So where is President Trump/Palin to bring us into world war 3 next year?
To quote a popular modern saying, "So...that escalated quickly". As news of countless Syrian civilians fleeing to all over Europe dominates the news, and as people forget the CIA/Saudi/Turkish/Qatar/Western role in propping up and funding the rise of militant Islam to topple Bashir al Assad in 2011...the news of Russian military now building up in Syria to fight alongside the Syrian government is pretty surreal. I knew the Ukrainian war and downing of the Malaysian plane was just going to be the beginning.
Washington (CNN)America's top diplomat called his Russian counterpart Wednesday to warn that Moscow's military buildup of troops in Syria could escalate the bloody conflict there that has engulfed the region for more than four years.
The U.S. has been watching Russia's movement of military personnel with concern for several days, though the Foreign Ministry only confirmed the buildup Wednesday.
There are "Russian military experts in Syria who are instructing (the Syrians) on the use of the military systems being delivered" to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close Moscow ally, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Russia "has long been supplying arms and military equipment to Syria in accordance with bilateral contracts," she said.
That confirmation follows repeated warnings from Secretary of State John Kerry to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about how such activity could intensify the raging civil war there.
In a call to Lavrov Wednesday, Kerry "reiterated our concern about these reports of Russian military activities, or buildup if you will, in Syria and made very clear our view that, if true and borne out, could lead to greater violence and even more instability in Syria," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
"Do you know who I am? I am the arm, and I sound like this..."-man from another place, twin peaks fire walk with me
This is not a real story. So far there is no actual "buildup". The Russians have always been there and are doing nothing differently than they've always done.
The only story is that the Anericam media is making one up. Like they did with Ukraine and "Rusdian aggression" there.
Which I suppose is frightening enough. To see the Lockstep Media "reporting" this propaganda should scare everyone.
The last time the U.S. tried to start bombing Syria it was Russia who stopped it. Hopefully they can stop it again. If they don't a LOT more people are gonna get slaughtered.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
No comment as of yet, but there appears to be a build up of 8bitagent activity I would like to report.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
Propaganda: CNN blames refugee crisis on Russia 51 mins ago
The Western media continues to point the finger at Russia, blaming Moscow for fueling the refugee crisis. This time it’s CNN that tried to spin off a story, creating false reports and accusing Russia of causing the refugee crisis in Europe.
We’ll give you points, CNN, for trying to James Bond your story — and as every self-respecting US media outlet knows, there is no story without some evil Russians involved — but this is bordering on ridiculous.
“A Russian-made armored vehicle was spotted on the move inside Syria,” the CNN report said. Wow, get a grip CNN. Countries sell arms to each other all the time. Syria, just like many other countries, buys arms from Russia. It’s no secret. So next time US satellites spot Congolese rebels wielding Russian-made AK rifles, they better keep an eye out in the bushes, just in case Russian troops are there crouching and waiting pounce.
CNN
“US satellites have observed at least three Russian Antonov aircraft, unloading building supplies and air traffic control equipment, and another Russian aircraft bringing in personnel,” CNN continued. Aha! Looks like the Russian troops are indeed in Syria, right CNN?
Wrong. Turns out Russia and Syria have a longstanding relationship. Russia has always supplied equipment to the Syrian government and continues to do so in their present struggle against terrorism. It has never been a secret. This is akin to the United States and European countries providing arms and equipment to their allies around the world.
In fact, it’s nothing new. Why doesn’t the media freak out about the US arms contract with Israel that amounted to $1.9 billion just this summer, arms deliveries to Persian Gulf countries or Washington’s arming of so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels, many of whom ended up joining ISIL. But of course, the Western media has to cherry pick its facts, labeling Russia the “bad guy.”
It was the West that caused the Syrian conflict by arming various shades of Syrian militants and instigating them to fight against the legitimately elected government of Bashar al-Assad. Once again, the US government tried to save Syria from Syrians, just as it had “successfully” saved Iraq from Iraqis and Vietnam from the Vietnamese.
And now that Washington’s actions have backfired, causing a full-scale civil war in Syria and resulting in the expansion of ISIL, the US government is trying to blame Russia. Yes, the good old “Blame Russia” card, always hidden under the sleeve of US politicians, is in use again.
Meanwhile, Russia has always wanted to end the Syrian conflict. Moscow supported the official Syrian government and warned Western countries against arming Syrian rebels, however “moderate” the US government thought they might be. During al-Assad’s presidency before the start of the Syrian conflict, instigated by the West, there were no refugees in Syria.
Just for the record, CNN: Syria didn’t have almost the half of its population turned into refugees before the start of the Syrian war that happened as a result of Western intervention. The mainstream US media doesn’t seem to get this simple fact, or perhaps simply doesn’t want to admit to it.
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"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Would feel reassuring that this "Russia is all in" news with Syria is more Rambo Reagan 1980s than potential creeping of World War 3. Tho its a 1980s Im not particularly eager for.
"Do you know who I am? I am the arm, and I sound like this..."-man from another place, twin peaks fire walk with me
8bitagent wrote:"So...that escalated quickly". As news of countless Syrian civilians fleeing to all over Europe dominates the news, and as people forget the CIA/Saudi/Turkish/Qatar/Western role in propping up and funding the rise of militant Islam to topple Bashir al Assad in 2011...]
Such a bummer that you all are forgetting the spirit of this time. From Tunisia to Iran to Egypt and the Gulf region, students, activists and reformers hit the streets to incite revolution in a phenomenon later called the Arab Spring. This happened in Syria as full scale grassroots protest, to army insurrection to civil war. No need to add foreign elements then. There were good guys here that you gloss over and instead find any excuse to blame on the West. It's really disheartening because that is our current, and it's already being co-opted by those who should have been the most sympathetic. Our current, meaning - our ideological likeness to those who frequent discussion boards like this. Left of center and hungry for change. Now the activists are dead. The students studying chaos and reformers are silent. That is the tragedy here. The hope is gone.
Rage against the ever vicious downward spiral. Time to get back to basics. [url=http://zmag.org/zmi/readlabor.htm]Worker Control of Industry![/url]
I don't know, if you look at Anericam's Instagram feed, they seem like a pretty benign presence to me. A couple of cat pictures and a pretty sunset, no big deal.
Occult Means Hidden wrote:Such a bummer that you all are forgetting the spirit of this time. From Tunisia to Iran to Egypt and the Gulf region, students, activists and reformers hit the streets to incite revolution in a phenomenon later called the Arab Spring. This happened in Syria as full scale grassroots protest, to army insurrection to civil war. No need to add foreign elements then. There were good guys here that you gloss over and instead find any excuse to blame on the West. It's really disheartening because that is our current, and it's already being co-opted by those who should have been the most sympathetic. Our current, meaning - our ideological likeness to those who frequent discussion boards like this. Left of center and hungry for change. Now the activists are dead. The students studying chaos and reformers are silent. That is the tragedy here. The hope is gone.
Uh, no. Speaking as one of those who was very much caught up in the "spirit of this time" back in 2011 and only learned the truth the hard way, I can assure you it was no "Arab Spring" TM, but yet another well-planned color revolution psyop launched by US intelligence fronts, for the purpose of destroying the Arab states one after the other. It was horrifying to discover that every single one of the "revolutionary" stars was a mercenary on the payroll of the Americans, and many if not most of them are members of the fascist, secretive international Muslim Brotherhood, headquartered in London, and literally taking their orders from the US. Others had no affiliation, except to their own bank accounts. We didn't know. There's so much we only learned much later, and only when the evidence was irrefutable. I am still having difficulty forgiving myself for falling for it initially. Boy, did I fall for it. In my own defense, it was quite a production, a true masterpiece of deception. The heartfelt participation of millions of well-intentioned Egyptians also served to reassure me that it was real. It was those same millions of decent Egyptians who shared my shock and disillusion and saved our country before it was too late, once we all discovered how we'd been tricked, almost into destroying our country with our own hands, and handing it on a silver platter to its most vicious enemies. We were the good guys, me and millions of other people whose names you will never hear. So many paid the price for our freedom, but they will never be international media causes célèbres.
In Syria, it was easier to tell from the beginning that something was off. Unlike in Egypt, where the terrorists wore sheep's clothing and proclaimed their devotion to nonviolence, national unity and to the Egyptian nation, in Syria the "revolutionaries" very early on included those who threatened Christians and Alawites and Shi'ites with violence, who used firearms and who openly cozied up to the Zionist enemy. Far from the breathless coverage of Al-Jazeera and CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, and all the "alternative" media, normal Syrians were scared, very scared. My own light-bulb moment came quite early, when the so-called revolutionaries launched an armed attack against a Syrian air-force base. "Really?" I thought. I couldn't see how damaging or destroying a Syrian air-force base could further the goals of the "revolution", but I could see how that would be a very desirable thing for Israel, Syria's enemy. Syrians participated in massive demonstrations in support of their government, but the same media that only much later was exposed for its lies and fabrications on behalf of the US Empire, was too busy glamorizing and inflating minor marches, mostly by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, to cover them at all. Nobody cared about the actual Syrian people. We do now, because we share too much: we almost lost our country, too, and at the hands of the exact same enemies. When we look at Syrians, we see ourselves and how easily it could have been us. Long before the recent Russian cavalry galloped to the rescue, it was ordinary Syrian people who joined together and sacrificed and fought to save their country, just as we Egyptians rallied and fought to save ours. It's thanks to the people that neither nation has fallen, despite the massive forces aligned against them.
But it's more than just empathy; we need Syria, a strong, prosperous, free Syria, just as Syria needs Egypt. It's the same with Iraq, and Algeria and the Gulf countries: just as the Arabs will either hang together or they will hang separately.
Our current, meaning - our ideological likeness to those who frequent discussion boards like this. Left of center and hungry for change.
If you are really left of center and hungry for change, then direct that hunger for change towards your own country, which you hopefully understand a lot better than you do ours. Another thing I've learned in the past four years or so, is that the Left is just as easy to manipulate as the Right -- it's a matter of seeding the net with "alternative" websites posing as anti-establishment and anti-West, getting them to corroborate each other, and you can get the Left as riled up and passionately gobbling up your imperial propaganda as the Right whose intelligence the Left dismisses with such contempt.
The road to change in Washington does not pass through Damascus, or Cairo. And even if you really do care about what happens in countries you know very little about, to people you've never heard of, surely you can understand that if you can manage to overthrow the oligarchs who rule your own country, this can only be good for the rest of the world. That should be your priority and your responsibility, otherwise it's very possible you're being used as an unwitting tool of the very powers you think you're opposing.
"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
In recent days I have read on the internet that ground troops from Iran and Hezbollah are may be in the near future in Syria to assist the Syrian army loyal to Assad.
The USA and allies will be in a pickle if this occurs.
Russia and Putin did not fool around in Georgia nor Chechnya nor Ukraine.
Uh, no. Speaking as one of those who was very much caught up in the "spirit of this time" back in 2011 and only learned the truth the hard way, I can assure you it was no "Arab Spring" TM, but yet another well-planned color revolution psyop launched by US intelligence fronts, for the purpose of destroying the Arab states one after the other. It was horrifying to discover that every single one of the "revolutionary" stars was a mercenary on the payroll of the Americans, and many if not most of them are members of the fascist, secretive international Muslim Brotherhood, headquartered in London, and literally taking their orders from the US.
And this is probably not complete. London, U.S., Israel shenanigans.
Since 1979, the United States has carried out attacks, drone strikes, and coup d'etats against El Salvador (1980), Libya (1981), Sinai (1982), Lebanon (1982 1983), Egypt (1983), Grenada (1983), Honduras (1983), Chad (1983), Persian Gulf (1984), Libya (1986) , Bolivia (1986), Iran (1987), Persian Gulf (1987), Kuwait (1987), Iran (1988), Honduras (1988), Panama (1988), Libya (1989), Panama (1989), Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru (1989), Philippines (1989), Panama (1989-1990), Liberia (1990), Saudi Arabia (1990), Iraq (1991), Zaire (1991), Sierra Leone (1992), Somalia (1992), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1993 to present), Macedonia (1993), Haiti (1994), Macedonia (1994), Bosnia (1995), Liberia (1996), Central African Republic (1996), Albania (1997), Congo/Gabon (1997), Sierra Leon (1997), Cambodia (1997), Iraq (1998), Guinea/Bissau (1998), Kenya/Tanzania (1998 to 1999), Afghanistan/Sudan (1998), Liberia (1998), East Timor (1999), Serbia (1999), Sierra Leon (2000), Yemen (2000), East Timor (2000), Afghanistan (2001 to present), Yemen (2002), Philippines (2002) , Cote d'Ivoire (2002), Iraq (2003 to present), Liberia (2003), Georgia/Djibouti (2003), Haiti (2004), Georgia/Djibouti/Kenya/Ethiopia/Yemen/Eritrea War on Terror (2004), Pakistan drone attacks (2004 to present), Somalia (2007), South Ossetia/Georgia (2008), Syria (2008), Yemen (2009 and 2015), Haiti (2010), Libya (2011), Syria (2011), Ukraine (2014), Iraq (2015), Libya (2015), Yemen (2015), etc.
Last edited by backtoiam on Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"A mind stretched by a new idea can never return to it's original dimensions." Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ok enough of this. This board needs a serious awakening here. Whatever is assumed of my origin, I’m automatically at a disadvantage to someone less anonymous than I. Still, I will maintain and let my words speak for themselves. My problem is Alice and 8bit and whoever else commenting that the start of the Ukrainian Civil War and the Arab Spring was orchestrated by the United States and its western allies and its intelligence organizations. This is very wrong and you seem to be confusing post-civil war and post Arab Spring manipulations as pre-positionings by the CIA, etc. Encouraged, maybe. Supported, sure. Not likely originated from the United States.
To say that the U.S. is or is partly responsible for the Arab Spring in Syria is very illogical. This is supported by a look at the timeline. Did the CIA convince people to call for Assad’s resignation in Damascus in early 2011? Did the CIA pay off Suhair Atassi to start agitations? Were the 100,000 protesters at the 18 April 2011 protest all CIA agents? Did the CIA convince the Assad regime to violently crack down on the protestors? Did the CIA have any influence in Western Syria and Homs to convince Syrian military units to insurrect against their own government in November 2011? I guess the CIA was able to actively recruit Syrian military leaders and their thousands of subordinates to rebel against Assad right under Assad’s nose. And everyone knows the CIA and Mossad has such a great operational presence in western Homs, Syria, as opposed to eastern Syria. Right?
Meanwhile throughout the Middle East did the CIA convince Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia to commit suicide and inspire hundreds of thousands to protest for the removal of a Tunisian dictator? Did the CIA actually encourage overthrow of regimes that were very accommodating to U.S. interests – such as Egypt and Bahrain and Jordan? If so, that isn’t very logical. It also isn’t logical that the wave of protests were all orchestrated around the beginning of 2011. That’s quite an intelligence operation, encouraging hundreds of thousands to protest across an entire continent against regimes that are both friendly and unfriendly to your strategic goals. This is afterall what you are suggesting, by stating that the Arab Spring was a construct of Western nations. Answer for this.
8bitagent posts a link from a 2012 paper as proof of American involvement in Syria’s 2011 disturbances.
This doesn’t pass for any rigorous comment at all. Citing a 2012 paper in which analysts do their job: analyze. Then use it as evidence for events in 2011.
Then we have comments like this:
“My own light-bulb moment came quite early, when the so-called revolutionaries launched an armed attack against a Syrian air-force base. "Really?" I thought. I couldn't see how damaging or destroying a Syrian air-force base could further the goals of the "revolution", but I could see how that would be a very desirable thing for Israel, Syria's enemy.”
Yes, really. After the insurrection at Homs in western Syria, events there became a full scale civil war in which Assad’s opposition needed strategic advantage. People on this board are eating out of your hands as if a statement like this is supposed to be damning, when really it is not. And then statements like this:
“Syrians participated in massive demonstrations in support of their government, but the same media that only much later was exposed for its lies and fabrications on behalf of the US Empire, was too busy glamorizing and inflating minor marches, mostly by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, to cover them at all.”
Syrians supported their government and Syrians didn’t support their government. It’s a civil war. By stating that Syrians participated in massive demonstrations in SUPPORT of Assad and subsequent mentioning of Western media bias, you are alluding that Assad should have been supported. Prove it that Syrian MB was given greater coverage than pro-democracy activists in early 2011. That's not how I remember it.
I’m accused of having opinions about places and people that I, “know nothing about”. Plenty of assumption in who I am and where I’m from. I’m not on the defense in this regard, because you know nothing about me. Change begins in Cairo as much as it begins in Washington D.C.
Your position on Egypt, the very land you call home and which we should accept you as an authority, is suffering from a real lack of perspective. I answer your Egyptain positions here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38978
There you state that the Egyptain revolution was a success because it installed a likely U.S. intelligence asset in absolute control of your country. Egypt went from a dictatorship supported by a military oligarchy before the revolution to a dictatorship supported by a military oligarchy with stronger U.S. intelligence ties, post-revolution. Pro-Israel government support is likely to continue. Anyway you look at it, the revolution was a failure. Then your incoherent Sinai theory in which everyone on this board ate up as some sort of masterful analysis despite being based on critical assumptions that no one challenged.
The CIA and U.S. is responsible for much death and destruction and continues be a primary generator of un-justice throughout the world. Yes they are – likely (but not absolutely) - responsible for arming ISIL. However, the world’s problems does not begin and end with a unitary source. If only the world were that simple.
Rage against the ever vicious downward spiral. Time to get back to basics. [url=http://zmag.org/zmi/readlabor.htm]Worker Control of Industry![/url]
Occult Means Hidden wrote:My problem is you and 8bit and everyone commenting that the start of the Ukrainian Civil War and the Arab Spring was orchestrated by the United States and its western allies and its intelligence organizations. This is very wrong and you seem to be confusing post-civil war and post Arab Spring manipulations as pre-positionings by the CIA, etc. Encouraged, maybe. Supported, sure. Not likely originated from the United States.
No, I'm not. From at least 2003 on, US intelligence began to actively groom, train, finance and embed its own agents in the Egyptian media, political parties, student and other grassroots groups, at the same time it began to negotiate directly with the Muslim Brotherhood, with meetings brokered by the American University professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Starting in 2005, the US began to exert powerful pressure on the Egyptian government to treat the Muslim Brotherhood as a political party, and to allow them to run for parliament, which they did, winning 88 seats. During the same year, a number of secular anti-government organizations and movements began emerging out of the blue, led by "Kefaya!" and "Judges for Egypt". The first was secretly financed and run by Soros organizations, and the second was a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. That period also witnesses a dramatic increase in the number of very well-financed, privately-owned newspapers and television channels, which effectively promoted the Muslim Brotherhood as a "moderate" and "patriotic" organization, and also glamorized the new batch of anti-government activists.
Plan A was to get the Muslim Brotherhood in power. Plan B, should Plan A fail in the short term, was to get these other agents (including presidential hopefuls Mohamed Baradei and Ayman Nour as alternates) in, as shoehorns for the Muslim Brotherhood, which would take over from them. The agitators on the ground, led by individuals who had undergone training abroad in "revolutionary" skills by Soros or US State Department or Qatari-funded agencies, were connected by a network run by Wael Ghoneim, a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood then residing in Dubai, via his "We are all Khaled Saeed" website, and Omar Afifi, a rogue Egyptian police officer operating a central communications command only a few kilometers away from Langley, Virginia, among others.
By January, 2011, all the individuals who led the popular uprising were, without exception, on the Americans' payroll through various agencies such as Freedom House, a number of Soros organizations, or similar US intelligence fronts. Most had received training in Serbia or other incubators for color revolutions. The money was flowing freely, as was the guidance coming out of the US State Department. Locally, the operation headquarters was the US embassy, and their handler was the American Ambassador herself, Ann Patterson. Some professors and administrators at the American University in Cairo, working from its location in Tahrir Square at the time, also played an important role in laying the political and networking groundwork for the "revolution", while Turkey and Qatar coordinated the financial and media logistics regionally, especially those promoting and marketing the Muslim Brotherhood.
Amazingly, we first learned about a lot of this because, all through 2011 and 2012, in their euphoria when it seemed they had succeeded, and when they were on tv for hours and hours every day, some of them actually boasted about it, very openly. Others, including Muslim Brotherhood officials who felt untouchable after they took power, "outed" a lot of the MB agents who'd kept their membership secret up till then. Wael Ghoneim, Mustafa Naggar, Islam Lotfy, and so many others who had carefully cultivated a "leftist" cover, were suddenly revealed as sleepers for the MB. As the "revolutionaries" talked and talked and talked, most of them not too bright in the first place, and drunk on the public attention and their sudden wealth and stardom, they dug their own graves deeper and deeper. This process only accelerated after Morsi took power via rigged elections that received the blessing of none other than Jimmy Carter, despite the open, shameless fraud, which was witnessed by anyone who participated, and which was thoroughly documented by Egyptian observer civil society ngo's. The ngo's even called a press conference to denounce the sham, but it was ignored as the Western media and its counterparts announced Egypt's "first democratically-elected president." As the stench became stronger, a number of conscientious media professionals who had been working for Al-Jazeera and Turkish media resigned in disgust, and provided even more details that completed the picture.
It was a real extravaganza, a glitzy media production that caught everyone up in it, at least for a time, before the harsh reality kicked in. Starting about three months after the 'revolution', a lot of us ordinary people began to wake up. Within 10 months, we had been plunged into the nightmare that only ended around two years later, though we are still suffering from the aftershocks, and still learning more and more details about how it was pulled off.
To say that the U.S. is or is partly responsible for the Arab Spring in Syria is very illogical. This is supported by a look at the timeline. Did the CIA convince people to call for Assad’s resignation in Damascus in early 2011? Did the CIA pay off Suhair Atassi to start agitations?
Gee, I don't know: according to Ha'aretz' glowing profile in December 2012,
Atassi hasn't rested a moment since the uprising began. She gives speeches, provides explanations, writes incessantly on her Facebook page, responds to every development, flies to Washington and Turkey, and appears in uniform alongside the commander of the Free Syrian Army. And last month she was chosen as one of the vice presidents of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, also known as the Syrian National Coalition. Link
She's been described as a feminist and a secularist, which makes it particularly interesting that she was appointed to be one of Moaz Al-Khatib's two deputies heading the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which was formed in Qatar back in 2012 and was immediately and enthusiastically recognized by the US. Who is Moaz Al-Khatib? Here are some answers:
A LOBBYIST FOR SHELL AT THE HEAD OF THE SYRIAN NATIONAL COALITION The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib by Thierry Meyssan
Completely unkown to the international public only a week ago, Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib has been catapulted to the presidency of the Syrian National Coalition, which represents pro-Western opposition in the Damascus government. Portrayed by an intense public relations campaign as a highly moral personality with no partisan or economic attachments, he is in truth a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an executive of the Shell oil company.
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 23 NOVEMBER 2012
Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib
The dislocation of the armed Syrian opposition is a reflection of the conflict between the various States which are trying to "change the regime" in Damascus.
We should pay particular attention to the Syrian National Council (SNC), also known as the Istanbul Council, since it was instituted there. This council is guided with an iron hand by the French DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), and financed by Qatar. Its members, who have obtained residency and various other privileges in France, are under constant pressure from the secret services, who dictate every declaration they make.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) represent those local civilians who support armed action.
Finally, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is principally managed by Turkey, unites most of the combatants, including the d’Al-Qaida brigades. 80% of these units recognise the Takfirist Sheikh Adnan Al-Arour as their spiritual leader. He is based in Saudi Arabia.
Seeking to regain leadership and bring a little order to this cacophony, Washington ordered the Arab League to call a meeting in Doha, sabotaged the SNC, and obliged as many of the tiny groups as possible to integrate a single and exclusive structure – the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. Behind the scenes, ambassador Robert S. Ford himself allotted the seats and privileges for this assembly, and has imposed as President of the Coalition a personality who has never yet been mentioned in the Press - Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib.
Robert S. Ford is considered to be the State Department’s principal specialist for the Middle East. He was the assistant of John Negroponte from 2004 to 2006, while this master spy was busy applying in Iraq the methods he had developed in Honduras – the intensive use of death squads and Contras. Shortly before the events in Syria began, Ford was nominated as Ambassador to Damascus, and assumed his functions despite Senate opposition. He immediately applied the Negroponte method to Syria with obvious results.
Wife of Ambassador Robert S. Ford, Alison Barkley supervises logistics for the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
While the creation of the National Coalition objectifies Washington’s take-over of the armed opposition, it does not solve the question of representivity. Very quickly, various components of the SLA withdrew. In particular, the Coalition excludes any form of opposition which is hostile to armed struggle, especially Haytham al-Manna’s National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.
The choice of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib responds to a clear necessity – in order for the President to be recognised by the combatants, he has to be religious figure, but in order to be accepted by Westerners, he has to appear moderate. And especially, in this period of intense negotiations, the new President has to have a solid understanding of the subject in order to discuss the future of Syrian gas - but this is not a subject to be introduced in public.
US spin doctors quickly gave Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib a make-over, dressing him in a suit but no tie. Some of the media speak of him as a "model" leader. For example, a major US daily newspaper presents him as "a unique product of his culture, like Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma" [1]
Here is the portrait of him drawn up by the Agence France Presse (AFP):
"Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib, the consensual man
Born in 1960, Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib is a moderate religious figure who was for a time the Imam of the Omeyyades mosque in Damascus. He belongs to no political party.
It is this independence, and his proximity to Riad Seif at the origin of the initiative for a wider coalition, which makes him a consensual candidate for the leadership of the opposition.
His background is in Sufi Islam. A religious dignitary, he has studied international relations and diplomacy, and is not linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or any other Islamist organisation in the opposition.
Arrested several times in 2012 for having publicly called for the end of the regime in Damascus, he was forbidden to speak in Syrian mosques by order of the authorities, and found refuge in Qatar.
Born in Damascus, he played a decisive role in the mobilisation of the suburbs of the capital, notably Douma, which was active from the very beginnings of the peaceful demonstrations in March 2011. "Sheikh al-Khatib is a consensual figure who enjoys true popular support on the ground", underlines Khaled al-Zeini, a member of the Syrian National Council." [2]
The truth is quite different.
In reality, there is absolutely no evidence that Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib ever studied international relations and diplomacy, but he does have training as an engineer in geophysics. He worked for six years for the al-Furat Petroleum Company (1985-91), a joint-venture between the national company and other foreign enterprises, including the Anglo-Dutch Shell, with whom he has maintained contact.
In 1992, he inherited the prestigious charge of preacher at the Omeyyades mosque from his father, Sheikh Mohammed Abu al-Faraj al-Khatib. He was rapidly relieved of his functions and forbidden to preach anywhere in Syria. However, this episode did not occur in 2012, and has nothing to do with the present contestation - it happened twenty years ago, under Hafez el-Assad. At that time, Syria was supporting the international intervention to liberate Kuwait, in respect of international law, in order to get rid of their Iraqi rival, and also to forge closer ties with the West. As for the Sheikh, he was opposed to "Desert Storm" for the same religious motives which were proclaimed by Oussama Ben Laden - with whom he aligned himself - notably the refusal of Western presence on Arab lands, which they consider sacrilegious. This position led him to deliver a number of anti-semitic and anti-Western diatribes.
Following that, the Sheikh continued his activity as a religious teacher, notably at the Dutch Institute in Damascus. He made numerous trips abroad, mainly to Holland, the United Kingdom and the United State. Finally, he settled in Qatar.
In 2003-04, during the attribution of oil and gas concessions, he returned to Syria as a lobbyist for the Shell group.
He came back to Syria again at the beginning of 2012, where he inflamed the neighbourhood of Douma (a suburb of Damascus). He was arrested, then pardoned, and left the country in July to settle in Cairo.
His family is indeed steeped in the Sufi tradition, but contrary to what the AFP claims, he is a member of the Muslim brotherhood, and declared this quite clearly at the end of his speech of investiture at Doha. According to the usual technique of the Brotherhood, he adapts not only the form, but also the content of his speeches to his audience. Sometimes leaning towards a multi-religious society, sometimes towards the restoration of sharia law. In his writings, he qualifies Jewish people as "enemies of God", and Chiite muslims as "rejectionist heretics", epithets which are the equivalent of a death sentence.
In the end, Ambassador Robert S. Ford has played his hand well - once again Washington has duped its allies. Just like in Libya, France has taken all the risks, but in the major compromises which are to come, Total will have gained no advantage.
Thierry Meyssan Translation Pete Kimberley
[1] “A model leader for Syria ?”, Christian Science Monitor editorial, 14 November 2012.
[2] "Un religieux, un ex-député et une femme à la tête de l’opposition syrienne", AFP, 12 November 2012. Link
Occult Means Hidden wrote:Were the 100,000 protesters at the 18 April 2011 protest all CIA agents? Did the CIA convince the Assad regime to violently crack down on the protestors? Did the CIA have any influence in Western Syria and Homs to convince Syrian military units to insurrect against their own government in November 2011? I guess the CIA was able to actively recruit Syrian military leaders and their thousands of subordinates to rebel against Assad right under Assad’s nose. And everyone knows the CIA and Mossad has such a great operational presence in western Homs, Syria, as opposed to eastern Syria. Right?
In answer to your last question, yes. Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, around a 60-mile drive away, has been transformed since at least 2006 into a center of violent Salafism, flooded with weapons and extremist preachers and recruiters for "armed jihad", after the Saudi-backed Siniora and Saad Hariri governments collaborated with the US embassy to set up a "Sunni" fanatic base of operations there. The weapons and money flowed in, and the penniless and hyped-up young men flowed out for military training in Jordan, then were brought back home to put their training to good use against the Shi'ite "infidels". So, yes, in answer to your question: Homs was an ideal launching pad for the fake Syrian "revolution".
As for your other questions, the very fact that the so-called revolution has lasted just under five long, agonizing years and failed, despite being supported financially, logistically, politically and militarily by some of the wealthiest and most powerful states on earth, should give you a clue that it's not a real revolution at all, and is not supported by the Syrian people. Especially given the huge disparity in terms of resources and military capabilities on the two sides.
Occult Means Hidden wrote:Meanwhile throughout the Middle East did the CIA convince Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia to commit suicide and inspire hundreds of thousands to protest for the removal of a Tunisian dictator? Did the CIA actually encourage overthrow of regimes that were very accommodating to U.S. interests – such as Egypt and Bahrain and Jordan? If so, that isn’t very logical. It also isn’t logical that the wave of protests were all orchestrated around the beginning of 2011. That’s quite an intelligence operation, encouraging hundreds of thousands to protest across an entire continent against regimes that are both friendly and unfriendly to your strategic goals. This is afterall what you are suggesting, by stating that the Arab Spring was a construct of Western nations. Answer for this.
Again, in answer to your last question about how warm the relations were between Mubarak and the Americans, I don't have to. Just watch this video and hear it from Condi's own mouth. The questioner, Mohammed Adel is a graduate of both the Serbian "Otpor!" and CANVAS (funded by the Albert Einstein Institution, Freedom House, and the International Republican Institute (IRI). The IRI's board of directors includes John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Brent Scowcroft. Adel founded the April 6 Movement that was entirely financed and run by the US and subsequently played the starring role in the Egyptian "revolution". As for the operation being activated in several Arab countries at the beginning of 2011, the lead "secular" actors were part of a single network and in communication with each other and with their handlers. It goes without saying that the Muslim Brothers were tightly coordinating with each other and their own bosses.
Watch the relevant video in English starting at 1:30
Occult Means Hidden wrote:Then we have comments like this:
“My own light-bulb moment came quite early, when the so-called revolutionaries launched an armed attack against a Syrian air-force base. "Really?" I thought. I couldn't see how damaging or destroying a Syrian air-force base could further the goals of the "revolution", but I could see how that would be a very desirable thing for Israel, Syria's enemy.”
Yes, really. After the insurrection at Homs in western Syria, events there became a full scale civil war in which Assad’s opposition needed strategic advantage. People on this board are eating out of your hands as if a statement like this is supposed to be damning, when really it is not.
No. People who aren't traitors do NOT attack their own country's military defenses, especially with a neighbor like Israel just next door. And I can't imagine what strategic advantage the supposed protesters would get from damaging Syria's capacity to defend itself from military air strikes. Back in 2005, when the so-called "Cedar Revolution" CIA op broke out in Lebanon, and demanded that Syria withdraw its air-force defense of Lebanese air space (chanting for "an end to the Syrian occupation!"), I immediately understood that Israel was planning to launch a military attack against Lebanon. I swear, everybody thought I was crazy. Sure enough, in July 2006, Syria bombed Lebanon and launched a massive military invasion that began with air-strikes, destroying much of Lebanon's civil infrastructure, then sending in ground troops. It's just common sense, which I guess isn't that common.
Occult Means Hidden wrote:And then statements like this:
“Syrians participated in massive demonstrations in support of their government, but the same media that only much later was exposed for its lies and fabrications on behalf of the US Empire, was too busy glamorizing and inflating minor marches, mostly by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, to cover them at all.”
Syrians supported their government and Syrians didn’t support their government. It’s a civil war. By stating that Syrians participated in massive demonstrations in SUPPORT of Assad and subsequent mentioning of Western media bias, you are alluding that Assad should have been supported. Prove it that Syrian MB was given greater coverage than pro-democracy activists in early 2011. That's not how I remember it.
First. stop calling it a civil war. One one side, you have the Syrian government, headed by the legitimate, elected president and the Syrian Army and the Syrian people, and on the other you have proxies for hostile foreign powers, entirely funded and armed and run by the country's enemies. The genuine Syrian opposition love their country and their people, and they would never tear it apart for the vultures to pick over, let alone for filthy foreign money. They want change, but not at the cost of killing their own people and turning them into traumatized refugees, and collaborating with murderous wackos and mercenaries vomited up from the four corners of the world to "wage jihad".
Occult Means Hidden wrote:I’m accused of having opinions about places and people that I, “know nothing about”. Plenty of assumption in who I am and where I’m from. I’m not on the defense in this regard, because you know nothing about me. Change begins in Cairo as much as it begins in Washington D.C.
No assumptions, and I couldn't care less where you're from. What I can assess, however, is that the strength of your convictions is in reverse proportion to your knowledge, or at least the knowledge you express here. You're basically trying to prop up a narrative that was dominant back when we got most of our news about what was happening in Egypt, Syria, or any of the other "Arab Spring" countries, from Qatari or US-based media, but which has been thoroughly debunked in the years since. We've learned so much in the last few years, but it seems to have all passed you by.
Occult Means Hidden wrote:Your position on Egypt, the very land you call home and which we should accept you as an authority, is suffering from a real lack of perspective. I answer your Egyptain positions here: http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... =8&t=38978
There you state that the Egyptain revolution was a success because it installed a likely U.S. intelligence asset in absolute control of your country. Egypt went from a dictatorship supported by a military oligarchy before the revolution to a dictatorship supported by a military oligarchy with stronger U.S. intelligence ties, post-revolution. Pro-Israel government support is likely to continue. Anyway you look at it, the revolution was a failure. Then your incoherent Sinai theory in which everyone on this board ate up as some sort of masterful analysis despite being based on critical assumptions that no one challenged. Please, don’t lecture about not knowing anything about you or your people.
It doesn't matter at all if you think that the US is happy with our current administration, or that their bilateral ties are warm and fuzzy. It matters even less that you think it's a "pro-Israeli" government. That's fine. I'm sorry you found my "masterful analysis" incoherent. I worked hard to make it as straightforward as possible, given such a broad and complicated subject. It was intended to be like the picture on the cover of a jigsaw puzzle, as a guide to help people know where to put all those tiny, separate pieces. If it was helpful to anybody, then good. If not, then too bad.
Occult Means Hidden wrote:The CIA and U.S. is responsible for much death and destruction and continues be a primary generator of un-justice throughout the world. Yes they are – likely (but not absolutely) - responsible for arming ISIL. However, the world’s problems does not begin and end with a unitary source. If only the world were that simple.
Such platitudes and vague generalizations add nothing to our ability to understand what's happening in Syria, Egypt or anywhere else. But they do reinforce my own impression that you're not as knowledgeable about specifics as you are trying to convey.
"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
I'm impressed with how thorough your response is. Again, its length deserves a thorough reply from me. Thanks for your post and for keeping it civil against my frustrations.
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