and the US is the continuing conflict in Syria where it’s such a bouillabaisse of confusion and misperceptions that Israel realizes that if Bashir Assad is overthrown then Israel's fate will be completely determined by Iranian hegemony. Something Israel cannot manipulate.

So what is the next pretext for a neocon /Israeli inspired war? A fictional narrative created around the Iranian nuclear bomb. In reality, if Israel were really worried about an “Arab Bomb’ then they should attack the failing –state of Pakistan which has in fact hundreds of atomic bombs. Furthermore , unlike Iran, Pakistan is really controlled by fanatical Sunni/Salafist Radicals funded by the Saudi family. So why doesn't Israel even mention Pakistan as a potential problem? There lies the question of the distortions and fabrication of Iran’s presumed threat . Pakistan and Israel have worked very closely along with US and CIA encouragement to develop Pakistan’s infamous arsenal, presumably aimed only at India. Of course, this is nonsense. But nonsense, lies and contradictions and geopolitical interests has never never stopped the Israelis or the Iranians or the Americans or the Saudis. The only difference with Israel is that it is becoming a ‘failed state’ soon to be abandoned by the USG geopolitical interest, soon to be left alone in a paranoid world in which they helped to foment the unrests and dangers that paranoids always fear. For in the world of psychiatry and intelligence, we have a saying, “Paranoids really do have enemies". But this time Israel cannot use the “Holocaust Raison D’etre" since they helped create that one too.

Violation of Human Rights: Devastating Impacts of Iran Sanctions Regime

Ban on Medicine and Basic Food Staples

Global Research
Kourosh Ziabari

The fact that the inhumane sanctions of the United States and its European allies against Iran are taking a heavy toll on the ordinary Iranians is still hard to believe for many Western citizens who suppose that their governments are sincere in their claims of being concerned for human rights and freedom.

In different articles, I’ve pointed out this fact that the economic sanctions against Iran have become so intensive and rigorous that they have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program anymore; rather, they are aimed at paralyzing the daily life of the innocent civilians in the country with the ultimate goal of persuading them to revolt against the government to protest the deteriorating living conditions, hence creating an all-out chaos and unrest in the society.

Since 2006, the United Nations Security Council passed 7 resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program, demanding the country to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities. In four of these resolutions, the UNSC has imposed sanctions on Iran, including a ban on the supply of nuclear-related materials and technology, an arm embargo, travel bans on individuals connected to Iran’s nuclear program, a freezing of the assets of Iranian banks in the United States and EU countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines along with various embargoes on the assets and activities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

However, the thirst of the United States and its allies in crippling Iran’s nuclear program and harming its economy has not been quenched with the UNSC resolutions. The United States and its allies have sought to put a huge amount of economic and political pressure on Iran outside the framework of the Security Council, and through imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran’s banking, insurance, oil, industry, aviation, shipping and medical sectors, they have taken up an unjustifiably aggressive stance in regards to Iran which has caused a dramatic surge of the anti-American, anti-Western sentiments among the Iranian people, instead of turning them against the government.

I’m not here to argue that these sanctions are unlawful and legally unwarrantable as some senior academicians like Francis A. Boyle have reasoned that Iran is entitled to sue the United States and other countries imposing sanctions for violating the international trade laws. However, what matters is that the anti-Iranian sanctions have become so cruel and vindictive that even the Western mainstream media, tacitly run and funded by the Western governments, have confessed that these bans and restrictions are contrary to the principles of human rights.

In an article titled “Sanctions on Iran: ordinary people are the target” published on August 10, the Guardian correspondent writes, “Iranian civilians bear the brunt of western-imposed sanctions in terms of medicine and food shortages, and money problems.”

“For Fatemeh, the pill she takes twice a day in her home in Iran means the difference between life and death. Earlier this summer when she contacted her friend Mohammad in the U.S. to say she was running out of the medicine due to a shortage, the obvious thing for her fellow Iranian to do was to order it from the chemist next door and have it shipped directly to Iran. To the dismay of Fatemeh and Mohammad, the order was rejected because of US sanctions on trade with Iran,” the article wrote.

“As sanctions have started to take their toll, prices of fruit and sugar, among other staples, have soared – in some cases showing three- and four-fold increases. The latest controversy surrounds long queues for discounted poultry, an essential ingredient of Persian food, which has seen its price double since last year, causing what has been dubbed a “chicken crisis” and prompting demonstrations,” Guardian wrote.

So, even the Western media whose hostility to Iran needs no evidence have realized the depth of the catastrophe unfolding in the country.

As a result of the economic sanctions, many foreign companies are unable to deliver consignments of medicine and foodstuff to Iran, and thousands of patients suffering from haemophilia, thalassemia, cancer, multiple sclerosis and psychiatric disorders are denied access to the medicine vital for the continuation of their lives.

According to Washington Post, the sanctions are “increasingly hitting vulnerable medical patients as deliveries of medicine and raw materials for Iranian pharmaceutical companies are either stopped or delayed.”

“The effect is being felt by cancer patients and those being treated for complex disorders such as hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and thalassemia, as well as transplant and kidney dialysis patients, none of whom can afford interruptions or delays in medical supplies,” reports Washington Post on September 4.

The Iranian Hemophilia Society (HIS) announced in August that “the lives of tens of thousands of children are being endangered by the lack of proper drugs caused by international economic sanctions.”

“This is a blatant hostage-taking of the most vulnerable people by countries which claim they care about human rights,” Ahmad Ghavidel, head of IHS, told the Washginton Post. “Even a few days of delay can have serious consequences like hemorrhage and disability.”

A neo-conservative member of the United States House of Representatives, Bradley James Sherman, who is known in the States as one of the strongest advocates of U.S.-Israeli relations has flagrantly admitted that the sanctions are affecting the lives of innocent people: “Critics [of the sanctions] argued that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that.”

Reuters have also confirmed the conjectures that the inhumane sanctions have made Iran unable to import basic commodities, including foodstuff.

“Iran is turning to barter – offering gold bullion in overseas vaults or tankerloads of oil – in return for food as new financial sanctions have hurt its ability to import basic staples for its 74 million people,” it reported on February 9, 2012.

“Reuters surveys of commodities traders around the globe show that since the start of the year, Iran has had trouble securing imports of basic staples like rice, cooking oil, animal feed and tea. Grain ships have been held at its ports, refusing to unload until payment can be received for cargo,” the report added.

The news website Al-Monitor has also published a report, attesting that more foreign companies are refraining from doing business with Iran for fear of the punitive measures adopted by the United States to penalize the firms and companies that do business with Iran. These companies are even refusing to export foodstuff to Iran, creating enormous problems for the Iranian people to have easy, inexpensive access to the rudimentary necessities of their daily life: “The food suppliers to Tehran, where the government supervise the distribution of agricultural products to Iranian markets, have stepped back one by one. They fear the impact that the Western sanctions may have on their international business.”

“The Iranian people, which total 74 million, might find themselves facing disturbing shortages. Swiss experts have noted that Malaysia’s exports of palm oil have declined since the beginning of the year. Malaysia is the number-one provider of this raw material, which is used in abundance to prepare food and manufacture cosmetic and cleaning products. It is noteworthy that middlemen in the UAE have stopped bank payments for Malaysian traders,” wrote Talal Salameh in a report published by Al-Monitor on March 29.

“It is true that Iran is able to circumvent the ban on oil exports. However, the food-products dilemma will persist, as Iran is unable to purchase these goods due to its inability to pay,” the report added.

So, there’s ample evidence verifying the notion that the so-called pioneers of human rights have practically taken up arms against the Iranian nation by banning the humanitarian goods such as foodstuff and medicine from being imported to the country.

Although it might be unbelievable for the Western citizens who have only heard that “Iran is developing nuclear weapons” that this peaceful nation is subject to the most atrocious and appalling economic war of the United States and its allies, the reality on the ground is that Iran, which through the course of past 300 years have neither attacked nor invaded any country, is now being dragged into a war which has no winners and is simply waged to take revenge on Iran for its independence and disobedience to the imperial powers.

NATO caught sending 150 Tons of Weapons to Al-Qaeda and Terrorist Extremists in Syria

Robert Fisk: Inside Daraya - how a failed prisoner swap turned into a massacre

The Independent
Robert Fisk

Exclusive: The first Western journalist to enter the town that felt Assad's fury hears witness accounts of Syria's bloodiest episode

The massacre town of Daraya is a place of ghosts and questions. It echoed with the roar of mortar explosions and the crackle of gunfire yesterday, its few returning citizens talking of death, assault, foreign "terrorists", and its cemetery of slaughter haunted by snipers.

The men and women to whom we could talk, two of whom had lost loved ones on Daraya's day of infamy four days ago, told a story different from the version that has been repeated around the world: theirs was a tale of hostage-taking by the Free Syria Army and desperate prisoner-exchange negotiations between the armed opponents of the regime and the Syrian army, before President Bashar al-Assad's government forces stormed into the town to seize it back from rebel control.

Officially, no word of such talks between the enemies has been mentioned. But senior Syrian officers told The Independent how they had "exhausted all possibilities of reconciliation" with those holding the town, while residents of Daraya said there had been an attempt by both sides to arrange a swap of civilians and off-duty soldiers – apparently kidnapped by rebels because of their family ties to the government army – with prisoners in the army's custody. When these talks broke down, the army advanced into Daraya, six miles from the centre of Damascus.

Being the first Western eyewitness into the town yesterday was as frustrating as it was dangerous. The bodies of men, women and children had been moved from the cemetery where many of them were found; and when we arrived in the company of Syrian troops at the Sunni Muslim graveyard – divided by the main road through Daraya – snipers opened fire at the soldiers, hitting the back of the ancient armoured vehicle in which we made our escape. Yet we could talk to civilians out of earshot of Syrian officials – in two cases in the security of their own homes – and their narrative of last Saturday's mass killing of at least 245 men, women and children suggested that the atrocities were far more widespread than supposed.

One woman, who gave her name as Leena, said she was travelling through the town in a car and saw at least 10 male bodies lying on the road near her home. "We carried on driving past, we did not dare to stop, we just saw these bodies in the street," she said, adding that Syrian troops had not yet entered Daraya.

Another man said that, although he had not seen the dead in the graveyard, he believed that most were related to the government army and included several off-duty conscripts. "One of the dead was a postman – they included him because he was a government worker," the man said. If these stories are true, then the armed men – wearing hoods, according to another woman who described how they broke into her home and how she kissed them in a fearful attempt to prevent them shooting her own family – were armed insurgents rather than Syrian troops.

The home of Amer Sheikh Rajab, a forklift truck driver, had been taken over, he said, by gunmen as a base for "Free Army" forces, the phrase the civilians used for the rebels. They had smashed the family crockery and burned carpets and beds – the family showed this destruction to us – but had also torn out the internal computer chip parts of laptops and television sets in the house. To use as working parts for bombs, perhaps?

On a road on the edge of Daraya, Khaled Yahya Zukari, a lorry driver, had been leaving the town on Saturday in a mini-bus with his 34-year-old wife Musreen and their seven-month-old daughter.

"We were on our way to [the neighbouring suburb of] Senaya when suddenly there was a lot of shooting at us," he said. "I told my wife to lie on the floor but a bullet came into the bus and passed right through our baby and hit my wife. It was the same bullet. They were both dead. The shooting came from trees, from a green area. Maybe it was the militants hiding behind the soil and trees who thought we were a military bus bringing soldiers."

Any widespread investigation of a tragedy on this scale and in these circumstances was virtually impossible yesterday. At times, in the company of armed Syrian forces, we had to run along empty streets with anti-government snipers at the intersections; many families had barricaded themselves in their homes.

Even before we set out for Daraya from the large military airbase in Damascus – which contains both Russian-made Hind attack-helicopters and T-72 tanks – a mortar round, possibly fired from Daraya itself, smashed into the runway scarcely 300 metres from us, sending a column of black smoke towering into the sky. Although Syrian troops nonchalantly continued to take their open-air showers, I began to feel some sympathy for the UN ceasefire monitors who departed Syria last week.

Perhaps the saddest account of all yesterday came from 27-year-old Hamdi Khreitem, who sat in his family home with his brother and sister, and told us of how his parents, Selim and Aisha, had set out to buy bread on Saturday. "We had already seen the pictures on the television of the massacre – the Western channels said it was the Syrian army, the state television said it was the "Free Army" – but we were short of food and Mum and Dad drove into the town. Then we got a call from their mobile and it was my Mum who just said: 'We are dead.' She was not.

"She was wounded in the chest and arm. My Dad was dead but I don't know where he was hit or who killed him. We took him from the hospital, covered up and we buried him yesterday."

U.S. sends aircraft carrier back to Gulf to face Iran, Syria

Reuters
Daniel Fineren

(Reuters) - The U.S. Navy is cutting short home leave for the crew of one of its aircraft carriers and sending them back to the Middle East next week to counter any threat from Iran, according to the official Navy News Service.

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told sailors aboard the USS Stennis in their home port of Seattle on Wednesday they were needed back in the Middle East soon, after approving calls from the U.S. Central Command for Stennis to return to the region.

"Obviously, Iran is one of those threats," the U.S. military news service quoted Panetta as saying during a send-off event at a military base on the U.S. West Coast.

"Secondly, it is the turmoil in Syria," he said. "We're obviously following that closely as well."

The Stennis' departure in January from the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet area of operations prompted Iranian army chief Ataollah Salehi to threaten action if it returned, saying Iran was "not in the habit of warning more than once".

The threats started a war of words between Iran and the United States that spooked oil markets, and fears over possible military confrontation remain high.

Panetta cited Iran's nuclear program and its threats to oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz as two concerns the Stennis strike group could counter in the U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, which also includes Syria and Afghanistan.

U.S. attention on Syria is focused on providing humanitarian aid, monitoring chemical and biological weapon stockpiles, and offering non-lethal assistance to forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad, he said.

A spokesman for the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said the redeployment was not a build-up in the Gulf because the USS Enterprise is due to leave the region on its final voyage back to the United States before being decommissioned after over 50 years of service.

"The presence of two aircraft carriers changes based on needs and requirements," Lieutenant Greg Raelson said.

Iranian threats to block the waterway through which about 17 million barrels a day sailed in 2011 have grown in the past year as U.S. and European sanctions aimed at starving Tehran of funds for its nuclear program have tightened.

A heavy western naval presence in the Gulf is a big deterrent to Tehran actually trying to block the shipping route through which most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq sails.

The Stennis had been due to deploy next to the Pacific towards the end of 2012 but its return to active duty has been brought forward by four months because of tension in the Gulf.

(Reporting by Daniel Fineren; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Corbett: IAEA and Nuclear Monopolists a “Gang of Thugs”

Corbett Report

Iran and the UN’s nuclear watchdog are set to resume talks later on Friday – more than two months after the previous round failed. Tehran insists it only wants peaceful energy, but the West remains suspicious of its nuclear ambitions. Hopes aren’t high for these negotiations either – while Iranian citizens continue to be hit hardest by US and European sanctions. For more on this we RT talks to James Corbett – journalist and editor of The Corbett Report – an online multi-media news and information source.

Syria at the Mercy of the West's "Ministers of Terrorism"

Global Research
Finian Cunningham

Murder, sabotage, bribery, contract killings -- and that’s just the behavior of Western political leaders and their Arab allies. Forget the fancy titles, manners and clothes -- ongoing violence in Syria shows that the foreign policy of these powers is being conducted by terrorists and thugs in high offices. Which let’s one glimpse what level of barbarity is being perpetrated by the Western terror army, running amok in the streets and villages of Syria.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague (L)
and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

The latest display of criminality in high office is the call by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for the “smashing” of Syria and the killing of its president, Bashar al-Assad. The words may have been spoken with an eloquent French accent, but their practical meaning has all the savagery of cold-blooded bludgeoning.

What we are seeing is a descent into barbarism and an open embrace of international lawlessness -- by the same governments that appoint themselves to lecture the rest of the world on the principles of democracy and human rights.

Reports and videos, showing that the Western-backed mercenaries of the so-called Free Syrian Army are bolstered by al-Qaeda brigades and other terrorists, have been greeted with barely veiled glee in Washington and European capitals.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice have pointedly refused to condemn the surge in bombing atrocities across Syria that have accompanied the influx of terrorists into the country over recent months. Indeed, Washington officials have effectively condoned such barbarities by their studied silence. Rice has even made statements, suggesting that more such atrocities will follow until the Syrian president does what her government demands and surrenders office. In mafia terminology, it’s called “making an offer he can’t refuse.”

The “terror” that Washington and other Western governments have promoted as the defining existential threat to democratic civilization over the past 10 years, has suddenly and seamlessly morphed into “war with terror” when it comes to Syria. And Western media that are intoxicated with hubris over supposed “free, independent thinking” do not even raise a timid question about this glaring contradiction. Indeed, these organs compound their intellectual bankruptcy with moral bankruptcy by concealing their government’s outrageous duplicity.

However, for those with eyes, when it comes to Syria, the mask of Western pretence at defending international law and human rights has now been ripped off. The face revealed is a grotesque, salivating monster, whose motives are evidently selfish elite power and domination in the strategic Middle East region. And this objective is to be achieved by any means necessary -- foremost by the collusion with bloodthirsty killers.

In asserting their geopolitical objective over Syria, the Western governments are openly deploying terrorists and killers who supposedly were the reason, why Western governments spent trillions of dollars fighting foreign wars, invading and occupying sovereign countries, destroying millions of innocent lives, incarcerating and torturing thousands, and turning over democratic societies into draconian police states.

US President Barack Obama has time and again lauded American military veterans for their sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 4,500 US forces were killed in Iraq, thousands more maimed and psychologically destroyed, with record numbers committing suicide once back home in Civvy Street. In Afghanistan, the death toll continues to rise -- with a spate of ‘green on blue’ attacks, in which Afghan security personnel turn their guns on American troops.

How must the families in the Iraqi city of Haditha feel where, in 2005, US marines shot dead 25 inhabitants, including women and children? -- Just one of countless other such massacres and war crimes. Why were they killed in the putative “war on terror” that has now become a US “war with terror”? Or how about the family of the 14-year-old Iraqi girl, who was gang-raped by an American platoon, which then butchered her broken body to cover up their crime? Or the families in Iraq’s Fallujah city, whose loved ones where incinerated with the Pentagon white phosphorus bombs during 2004-2005? What was that holocaust all about in the pursuit of a supposed war against terrorists, the same terrorists, who are now armed, trained, and directed by Washington, London, and Paris to overthrow the legal government of Syria?

Or how about the thousands of unnamed villagers, killed in remote areas of Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia in continuing American drone attacks?

Fabius recently told reporters in Turkey, “The Syrian regime must be smashed fast.” He also called for Assad’s death.

Elsewhere, it is reported that Qatar, the West’s Arab ally in the sabotage of Syria, has resorted to bribery to destabilize the government in Damascus. Apparently, the Al Thani royal rulers of the Persian Gulf emirate offered USD 1 million to the Syrian ambassador in Mauritania to defect, thereby attempting to tarnish Assad’s government. The Syrian Ambassador, targeted by the honey-trap, Hamad Albni, denounced the bribe as “blatant interference” in his country’s affairs.

It was just the latest in a barrage of dirty tricks that Qatar and the royal rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have engaged in against Syria, including bribing the nation’s Army ranks to dessert, fabricating news stories on Arab media channels, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and jamming the satellite signals for the Syrian national broadcaster. The latter is a war crime, but don’t expect the Western crime bosses in office to bat an eyelid over that.

This is on top of these billionaire rulers funneling USD 100 million from their own impoverished, downtrodden countries to pay for American and Israeli weapons and explosives that are being used by the Western terrorist army to kill and maim women and children across Syria.

Meanwhile, Oxbridge-educated British Foreign Secretary William Hague announces with his ever-so-polite plumy accent that “Her Majesty’s” government is to supply an extra USD eight million to Syria. Not to help refugees or victims of Western-orchestrated violence, but to help the terrorists escalate their campaign of tearing that country apart and no doubt creating more refugees.

Clinton, Fabius, Hague and their royal Arab friends may dress in fine clothes, speak with polished accents, and have manicured, scented hands. But make no mistake. They may not pull the triggers, slit throats, or switch the detonators. That’s for the goons on the ground to do and to keep the blood from appearing on those scented, lily-white hands of their bosses.

In the Orwellian world of Western governments, these politicians are called “Foreign Ministers.” In the world of normative reasoning and language, they are known simply as “Ministers of Terrorism.”


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Media coverage for Syria Crisis “Partial and Untrue”; Mother Agnes Mariam said

DP-News
Irish Times

Ireland- A NUN who has been superior at a Syrian monastery for the past 18 years has warned that media coverage of ongoing violence in that country has been “partial and untrue”.It is “a fake”, Mother Agnes Mariam said, which “hides atrocities committed in the name of liberty and democracy”.

Superior of the Melkite Greek Catholic monastery of St James the Mutilated in Qara, in Syria’s diocese of Homs, which is in full communion with Rome, she left Ireland on Sunday after a three-day visit during which she met representatives of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Maynooth.

She told The Irish Times that she was in Ireland “not to advocate for the (Assad) regime but for the facts”. Most news reports from Syria were “forged, with only one side emphasised”, she said. This also applied to the UN, whose reports were “one-sided and not worthy of that organisation”.

UN observers in Syria had been “moderate with the rebels and covered for them in taking back positions after the withdrawal of heavy equipment, as seen so tragically in Homs”, she said.

When it was put to her this suggested the whole world was out of step except for Syria, Russia and China, she protested: “No, no, there are 20 countries, including some in Latin America” of the same view.

The reason the media was being denied easy access to Syria currently was because in the Libyan conflict journalists placed electronic devices for NATO in rooms used at press conferences in that country, she said. “So Syria didn’t want journalists,” she said.

Christians make up about 10 per cent of Syria’s population, dispersed throughout the country, she said. President Bashar al-Assad regime “does not favour Christians”, she said. “It is a secular regime based on equality for all, even though in the constitution it says the Koran is the source of legislation.”

But “Christians are less put aside [in Syria] than in other Islamic countries, for example Saudi Arabia,” she said. “The social fabric of Syria is very diverse, so Christians live in peace.”

The “Arab insurrection” under way in that country included “sectarian factions which promote fundamentalist Islam, which is not genuine Islam”, she said.

The majority of Muslims in Syria are moderate and open to other cultural and interfaith elements, she said. “Wahhabism (a fundamentalist branch of Islam) is not open,” she added.

Christians in Syria were “doubtful about the future if the project to topple the regime succeeded”. The alternative was “a religious sectarian state where all minorities would feel threatened and discriminated against”, she said.

There was “a need to end the violence”, she said. “The West and Gulf states must not give finance to armed insurrectionists who are sectarian terrorists, most of whom are from al-Qaeda, according to a report presented to the German parliament,” she said.

“We don’t want to be invaded, as in Aleppo, by mercenaries, some of whom think they are fighting Israel. They bring terror, destruction, fear and nobody protects the civilians,” she said. There were “very few Syrians among the rebels”, she said. “Mercenaries should go home,” she said.

What she and others sought in Syria was “reform, no violence, no foreign intervention.” She hoped for “a new, third way, a new social pact where the right to auto-determination without outside interference” would be respected.

Israel's Netanyahu Attempts to Shame UN

Blacklisted News
Tony Carlucci

Netanyahu regime 'leaks' phone conversation with UN's Ban Ki Moon to shame him over decision to attend Non-Aligned Movement Conference (NAM) in Tehran, Iran. Pulls "antisemitic" card.

Haaretz in their report titled, "UN chief angered over Netanyahu's 'leak' of private talk on Iran, sources say," claims, "United Nations Secretary General Ben Ki-moon has been angered over what he considered to be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "leaking" of the contents of a phone conversation between the two regarding the UN chief's planned visit to Tehran."

Ban Ki Moon and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

During the alleged phone conversation, Netanyahu expressed "disappointment" that Ban Ki Moon would be attending the conference claiming he, "saw no reason to visit a country whose government is anti-Semitic and openly declares its intention to destroy Israel." It is claimed Netanyahu also mentioned Teheran's alleged statements about "annihilating the Zionist entity."

Haaretz did not clarify that the statement Netanyahu is referring was both translated incorrectly and taken purposefully out of context (here and here). Haaretz also fails to mention that accusations against Iran of being "anti-Semitic" are ludicrous at face value, as the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabs being Semites) is one of Iran's closest allies, while the largest population of Jews in the Muslim World resides peacefully in Iran (and here).  
 
"Leak" is PR Stunt Designed to Undermine NAM & UN Diplomatic Representation There

Netanyahu's "leak" attempted to paint the NAM conference, involving representatives from well over half the world's population, as an "illegitimate" exercise in international diplomacy hosted by a "belligerent," "bigoted," and "backward" nation.  

Image: NAM members are in dark-blue, observers
in light-blue. Collectively the conference brings together
representatives of over half the world's population.
Israel's Netanyahu government has attempted to intimidate
and shame UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon from attending
the conference in hopes of undermining it, and
specifically this year's host nation, Iran. 

In reality, Netanyahu's "leak" of his phone conversation with the UN's Ban Ki Moon is a public relations stunt intended to play on whatever credit there remains for the "anti-Semite" card and Iran's portrayal as the premier "state sponsor of international terrorism." This is in part to undermine Iran, this year's host nation, as well as sabotage an anticipated follow-up to thehighly-successful "International Consultative Conference on Syria" held earlier this month.

Unfortunately for Netanyahu and his increasingly tenuous legitimacy, his government's support and role in Western operations undermining the peace and security of neighboring Syria through the use of listed terrorist organizations including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Qaeda itself, instead place him amongst the premier state sponsors of international terrorism.

His nation, which should be enjoying standards of living and prosperity amongst the highest on Earth considering Israel's extensive human resources, is facing austerity and economic hardship as the collective talent and potential of the Israeli people are squandered in the pursuit of armed corporate-financier hegemony instead of peaceful progress.

If Netanyahu is not presiding over a backward, bankrupted, terroristic state, no one else on Earth is.  His latest attempt to betray the trust of an alleged international body representing humanity's collective "rule of law" not only indicates immensely unprofessional and conniving statesmanship, but a degree of diplomatic thuggery and intimidation that has no place in the so-called "Free World."

The UN, which should be ashamed for many other reasons, including its failure to categorically condemn the West's violent subversion of Syria via listed terrorist organizations, has no reason to be ashamed for attending the upcoming NAM conference in Tehran. Netanyahu on the other hand, has exposed himself and the interests he represents as both connivers and thugs attempting to intimidate diplomats from attending the conference.

The Israeli Government is the Greatest Enemy of the Israeli People 

Western corporate-financier oligarchs have done more to send both Americans and Israelis to their deaths than any combination of suicide belt-wearing, Kalashnikov-waving "terrorists."The "War on Terror" is indeed a fraud, and Israel's government has masterfully played a pivotal role - maintaining a strategy of tension to keep its own people in perpetual fear, while keeping their perceived enemies in perpetual and absolute rage.  When enemies are difficult to find, the government of Israel and its corporate-financier backers upon Wall Street and in the city of London create them, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas (and here), and Al Qaeda.

The result is a nation at constant war, with an inexhaustible supply of enemies in an unending conflict giving the interests of Wall Street and London - the very interests that created the modern state of Israel to begin with - an excuse to remain perpetually engaged in the Middle East with a military encampment the size of a nation at their constant disposal.

Augmenting this camp are the Israeli people themselves, just as lied to, manipulated, and kept in constant fear as their counterparts in the West to keep the rank and file of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as full as Wall Street's American Armed Forces or Europe's NATO foot soldiers. 

The Israeli people are no less well-intentioned, talented, or full of potential as any other people on Earth, but they are likewise just as susceptible to being indoctrinated, misled, and terrorized into taking a course of action in no way beneficial to themselves or their nation. The Israeli government does not pursue a foreign or domestic policy conducive to its own self-preservation, let alone its prosperity as a nation.

Its constant warmongering, meddling geopolitically beyond its borders, and the creation and perpetuation of its alleged "enemies" have indeed killed more Israelis than any "terrorist." The Israeli government and the corporate-financier interests they represent are the Israeli people's worst enemy. It would be wise for both the Israeli people, and those who perceive themselves to be "enemies of Israel" to remember that and make a clear distinction when moving forward.

"Orwellian Ramifications" Begin to Unfold in Syria

Global Research
Ismail Salami

There is speculation that the Western supported insurgents in Syria may have seized hold of chemical weapons.

Apart from the unthinkable havoc the rebels can wreak in Syria and in the region with WMDs in their possession, the rhetorical question which remains is how these weapons of mass destruction have fallen into the hands of the insurgents who are chiefly composed of Wahhabi al-Qaeda mercenaries of different nationalities including Afghans, Iraqis, Turkish, Yemenis, Jordanians, Pakistanis, and Saudis.

The situation in Syria is assuming Orwellian ramifications and the possibility to clearly understand or dissect the situation in the country is not an easy task.

In addition to the active role the Saudi-backed Wahhabis, CIA and some western intelligence organizations are playing in Syria, there is one entity, namely Israel which is stealthily espying every single development in Syria.

For the first time, an Israeli spy official clearly stated that Israel supports regime change in Syria and that it really demands an end to the government of President Bashar Assad.

“I hope it will happen, even though I don’t know when or how,” Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor said on Tuesday.

The top spy chief implicated why Assad should go and how it would damage the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“I am not going to try to calculate when Assad’s end will come, but when it happens, Iran’s biggest ally will be gone.”

Taking it for granted that Assad is doomed to go, he said, “I hope the new Syria will understand that joining Iran is a mistake that brings isolation from the Western world.”

Such a feeble perception of the Syrian situation is indicative of one who is either too optimistic or one who is well aware of what is going on behind the scene and that which is not visible to the ordinary people with no intelligence savvy.

Furthermore, Dan Meridor does not seem to understand that the situation in Israel is spiraling out of control with people protesting against social injustice almost on a daily basis. Since last month, four Israelis have set themselves ablaze from an extremity of despair.

On August 5, John McCain and Lindsey O. Graham, both Republicans, who represent Arizona and South Carolina in the Senate, respectively and Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent, who represents Connecticut in the Senate advised the US government to directly and openly provide assistance, including weapons, intelligence and training, to the insurgents in Syria as they claim President’s Assad’s ‘brutality’ is no longer to be tolerated.

“It is not too late for the United States to shift course. First, we can and should directly and openly provide robust assistance to the armed opposition, including weapons, intelligence and training. Whatever the risks of our doing so, they are far outweighed by the risks of continuing to sit on our hands, hoping for the best.”

Another part of this sabotage axis against Syria is Turkey which plays a very treacherous role in snowballing the Syrian crisis. Turkey has supplied the rebels with dozens of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

According to NBC, the missile supplies might have been provided by Turkey, Saudi Kingdom and Qatar monarchy, the three countries which have made strenuous and costly efforts to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad.

In a press conference at the United Nations in New York City, a Syrian UN representative announced that Turkey shipped US-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to rebels via Turkey, saying that Turkey was pleased with Kofi Annan’s resignation because Ankara and Washington were initially opposed to his six point peace plan.

In fact, Turkey should be grateful to Syria what it has done for it in the past. It is acknowledged by many pundits that it was Bashar’s father Hafiz Assad who made peace between Turkey and the Kurds living on both sides of the country, thereby vaccinating Turkey for years against any attacks on the part of the Kurds.

The antagonistic policies of Turkey have left President Bashar Assad with no choice but to grant autonomy to the Kurds in Syria who can foment dilemma for the Ankara government and get Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan into hot water.

The ongoing Kurdish insurgency has reportedly claimed the lives of at least 48000 over the past two decades.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is sharply aware of what a deep impact this decision can exercise on the security of Turkey.

He claimed the two groups had built a “structure in northern Syria” that for Turkey means “a structure of terror.”

Turkey is making a tactical mistake by supporting terrorism in Syria and supplying them with weapons, military training and human resources. Turkey will certainly fall into the pitfall it has dug for Syria and the insecurity it envisages for Syria will ultimately recoil against the government itself.

As for Washington and NATO, they are making a selfsame mistake.

The two are fondling terrorism and extremism by throwing support behind the insurgents in Syria. They know that a popular uprising in the true sense of the word is not clearly discernible in Syria and that what has been taking place in Syria is a string of militancy and terrorist operations funded by the Saudis and the Qataris and some western countries who are waiting to reap the benefits of their atrocities in case Bashar Assad’s government collapses. Such a day, if it comes, will open a new chapter of horror in the Middle East with no end in sight.

The unfurling reality is that the hostile states and powers antagonizing Bashar Assad are gradually getting caught up in the labyrinthine Orwellian pitfall of their own folly and that they are consciously or unconsciously working in the best interests of the Zionist regime.

China slams new US-Iran sanctions as 'serious violation of intl rules'

Russia Today

Fresh US sanctions against Iran, targeting not only the country’s oil industry but also foreign banks have sparked a furore. China warned Washington of a worsening in Sino-American relations, while Iran said the penalties amounted to "military war."

The new set of sanctions is aimed at forcing Iran to end its supposed development of nuclear arms. The financial penalties will target the Chinese Kunlun bank and the Iraqi Elaf Islamic bank as they have participated in million dollar transactions with Iranian banks and are as such subject to sanctions.

These banks will be cut off from the US economy in an effort to discourage them from doing business with Iran.

"Today's action makes it clear that we will expose any financial institution, no matter where they are located, that allows the increasingly desperate Iranian regime to retain access to the international financial system," President Obama said in a statement.

Additionally, Obama ratcheted up the sanctions on Iran’s energy and petrochemical industries, approving sanctions against any entity that tries to purchase Iranian oil from the National Iranian Oil Co. and the Naftiran Intertrade Co.

Furthermore, Congress has agreed on a final sanctions package that will crack down on institutions that ship or insure Iranian cargo. The Senate is expected to vote on the sanctions before the end of the week.

The new penalties sparked a sharp reaction from China who said the US sanctioning of their banks would lead to a worsening of bilateral corporation between the two countries.

"The U.S. has invoked domestic law to impose sanctions on a Chinese financial institution, and this is a serious violation of international rules that harms Chinese interests," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad also released a statement decrying the new sanctions as “ridiculous” and a move to deprive the rest of the world of resources.

The chief of Iran’s central bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, went a step further, saying that the sanctions equated to “military war” and that Iran should take the necessary counter measures.

Iran maintains that its economy will be able to withstand the ratcheting-up of western sanctions and refuses to curb its nuclear program which it claims is civilian based.

Barack Obama’s tactics have come under fire from Republican rival Mitt Romney who believes the President does not take a tough enough stance on Iran.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu echoed these sentiments on Sunday when he said that the economic penalties have not affected Iran’s nuclear development “one iota.”

The Obama Administration denies this and maintains that their sanctions are highly effective.
Iran’s currency has taken a severe hit since the US imposed its penalties at the beginning of the year, said Ben Rhodes deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

"We have put in place crippling sanctions on the Iranian government. We have thrown the book at the Iranian government in terms of leaving no stone unturned in the sanctions regime,” he said.

NATO Terrorists Execute Civilians While Waiting for Syrian Army

Land Destroyer
Tony Cartalucci

For many months, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has depicted the militants creating havoc across his nation as "armed gangs," "foreign terrorists," and simply just, "terrorists." During a 2011 interview in Damascus with Barbra Walters, Walters feigned indignation when hearing these labels, insisting that these were people simply seeking "democracy" and "freedom."

It turns out months later, it was President Assad who has been vindicated, and Walters' disrespectful, curt condemnation exposed as the same brand of war propaganda that has mired the West in over a decade of ceaseless, bloody, bankrupting wars and interventions.

The FSA are Terrorists 

AFP now reports that the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) militants who had attempted to overrun the city of Aleppo in Syria's north on July 17, in coordination with an assassination bombing and a similar militant attack on Damascus, are now trapped in the city center, awaiting Syrian Army reinforcements expected to close in and neutralize them. An AFP correspondent embedded with the terrorists reported that, "two men, accused of belonging to pro-government "shabiha" militia, were summarily dispatched in the street, each with a bullet to the head."

By this of course AFP means, two civilians were rounded up and shot in the head - killed in cold blood in the streets.

BBC's Ian Pannell also rode in with FSA terrorists during the initial attack on Aleppo, which is by all accounts a pro-Army, pro-Syrian city. Pannell described scenes of FSA militants "seeking revenge" as they too rounded up men "suspected" of being "shabiha." The men were unarmed, terrified, and had weapons discharged at their feet as they knelt on the ground. Pannell doesn't tell us if this group of men were "dispatched" as well, preferring to paper over what appeared to be an atrocity in the making by stating, "there is little justice on either side."

It appears the term suspected "shabiha" has become analogous of the Western media's use of the term "African mercenaries" in Libya during NATO destabilization and regime change operations there last year. These "African mercenaries" were lynched, beheaded, shot, burned, and hacked to pieces, just as the FSA is now doing to suspected "shabiha."



Photo: Images and reports eventually trickled out as NATO-backed genocide unfolded throughout Tripoli's streets, indicating the destruction of infrastructure and the specific targeting of black Libyans written off by the corporate media as "suspected mercenaries." Benghazi rebels have been long reported to harbor extremist ideologies and an intense ethnic & racial hatred. ....

It would later turn out these black Africans were not mercenaries, but citizens who had lived in Libya for generations fighting desperately for their lives against sectarian extremists intolerant of their complexion and creed. Likewise, suspected "shabiha" are Syrians unwilling or unable, because of their ethnicity or creed, to capitulate to roving bands of foreign-armed sectarian extremists.

The FSA Include Foreign-Fighters 

CNN, whose Ivan Watson also accompanied FSA terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants. It was admitted that:

Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade's ranks.

A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a "platoon" of Libyan fighters to armed movement.

 CNN also added:

On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.

The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.

CNN's reports provide bookends to earlier admissions that large numbers of Libyan terroristsflush with NATO cash and weapons had headed to Syria with known terrorist commandersmaking the arrangements.

Western Media is Complicit in Covering Up War Crimes  

Not only are these FSA militants committing atrocities, they are doing so in front of representatives of Western media, who are demonstratively excusing, covering up, or downplaying their war crimes. Additionally, these media personalities are attempting to downplay the significant implications of foreign-fighters crossing Syria's borders and conducting armed attacks on a heavily populated city - implications that run contra to the West's narrative regarding their support of the FSA against the Syrian state.

By doing so they've become accomplices, providing impunity for the actions of terrorists, and allowing the governments of the United States, Britain, France, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, an ignoble alliance, to continue fueling this violent, foreign-contrived band of militants. And by doing so, these media representatives have undermined their journalistic immunity, putting the lives of real journalists the world over at risk.

Image: An approximation of areas where fighting has been taking place in Aleppo, Syria. Clearly during the initial offensive by the FSA, they came in from 2 of the city's main highways, both leading to the Turkish-Syrian border. It appears that a large number of fighters have been trapped inside the center of the city, surrounded by Syrian military forces. This was not an "uprising" but rather an invasion by armed militants from across the Turkish-Syrian border. It is unclear whether a significant number of additional militants are on their way. 

And it will be this corps of professional deceivers who continue their efforts to pave way for wider NATO intervention to fulfill US ambitions to carve out "safe havens" in northern Syria form which to prolong the current bloodbath.


Perhaps this is why Russia - condemned by these very nations for its "inaction" in supporting the subversion of Syria - stated quite clearly that the West, specifically the US, was "justifying terrorism against the Syrian government." 


The West is hemorrhaging legitimacy and finds itself in an untenable position where it can neither go forward nor back without incurring tremendous, catastrophic consequences - consequences millions of people across the Middle East as well as across the West will pay for in blood and treasure. It should be remembered who exactly brought us to this precipice and why - corporate-financier interests, their stables of policy makers, and the corporate-media - all for the sake of pursuing narrow-minded, self-serving geopolitical hegemony.   

US Prepares For Direct Intervention in Syria

Global Research
Tony Carlucci

As it becomes increasingly clear that last week's "surge" by NATO-backed so-called "Free Syrian Army" terrorists was a failed psychological operation, coordinated with meticulously timed assassinations the day of the UN Security Council vote designed to stampede the Syrian government out of power, the FSA's foreign sponsors are preparing the public for a more direct intervention while desperately attempting to maintain the illusion of chaos and the imminent collapse of Syria's government.

Video: Thierry Meyssan in Damascus, Syria. Please choose from "choose language" to see English subtitles.

Contradicting NATO's narrative, was Thierry Meyssan in Damascus, Syria who reported that Syria's continuity of government seamlessly moved forward after the assassinations last week, and that state institutions are still standing and very much functional. He describes Syria's latest unrest as the result of a coordinated NATO-backed terrorist operation aimed at creating confusion and panic, coupled with Western propaganda - and warns that more operations are likely on the way.

The Telegraph's, "Bashar al-Assad's Syria is now in a death spiral," and the Guardian's "Syria endgame: who and what will emerge from the ruins?" both desperately attempt to write off the Syrian government as already finished, an unsubstantiated reoccurring narrative being repeated daily by the West. Both articles however, categorically fail in qualifying their premises with subsequent facts - instead they depend on rehashing the initial violence that accompanied last week's assassinations - violence that has already been adequately dealt with by Syrian security forces. 

In New York Times' article, "US to Focus on Forcibly Toppling Syrian Government," is all but an admission that indeed NATO's FSA terrorists have failed, and that what is in reality imminent, is the restoration of order by the Syrian army after over a year of foreign subversion and armed infiltration. Essential to the West's plan, is now fabricating a justification the US, Israel, and the Gulf despots currently do not have - to more directly intervene before the limitations of NATO's proxy forces are irrevocably exposed.

To achieve this, the Western media has decided to continue depicting Syria as "collapsing" even as security has been fully restored in Damascus, border crossings retaken after NATO-harbored terrorists struck from across Syria's borders, overrunning small platoon-sized garrisons, and now it is confirmed that bolstered Syrian border defenses near Daraa on the Jordanian-Syrian border, entirely balked FSA terrorists.

Despite this, the Western media is still reporting "battles" in Damascus, that have "spread" to Aleppo. Aleppo being another relatively unscathed city, is being purposefully attacked in order to enhance NATO's campaign to terrorize, panic, and divide the Syrian people. Already, however, Syrian troops have begun security operations to surround and neutralize terrorist elements, just as they have done already in Damascus.

But before the violence ebbs, at least, before the Western media finds it no longer tenable to report battles that have subsided days ago, the West has stampeded through several declarations. New York Times' article, in addition to admitting more direct military intervention is being prepared, admits that the US and France are putting their proxy "Syrian National Council" in place to lead a "transitional government."

The West's problem is that not a square-inch of Syrian territory is held by NATO's terrorist proxies - unlike in Libya where NATO proxies were operating out of Benghazi - raising the specter that some larger military intervention emanating from Syria's borders will take place. The most likely location of such an operation would be via Turkey to establish a seat of power for the Western client regime.

To justify more overt Western intervention, an incredible amount of time and energy has been invested in preparing the general public for the prospect of a "chemical attack."Syria has never deployed its chemical weapons, nor does it stand to gain from any such deployment, tactically, politically, or geopolitically. The only beneficiaries of such an attack would be NATO, Israel, and the Gulf despots, who could then use it to justify the "forcible toppling" of the Syrian government they now openly seek. If chemical weapons are deployed in Syria, it will most certainly be the work of NATO and its FSA proxies, using Libya's admittedly pilfered and proliferated arsenal. 

The announcement that indeed the US and France are maneuvering their client regime into place, while they plan on openly intervening on behalf of the so-called "Free Syrian Army," is the final nail in the "opposition's" legitimacy, exposing them as place holders of Western geopolitical aspirations in Syria, and in the Arab World. Earlier it was reported that the Syrian opposition was literally being coached and tutored by the US State Department, via the US government-funded US Institute of Peace (USIP) who is literally writing Syria's "new" constitution, as well as engineering the entire "transitional" process on their behalf.

Syria and its allies, should they remain resolved and react only to the actual conditions on the ground can continue to balk Western ambitions by standing united, as they have throughout their history. For now, it appears the West will be happy to divide Syria along sectarian lines, forcing the government's supporters to flee to ethnic enclaves. This means that NATO death squads will be focusing primarily on attacking minorities - a campaign that seems to have already begun. 

Above all, skepticism and vigilance is needed to objectively analyze further developments, with further NATO machinations all but assured to follow.

Propaganda War: Syrian media warn of staged videos, rebels dressed as soldiers

Stratrisks

Editor’s Note: Recently the mainstream media has been using unverified, anonymous videos via youtube to show what is going on in Syria. The BBC at one point had hired some Syrians to film the civil war going on. Honestly unless you are in Syria, you have no idea what is going on there. Well unless you are the NSA, CIA, NRO or other respective international agencies you have no idea. Which is why it is so difficult to post articles on Syria. We are not interested in being cheerleaders for either side but bringing you the who, what, where, when, and why like a news outlet should. –Michael Vail

As fighting rages on in the heart of Damascus, still reeling from a stunning attack on Syria’s military leadership Wednesday, Syrian state media called the bombing a failure and alleged that a Qatari company was staging fake videos using models of the capital and another city, Aleppo, to mislead the world.

The claims are the latest salvo in the propaganda battle over the 16-month Syrian uprising. With scant access for foreign journalists, Syrian state media and opposition activists have competed to control the story, offering radically different accounts of what is happening inside the battered country.

To the chagrin of the government, amateur videos shared online by opposition activists showing shelling, bloodied corpses and gunfire have become a crucial current of information for the outside world, often appearing on Arab and Western television. And with the United Nations forced to crimp its monitoring mission because of escalating violence, death tolls are often supplied by activists instead.

“In the short term at least, journalists have little choice but to continue to rely on activists for much of their information,” journalist Jess Hill wrote earlier this year in the Global Mail, expressing the unease that she and other correspondents feel in using activists for so much of their information.

Syrian officials have often cast doubt on online videos and disputed accounts from opposition activists, blaming killings on “terrorists” –- the government term for the rebels -– rather than the army or its allies. State media frequently claim that Syria is the victim of an international conspiracy.

Stepping up the allegations that the violence is not what it appears, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported Thursday that “special sources” said a Qatari security company had manufactured models mimicking official buildings in Syrian cities and gathered people to pose as military personnel “to film fake videos and fabricated photos about the situation in Syria.”

The allegations echo similar claims made during the Libyan uprising against Moammar Kadafi that fake attacks were being staged in Qatar.

In an even more alarming claim, Syrian state television warned citizens Thursday that gunmen were planning to attack in Damascus disguised in military uniforms as a way of “exploiting the trust of citizens in our courageous armed forces,” Reuters reported.

In the wake of the Wednesday bombing, Syrian state television also sought to combat rumors that President Bashar Assad had been harmed, airing footage of him at the swearing-in of the new defense minister, whose predecessor was killed in the attack. But it was unclear where the ceremony took place.

State television dubbed the attack a failure and portrayed it as part of a U.S.- and Israeli-backed conspiracy against the country. Television commentators scoffed at the idea that the bombing would hurt the state; Western analysts have widely seen the strike as a major blow to the government.

The bombing “will not shake our determination and the determination of the army, but will strengthen it,” one Syrian man told Al-Ikhbariyah on Thursday, according to the BBC media monitoring service.