Syrian army destroys Israeli military vehicle in Golan Heights

Press TV

Syria says its army has destroyed an Israeli military vehicle that had crossed the ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian army said in a statement issued on Tuesday that the vehicle drove toward the village of Bir Ajam, located in the “liberated area of Syrian territories where there are armed terrorist groups.”

“Following that, the Israeli enemy fired two rockets from the occupied site of Tal al-Faras toward one of our sites in al-Zubaydiah site; no casualties reported,” the statement added.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military said its troops had shot at a target inside Syria, following an incident where gunfire from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli regime has recently boosted its military activities in the Golan Heights, where clashes between the Syrian army and the militant groups continue.

Syria has been gripped by unrest for over two years, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the foreign-sponsored militancy.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said on May 18 that militants from 29 different countries were fighting against the government in different parts of the country.

‘What lies behind the battle for Qusair’: Opposition media lies and spreading strife

‘A handout photograph distributed by Syria’s national news agency SANA, on May 20,2013, shows a vehicle which it says is an Israeli military vehicle being used by rebel fighters in Qusair near Homs city.’ (Reuters / SANA)

by Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT

As the Syrian army and rebels fight for control of Qusair, it is necessary to realize why the town is strategically important and vital for Shias on both sides of the border, making it a military and media battleground.

There are far more elements surrounding the situation in Qusair than first meet the eye, RT’s Nadezhda Kevorkova reveals.

The army’s advance to Qusair is a key strategic operation. Qusair is near Homs, which is located on the road connecting Damascus with the Mediterranean seaport. And Qusair itself is the closest town to the Lebanese border. So taking control of it allows the forces to control the Lebanese border with the Shias living on both sides. There is an important high point between Qusair and the Lebanese village Al-Qasr. The Syrian army was forced to leave this area in the fall of 2012, so locals lost their protection. Opposition fighters took over the region and tried to chase out the Shias and take control of the high point – there were severe battles here in April 2013. (I was in Lebanon’s Al-Qasr at the time – the village came under heavy fire). But the rebels lost to the fighters from the Syrian People’s Committees. They were able to hold the high point.

Had the opposition forces won over this rather small and seemingly insignificant area, there would’ve been major consequences. The war would’ve spread to Lebanon, and Hezbollah would’ve been obligated to get involved. Jihadists would’ve been able to get into Syria from Lebanon and attack Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the Beqaa Valley.

Opposition propaganda resources in major mass media and social networks have deployed a campaign in the Islamic world aimed at bolstering the idea that all the Shias are apostates – they are not Muslims, not native to these regions and are simply a tool that is used for proliferating Iranian policy across the Middle East. That is why jihad regards killing a Shia as noble. A number of propaganda resources that different sheikhs were using to broadcast anti-Shia sermons, were involved with the campaign.

Moreover, the mass media are thus instilling the minds of Muslims with the idea that all the Shias, including ordinary peasants, are Hezbollah militants, and Hezbollah, in its turn, is a supplement to the ‘dreadful thugs’ of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution.

Such an approach, which is used by the opposition and backed by the world’s major mass media, has a precise analogy.

The scorched-earth policy was first used in the region by the Irgun Jewish settlers in April 1948, when several Palestinian villages were wiped off the map (Deir Yassin is the most well-known). The goal was simple: the news about the massacre of 254 Palestinians – kids, women and old people would terrify all the rest so much, that they would run away voluntarily. The news about such unprecedented atrocities as, for instance, disembowelling pregnant women did strike terror into people: unarmed and unskilled in terms of war 740 thousand Palestinians fled from their home villages becoming refugees. Zionist ideologists still claim that the Palestinians are not native to Palestine and they were invited there as migrant workers, so they are either Bedouins, or nomads, or Gypsies from the Middle East who didn’t have any skills in agriculture and didn’t know how to farm.

This is also the reason that has been driving the mass-media campaign to discredit Hezbollah that has been accused of allegedly fighting against the Syrian people. Video footage and photographs of fallen Hezbollah fighters dating back to the 2006 Lebanon War have been circulated as “proof” that Hezbollah is involved in Syria and suffering losses. Back in 2006, 800 Hezbollah fighters put up resistance to the ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel, and these numbers were officially announced by the party leader Hasan Nasrallah.

I met with families that were forced to flee Syrian villages by the border. These were mostly large families who feared that their women, wives and daughters, would be raped by the opposition fighters and criminals that accompany them. Many also said that it was their strategy to intimidate the local population on purpose to have the houses vacated. Nonetheless many stayed and organized community defense volunteer squads to protect themselves from the rebel forces and mercenaries with arms in their hands.

The battle of Qusair has been of strategic importance, but not only that – Qusair is the only town, however small (with 50,000 people of population ) that had been given up by the government forces in the past – while the rest of the towns in Syria are under the government’s control. Mass-media that are telling their audience that the purpose of the battle of Qusair was “to regain control over the Mediterranean coast” and “re-deploy the government forces to Aleppo” are lying. The army is already in full control of the coast. Last Sunday, the army launched a massive offensive on all transit routes for weapons and supplies coming into the country.

As of today, Qusair is surrounded by the Syrian army, which is also in control of the downtown area. An escape corridor is being kept open for the fleeing population. The militants who fail to use it are contained in town’s quarters.

As for the losses, all the numbers cited are pure speculation and part of the propaganda attack on Syria. For example, the opposition initially reported online that they had killed “90 Hezbollah militants,” yet after a while changed the number to 30, and that’s in addition to the Syrian army’s losses of 20 soldiers reported by the army itself.

Syria seizes Israeli army vehicle used by insurgents in al-Qusayr

Press TV

The Syrian army has confiscated an Israeli military vehicle used by foreign-backed militants in Syria’s strategic western city of al-Qusayr.

The Lebanese channel al-Mayadeen broadcast the video of the confiscated vehicle on Monday.

The report also said that military uniforms as well as wiretapping and jamming equipment were found in the vehicle, but it did not display the items.

The Syrian army has restored security in al-Qusayr in the central province of Homs, after taking back control of 50 percent of the city from foreign-backed militants.

The army said it has killed two militant commanders during the operation in the strategic city, which is located near the border with Lebanon.

Fierce battles are still going on in the city as the Syrian army continues its operations there, while large numbers of militants abandon their weapons and flee the city.

The Syrian army entered the strategic city from every front on Sunday following weeks of battle.

The Syrian army says it has also found Israeli-made rockets in a weapons cache seized from militants in Homs province.

FT: Qatar pays Syria mercenaries 50,000$ yearly

Moqawama

Financial Times magazine published a report Friday that mentioned that Qatar has invested in Syrian insurgents, paying up to 3 billion dollars over the past two years to rebels.

“The tiny gas-rich state of Qatar has spent as much as $3 billion over the past two years supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government, but is now being nudged aside by Saudi Arabia as the prime source of arms to rebels,” the report stated.

In dozens of interviews with the FT conducted in recent weeks, rebel leaders both abroad and within Syria as well as regional and western officials detailed Qatar’s role in the Syrian conflict.

The small state is the biggest donor to the political opposition, providing generous refugee packages to defectors [one estimate puts it at $50,000 a year for a defector and his family] and has provided vast amounts of humanitarian support.

In September, many rebels in Syria’s Aleppo province received a one off monthly salary of $150 courtesy of Qatar. Sources close to the Qatari government said total spending has reached as much as $3 billion.

For Qatar, its intervention in Syria is part of an aggressive quest for global recognition and is merely the latest chapter in its attempt to establish itself as a major player in the region, the magazine reported.
“According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms transfers, Qatar has sent the most weapons deliveries to Syria, with more than 70 military cargo flights into neighboring Turkey between April 2012 and March this year,” FT said.

Moreover, the report stated that though Qatar’s approach is driven more by pragmatism and opportunism than ideology, it has become entangled in the polarized politics of the region, setting off scathing criticism.

“You can’t buy a revolution,” says an opposition businessman.

“Qatar’s support for fundamentalist groups in the Arab world, which puts it at odds with its peers in the Gulf States, has fuelled rivalry with Saudi Arabia,” the Financial Times remarked.

Coordinating with CIA, Qatari diwan, KSA control arms flow to Syria

Moqawama

Reuters reported Wednesday that Qatar, which has taken a lead in arming the Syrian opposition, is coordinating with the CIA.

Rebel fighters in Syria say that in recent months the system for distributing arms has become more centralized, with arms being delivered through opposition National Coalition’s General Command, led by Selim Idriss, a general who defected to the opposition and is a favorite of Washington.

Qatar mostly sends arms to rebels operating in the north of Syria, while Saudi Arabia, another rich Gulf Arab kingdom, sends weapons to fighters operating in the south, several rebel commanders said.

“The Qataris are now going through the Coalition for aid and humanitarian issues and for military issues they are going through the military command,” a commander in northern Syria interviewed from Beirut said.

He further stated: “Before the Coalition was formed they were going through liaison offices and other military and civil formations. That was at the beginning. Now it is different – it is all going through the Coalition and the military command.”

Today, Qatari shipments have resumed with controls exerted from the palace of Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, in consultation with the US Central Intelligence Agency, said a senior Qatari security official.

“There’s an operations room in the Emir’s diwan (office complex), with representatives from every ministry sitting in that room, deciding how much money to allocate for Syria’s aid,” the Qatari official said.
“There’s a lot of consultation with the CIA, and they help Qatar with buying and moving the weapons into Syria, but just as consultants,” he said. The CIA declined to comment.

Rebel commanders contacted by Reuters said they submit their lists of needs to the General Command led by Idriss, which forwards the requests to Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

One Western source involved in the process said that sometimes weapons sent in by Qatar do in fact reach hardline groups.

Several rebel commanders said they believed wealthy Kuwaiti and Saudi individuals were also sending weapons and money to rebel fighters outside the National Coalition’s distribution channel.

“They usually ask for a video proving that an attack took place with the name of the brigade that did it. Sometimes they ask for a statement expressing gratitude,” said a rebel commander in Damascus.

He said the Saudis and Qataris also occasionally send weapons into each other’s territory, bypassing normal controls.

“Sometimes the Qataris manage to send stuff to the southern part and the Saudis to the northern side. When they do so, they send it to brigades that are not part of the military command.”

According to the Qatari official, weapons supplied included AK-47 rifles, rocket propelled grenades, hand grenades and ammunition. Qatar also provides instructions on battlefield techniques such as how to rig weapons on vehicles.

The weapons are purchased mainly from eastern Europe by arms brokers based in Britain and France, and are flown from Qatar to Ankara and then trucked to Syria, the Qatari source added.

Hugh Griffiths, a researcher on arms transfers at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said 90 Qatari military air cargo flights were made to Turkey between 3 January 2012 and the end of April 2013.

He suggested the Qataris had made no particular effort to disguise the nature of the cargo.
The planes were Qatari air force aircraft flying from Al Udeid, a big air force base shared with the US military.

“This is quite unusual for arms deliveries intended for non-state actors in conflict zones, in the last 20 years or so the pattern has been to use private, commercial companies,” he said.

‘Sinai Peninsula: Training hub for terrorists to fight in Syria’

Moqawama

Tribal sources in North Sinai revealed that militiamen of foreign nationalities gather and train in Sinai, Egypt, to be deployed to Syria to fight the regime there.

Moreover, security sources reiterated that the nature of the region there provides such gathering, noting that defeating them requires an “aerial raid.”

Egyptian al-Masri al-Youm daily cited in its issue published on Tuesday these tribal sources as stating that there are groups from foreign nationalities affiliated to fundamentalist organizations in the Sinai Peninsula.

Sources further pointed out that they freely localize and move, and make sure not to attack Army units or police unless the latter attempts on approaching these groups.

Furthermore, sources added that these elements exploit Sinai’s mountainous nature to practice martial arts with various weapons.

These elements, sources reported, include extremists from Arab and non-Arab countries, as well as Egyptians, indicating that they are deployed to Syria after being trained on martial arts.

For his part, a security source accentuated that standing up to terrorist elements in Sinai could be achieved by a plan set by security and citizens, especially considering that the nature of Sinai provides a safe haven for these groups, guarding it with heavy weaponry. Therefore, the source said, aerial raids must be used to take them down.

On a similar note, Mohammad Sawareka, from the Sawareka tribe, stated that elements of al-Qaeda being in Sinai is a mischievous “Israeli” plot that aims at destabilizing the region and passing a scheme of summoning international forces to the border region.

Scared Americans and “The US Terror State”

by Daniel Patrick Welch, source

Syria, Libya and other US crimes invisible to financially scared Americans.

Watch Out, World! Even America’s Wealthy Are Losing Ground.

Cognitive dissonance among the US sub-elite means more war and death for everyone else.

Occasionally the tip of the iceberg pokes through, and the reported facts corroborate the experience of most of the people. The recent Pew Center report that has now reached broad circulation shows that a full 93% of US households *lost* ground in the much vaunted recovery of 2009-2011.

This just validates what we are all living through, glossed over by averages, smoke and mirrors. There is no “recovery.” Sectors *within* the top quintile are holding on, barely.

This is the starkest portrayal I’ve seen in black and white; I had previously been telling anyone who would listen that, while there seems to be a pickup for those in the $250,000 and up range, it is clearly not the case for the bottom 4 quintiles [i.e. $100,000 combined household income 2010]. It should be shocking enough to most middle class types that the real picture is so different from what they believe to be living–that is, that they are actually in the top 8-10%… BUT the data shows even worse. Even families up to $500,000 (!) are losing ground.

This bespeaks the desperation in the political outlook of what Zinn called The Guards and what Chomsky called The Priesthood: people who are doing just fine in the current system but think it needs a few tweaks. As this sector shrinks, the internal contradictions will become more apparent and the response of the state becomes harsher and less elastic. So households with “two good jobs” say $100,000 plus each, are prone to seeing some hope, the famous ‘green shoots’ mantra that fell on deaf ears for most of us a few years ago. Come on, guys–it *can* work! We all need to just be a bit more patient! Etc.

The political ramifications are quite alarming. This sector is crucial to the viability and perceived legitimacy of the system, and their panic has far reaching consequences. It may just beginning to dawn on them that they, too, will ultimately be left behind in the wealth shift, and that it was never really about them. Slowly but surely, and to varying degrees, they are recapitulating Judas’ epiphany [the Andrew Lloyd Weber version, at least]: “My god I’m sick. I’ve been used–and you knew all the time!” They are just beginning to see that they are facing an uphill battle in a rigged game against the House with a stacked deck–and any other cheesy analogies you want to cram in there–but there is nowhere for them to go.

Paradoxically, the initial wave of reaction to this newfound betrayal by their patrons in the ruling class is not to turn on their masters. It is to express this anger at those below, in the age-old game of shooting the messenger. Consequently, they become even better “shushers,” the Seinfeld term for viewers who keep order in a theater. Border collies, gatekeepers… they have always been there, but they were more consciously part of the professional ‘left,’ an icon of the political class. In the current period, their anger is more desperate and more diffuse: They have always been more inclined, for example, to trust the police, to believe the official version of events, to avoid sources of information considered by their class position and experience to be beyond the Pale. Having rarely, if ever, been on the wrong side of Officialdom, or had to bail relatives out of jail, or had any race-tinged experiences themselves, they are primed and pampered to be the intellectual shock troops of Acceptable Discourse. In the face of increased perfidy on the part of their class betters, they can’t (yet) bring themselves to bite what they still perceive as the hand that feeds them. Consequently, they will lash out at the incongruously labeled ‘parasites’ who they feel are ruining their banquet, even as the din of cognitive dissonance grows inside their heads.

The brutal fallout from this game is apparent all around us, as the body counts rise and the single minded state terrorism of the state apparatus grows ever more horrific in its attempt to maintain their bloated lifestyles through hegemony over the world’s resources. This transaction is completely lost on the Shushers–rather, they become its ghoulish cheerleaders, with or without acknowledgement. They are capable, somehow, of rationalizing the complete destruction of country after country–even as they are shown they are being lied into doing so. It is inconsequential to them that their government is funding, arming and training the very – terrorists in Syria and Libya that they are primed to fear elsewhere. The simple mathematical rule of balance and scale demands that they acknowledge and reject the 1000 : 1 ratio of violence ravaging the world in their name, with their money, with their silence at best and enthusiastic endorsement at worst. They just don’t give a sh…t, and their macabre privileging of the relatively few victims among their own–as awful as these surely are–is lost outside the bubble, where the rest of the world grieves for their victims.

The economic consequences of their loss of station “scares the sh..t” out of them: while logic and basic morality dictate that they should wake up every morning with the bloody carnage of their own drone army foremost in their minds, they are instead preoccupied with how they can no longer afford an annual pilgrimage to Disney, or that they may have to postpone the kitchen/bath/boat/car upgrade they have been contemplating. If this makes them sound like monsters, it should. There is something epic about the horror of simultaneously having no power over a political system that wreaks such destruction and yet defending that very system as acceptable and benign, without at the very least having been the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the littlest Who shouting ‘We are here!’ from the tallest available tower. It is more than a sham and a shame. It is a moral crime, a breach of ethical duty that will yield unimaginable consequences when the balance is eventually righted. And yes, for international readers, I do realize the self-absorption of focusing on the internal American experience, and hear your cries of “Who gives a shit!’ inside my head.” If you have stuck with me this long, much respect. Sometimes I feel it necessary to speak to and about my American countrymen from the perspective of one who shares, albeit sometimes tangentially, their experience.

I believe we are living in the time of tremendous turmoil. It may take a year or two or ten, but in historical terms we are living in that instant, that one day where, looking back, it will become apparent that everything changed. It is the pivotal moment so brilliantly enacted by the montage at the end of Les Miserables where all social actors, no matter their role or position, sense that something momentous is on the horizon: “Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store. One more dawn. One more day. One day more!”

Protesters tell Erdogan to resign

Press TV

Turkish protesters have called for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down following two car bombings in a town near the Syrian border.

Scores of people took to the streets of the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province on Saturday after more than 40 people were killed in two car bombings that jolted the town earlier in the day.

The angry demonstrators said the outbreak of violence was due to the Erdogan administration’s anti-Syria policy.

Security was tight in the center of Reyhanli, near the scene of the blasts, with the security forces setting up checkpoints to control entry into and exit from the town, witnesses said.

A similar demonstration was briefly held in Ankara, in which dozens of people marched in the street and chanted slogans criticizing Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Turkey has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s harshest critics and has supported the foreign-backed militants fighting to topple his government.

Turkish opposition parties have censured the Turkish government for its intervention in Syria’s internal affairs.

Last July, the leader of the Republican People’s Party warned the government against dragging the country into the “Middle Eastern quagmire” with its aggressive anti-Syria stance…

Armed groups In Syria continue shelling Hermel

Moqawama

At least five rockets from the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon landed in Hermel Saturday leaving no casualties.

According to information, one rocket fell near Hermel’s Public Hospital on the eastern entrance to the city while the other three hit a hill overlooking the Assi River, a few kilometers from Hermel.

Several rockets have targeted Hermel over the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, the National News Agency reported that Saturday missiles originating from the Syrian side did not score any casualties.

However, “the shelling left behind a prevailing atmosphere of anticipation and caution in the region.”

On April 14, the armed groups’ shelling led to the martyrdom of two Lebanese civilians.

Days ago, Hizbullah Secretary General of Hizbullah His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged the Lebanese citizens in the region to show self-restraint in face of the armed groups continuous shelling on their region.

“Syria: A toast to Israeli state terrorism”

by Julie Webb-Pullman, source

While the United States peddled the threat of chemical weapon use to justify its arming of the ‘opposition’ in Syria, Israel destroyed a chemical research facility near Damascus which was allegedly developing such weapons – thus unleashing every single potentially-poisonous particle on the Syrian public.

Thus guaranteeing that regardless of whether there actually were chemical weapons being developed or manufactured, regardless of whether the Assad regime actually was intending to use them against the Syrian people, the Syrian people now HAVE been exposed – and in a totally uncontrolled fashion – to not only the known toxic effects of whatever was in the facility, but also to the unknown effects of the random mixing of such chemicals under conditions of extreme heat, and their dissemination who knows how far, causing who knows what extent of environmental and health damage.

Assad mustn’t be permitted to do it – but Israel can – and with US blessing.

Israel’s “right to defend its interests,” Obama immediately called it.

Others would call it a cold-blooded murderous attack on the Syrian civilian population.
Others would call it terrorism.

State terrorism.

Since the Twin Towers attacks in 2001, the use of pre-emptive strikes by both the US and Israel to ‘counter terrorism’ or ‘defend security interests’ have escalated to become the single most potent military threat to civilians anywhere on the planet.

Massacre after massacre of civilians by drones, by rockets, by misguided ‘targeted assassinations’ in Afghanistan, Gaza, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan – the list goes on. The list of perpetrators, however, is short – only two. The United States and Israel.

Are such peremptory attacks permissible in international law?

No – international law is very clear on this. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter only allows military actions in self-defence when under direct attack.

Did Syria attack Israel?

No.

Did Syria make any kind of threatening military action towards Israel?

No.

Israel carried out an indefensible-in-international-law military strike in Syria causing direct – and very real – harm to a large civilian population.

A more clear – and potent – case of state terrorism would be hard to find.

Did the US condemn this act, which exposed Syrians to the very harm Obama was trumpeting around the world his intention to protect them from?

No.

He defended Israel’s attack.

A more clear – and potent – case of abject hypocrUSAy would be hard to find.

If the world is not to degenerate into a complete USraeli military dictatorship, the international community must act immediately to curtail this latest slide down the slippery slope of human rights derogation, where notions such as international law and due process are merely quaint antiquities, and self-determination a notion reserved solely for Yanqui and Zionist imperialists – or it won’t just be the end of the alphabet we have reached.

And for those in the US who doubt your country’s role in Israeli military activities, take a look at where your tax-dollars are going. Take a look at this photograph (above) of the remains of the rocket fired by an Israeli military plane at a building housing media agencies in Gaza in November 2012, destroying civilian property and persons. YOU are financing these atrocities. Yes, YOU.

You – and the United Nations – should be reminded of the UN General Assembly’s Measures to prevent and combat terrorism contained in the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy of 2006, where it stated its resolve to “…find, deny safe haven and bring to justice, on the basis of the principle of extradite or prosecute, any person who supports, facilitates, participates or attempts to participate in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts…”

The world is waiting – especially all the Syrians just exposed to the cocktail of chemicals the US was claiming to protect them from, while defending Israel’s right to toast them.

Surreal: US troops stage in Jordan to defend and protect Al Qaeda in Syria

Massive US arms/aid deliveries prop up Al Qaeda in Syria, while US troops stage in Jordan to defend terrorists they spent last decade fighting.

by Tony Cartalucci, source

CNN reports that some 200 US troops are staging along Syria’s border, this as reports reveal huge amounts of US-provided flour smuggled into Syria have formed the foundation of Al Qaeda’s public relations strategy. Together with huge amounts of US-provided weapons, the aid is fueling Al Qaeda’s continued operations and atrocities inside Syria.  The addition of US troops along Syria’s border appears to a response to recent and significant gains made by the Syrian government in stamping out terrorist operations nationwide.

Syria’s “Rebels” are Same Terrorists US Fought for Last 10 Years 

As reported in October 2012, the networks used to flood Iraq with weapons and Al Qaeda militants during the US occupation, had been positively identified by the extensive academic efforts of the US Army’s own West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). Two reports were published between 2007 and 2008 revealing a global network of Al Qaeda affiliated terror organizations, and how they mobilized to send a large influx of foreign fighters into Iraq.

The first report, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq,” was extensively cited by historian and geopolitical analyst Dr. Webster Tarpley in March of 2011, exposing that NATO-backed “pro-democracy” rebels in Libya were in fact Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf) as an international terrorist organization.

These very same terrorist would then be documented flooding into Syria, primarily through Turkey with NATO complicity.

In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”

Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.

“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and have been flooding into the country ever since.

In Syria, the southeastern region near Dayr Al-Zawr on the Iraqi-Syrian border, the northwestern region of Idlib near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar’a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border, produced the majority of fighters found crossing over into Iraq, according to the 2007 West Point study.

US CIA is Propping up Al Qaeda in Syria 

These are now astonishingly the very areas the US CIA is overseeing the flow of thousands of tons of weapons and aid – aid that is clearly falling almost entirely into the hands of Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.

The New York Times in their article titled, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid,” admits that:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

While the West attempts to claim these weapons are being sent to “moderates,” the US State Department itself admits that Al Qaeda is operating in every major city in Syria, carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks, and is by far the most highly organized, most prominent militant front in the conflict. If the West via Saudi Arabia and Qatar is sending thousands of tons of weapons to “moderates,” who is sending more weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra?

The obvious answer is there are no moderates, and the West has been intentionally arming Al Qaeda from the beginning. In fact, this is a documented conspiracy first revealed as early as 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker article titled, “”The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” which stated specifically:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Now, further evidence that the summation of US aid has fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda in Syria, comes to us from the Washington Post’s Liz Sly who reported in her article, “U.S. feeds Syrians, but secretly,” that:

In the heart of rebel-held territory in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, a small group of intrepid Westerners is undertaking a mission of great stealth. Living anonymously in a small rural community, they travel daily in unmarked cars, braving airstrikes, shelling and the threat of kidnapping to deliver food and other aid to needy Syrians — all of it paid for by the U.S. government.

Sly then claims that most Syrians credit Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra with providing the aid:

“America has done nothing for us. Nothing at all,” said Mohammed Fouad Waisi, 50, spitting out the words for emphasis in his small Aleppo grocery store, which adjoins a bakery where he buys bread every day. The bakery is fully supplied with flour paid for by the United States. But Waisi credited Jabhat al-Nusra — a rebel group the United States has designated a terrorist organization because of its ties to al-Qaeda — with providing flour to the region, though he admitted he wasn’t sure where it comes from.

And while Sly attempts to spin the story as merely misdirected anger and ignorance on the part of Syrians receiving the aid, it is well documented that bakeries in terrorist-held territory are in fact manned by Al Qaeda militants. In fact, while Sly maintains that “security concerns” are owed for America’s opaque aid distribution operation, it appears more likely the US is attempting to insidiously obfuscate its use of humanitarian aid to help its militant proxies win “hearts and minds” amid a humanitarian catastrophe the West itself engineered and perpetuated intentionally.

The London Telegraph revealed in their February 2013 article, “Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria’s revolution,” that taking over bakeries was a key strategy used by Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra front to “win over” the population:

Then, in the past weeks, Jabhat al-Nusra – which is outside the FSA – pushed other rebel groups out of the stores and established a system to distribute bread throughout rebel areas.

In a small office attached to a bakery in the Miesseh district of Aleppo, Abu Yayha studied a map pinned on the wall. Numbers were scrawled in pencil against streets.

“We counted the population of every street to assess the need for the area,” explained Mr Yahya. “We provide 23,593 bags of bread every two days for this area. This is just in one district. We are calculating the population in other districts and doing the same there.

“In shops the cost is now 125 Syrian pounds (£1.12) for one pack. Here we sell it at 50 Syrian pounds (45p) for two bags. We distribute some for free for those who cannot pay.”

The bakery works constantly. Inside, barrows filled with dough were heaved onto a conveyor belt that chopped it into round and flat segments, before pushing the dough into a giant oven. Workers packed the steaming flatbread in bags.

“I am from Jabhat al Nusra. All the managers of all the bakeries are,” said Abu Fattah, the manager. “This makes sure that nobody steals.”

In essence, Al Qaeda is taking over neighborhoods upon a mountain of US-provided flour, in bakeries overrun and held at the barrels of US-provided guns. Just as was planned in 2007, the US is attempting to overthrow the government of Syria with “extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”

Humanitarian aid is being used as a political weapon to carve out territory for the West’s heavily armed proxies and extort cooperation from the subjugated people who find themselves inside Al Qaeda-occupied territory.

US Military To Stage on Border to Protect Al Qaeda 

The Pentagon now reports that some 200 US troops are on their way to augment an already established US military presence along the Jordanian-Syrian border. CNN reported in their article, “U.S. military to step up presence in Jordan in light of Syria civil war,” that:

The troops, which will number up to 200, are from the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas, two Defense Department officials told CNN.

The deployment “creates an additional capability” beyond what has been there, one official said, and will give the United States the ability to “potentially form a joint task force for military operations, if ordered.”

Exactly where on the spectrum between actual operational intention and psychological warfare the deployment represents is still uncertain. What is certain, is that the US is deploying military assets with the intent of bolstering militant efforts inside Syria and along its peripheries. The astonishing irony is that many of the terrorists operating on both sides of the Jordanian-Syrian border US troops plan on “defending,” may quite literally have been the same militants killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 10 years.

US foreign policy has unraveled to such an extent that it risks unhinging entirely America’s legitimacy and relevance abroad, as well as peace and prosperity at home.

France’s media admits that the Syrian “opposition” is Al Qaida. Then justifies French government support to the terrorists

(Syria -File photo)

by Gearóid Ó Colmáin, source

In a report published on the 11th of April French daily Le Monde admits that rebels fighting the government of the Syrian Arab Republic are dominated by Japhat Al Nosra, a terrorist group linked to Al Qaida. The admission comes after two years of non-stop disinformation trumpeted from all French mainstream media outlets from the official right to the official left, disinformation that has attempted to convince the French public that democratic revolutionaries are fighting a war for human rights and freedom against a brutal, tyrannical dictator, who is ‘’ killing his own people’’.

This puerile and deeply dishonest narrative has now been utterly discredited, as the facts about the terrorist nature of the Syrian rebels have become too obvious to ignore. In an article entitled ‘The New Visage of French Jihadism’ it is reported that French jihadists are leaving France in their hundreds to join the ‘holy war’ against the Syrian Arab Republic, with many more joining jihadist groups in Mali.

On the same page in an article entitled ‘Al Qaida extends its territory and unites its forces in Iraq and Syria’, Le Monde’s Christophe Ayad reports:

‘The head of Iraq’s Islamic state, the Iraqi branch of Al Qaida, announced in a recorded message on April 9th, that his group would be fused with the Japhat AL Nosra( Support Front), the principal armed jihadist organization in Syria. The new group will be called Al-Qaida in Iraq and the Levant. This announcement comes two days after the call of Ayman Al-Zawarhiri, the successor of Osama Bin Laden in the leadership of Al-Qaida ‘headquarters,’ for the establishment of an Islamic state after the fall of the regime of Bachar-Al-Assad, afflicted since two years by an insurrection by the Sunni majority.’[1]

So, here we now have the French establishment press, who has been working overtime since two years to convince us that those fighting Assad are democrats, admitting that they are in fact Al Qaida. According to an October 2010Fox News report, the above-mentioned Al Qaida leader Al-Zawarhiri dined at the Pentagon just months after 911. Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge claimed she had documents to prove this. Of course, Fox News being a corporate propaganda agency did not pursue this story any further, nor did any other international mainstream media outlets. In the war on terror ignorance is strength and questioning is stupid.[2] The Fox News reporter earns 900,000 dollars per annum.[3]

In order to soften the blow and reassure French readers that the Quai d’Orsay’s support for the ‘rebels’ does not contradict France’s commitment to ‘human rights’, Le Monde’s Christophe Ayad tells us that:

‘Contrary to the Islamic State in Iraq the Al Nosra Front have made an effort not to systematically target civilians. It has not insisted, for the moment, on imposing an Islamic order that is too strict in the zones under its control, and has even concluded honorable agreements with the Kurdish rebellion, as in at Ras Al-Ain and more recently at Aleppo’[4]

These rebels Le Monde attempts to whitewash have been systematically targeting civilians from the start of this conflict. They have put bombs in cars in busy market squares, they have bombed universities murdering and maiming hundreds of innocent civilians. They have been torturing and beheading civilians and soldiers alike [5], even forcing children to participate in the decapitation some of their victims. Children have also been used as soldiers.[6 ]

They have forced women to wear the chador in the ‘liberated’ parts of once beautiful Aleppo.[7] They have desecrated and ruined the country’s religious and cultural heritage. They have blown up pipelines and wrecked infrastructure. They have destroyed thousands of schools, libraries and public service buildings. They have used chemical weapons. They have slit the throats of little children in order to blame the Syrian government. They terrorists are now even taking photos of themselves with the decapitated heads of their victims.[8] None of this is a secret. They have continously posted videos boasting about their crimes.

Yet Le Monde wants us to believe that Japhat Al Nosra [image above] is a good, more civilized version of Al Qaida, one perhaps worthy of Western military support! Of course, Le Monde will reply that they do not support Japhat Al Nosra, that they support the secular rebels. But where are the secular rebels?Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states very clearly that ‘any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law’. [9 ] The attempt by Western journalists to portray terrorist groups as freedom fighters and the use of information sources emanating exclusively from these groups to justify foreign aggression against a sovereign state recognized by the United Nations constitutes a war crime.

The French ‘special envoy’ seems to lament the fact that the announcement of this new fusion of terrorist groups will discredit the French government’s attempts to convince its European Union partners to officially arm the ‘rebellion’. While the French press admits that the Syrian armed opposition is predominantly Al-Qaida, it continues to insinuate and suggest that the bulk of the armed opposition is in fact secular and liberal. However, no evidence to support such insinuations has ever been forthcoming, while evidence to the contrary is overwhelming and impossible to dismiss.

In another article published on March 5th entitled ‘The Syrian Rebels take control of the Village of Raqqa in the North of the Country’, reporter Khalid Sid Mohand tells us just who these ‘rebels’ are. They are, he admits a few lines into his report:

‘A coalition of armed groups, some of whom are affiliated to the jihadists of Japhat-al-Nosra, who are behind the fall of Rakka.’[10]

How lovely! Al Qaida have captured a Syrian town and the French liberal media seems to be very excited about the prospect of armed barbarians taking over the Levantine state. From the title of the article, one is led to believe that the Syrian rebels have taken the town, the Syrian rebels being the French media’s designated ‘Arab Spring’ good guys. So, even though the news is bad, the headline suggests that it is good. Reality is turned upside down.

This technique of editorializing terrorists as rebels, while at the same time admitting that they are terrorists has the effect of confusing the public and preventing the uncritical reader from understanding the real forces at play in the Syrian conflict. The technique was repeatedly used during the Russian-Chechnian war when Islamist terrorists were repeatedly described as ‘rebels’. The double-standard, double-speak and double-think are techniques which are now part and parcel of ‘professional journalism’.

While such villainous and schizophrenic behavior may appear to some as a diabolical conspiracy, the reality is far more complex. This schizoid way of thinking and speaking is simply the psychological reflection of a global economic system that is collapsing upon its own internal contradictions. The extraction of surplus value from labour and the globalization of this capitalist mode of production have made a tiny section of the global population extremely rich and powerful.

The rich and powerful not only own the means of production, they also own the means of communication and as rule by a financial oligarchy is objectively contrary to democratic principles, a double-language and double-think is necessary in order to make people believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5. As a result, armed groups that serve the interests of the financial oligarchy will be mediatized as ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘human rights’ activists. However, as reporters cannot always control or ignore the complex realities they report on, the truth also emerges between the lines, in the margins and interstices of their own discourse. However, the job of rational analysis and interpretation of information is only being carried nowadays out by alternative media outlets whose goal is to serve the public good and tell the truth.

Thus, articles reporting the ‘good news’ that the Syrian rebels have taking another town will also have to admit that these same rebels are actually Al Qaida. But because double-think is so deeply embedded in Western culture, the contradictions of these reports are rarely noticed or analyzed The task of molding the public mind to support the ‘cruel but necessary’ geopolitical strategies of the global financial elite falls to the mass media , who orient and distort information to suit imperial designs and the corporate interests of the media’s owners.

In a Guardian article of 2002, the Western establishment’s policy of total hypocrisy was eloquently expressed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief strategist Robert Cooper who wrote:

‘The challenge to the postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards. Among ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security. But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era – force, pre-emptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself. Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle’[11]

Since unknown snipers opened fire on protestors and police in the town of Daraa on March 15th2011, the Syrian nation has been assaulted by death squads armed and trained by the Gulf emirates and Nato intelligence. The result has been the death of thousands and the destruction of a nation. This is a repeat of the Arc of Crisis created in Afghanistan in 1979 when US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski organized the arming and training of Mujahedeen terrorists in order to overthrow the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The result was the creation of Al Qaida, a data-base of military-intelligence assets, who have since the very beginning, always served Nato geopolitical interests. The same technique is now being used against Syria.

It is quite possible the French government’s admission that Al Qaida have taken over large parts of Syria could serve as an excuse in the weeks, months or years ahead for direct military intervention to ‘free’ Syria from Al-Qaida, just as French intelligence’s fomentation of jihadism in Libya and their transfer to Mali served the cause of military intervention there. Meanwhile,the media demonization of Bachar-Al Assad will continue. However, the existence of Al Qaida in Syria could eventually become the final justification for intervention if the terrorists succeed in sufficiently weakening the Syrian state and Russia can be persuaded to acquiesce in the loss of its Eastern Mediterranean client state.

The dupes of Nato’s media empire can continue to comfort themselves that their governments are fighting terrorists in some countries, while helping ‘democratic rebels’ to fight ‘brutal regimes’ in others, but as savage austerity cuts and the militarization of urban space afflicts European cities, the reality that it is the degenerate Euro-Atlantic elites who are fomenting jihadist terrorism, the nightmarish reality that this is in fact both the ‘brutal regime’, and the opaque, loose ‘terrorist network’ which wants to take away our freedoms and destroy civilization, this reality will become impossible to ignore. For in truth the war on terrorism is ultimately a war on humanity.

Notes
[1] http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2013/04/10/al-qaida-etend-son-territoire-et-unit-ses-forces-en-irak-et-en-syrie_3157029_3210.html
[2] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/20/al-qaeda-terror-leader-dined-pentagon-months/
[3] http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/fox-news-discrimination-suit-tossed-out_b48807
[4] http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2013/04/10/al-qaida-etend-son-territoire-et-unit-ses-forces-en-irak-et-en-syrie_3157029_3210.html
‘Contrairement à l’Etat islamique en Irak, Le Front Al-Nosra prend garde à ne pascibler systématiquement les civils. Il a évité, pour l’instant, d’imposer un ordre islamique trop strict dans les zones passées sous son contrôle et conclut même des accords ponctuels avec la rébellion kurde, comme à Ras Al-Aïn, et plus récemment à Alep.’
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QhicJPzG9%5B4
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YToIyvA1N6Y
[7]http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-womens-rights-and-islamist-education-in-a-liberated-area-of-aleppo/5328510
[8]http://allainjules.com/2013/04/14/photo-syrie-les-amis-de-francois-hollande-font-des-photos-avec-leurs-victimes-decapitees/
[9] http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx
[10] http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2013/03/05/les-rebelles-syriens-prennent-le-controle-de-la-ville-de-raqqa-dans-le-nord-du-pays_1842837_3218.html
[11] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/07/1

The Boston bombing produces familiar and revealing reactions

As usual, the limits of selective empathy, the rush to blame Muslims, and the exploitation of fear all instantly emerge

by Glenn Greenwald, source

There’s not much to say about Monday’s Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why. There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident. Much of that reaction is all-too-familiar and quite revealing in important ways:

(1) The widespread compassion for yesterday’s victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it was really hard not to find oneself wishing that just a fraction of that compassion and anger be devoted to attacks that the US perpetrates rather than suffers. These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid. My Guardian colleague Gary Younge put this best on Twitter this morning:

Juan Cole this morning makes a similar point about violence elsewhere. Indeed, just yesterday in Iraq, at least 42 people were killed and more than 250 injured by a series of car bombs, the enduring result of the US invasion and destruction of that country. Somehow the deep compassion and anger felt in the US when it is attacked never translates to understanding the effects of our own aggression against others.

One particularly illustrative example I happened to see yesterday was a re-tweet from Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, proclaiming:

Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?”

I don’t disagree with that sentiment. But I’d bet a good amount of money that the person saying it – and the vast majority of other Americans – have no clue that targeting rescuers with “double-tap” attacks isprecisely what the US now does with its drone program and other forms of militarism. If most Americans knew their government and military were doing this, would they react the same way as they did to yesterday’s Boston attack: “Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?” That’s highly doubtful, and that’s the point.

There’s nothing wrong per se with paying more attention to tragedy and violence that happens relatively nearby and in familiar places. Whether wrong or not, it’s probably human nature, or at least human instinct, to do that, and that happens all over the world. I’m not criticizing that. But one wishes that the empathy for victims and outrage over the ending of innocent human life that instantly arises when the US is targeted by this sort of violence would at least translate into similar concern when the US is perpetrating it, as it so often does (far, far more often than it is targeted by such violence).

Regardless of your views of justification and intent: whatever rage you’re feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that’s the rage in sustained form that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for yesterday’s victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs. However profound a loss you recognize the parents and family members of these victims to have suffered, that’s the same loss experienced by victims of US violence. It’s natural that it won’t be felt as intensely when the victims are far away and mostly invisible, but applying these reactions to those acts of US aggression would go a long way toward better understanding what they are and the outcomes they generate.

(2) The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence. The New York Post quickly claimed that the prime suspect was a Saudi national (while also inaccurately reporting that 12 people had been confirmed dead). The Post’s insinuation of responsibility was alsosuggested on CNN by Former Bush Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend (“We know that there is one Saudi national who was wounded in the leg who is being spoken to”). Former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman went on CNN to grossly speculate that Muslim groups were behind the attack. Anti-Muslim bigots like Pam Geller predictably announced that this was “Jihad in America”. Expressions of hatred for Muslims, and a desire to do violence, were then spewing forth all over Twitter (some particularly unscrupulous partisan Democrat types wereidentically suggesting with zero evidence that the attackers were right-wing extremists).

Obviously, it’s possible that the perpetrator(s) will turn out to be Muslim, just like it’s possible they will turn out to be extremist right-wing activists, or left-wing agitators, or Muslim-fearing Anders-Breivik types, or lone individuals driven by apolitical mental illness. But the rush to proclaim the guilty party to be Muslim is seen in particular over and over with such events. Recall that on the day of the 2011 Oslo massacre by a right-wing, Muslim-hating extremist, the New York Times spent virtually the entire day strongly suggesting in its headlines that an Islamic extremist group was responsible, a claim other major news outlets (including the BBC and Washington Post) then repeated as fact. The same thing happened with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when most major US media outlets strongly suggested that the perpetrators were Muslims. As FAIR documented back then:

“In the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Office Building, the media rushed — almost en masse — to the assumption that the bombing was the work of Muslim extremists. ‘The betting here is on Middle East terrorists,’ declared CBS News’ Jim Stewart just hours after the blast (4/19/95). ‘The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East,’ ABC’s John McWethy proclaimed the same day.

“‘It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East,’ wrote syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95). ‘Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working,’ declared the New York Times’ A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). The Geyer and Rosenthal columns were filed after the FBI released sketches of two suspects who looked more like Midwestern frat boys than mujahideen.”

This lesson is never learned because, it seems, many people don’t want to learn it. Even when it turns out not to have been Muslims who perpetrated the attack but rather right-wing, white Christians, the damage from this relentless and reflexive blame-pinning endures.

(3) One continually encountered yesterday expressions of dread and fear from Arabs and Muslims around the world that the attacker would be either or both. That’s because they know that all members of their religious or ethnic group will be blamed, or worse, if that turns out to be the case. That’s true even though leading Muslim-American groups such as CAIR harshly condemned the attack (as they always do) and urged support for the victims, including blood donations. One tweeter, referencing the earthquake that hit Iran this morning, satirized this collective mindset by writing: “Please don’t be a Muslim plate tectonic activity.”

As understandable as it is, that’s just sad to witness. No other group reacts with that level of fear to these kinds of incidents, because no other group has similar cause to fear that they will all be hated or targeted for the acts of isolated, unrepresentative individuals. A similar dynamic has long prevailed in the domestic crime context: when the perpetrators of notorious crimes turned out to be African-American, the entire community usually paid a collective price. But the unique and well-grounded dread that hundreds of millions of law-abiding, peaceful Muslims and Arabs around the world have about the prospect that this attack in Boston was perpetrated by a Muslim highlights the climate of fear that has been created for and imposed on them over the last decade.

(4) The reaction to the Boston attack underscored, yet again, the utter meaninglessness of the word “terrorism”. News outlets were seemingly scandalized that President Obama, in his initial remarks, did not use the words “terrorist attack” to describe the bombing. In response, the White House ran to the media to assure them that they considered it “terrorism”. Fox News’ Ed Henry quoted a “senior administration official” as saying this: “When multiple (explosive) devices go off that’s an act of terrorism.”

Is that what “terrorism” is? “When multiple (explosive) devices go off”? If so, that encompasses a great many things, including what the US does in the world on a very regular basis. Of course, the quest to know whether this was “terrorism” is really code for: “was this done by Muslims”? That’s because, in US political discourse, “terrorism” has no real meaning other than: violence perpetrated by Muslims against the west. The reason there was such confusion and uncertainty about whether this was “terrorism” is because there is no clear and consistently applied definition of the term. At this point, it’s little more than a term of emotionally manipulative propaganda. That’s been proven over and over, and it was against yesterday.

(5) The history of these types of attacks over the last decade has been clear and consistent: they are exploited to obtain new government powers, increase state surveillance, and take away individual liberties. On NBC with Brian Williams last night, Tom Brokaw decreed that this will happen again and instructed us that we must meekly submit it to it:

“Everyone has to understand tonight that, beginning tomorrow morning early, there are going to be much tougher security considerations all across the country, and however exhausted we may be by that, we’re going to have to learn to live with them, and get along and go forward, and not let them bring us to our knees. You’ll remember last summer, how unhappy we were with the security at the Democratic and Republic conventions. Now I don’t think we can raise those complaints after what happened in Boston.”

Last night on Chris Hayes’ MSNBC show, an FBI agent discussed the fact that the US government has the right to arrest terrorism suspects and not provide them with Miranda warnings before questioning them. After seeing numerous people express surprise at this claim on Twitter, I pointed out that this happened when the Obama administration exploited the attempted underwear bombing over Detroit to radically reduce Miranda rights over what they had been for decades. That’s what the US government (aided by the sham “terrorism expert” industry) does in every single one of these cases: exploits the resulting fear to increase its own power and decrease everyone else’s rights, including privacy.

At the Atlantic, security expert Bruce Schneier has a short but compelling article on how urgent it is that we not react to this Boston attack irrationally or with exaggerated fear, and that we particularly remain vigilant against government attempts to exploit fear to impose all new rights-reducing measures. He notes in particular how the more unusual an event is (such as this sort of attack on US soil), the more our brains naturally exaggerate its significance and frequency (John Cole makes a similar point).

In sum, even if the perpetrators of Monday’s attack in Boston turn out to be politically motivated and subscribers to an anti-US ideology, it will still be a very rare event, one that poses far less danger to Americans than literally countless other threats. The most important lesson of the excesses arising from the 9/11 attacks should be this one: that the dangers of overreacting and succumbing to irrational fear are far, far greater than any other dangers posed by these type of events.

Desperate West runs out of options, sends influx of arms to Syria militants

(Syria-attack, file photo)

by Tony Cartalucci, source

Out of time, out of legitimacy, and out of options, the West is attempting once again to prop up its faltering terrorist proxies with another psychological operation aimed at breaking the will of the Syrian people, despite the West’s multiplying tactical and political shortcomings.

It began with a suspicious CBS News/AP report titled, “AP: “Master plan” underway to help Syria rebels take Damascus with U.S.-approved airlifts of heavy weapons,” which claims to divulge a “covert” plan by the West to flood Syria’s northern and southern borders with increased weapons and fighters for a “final” push to take the capital. The article would claim:

Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus, officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.

A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involving Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two military experts.

One must question why the Western media would boldly declare to the world what is supposed to be a “covert” operation, if such an operation had any tactical chance of succeeding – unless of course, the announcement was designed to either cover for wide-scale Western special operations inside Syria, or to help achieve a psychological victory (or both) – to induce panic and terror across the Syrian population in tandem with recent, and increasingly barbaric terrorist attacks on Syria’s civilians.

One such attack included the recent mortar bombardment of Damascus University which left at least 15 dead. The New York Times seemed to take special pleasure in describing in great detail the disruptive effect the attack had on people attempting to live normal lives during the ongoing conflict in their article, “Syria’s War Invades a Campus That Acted as a Sanctuary.”

Now, echos of NATO’s spectacularly failed July 2012 “Operation Damascus Volcano” – where the Western media coordinated a propaganda blitzkrieg designed to portray Syria as on the verge of collapsing with Aleppo and Damascus’ fall “imminent,” are appearing once again in the headlines. Just a day after CBS/AP’s announcement of the so-called “covert Master Plan,” the Western media is reporting “rebel gains” including the alleged cutting off of Daara in Syria’s south – meant to foreshadow the once again “inevitable fall” of Damascus. AFP cited the discredited “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” in their article, “Syria rebels seize town on key highway to south: NGO,” that:

“Rebels seized control of Dael after destroying the three army checkpoints at the entrances to the town,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “The town is located on a main road linking Daraa to Damascus.”

The Britain-based watchdog said that a child was among 10 civilians killed in the fighting for the town over the past 24 hours.

At least 15 rebels and a media activist working with them were also killed, as were 12 loyalist troops, it added.

“Large swathes of Daraa (province) are now under rebel control. Their advance in the south is escalating,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

In actuality, the so-called “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” is a single opposition propagandists, Rami Abdel Rahman, based in a comfortable countryside home in the UK, disingenuously masquerading as a human rights organization. When not feeding the biased-hungry Western media, Rami Abdel Rahman can be found scurrying in and out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London to meet with Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague.

Reuters had even admitted in their December 2011 article, “Coventry – an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist,” that “Rami Abdulrahman,” is openly part of the Syrian opposition who seeks the end of the Syrian government. Abdulrahman admits that he had left Syria over 10 years ago, has lived in Britain ever since, and will not return until “al-Assad goes.”

This facade is fully sanctioned by the Western media which despite acknowledging him as a biased, compromised source, consistently misrepresents him to their audience as a credible “human rights organization,” while almost exclusively deferring to him to lend credibility to their otherwise baseless narratives.

When entire articles hinge on Rami Abdel Rahman’s verified propaganda, perception management, not journalism, is dictating headlines and overarching narratives.

The Syrian people have resisted the collective efforts of the US, UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and their regional partners for 2 years, and have defeated at least two previous psychological operations aimed at toppling the government and destroying the country. The tides have shifted across public opinion, and evidence that the West has intentionally sought to arm and direct sectarian extremists against the Syrian nation since at least 2007, are reaching a crescendo.

While the West now openly admits it is working directly with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and NATO-member Turkey to supply thousands of tons of weapons to militants in Syria, it cannot explain how else Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra front has become the best armed and most well equipped front in the conflict – unless these thousands of tons of weaponry were sent directly to them, as was intended to begin with, according to Seymour Hersh’s 2007 article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” which reported:

To undermine Iran – the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government – in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the – organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of – extremist groups that espouse a militant vision – and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

A window is closing, and the West is resorting to dangerous desperation. Syria and its allies, as well as concerned interests around the world, must be more vigilant and resilient than ever. The tell-tale signs of a psychological operation are there – but for a psychological operation to succeed, a nation’s people must not be prepared or aware that it is coming. By raising awareness of this most recent, insidious attempt at snatching a psychological victory from the jaws of a tactical defeat, we can help quicken the day when the West’s war machine finally stumbles and falls, giving the people of Syria their lives back.

US veteran fighting with Syria ‘rebels’: A CIA agent?

Moqawama

As US Army veteran Eric Harroun awaits trial in Virginia for fighting terrorists in Syria, the man’s father revealed that he was working for the CIA and was reporting back to the agency from Syria.

Harroun, a 30-year-old American from Phoenix, Arizona, has been charged by the US government for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely a rocket propelled grenade launcher) to conduct an attack against the Syrian government.

The US Army veteran dubbed by media ‘Phoenix jihadist’ appeared in numerous videos alongside members of the al-Nusra terrorist Front.

According to FBI documents, Harroun traveled to Turkey last November and joined the rebels led by the so-called “Free Syrian Army” shortly thereafter. His father, Darryl Harroun, told reporters that he doesn’t understand why the US government arrested his son, who he says was working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

He referred to his son as a ‘patriotic’ American who would never get involved with al-Qaeda, and claims he was gathering information for the US government.
“I know he was doing some work for the CIA over there,” the man’s father said. “I know for a fact that he was passing information onto the CIA.”

After seeing the documents regarding his son’s charges, Harroun told a CBS News reporter that it is all inaccurate and misleading and that the truth will eventually come out, since his son was simply gathering intelligence.

“About 99 percent of that stuff that you read on there is a bunch of bull,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any truth in any of this – he’s very patriotic.”

Last week, the New York Times published an article describing how the agency has been helping foreign governments contribute to the rebels. Unnamed US officials told the paper that the CIA has been secretly airlifting arms and other military equipment to Arab governments and Turkey, who provided them to the country’s opposition fighters.
With the agency’s involvement in the conflict, it is very possible for the CIA to also have sent their own agents into Syria. Paul Joseph Watson suggests on InfoWars that Harroun’s arrest may have something to do with the lack of communication and rivalry between the FBI and the CIA.

The FBI affidavit makes no mention of Harroun having any sort of connection to the CIA, but includes transcripts of interviews in which the man describes being treated like a prisoner in the al-Nusra camp and eventually being accepted by the members. Soon thereafter, he was helping them conduct several attacks on the Syrian regime. He also recalled being questioned about why the US government designated the group as a terrorist organization.