The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

So, are we on the verge of World War 3? Should I start stockpiling bottled water, batteries, dry and canned goods?

[seemslikeadream]

British fears grow over legal justification for Syria strike
David Cameron is facing demands to set out the legal justification for military action against Syria amid mounting unease over the scale and speed of Britain’s commitment to another conflict in the Middle East.

Mr Hague’s comments led to calls for ministers to 'make their case' Photo: EPA
By Tim Ross, Political Correspondent10:15PM BST 26 Aug 2013
William Hague warned on Monday that force may be the only viable option in response to what the Government believes was a chemical attack by the Syrian regime which killed hundreds of people in Damascus last week.
Britain, America and France are united in their readiness to act and do not require any further United Nations resolution under international law, the Foreign Secretary said. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, described the chemical attack as a “moral obscenity” and warned that Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, must face “consequences”.
Mr Hague’s comments led to calls for ministers to “make their case” and detail the legal basis and long-term objectives of entering Syria’s bloody civil war.
As it emerged that the West could launch cruise missiles within days, a poll found wide public opposition to British involvement in “any kind” of military action in Syria. In a survey of 2,000 people by YouGov, only nine per cent supported sending British troops to fight in Syria, with 74 per cent against. Three-quarters backed sending humanitarian aid.
The Russian government warned that a strike without UN backing would be a “blatant violation of international law” that would worsen the situation on the ground.

On Monday night, the Prime Minister, who was on holiday in Cornwall, telephoned Vladimir Putin and told him there was “little doubt” that the Assad regime was responsible for the Damascus attack. The Russian president refused to accept that there was enough evidence of a chemical attack or that forces loyal to the regime were responsible.
In America, Mr Kerry said the evidence was “undeniable” despite attempts by the Assad regime to “systemically destroy” it. He said the US had “additional information” which would be reviewed with allies before any military response.
President Obama was consulting world leaders and US politicians, he added. “Make no mistake, President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people,” he said.
Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg, his Liberal Democrat deputy, will decide on Tuesday whether MPs should be recalled this week amid demands by MPs from all sides for a debate and a binding “vote” before any action.
Labour formally demanded that ministers “make their case” to Parliament first. Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said the Prime Minister must be “open about the objectives, the legal basis, and the anticipated effect” of any British military action in Syria.
“Given both the seriousness of the reported chemical weapons strikes in Syria, and the enduring and complex nature of the conflict itself, ahead of any action being taken I would fully expect the Prime Minister to make his case to Parliament,” he said. As the international crisis intensified:
• UN weapons inspectors trying to investigate the suspected chemical attack came under sniper fire.
• The Prime Minister said he would return early to Downing Street to coordinate Britain’s response. He will chair a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday.
• Mr Clegg cancelled a planned trip to Afghanistan.
• Britain’s most senior military commander, Gen Sir Nick Houghton, held talks in Jordan with his US, Turkish and French counterparts.
• Former military leaders argued that a strike would be justified, but should be strictly limited.
As commanders drew up possible targets a succession of MPs said that the Commons must be given full details of the Government’s objectives before authorising any strikes.
John Baron, a Conservative MP leading demands for Parliament to be recalled, said: “The more you intervene the more you become responsible for events on the ground. Essentially, it is a civil war. If the West intervenes without a UN resolution … I think there is a more serious risk of this escalating beyond Syrian boundaries.
“I think there would be deep scepticism about boots on the ground,” he said. “Mission creep is a real possibility once you have crossed the line.”
Michael Caplan, an international lawyer, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that ministers could find themselves in a “controversial situation”.
“The difficulty here is there’s no threat as I understand it to the security of this country or the United States and therefore on what basis can we intervene?” he asked.
Mr Hague said that Britain faced a choice between military strikes or allowing tyrants to use chemical weapons “with impunity”. He said that diplomatic efforts at the UN had failed and it would be legal for countries to take military action in response to chemical attacks without Security Council backing.
Mr Hague declined to discuss “the military options” but refused to rule “in or out” a strike within days.
A resolution of the UN Security Council would provide the clearest legal authority for military action. But opposition from Russia and China makes it all-but impossible, according to British sources.
Instead, officials are pointing to the example of Kosovo, where the West intervened on humanitarian grounds.
Military leaders were divided on British involvement. Gen Sir Mike Jackson, former head of the Army, said: “Probably, at the end of the day, it has to be the lesser of two evils.” But a senior military source said the West had missed its chance to act while Assad was weakened.

[MayDay]

[justdrew]

$10 says the first US weapon hits civilian targets. Dwarfs death toll from the "gas"

stop it now big O, it ain't gonna work out the way the guys in the funny suits say.

[DrVolin]

Since Feb 1st: DOW up 8%. Raytheon up 46%.

Since August 1st: DOW down 4%. Raytheon up 8%.

Who knew what when? It will work exactly as the guys in the funny suits say.

[MayDay]

United States and Britain prepare for strikes on Syria despite Russia warning
BY OLIVER WRIGHT – 27 AUGUST 2013

Russia warned Britain and America yesterday that they would be in “grave violation of international law” if they carried out air strikes against the Syrian regime without the approval of the United Nations.

Amid growing concern at home and abroad about the legitimacy and wisdom of the UK participating in an attack on the Assad regime without UN authorization, the Government’s most senior law officer will be asked to justify the Britain’s participation in strikes at a meeting of the National Security Council tomorrow.

However, there were no signs of Downing Street backing off from its intention to join America in the use of military force. A Downing Street source said they still expected action within two weeks while a spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said he was also fully behind a “proportionate” response to President Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

Last night, Mr Cameron spoke to the Russian President Vladimir Putin for 20 minutes in a call which Downing Street described as “business-like”. Mr Putin reportedly told Mr Cameron that UN weapons inspectors must be given time to analyse properly the cause of the attack. However, he did not repeat comments made earlier by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, that any unilateral action would be illegal.

Comments by John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, last night calling the evidence against the Syrian regime “undeniable”, left little doubt that the Washington was preparing the ground for some kind of punitive action. A senior member of the US Senate, Bob Corker, said a US attack against Syria was “imminent”, though there was no way to verify that. “I don’t think there’s any question in the administration’s mind that chemical warfare has been used and that when we’re involved, it’s surgical, proportional to what has occurred,” he said.

On a visit to Indonesia, the US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, indicated that Washington was not willing to act alone or outside the “framework of a legal justification”. Taking a much harder tone, Mr Kerry said it was not the job of UN inspectors to determine who had unleashed the weapons, firmly rejecting the regime’s denials of responsibility for the “cowardly crime”.
Mr Cameron will return to Downing Street from his holiday in Cornwall this morning and is expected to make a decision on whether to recall Parliament. The move is seen as increasingly likely after a succession of Tory MPs made it clear they expected to be consulted ahead of any action.

The Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston said there was no threat to UK national security and Parliament should be consulted to act as a brake on an escalation of the situation. “I sense that we are on a headlong rush into escalating this conflict and I think Parliament can act as a natural brake to that,” she said.

Without a UN mandate for action – which would be impossible to achieve because of Russian and Chinese opposition – the legal mandate for war would likely rest either on the “right to protect” civilians, as happened when Nato bombarded Serbia in 1999, or the need to prevent breaches of international conventions outlawing the use of chemical weapons.

The Independent understands that the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, has been asked by Mr Cameron to review the legal situation and report to the NSC at its meeting tomorrow.

However, the Foreign Secretary William Hague appeared to suggest that the Government did not see any significant legal obstacles to action. He told the BBC: “The United Nations Security Council has not shouldered its responsibilities on Syria otherwise there would have been a better chance of bringing this conflict to an end a long time ago.

“So, is it possible to act on chemical weapons, is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the UN Security Council? I would argue, yes it is. Otherwise, of course, it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes and I don’t think that is an acceptable situation.

“It is possible to take action based on great humanitarian need and humanitarian distress, it’s possible to do that under many different scenarios. But anything we propose to do on this, the strong response that we’ve talked about, whatever form that takes, will be in accordance with international law.”

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ ... 29526.html

[MayDay]

Sorry. Double post.

[MayDay]

Remember this?

U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us- ... story.html

By Craig Whitlock, Published: April 17, 2011

The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups say scores of people have been killed by Assad’s security forces since the demonstrations began March 18; Syria has blamed the violence on “armed gangs.”

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Damascus at risk.

Syrian authorities “would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change,” read an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Damascus at the time. “A reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-[government] factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive,” the cable said.

It is unclear whether the State Department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010. While some of that money has also supported programs and dissidents inside Syria, The Washington Post is withholding certain names and program details at the request of the State Department, which said disclosure could endanger the recipients’ personal safety.

Syria, a police state, has been ruled by Assad since 2000, when he took power after his father’s death. Although the White House has condemned the killing of protesters in Syria, it has not explicitly called for his ouster.

The State Department declined to comment on the authenticity of the cables or answer questions about its funding of Barada TV.

Tamara Wittes, a deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the democracy and human rights portfolio in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the State Department does not endorse political parties or movements.

“We back a set of principles,” she said. “There are a lot of organizations in Syria and other countries that are seeking changes from their government. That’s an agenda that we believe in and we’re going to support.”

The State Department often funds programs around the world that promote democratic ideals and human rights, but it usually draws the line at giving money to political opposition groups.

In February 2006, when relations with Damascus were at a nadir, the Bush administration announced that it would award $5 million in grants to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”

But no dissidents inside Syria were willing to take the money, for fear it would lead to their arrest or execution for treason, according to a 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy, which reported that “no bona fide opposition member will be courageous enough to accept funding.”

Around the same time, Syrian exiles in Europe founded the Movement for Justice and Development. The group, which is banned in Syria, openly advocates for Assad’s removal. U.S. cables describe its leaders as “liberal, moderate Islamists” who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barada TV

It is unclear when the group began to receive U.S. funds, but cables show U.S. officials in 2007 raised the idea of helping to start an anti-Assad satellite channel.

People involved with the group and with Barada TV, however, would not acknowledge taking money from the U.S. government.

“I’m not aware of anything like that,” Malik al-Abdeh, Barada TV’s news director, said in a brief telephone interview from London.

Abdeh said the channel receives money from “independent Syrian businessmen” whom he declined to name. He also said there was no connection between Barada TV and the Movement for Justice and Development, although he confirmed that he serves on the political group’s board. The board is chaired by his brother, Anas.

“If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don’t want to continue this conversation,” Malik al-Abdeh said. “That’s all I’m going to give you.”

Other dissidents said that Barada TV has a growing audience in Syria but that its viewer share is tiny compared with other independent satellite news channels such as al-Jazeera and BBC Arabic. Although Barada TV broadcasts 24 hours a day, many of its programs are reruns. Some of the mainstay shows are “Towards Change,” a panel discussion about current events, and “First Step,” a program produced by a Syrian dissident group based in the United States.

Ausama Monajed, another Syrian exile in London, said he used to work as a producer for Barada TV and as media relations director for the Movement for Justice and Development but has not been “active” in either job for about a year. He said he now devotes all his energy to the Syrian revolutionary movement, distributing videos and protest updates to journalists.

He said he “could not confirm” any U.S. government support for the satellite channel, because he was not involved with its finances. “I didn’t receive a penny myself,” he said.

Several U.S. diplomatic cables from the embassy in Damascus reveal that the Syrian exiles received money from a State Department program called the Middle East Partnership Initiative. According to the cables, the State Department funneled money to the exile group via the Democracy Council, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit. According to its Web site, the council sponsors projects in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America to promote the “fundamental elements of stable societies.”

The council’s founder and president, James Prince, is a former congressional staff member and investment adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Reached by telephone, Prince acknowledged that the council administers a grant from the Middle East Partnership Initiative but said that it was not “Syria-specific.”

Prince said he was “familiar with” Barada TV and the Syrian exile group in London, but he declined to comment further, saying he did not have approval from his board of directors. “We don’t really talk about anything like that,” he said.

The April 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus states that the Democracy Council received $6.3 million from the State Department to run a Syria-related program called the “Civil Society Strengthening Initiative.” That program is described as “a discrete collaborative effort between the Democracy Council and local partners” to produce, among other things, “various broadcast concepts.” Other cables make clear that one of those concepts was Barada TV.

U.S. allocations

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said the Middle East Partnership Initiative has allocated $7.5 million for Syrian programs since 2005. A cable from the embassy in Damascus, however, pegged a much higher total — about $12 million — between 2005 and 2010.

The cables report persistent fears among U.S. diplomats that Syrian state security agents had uncovered the money trail from Washington.

A September 2009 cable reported that Syrian agents had interrogated a number of people about “MEPI operations in particular,” a reference to the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

“It is unclear to what extent [Syrian] intelligence services understand how USG money enters Syria and through which proxy organizations,” the cable stated, referring to funding from the U.S. government. “What is clear, however, is that security agents are increasingly focused on this issue.”

U.S. diplomats also warned that Syrian agents may have “penetrated” the Movement for Justice and Development by intercepting its communications.

A June 2009 cable listed the concerns under the heading “MJD: A Leaky Boat?” It reported that the group was “seeking to expand its base in Syria” but had been “initially lax in its security, often speaking about highly sensitive material on open lines.”

The cable cited evidence that the Syrian intelligence service was aware of the connection between the London exile group and the Democracy Council in Los Angeles. As a result, embassy officials fretted that the entire Syria assistance program had been compromised.

“Reporting in other channels suggest the Syrian [Mukhabarat] may already have penetrated the MJD and is using the MJD contacts to track U.S. democracy programming,” the cable stated. “If the [Syrian government] does know, but has chosen not to intervene openly, it raises the possibility that the [government] may be mounting a campaign to entrap democracy activists.”

[MayDay]

Faking the Case Against Syria
WEEKEND EDITION NOVEMBER 18-20, 2005
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/18/ ... nst-syria/

Mehlis's Murky Past; US and Isreali Proxies Pushing the Next Neo-Con War

by TRISH SCHUH
Another slam dunk forgery is being used to convict Syria. The United Nations’ Detlev Mehlis inquiry into the murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq Hairri depends on a central witness, Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, who has faced accusations of being a swindler and embezzler. Der Spiegel exposed Saddik’s brags of "becoming a millionaire" from his testimony to the Mehlis Commission. Saddik was referred to the Mehlis Commission by Syrian regime critic Rifaat Assad, the uncle of current Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rifaat has been lobbying the Bush administration to become the president of Syria in the event his nephew Bashar is ousted.

The record of the UN’s investigator Mehlis does not inspire faith in his credibility. As Senior Public Prosecutor in the German Attorney General’s office, Mehlis investigated the 1986 LaBelle Discotheque bombing in Berlin. Relying on alleged National Security Agency intercepts of coded messages between Tripoli and Libyan suspects in Germany (later revealed by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky as false telex signals generated by Mossad itself), Mehlis provided the ‘irrefutable proof’ of Libya’s guilt that then justified Ronald Reagan’s bombing of Libya.

In the case of the accusations against Syria, Mehlis’s case revolves around a series of questionable phone conversations and intersecting calling card numbers allegedly dialled by the perpetrators. It contains no definitive forensics on the car bomb explosives used. Outside investigators have said it could have been RDX plastique, not TNT as Mehlis suggested in his report. The German Mercedes manufacturers were also perplexed at how Hariri’s vehicle, reinforced by the heaviest steel-titanium alloy, was "melted by the force of the explosion," after-effects usually associated with high density DU munitions. The car bomb vehicle (stolen in Japan and never fully traced) was possibly driven by a suicide bomber, whose identity is still unknown. Mehlis’s report then states: "Another only slightly less likely possibility is that of a remotely controlled device."

Mehlis conclusions on the case , due on December 15 could justify an attack on Syria, using the Hariri assassination as justification. But from Beirut to Damascus, the "Arab Spring" was a neocon forgery designed to destabilize the Levant and redraw the map of the middle east.

Near the Mohammad Al Amin Mosque of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, I interviewed a founder of the Martyrs’ Square tent city and asked about US-Israeli sponsorship of the ‘Independence Intifadah’. Surrounded by red and white Lebanese flags, soldier Michael Sweiden of the Lebanese Forces emphasized he was Christian Lebanese.

"We love Israel", he told me. "Israel helps us. Israel is like our mother."
Years before its role in the so-called "Cedar Revolution" (a moniker coined by US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, a signatory to the Project for a New American Century), Israel awarded citizenship and grants of up to $10,000 to South Lebanon Army soldiers who collaborated with the Israeli Defense Forces during Lebanon’s civil war. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed, "Senior officials at Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office were in touch with Lebanese leaders even before the current crisis." Backed by American and Israeli neocons, a Christian Lebanese Likud is proxying Israel’s second invasion.

One example is the Lebanese Foundation for Peace, a self-styled "Government of Lebanon in Exile in Jerusalem" founded by former Lebanese Forces’ military intelligence officer Nagi Najjar. Najjar, a CIA consultant, testified not so long ago in support of Ariel Sharon’s "complete innocence" in the Sabra and Shatila affair against charges by Human Rights Watch and regional governments. Najjar has also paired with Mossad agent Yossef Bodansky while lobbying the U.S. congress to intervene in Hezbollah-dominated south Lebanon. His NGO, The Lebanese Foundation for Peace, endorsed the AIPAC-sponsored sanctions against Syria, known as the Syria Accountability / Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. On his LFP website featuring an Israeli flag, Najjar’s "government in exile" issued an official declaration; "We, the people of Free Lebanon, thank Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom for the campaign launched by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Afffairs aimed at ousting Syria from occupying Lebanon."

Another NGO of the Lebanese Likud is the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon. Its President, Ziad Abdel Nour is the son of wealthy Lebanese Minister of Parliament Khalil Abdel Nour. USCFL partners with designated "democratizers" such as the American Enterprise Institute (created by Lebanese-American William Baroody, Sr.), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Republican Jewish Coalition, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Middle East Forum, the Hudson Institute and kindred pro-Israel lobbies.

The USCFL hails former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel for signing a peace deal with Israel in 1983. (According to the UAE’s late president Sheik Zayed bin sultan Al Nahyan, Saddam Hussein agreed to leave Iraq before the war in 2003 to halt the invasion. But Amin Gemayel, the mediator between Saddam and the US administration, wrongly informed the US that Hussein had rejected all offers of exile). Abdel Nour’s other links include the World Lebanese Organization, which advocates Israel’s re-occupation of south Lebanon. In 2000, he and neocon Daniel Pipes composed the policy paper "Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon: the US Role" and together co-author the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. The bulletin is a project of the neocon Middle East Forum and is a frequent resource for American intelligence agencies. On November 2, 2005 Abdel Nour updated me on the Syrian crisis by phone.


Schuh: What is the future of Syria, of President Bashar Al Assad’s situation?

Nour: Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether they like it or not- whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else… and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration. This is a Nazi regime of 30 years, killing ministers, presidents and stuff like that. They must be removed. These guys who came to power, who rule by power, can only be removed by power. This is Machiavelli’s power game. That’s how it is. This is how geopolitics — the war games, power games — work. I know inside out how it works, because I come from a family of politicians for the last 60 years. Look, I have access to the top classified information from the CIA from all over the world. They call me, I advise them. I know exactly what’s going on. And this will happen.

Q: So would they remove the entire Assad family?

A: Why not? Who is Bashar Al Assad?

Q: I didn’t see forensic proof in the Mehlis report that would legally convict Assad of Hariri’s death in a court of law.

A: I don’t give a damn. I don’t give a damn, frankly. This Bashar Al Assad-Emil Lahoud regime is going to go whether it’s true or not. When we went to Iraq whether there were weapons of mass destruction or not, the key is — we won. And Saddam is out! Whatever we want, will happen. Iran? We will not let Iran become a nuclear power. We’ll find a way, we’ll find an excuse- to get rid of Iran. And I don’t care what the excuse is. There is no room for rogue states in the world. Whether we lie about it, or invent something, or we don’t… I don’t care. The end justifies the means. What’s right? Might is right, might is right. That’s it. Might is right.

Q: You sound just like Saddam. Those were his rules too.

A: So Saddam wanted to prove to the whole world he was strong? Well, we’re stronger- he’s out! He’s finished. And Iran’s going to be finished and every single Arab regime that’s like this will be finished. Because there is no room for us capitalists and multinationalists in the world to operate with regimes like this. Its all about money. And power. And wealth… and democracy has to be spread around the world. Those who want to espouse globalization are going to make a lot of money, be happy, their families will be happy. And those who aren’t going to play this game are going to be crushed, whether they like it or not! This is how we rule. And this is how it’s going to be as long as you have people who think like me.

Q: When will this regime change take place?

A: Within 6 months, in both Lebanon and Syria.

Q: Some names of replacements?

A: It is classified. There are going to be replacements and we know who they are, but I cannot mention the names.

Q: Will this be done peacefully?

A: It doesn’t matter. The end justifies the means. I don’t care about how it’s done. The important thing is that it is done. I don’t rule out force. I’m not against force. If it’s an option, it will be an option.

Q: But if it’s just trading Syrian control for American or Israeli control?

A: I have — we have — absolutely no problem with heavy US involvement in Lebanon. On an economic level, military level, political level, security level… whatever it is. Israel is the 51st state of the United States. Let Lebanon be the 52nd state. And if the Arabs don’t like it, tough luck.

US-Israeli intervention in Lebanon has a long history. In 1950′s Beirut, The U.S. oil companies and the CIA paid bribes to Maronite Catholic President Camille Chamoun to buy allegiance against Lebanese Muslims, and the pan-Arab threat of Nasser. In his book Ropes of Sand, CIA case officer William Crane Eveland revealed, "Throughout the elections, I traveled regularly to the presidential palace with a briefcase full of Lebanese pounds, then returned late at night to the embassy with an empty twin case" to be refilled again with more CIA funds. Journalist Said Aburish recalled, "The convergence of interest between the Camille Chamoun government and CIA agents produced a bizarre atmosphere which altered Beirut’s character. It became a CIA city…" frequented by such covert operatives as Kermit Roosevelt (who organized the Iranian coup against Mohammed Mossadeq). Soon the Israelis joined in, supplying weapons to Chamoun’s son Dany, an arms trader. Dany’s weapons sales to Maronite gangs created a precedent for the country’s civil war militias. ( See Aburish’s A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, 1997)

A more recent US-Israeli role commenced in mid-November, 2004. A demonstration was called by former Christian General Michel Aoun. (Aoun testified to the US Congress in 2003, and Congress favors him as a post-Assad Lebanese president). US diplomats coached a vanguard of unwitting Lebanese youth in CIA "Triple U" techniques (uncontrollable urban unrest). Opposition sources revealed that a downtown rally of 3000 mostly Christian student activists protesting "Syrians Out!" had been organized by the US Embassy in Beirut. The Associated Press reported on November 19, 2004, "One demonstrator appealed to the US president, holding a placard that read: ‘Bush help us save Lebanon.’ Another dressed up as Osama bin Laden but with the words "Syrian Terror" on his chest. He held a toy gun to the head of a protester who was wrapped in the Lebanese flag…"

Lebanese riot police allowed this unprecedented pre-Cedar rehearsal without arrests because of a deal worked out beforehand with US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman. Feltman, closely linked to Ariel Sharon and Karl Rove, is an associate of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans that created the false evidence and "mushroom cloud" intelligence used to justify attacks on Iraq. This 2004 rehearsal demonstration was answered by a counter protest of 300,000 on November 30 against UN Resolution 1559.

When the stage show opened for real after Rafiq Hariri’s death, America’s Wag the Flag performance was camera-ready. Janes.com exposed that the flashy demonstrations and rallies were being engineered by one of Lebanon’s top advertising agencies and the London-based Saatchi & Saatchi. Michael Nakfour of the corporate events management company, Independence 05 – Civil Society, helped manage the Freedom Square tent city by distributing food, flags, supplies and theatrical effects, prompting American Enterprise Institute scholar Hedieh Mirahmadi to marvel; "Who would imagine one could find posters, in downtown Beirut, with the picture of President Bush in between American and Lebanese flags?" (NY Sun, 3/18/05)

Reporter Mary Wakefield, of The Spectator was also surprised. "Only 1,000 or so people? ..it felt less like a national protest than a pop concert. Bouncers in black bomber jackets wore laminated Independence ’05 cards round their necks, screens to the left and right of the platform reflected the crowd… To the left of the main speaker, a man in a black flying suit with blonde highlights, mirrored Oakley sunglasses and an earpiece seemed to be conducting the crowd. Sometimes he’d wave his arms to increase the shouting, sometimes, with a gesture he’d silence them… ‘Out Syria! Out Syria! Out Syria!’ Production assistants with clipboards busied themselves around trucks full of monitors and amplifiers…. The truth is that the Cedar Revolution has been presented and planned in just the same way as Ukraine’s Orange revolution and, before it, the Rose revolution in Georgia. But just because it is in American interests doesn’t mean it’s an American production." ("A Revolution Made for TV" 3/12/05)

Why not? The New York Post: "US intelligence sources told The Post that the CIA and European intelligence services are quietly giving money and logistical support to organizers of the anti-Syrian protests to ramp up pressure on Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to completely quit Lebanon. Sources said the secret program is similar to previous support of pro-democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, which also led to peaceful demonstrations." (3/8/05).

On the streets of Beirut, one ‘grassroots’ project, "Pulse of Freedom," inadvertently exposed its U.S. origins by utilizing uniquely American street theater tactics. Then in a slip, reminiscent of Baghdad’s Firdos Square when US troops covered Saddam’s statue with the Stars and Stripes, or when the Republic of Georgia’s military band played the US national anthem instead of its own during the Rose Revolution, "Pulse of Freedom" portrayed Lebanon’s national Monument of Sovereignty as the Statue of Liberty.

Spirit of America, the NGO that created "Pulse of Freedom" provided protesters with a billboard-sized electronic ‘Freedom Clock’ for ‘Freedom Square’ to "countdown to freedom." Spirit of America’s tax deductible donations helped maintain the tent city’s food, shelter and other basic necessities "so that the demonstrators can keep pressure on for political change and world attention on the struggle for Lebanese independence". Spirit of America also spawned a plethora of revolution bloggers, foremost among them Tech Central Station columnist Michael Totten whose boss was Spirit of America’s founder Jim Hake.

A registered charity, Spirit of America exemplifies the regime change industry. Advised by US Ambassador Mark Palmer, Vice Chairman of the Board of Freedom House, and co-founder of the National Endowment for Democracy, Palmer served as speech-writer to three US Presidents and six Secretaries of State. He also helped the US government destabilize Slobodan Milosevic and Muammar Qaddafi. Capitalizing on his color revolution skills, Palmer wrote "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators Without Firing a Shot."

Another Spirit of America governor is Lt General Mike DeLong, Deputy Commander, US Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. DeLong manages a budget of $8.2 billion and "conceived and implemented the Global War on Terrorism, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom." As top Deputy to former General Tommy Franks, DeLong’s listed expertise at places such as the Army War College, the Department of Defense and the Amphibious Warfare School included Artillery, military intelligence, coup détats, supporting democracy. DeLong in his autobiography Inside Centcom alleged "Syria had been shipping military supplies, including night vision goggles to Iraq." The New York Times and Washington Post later revealed that these data had been fabricated "smoking gun" evidence. Charles Duelfer of the UN Iraq Survey Group also confirmed that WMD charges had been "exaggerated" by now-US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, when he was Under-Secretary for Arms Control in 2002.

Lebanese history professor Habib Malik, affiliated with the Middle East Forum, defended the anti-Syria protesters to journalist-in-residence Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as being "utterly spontaneous and coercion-free." (NY Sun, 3/11/05)

But an American Hezbollah expert in Beirut, Dr. Judith Harik, informed this writer that the pro-Syria crowds were misrepresented in the media. "As you are hearing, the Bush administration is labeling the opposition "the people" and everyone else as Hezbollah terrorists. Tomorrow’s [March 8, 2005] demonstration will include Sunnis, Druze of the Arslan faction, Christians of all the leftist nationalist parties and the entire south and Bekaa, along with Orthodox Christian areas of Mt. Lebanon. Again the Bush administration is misleading the public by ‘mistakenly’ lauding a loud minority that supports its middle east policy."

Each side eventually held a mass demonstration numbered in the hundreds of thousands, prompting a truce. But the US-Israeli machine declared war. Using language formerly reserved for Yasser Arafat, Bush parroted Ariel Sharon. "Syria is an obstacle to peace" and an "obstacle to change". Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) advised, "Syria — put two nukes on ‘em"; Jerusalem Post: "Israel hails Bush’s Islamist attacks"; Jewish Forward; "US promises Israel to tackle Hezbollah."

A deck of ‘Most Wanted’ playing cards appeared, a technique used by the Israeli newspaper Maariv to target Palestinians, and later used against the Iraqi Baath Party. Likud MK Yuval Steinetz, head of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee crystallized the priorities: "It’s a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad." Evoking the "absurd Arabs with their Arab conspiracy theories" slur, Geostrategy-Direct headlined: "Is Bashar Assad paranoid or is the US really plotting to undermine him?"

When Israel’s commandeering of US middle east policy became too overt, defter tongues moved to quell the uproar. "Bush Administration Advises Israel to be Quiet on Lebanese Politics," said the New York Times. It wasn’t the first reprimand to Israel by some of its own. In November, 2003 Israel’s former head of military intelligence, Major-General Shlomo Gazit publicly warned Sharon against threatening Syria and the Israeli "jab, jab policy orchestrated to incite and humiliate Damascus. It is only going to be a matter of time until the Syrians are unable to hold back and then the big blaze will begin." But that was Sharon’s intent and he spoke of Iraq as a justification to attack Hezbollah; "it will give us a great pretext. But we’ll hit them in any case." (Daily Times, 3/4/03)

The Jerusalem Post wrote; "Rumsfeld considers striking Hizbullah to provoke Syria," and the Pentagon assessed that "the time is coming to oust Assad and the ruling generals by targeting Syria via Lebanon…" Former National Security Council/CIA analyst Flynt Leverett confirmed Rumsfeld’s belief that by instigating the right crisis in Lebanon, regime change could be executed in Syria. One Rumsfeld project, P20G, or the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, existed specifically to provoke terrorist attacks that would then justify "counter-attacks". Neocons such as Douglas Feith and David Wurmser envisioned this graduated destablization as the "constructive instability" of "total war".

Rumsfeld’s team had already begun discussions with Israeli intelligence about assassinating Lebanese officials — particularly "Hezbollah and their supporters" in 2002, and intelligence operatives were dispatched to Lebanon. (This writer was introduced to at least one Israeli ‘student’ studying Arabic at AUB in Beirut. He travelled with an American passport, coming to Lebanon "to study ‘the enemy’ to find out how they think.") The Sunday Times (6/5/05) revealed that Mossad had been using Trojan Horse email surveillance on President Assad’s wife Asma, labelling her family correspondence a "legitimate soft target".

By January 2005, the Pentagon were preparing for military operations in Lebanon to destroy "insurgency strongholds along the Lebanese-Syrian border". Simultaneously, Israeli approval for a military operation in Lebanon was given after Hezbollah killed an IDF officer. Political-security cabinet members comprised of PM Sharon, Deputy PM Ehud Olmert, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, and FM Silvan Shalom had authorized the action. (Haaretz, 5/3/05). But then Rafiq Hariri was killed, and the door to Syria swung open.

Syria may become America’s 53rd state, if Farid Ghadry’s NGO, the Reform Party of Syria rushes through that opened door. Ghadry is a Syrian Christian who worked for EG & G, a Department of Defense contractor. EG & G assisted in the development and testing of nuclear weapons and in many of the US military’s top secret atomic projects. Ghadry’s Reform Party coordinates with the Syrian National Council, and transmits Radio Free Syria from Cyprus and Germany to destabilize Syria. The CIA and Mossad have long used Kurds to target nations in the region. Journalist Jack Anderson wrote in 1972 about Israeli envoys delivering $50,000 a month to Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani to destabilize Iraq.

In March 2004, this writer was approached in Damascus by Kurds from Qamishli and Hasaka (one whose brother was arrested in the riots) wanting to "thank Bush for helping us get rid of Assad". News accounts later verified that the chaos up north had been orchestrated by the US and Israel, using Turkish and Iraqi Kurds. ‘Protesters’ at the height of the melee even waved posters of President Bush and American flags. The ringleaders were sponsored by the Department of Defense and the US State Department. "Let the Damascus spring flower, and let its flowers bloom," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. So sprouted another color catastrophe — Syria’s "Jasmine Revolution".

Reform Party of Syria’s Farid Ghadry has been a featured speaker at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and is himself a member of AIPAC. When repeated calls to his organization went unanswered, I visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RFP. Reform Party of Syria is the office of "super-Zionist" lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle Gate Ventures, Abramoff’s ‘political advisory company’ partners with RFP. Abramoff is a top Beltway lobbyist now under intensive FBI investigation concerning, among other things, his proposed $9 million fee to get Gabon’s president an Oval Office session with Bush.

As a College Republican in the 1980s, Abramoff founded the International Freedom Foundation, a project linked to the South African Defence Forces. The International Freedom Foundation was the PR branch of sister NGO Strategic Communications, a covert organization charged by former spy Craig Williamson in the Weekly Mail and Guardian for 2/24/95 with being involved with frame-ups, extreme violence and dirty tricks campaigns.

According to the Weekly Standard (12/20/04), one Abramoff venture was his organization of a 1985 global "summit" of underworld thugs. With Citizens for America sponsorship, Contra leaders, guerilla rebels and right wing ‘freedom fighters’ from around the world convened in the African hinterlands to strategize. During this period, Abramoff’s membership/financial transactions with the secretive Council for National Policy, which included Oliver North and Richard Secord, became a template for how to mask money that still remains partially hidden. (Nizkor Project)

Recently Abramoff’s interventionism has focused on the Middle East. Tomflocco.com reveals that Abramoff’s long-time employer, Greenberg Traurig, partially financed a Homeland Security Government Contract Team trip to Israel for the US House/Senate Armed Services Committee and defense contractor CACI (accused of Abu Ghraib torture). The delegation reviewed IDF "resistance to interrogation techniques" used in Palestine, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The Lebanon Daily Star reported that the group visited Beit Horon "the central training camp for the anti-terrorist forces of the Israeli police and border police" and were able to "witness exercises related to anti-terror warfare." Legislators’ names were not disclosed.

Abramoff also works with the World Zionist Organization and the Christian Coalition to bankroll illegal Israeli settlement activities. According to Israeli prosecutor Talia Sasson they are part of a larger international problem. Some $60 billion worldwide has been illicitly funnelled to Israeli settlements via different foreign donors, quasi-NGOs and secret military accounts.

In one such case, according to Senate testimony and news reports in Newsweek and The New Republic, an Abramoff charity, Capital Athletic Fund, underwrote sniper scopes, camouflage suits, thermal imagers, night vision goggles, hydration tactical tubes, shooting mats and other paramilitary equipment through Greenberg Traurig to right wing settler Shmuel Ben-Zvi. Abramoff wanted to help ultraorthodox settlement Beitar Illit "neutralize terrorists" and wrote to Ben-Zvi; "Thanks brother. If only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished." Apparently angling for cover and a tax deduction, Beitar Illit seminar director Ben-Zvi suggested invoicing the weaponry to the Israeli Defence Forces on ‘Sniper Workshop’ stationery with a sniper logo and letterhead to qualify it as an educational entity. Payments were partially run through "Kollel Ohel Tiferet," an entity not publicly listed or traceable. Beitar Illit Mayor Yitzhak Pindrus claims never to have heard of it. (Newsweek, 5/2/05)

Abramoff dollars may also have found their way to the Israeli Defense Forces’ Lebanon Border Unit, the civilian SF troops that patrol the Israel-Lebanon border. Yaagal, supposedly disbanded after Israel’s 2000 pullout from south Lebanon, still conducts clandestine reconnaissance, plans ambushes and carries out cross-border incursions into Hezbollah-held areas of south Lebanon. As so often with lobbyist Abramoff’s entities, the tools and trails remain murky.

Indicted AIPAC lobbyist Steven Rosen told the New Yorker; "A lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." But Abramoff’s own words to Ralph Reed in 1983 are even more apropos; "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistance" with opponents. "Our job is to remove them permanently." Flowery language for forged freedoms, an "Arab Spring" Machiavelli-style.

TRISH SCHUH writes about Middle East politics. She can be reached at: hsvariety@yahoo.com

[KeenInsight]

fuck it, we might as well have elected mccain.

All holds are removed. Time to politically destroy this president.

He clearly wants to do Iraq all over again. No Clue appears present.

Either he's totally controlled, or totally useless.

Either way, it's over.

high time to start talking Impeachment if even one bomb is launched at Syria.

Call your congresscreatures

Introduce legislation specifically banning any attack.

While I don't think Obama is responsible for the war mongering solely, guilt definitely always goes as far as the President, as they sign the orders. Injecting Godwin's Law - It is quasi-equivalent of a Nazi Bureaucrat signing Death Camp papers, while knowing what is happening, but is not directly involved.

Not saying that I trust him - he's a liar and damn pussy, because he willfully bows to the crazy motherfuckers in the military, the banks, and intelligence cliques. They tell the President things and they believe it - or they choose to ignore the reality or simply buckle under the pressure. A big lying Banker like Summers tells the President, "they're too big to fail" and he'll believe it. Or a Intelligence Director whispers in their ear, "You do not have that authority, we do."

It'll only keep happening until a non-career Politician happens to become President (which to me at this point seems impossible) and goes against the grain - or a career politician who decides enough is enough. It's a dangerous fine line to walk - upset the wrong people and you're dead. Simple as that.

There are some crazy motherfuckers at the wheel behind this Syrian Conflict, and even with the U.S. brazenly flexing its Imperial muscle, but much more leaks are increasing that are effectively damaging U.S. and other Western Nations reputations - and rightly so.

The part that scares me most is that while polls show that the population of the U.S. is largely opposed to war - is exactly when the 'government within the government' decides its time for a False Flag or some catalyzing event that shifts the public's opinion rapidly.

[justdrew]

fuck it, we might as well have elected mccain.

All holds are removed. Time to politically destroy this president.

He clearly wants to do Iraq all over again. No Clue appears present.

Either he's totally controlled, or totally useless.

Either way, it's over.

high time to start talking Impeachment if even one bomb is launched at Syria.

Call your congresscreatures

Introduce legislation specifically banning any attack.

While I don't think Obama is responsible for the war mongering solely, guilt definitely always goes as far as the President, as they sign the orders. Injecting Godwin's Law - It is quasi-equivalent of a Nazi Bureaucrat signing Death Camp papers, while knowing what is happening, but is not directly involved.

Not saying that I trust him - he's a liar and damn pussy, because he willfully bows to the crazy motherfuckers in the military, the banks, and intelligence cliques. They tell the President things and they believe it - or they choose to ignore the reality or simply buckle under the pressure. A big lying Banker like Summers tells the President, "they're too big to fail" and he'll believe it. Or a Intelligence Director whispers in their ear, "You do not have that authority, we do."

It'll only keep happening until a non-career Politician happens to become President (which to me at this point seems impossible) and goes against the grain - or a career politician who decides enough is enough. It's a dangerous fine line to walk - upset the wrong people and you're dead. Simple as that.

There are some crazy motherfuckers at the wheel behind this Syrian Conflict, and even with the U.S. brazenly flexing its Imperial muscle, but much more leaks are increasing that are effectively damaging U.S. and other Western Nations reputations - and rightly so.

The part that scares me most is that while polls show that the population of the U.S. is largely opposed to war - is exactly when the 'government within the government' decides its time for a False Flag or some catalyzing event that shifts the public's opinion rapidly.

yeah, I've kinda had a bad feeling about that lately. You're right though, attacking obama over this is pointless.

I just can't quite believe we'd actually do it. But. they set the agenda a long time ago.

For all intents and purposes we've been at war with Syria for a few years now.

[Jerky]

I can see a time when the Naders and the Ron Pauls can meet in terms of business oversight and fiscal policy, but in terms of social policy, the only way I can see moving forward is a two-tier federal system wherein rural and urban areas are run by different rules.

Each one would have the good and the bad associated with them.

Want an abortion or to get same-sex married? Go to a big city.

Want to live where you can own as many guns as you want and learn about Jesus riding dinosaurs in science class? Go to the country.

It's a trade off, but hey, it just might work!

YOPJ

[Jerky]

At least, I SUSPECT if that happened, we wouldn't be planning on invading Syria and Iran.

YOPJ

[Ben D]

Surely Russia will not lay down on this, Putin must know that if Syria falls, Iran is next, and sooner or later Russia itself will be living on borrowed time. For that reason, it is not unreasonable to imagine that Putin will take a stand against this beast sooner rather than later. China too knows that who wins this game will determine who wears the crown of planet earth's one world government. I don't expect that the beast will be given a free ride to wear this crown, so the period ahead is fraught with high risk of serious world war.

[Sounder]

This Abdel Nour fellow is a real piece of work. The arrogance of these globalists is quite something to witness. Like he says, it's all about the money.

A: So Saddam wanted to prove to the whole world he was strong? Well, we’re stronger- he’s out! He’s finished. And Iran’s going to be finished and every single Arab regime that’s like this will be finished. Because there is no room for us capitalists and multinationalists in the world to operate with regimes like this. Its all about money. And power. And wealth… and democracy has to be spread around the world. Those who want to espouse globalization are going to make a lot of money, be happy, their families will be happy. And those who aren’t going to play this game are going to be crushed, whether they like it or not! This is how we rule. And this is how it’s going to be as long as you have people who think like me.

In reference to the bolded sentence above, it would be nice, if more folk would do the introspection necessary to check on whether their pretenses effectively support globalist capital in preference to supporting the lives and dignity of individual people. Not now, but maybe later.


So just how is it that this globalization is democratic?

Well at least it's nice to know that we are only going to be crushed 'democratically'.

ummm-yum yum propaganda is so tasty and democratic.

Must-have-consensus

I can only wonder what hanging around with this 'happy' family might be like.