As Western Aid Bolsters Islamists, The Resistance Axis Fights Back

Recent Rebel Gains a Result of US Support to Extremists

The rebel opposition in Syria has in recent months made a series of gains against the Syrian army, most notably in Idlib, Palmyra, and Ramadi in Iraq.  However, given that from the very beginning the opposition had taken “a clear sectarian direction” and has been dominated by “ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra… in addition to other extreme jihadi groups”, itself consisting of “no moderate middle”, and the fact that “in reality there is no dividing wall between them [extremists] and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies”, it is no wonder why all of the recent gains have been made by hard-line Islamists.(1)  The radicalization of the opposition was the result of a covert US/CIA-led program in collusion with regional allies to expand the dissent base in Syria and strengthen Islamist rebels against the Syrian government.(2)

These recent Islamist advances are the result of an increase in support from the US-led coalition to their proxies inside Syria.  Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact in early March to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government.  Huffington Post quotes Usama Abu Zeid, a legal advisor to the Free Syrian Army, as confirming that this new coordination had facilitated recent rebel advances.(3)  The pact subsequently lead to the al-Qaeda takeover of Idlib in late March, where the two countries have since set up a joint command center to further coordinate and command their extremist proxies from the captured province.  Syrian government sources thus accurately blame Turkish intervention as the key factor in the fall of Idlib.  The city's fall however is only the 2^nd provincial capital that has been captured by the opposition during the entire 4-year war, the other being Raqqa, which is now the de facto capital of the fake Islamic State “Caliphate.”(4) 

In addition to Turkish and Saudi support to al-Qaeda extremists, so too has the US increased its support to Islamists.  

In early May Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute Doha Center confirmed that “US-led operations rooms in southern Turkey and Jordan” have specifically “encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations”, and while doing so have “dramatically increased [their] level of assistance and provisions of intelligence” to this Islamist-led opposition, all of which has led to the al-Qaeda victory in Idlib.(5)  So not only has the entire support to the opposition from the beginning been coordinated and commanded by the US, so too has the US spearheaded recent support to al-Qaeda along with its Turkish, Saudi, and Qatari allies. 

These Western-backed advances were facilitated by the delivery of “gamechanging” new advanced weaponry to the extremists, including TOW anti-tank missiles.  The Guardian reports that the results of this “were shocking.  The regional capital of Idlib fell within days.  Several weeks later, the nearby town of Jisr al-Shughour also fell to an amalgam of jihadist.”(6)  All of this being “the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey,” which was “blessed by Washington after long hesitation.”(7) 

The US recently encourages support to Islamists while it’s Saudi and Turkish allies openly support al-Qaeda linked militants, all of whom have been provided with new shipments of advanced weaponry and support which has been instrumental in their recent advances.

Qatar has made recent efforts to convince al-Nusra’s leader to detach itself from al-Qaeda and portray Nusra as though it is not planning to attack the West in an attempt to justify this increased aid.  However it is important to note that “if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change,” while it’s leaders would remain “close to al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri [sic].” In a recent interview with the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, al-Nusra’s leader al-Golani was given a platform to say that Nusra does not plan to attack the West, yet he still reaffirmed full allegiance to al-Qaeda’s leader al-Zawahiri against the wishes of Qatar.(8)  Despite the failure of re-branding al-Qaeda’s Syria faction the group still received a substantial increase in aid and support from its backers in the Gulf, Turkey, and the United States.

Given this, both the US and Turkey have in addition recently agreed “in principle” to establish a no-fly zone to further aid the forces on the ground they are supporting.(9)  This is illegal, against international law, and would be de-facto support to terrorist organizations in the form of US aerial attacks against the Syrian state.  It would be devastating to the region as well, only benefiting supporters of reactionary Islamic rule and Western imperial hegemony.

However, the al-Qaeda linked factions unfortunately are not the only groups that owe their recent battlefield successes to their Western patrons, so too does the Islamic State.

When the Islamic State recently took Ramadi in Iraq, they travelled a full 553km across open desert to the city from their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.

Despite the fact that destroying the militants along this route would have been like shooting fish in a barrel, the US “anti-ISIS” coalition did not expend a single airstrike against them, even though the US “had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi.  For the US military, it was an open secret at the time.”  The US intelligence community “had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive in Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements,” which were coming from Raqqa, “through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders.”  Furthermore, “It surprised no one,” US intelligence officials said. (10)

Speaking on these developments, former British MI6 agent Alastair Crooke comments that “the speculation about a coming fractured Iraq has gained big momentum from ISIS's virtually unopposed walk-in to Ramadi. The images of long columns of ISIS Toyota Land Cruisers, black pennants waving in the wind, making their way from Syria all the way -- along empty desert main roads -- to Ramadi with not an American aircraft in evidence, certainly needs some explaining. There cannot be an easier target imagined than an identified column of vehicles, driving an arterial road, in the middle of a desert.”(11)

As ISIS arrived in Ramadi, the US-coalition launched a paltry 7 airstrikes against them, a number so low as to be entirely insignificant.  To alleviate concerns that the US openly allowed ISIS to take Ramadi, the US military blamed a great and powerful “sandstorm” for their lack of airstrikes.  However, just days later they retracted these false statements.  ABC reports that “Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters today that last weekend's sandstorm had not affected the coalition’s ability to launch airstrikes in Ramadi, though “weather was a factor on the ground early on.””(12)  Further dispelling these excuses, the day after Ramadi’s fall rows of Islamic State militants were pictured celebrated openly in the streets below crystal clear skies.

(Source: MailOnline, May 19, 2015)

If the US-coalition had been serious about stopping ISIS they could have easily destroyed whole factions of the group at this time.  Instead, desperate for another excuse to explain their inaction, they changed their reasons and blamed concern for civilian deaths for the lack of strikes.  However this excuse is so patently absurd as to be laughable, and therefore can be completely disregarded; one need only look at the grave human death tolls inflicted during the invasion of Iraq, the US support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza last summer, the US-facilitated devastation of eastern Ukraine, the global drone campaign, the US’ own “anti-ISIS” airstrikes, and the current crazed US-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen to see that Western officials lose exactly zero sleep over the civilian blood that is on their hands.(13) 

The actions of the US leads to the conclusion that it either wanted or didn’t care if ISIS took Ramadi and thus allowed it to happen, and very likely even facilitated its accomplishment.

Speaking the day after the city’s fall, Wahda Al-Jumaili, an advisor to Iraq’s parliamentary speaker, stated “Whether this was the result of treason, neglect, or conspiracy, or a regional or international plot… Even the international coalition has played a bad role.  People saw the international coalition dropping weapons for ISIS.  They dropped heavy weaponry to the forces of terrorism in Ramadi.  This is an act of treason by the international coalition forces.”(14)

This comes after countless other Iraqi officials have been accusing the US-coalition for months of dropping aid packages to ISIS militants.  Video evidence has confirmed that one of these shipments has demonstrably occurred, whereas Iraqi officials have provided photographic evidence of British planes they had shot down after learning they were going to deliver aid to ISIS.(15)

Coupled with this is the fact that ISIS’ long time benefactor, Saudi Arabia, has recently increased its aid to the Islamic State. 

Recently the New York Times reported that the newly crowned Saudi King Salman, who the authors note has “a history of working with Islamists,” has recently “sanctioned allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda”, “discarded his predecessor’s rejection of political Islamists”, and shifted policy towards “increasing support for rebels in Syria.”(16)  What the Times didn't say is that it is primarily Saudi Arabia and other major US Arab allies who “fund ISIS,” in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey’s own words, so it is no wonder which ‘Islamists’ Saudi Arabia has increased support for.(17) 

The official narrative is that the Saudi state is no longer funding ISIS, and instead it is only private donors not connected to the government who continue the funding, all the while the state conveniently is unable to stop them, try as they might.  This, of course, coming from arguably the most authoritarian and despotic regime on the planet which doesn’t even balk at imprisoning its own daughters, but surely it’s perfectly plausible that this anachronistic monarchy which controls its population through the bludgeon and fear is simply baffled with inability at locating the guilty perpetrators.

Given General Dempsey’s testimony that it was the Saudi state who funded ISIS, there is no credible evidence that any of this support from them has stopped, save vacuous statements by the US and Saudi governments who of course would predictably say as much.  If any change has occurred, it is that the Saudi government has taken steps to distance its involvement in the eyes of the world while it continues to covertly go about business as usual, using wealthy donors, who were presumably providing the funds that would then be transferred by the Saudi state all along, as their proxies.  In other words, it is a PR concern, not one of policy direction.  Indeed, according to Britain’s leading international security scholar Nafeez Ahmed, “informed sources in the region have told me that fundraising for ISIS is still being done openly across the Gulf monarchies at state-run mosques… Yet the US and UK have refused to exert any meaningful diplomatic or financial pressure whatsoever on these countries to change course.”(18)

Turning back to Syria, the US is as well aiding ISIS in the same way that it did for its takeover of Ramadi.

In recent ISIS offensives in Syria the US as well took no aerial action despite the fact that doing so would have been easy and effective.  A spokesman for the rebel group the Shamiah front recently criticized the US-coalition for not bombing IS convoys as they moved outward from Raqqa, saying that “There were convoys of 15 to 20 vehicles each.  Only two coalition raids in the past three days would have been enough to stop the attack.”  Similarly, Salim Idriss, once the US’ leading rebel commander, said that the US-led coalition repeatedly had allowed Islamic State convoys to pass unhindered, pointing most recently to May 31^st when he said a 60-vehicle convoy moved from Raqqa to Aleppo unperturbed.(19) 

This US support for ISIS and al-Qaeda might seem strange if one follows the official narratives, however the picture becomes much clearer when you look at what is being discussed behind closed doors within the US establishment.

A declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document authored in August of 2012 reveals that the West accelerated support to the opposition in Syria knowing full well they were supporting extremists and that this would pave the way for an ‘Islamic State’ to emerge, seeing this as the desired outcome and a key geopolitical asset for their interests in the region.  “They were not only as they claimed supporting moderate groups, who were losing members to the more extremist groups, but that they were directly supporting the extremist groups. And they were predicting that this support would result in an Islamic State organization, an ISIS or ISIL… They were encouraging it, regarding it as a positive development, because it was anti-Assad, Assad being supported by Russia, but also interestingly China… and Iran…” said former Pentagon officer and legendary whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who is accompanied by many other knowledgeable ex-US-intelligence officials who draw similar conclusions from the leaked report.(20)

Further, the report presciently predicts in 2012 the fall of both Mosul and Ramadi given that the West continues to “support the opposition” of which “the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces”, stating that “this creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters.” 

Given that in 2012 US Department of Defense intelligence knew that the opposition was “sectarian”, dominated by extremist groups, and that continued support to such an opposition would lead to the fall of Mosul and Ramadi, and the fact that with this knowledge the US actually increased their aid to the rebels rather than curtailing it, means that the US must have intended, either directly or indirectly, these predictable outcomes of their actions.(21)

The US predicted the rise of ISIS, supported extremist elements with the help of its allies knowing full well that a Salafist principality would emerge which would then lead to Mosul and Ramadi’s fall, and further desired the establishment of such a principality as a geopolitical asset and thus continued to support these efforts, all the while conducting an ineffective “anti-ISIS” coalition against the same extremists, which should be viewed as a PR move aimed at maintaining plausible deniability and to obscure the actual role the US has played in the facilitation of ISIS, evidenced further by ISIS’ continual growth. 

The strategy is divide and rule, dominance through ‘controlled chaos’, aiming to be both the arbiters of the sides “fighting” and those supporting the extremists, and thus insuring that destabilization and US hegemony result… by any means necessary. 

The recent al-Qaeda and ISIS advances are a direct outcome of this strategy, the result of the US and her allies increasing aid and the delivery of advanced weaponry to their extremist proxies in the region, all the while death, mayhem, and terror ensues upon the innocent civilian populations.

The Resistance Strikes Back

Adding further to the incredulity of the US-led “anti-ISIS” campaign, recently a meeting headed by the United States was held between 20 countries to discuss their anti-ISIS strategy, however the most effective forces that have been engaged in fighting and deterring ISIS, Russia, Iran, and Syria, were absent from the meeting.  This meeting perfectly represents the follies of the US strategy against ISIS and why it will fail, “The US campaign against Isis is weakened not so much by lack [of] ‘boots on the ground,’ but by seeking to hold at arm’s-length those who are actually fighting Isis while embracing those such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey who are not,” as explained by Patrick Cockburn, the leading Western journalist in the region.

While this US-led coalition expresses optimistically spurious notions of a “winning strategy”, the truth is that ISIS hasn’t been deterred since this strategy has come into effect.  It should be said as well that “the ‘moderate’ rebels the US and UK support themselves openly welcomed the arrival of such extremists. Indeed, the Free Syria Army backed by the West was allied with ISIS, until ISIS attacked them at the end of 2013,” former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge notes.(22) 

Judging by actions rather than by words, the US-led coalition is not at all serious about defeating ISIS.

Amidst media obfuscation of those responsible for the recent al-Qaeda and ISIS victories in Syria and Iraq, there has as well been a concerted propaganda effort to weaken the moral of the Syrian army and the resistance axis of Syria-Hezbollah-Iran-Russia in the form of a torrent of Western media publications, interviews, articles, and research papers all professing that Assad is losing the war.  The tone of these Western protestations is nothing short of euphoric, yet those on the ground suffering from the brutality of al-Nusra and ISIS’ gains are not as jubilant, nor are they under the illusion that successes by foreign-backed extremist Wahhabis constitutes the makings of a “revolution.”  Yet despite the Wests wishful thinking and adherence to the narrative of “moderate rebels” fighting against extremists, which itself is an impressive display of willful ignorance that disciplined intellectuals must work hard to cultivate, their insistence on attacking Syrian society with terrorist proxies has not been as successful as they had hoped, and has sparked a substantial backlash from Iran.

The Qalamoun border region between Syria and Lebanon is a strategically important area and the battle for it “is likely to make major changes to the landscape of control in Syria.”  Control over Qalamoun threatens to cut off important rebel supply lines that runs from the Damascus suburbs to the mountain region, and to hinder the smuggling of arms and resources from Lebanon into Syria and vice versa, given the areas proximity to the Lebanese border.

In the beginning of May Hezbollah had achieved important victories over the Nusra Front-led Army of Conquest, the joint Saudi-Turkish coalition of extremist, and the ISIS militants that have been vying for control of the region.  By the end of the same month Hezbollah and the Syrian army had taken full control over Qalamoun.  Foreign Policy describes the victory as such: “Hezbollah fighters point out recently captured al-Nusra Front training sites and military positions, and describe how they’ve been able to clear the area of the jihadis. They pick their way over the remnants of the al Qaeda affiliate’s makeshift camp, where clothes, tins of foods, and shell casings are strewn across the ground.”  One commander had stated that they had cleared “about 40 positions belonging to the terrorists,” and had “liberated 120 square miles.”  While another fighter described that “80 percent of the recaptured area had been under al-Nusra Front’s control” prior to the offensive.

With the capture of Qalamoun the Syrian army and Hezbollah have secured the most important roads leading to Syria’s capital of Damascus from Lebanon, leaving al-Nusra with only one last supply route into the Rif Dimashq Governorate, located at the Al-Zabadani-Nehleh border crossing.  The victory is important for the Syrian government because “the mountain range is key in connecting Damascus to Homs and the rest of the Syrian coast,” while for Hezbollah it allows for “securing the supply routes in and out of Syria and preventing armed groups from infiltrating Lebanon.”  As a result, “Hezbollah not only sees the Qalamoun battle as a priority for its survival, but also sees itself as the first line of defence against a threat facing the entire country.”  According to one resident from the Bekaa village bordering the eastern mountain range, “If Hezbollah wasn't in Qalamoun right now, we would cease to exist,” adding further that “Maybe the people of Beirut aren't aware of this, but we certainly are.”(23)

Coupled with this important strategic victory and the prospect of Western-backed rebels gaining even more ground after their own successes, leaders from Hezbollah and Iran have been increasingly vocal about their support for Syria.  According to the Institute for the Study of War “These incidents will likely drive Iran to increase its direct economic and indirect military support to the Assad regime in order to bolster its ability to sustain the ­fight. In a speech delivered on May 23, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah will ­fight “wherever necessary” throughout Syria; other Hezbollah senior officials released their own statements confirming that Hezbollah will continue to back the Syrian regime for “however long it takes” despite recent setbacks. These messages of defi­ance suggest that Hezbollah will likely increase its support to the regime.”

Shortly afterwards, the normally publicly silent leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Major General Qasem Soleimani, asserted that plans being made by Damascus and Tehran would “surprise” the world.  "The world will be surprised by what we and the Syrian military leadership are preparing for the coming days," Iran's official IRNA state news agency quoted the general as saying.  Following this news, Israeli intelligence sources speculate that “Tehran is believed to be preparing to dispatch a substantial Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) special operations unit to Syria to tackle the separate rebel and ISIS advances closing in on the Assad regime.”(24)

While reports of IRGC forces intervening in Syria have not yet surfaced, on June 3^rd AFP reports that thousands of Iranian and Iraqi fighters have been deployed to Syria to bolster Damascus’ defenses, citing Syrian security sources as stating that “Around 7,000 Iranian and Iraqi fighters have arrived in Syria over the past few weeks and their first priority is the defence of the capital. The larger contingent is Iraqi.” 

Syria is believed to have appealed to Tehran and Russia to step up support following recent developments.  “The goal is to reach 10,000 men to support the Syrian army and pro-government militias, firstly in Damascus, and then to retake Jisr al-Shughur because it is key to the Mediterranean coast and the Hama region,” the source said.  The Daily Star quotes a Lebanese political source as stating that “Iran has sent 15,000 fighters to Syria to reverse recent battlefield setbacks for Syrian government troops and wants to achieve results by the end of the month.”  According to retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel W. Patrick Lang’s estimate “this is just the beginning of a large scale Iranian intervention in the Syrian civil war.  The entry into the Syria war of a large number of Iranian Quds force led troops would be a game changer.   Whether the fighters are Iranian, Iraqi or from the dark side of the moon their presence might well make a decisive change in the balance of combat power in Syria.”(25)

Following this reports have begun to surface announcing that Hezbollah is making major gains on Arsal’s outskirts and that the Syrian army has regained ground against Islamic State in Hasaka city.

It seems that the recent support to al-Qaeda by the US, the open intervention of Turkey and Saudi Arabia in support of jihadi extremists, the new Saudi king Salman’s increased aid to Islamists, and the recently ramped-up aid and introduction of advanced weaponry to all of these groups has finally hit a nerve with Iran and Russia, and has sparked a backlash.  All of which has further corroborated who, in fact, is actually serious about defeating the scourge of Islamist radicals that have recently plagued the Middle Eastern region, and in contrast who only talks as if they do, as well as those who openly support such inhumane developments for selfish geopolitical aims and hegemony.

Notes:

1.) Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf; Patrick Cockburn, “Preface” & “The Rise of ISIS”, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution (Brooklyn, NY, 2015). Pg. xx, 3. Print.

2.) The New York Times reports that the CIA is engaged in a clandestine operation to arm Syrian rebels, specifically choosing which rebels receive the lethal aid. Eric Schmitt, New York Times, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition.” June 21, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=0; The Times subsequently reports that the US-coordinated shipments are “largely going to hard-line Islamists”, Davide E. Sanger, New York Times, “Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria.” October 14, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/jihadists-receiving-most-arms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&; A 2012 DIA report notes that “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” and that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition.” Given this information, the US increased aid in the following years. Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf; A leading Syrian opposition leader, Dr. Haytham Manna, writing in The Guardian states “the pumping of arms to Syria, supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the phenomenon of the Free Syrian Army, and the entry of more than 200 jihadi foreigners into Syria in the past six months have all led to a decline in the mobilisation of large segments of the population… and in the activists' peaceful civil movement. The political discourse has become sectarian; there has been a Salafisation of religiously conservative sectors”, Haytham Manna, The Guardian, “Syria’s opposition has been led astray by violence.” June 22, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/22/syria-opposition-led-astray-by-violence.

3.) Desmond Butler, Huffington Post, “Turkey Officials Confirm Pact With Saudi Arabia to Help Rebels Fighting Syria’s Assad.” May 7^, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/turkey-saudi-arabia-syria-rebels-pact_n_7232750.html.

4.) Reuters, Hareetz, “Turkey helped Islamists take over Idlib, Syrian source accuses.” March 30, 2015. http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.649656.

5.) Charles Lister, Foreign Policy, “Why Assad is Losing.” May 5, 2015. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/05/why-assad-is-losing-syria-islamists-saudi/.

6.) Martin Chulov, The Guardian, “Amid the ruins of Syria, is Bashar al-Assad now finally facing the end?” May 23, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/syria-iran-isis-battle-arab-world?CMP=share_btn_tw.

7.) Debkafile, DEBKA Weekly Vol. 14, Issue 663, May 15, 2015.

8.) “Leaders of Syria's Nusra Front are considering cutting their links with al Qaeda… sources said.  Sources within and close to Nusra said that Qatar, which enjoys good relations with the group, is encouraging the group to go ahead with the move, which would give Nusra a boost in funding…  Intelligence officials from Gulf states including Qatar have met the leader of Nusra, Abu Mohamad al-Golani, several times in the past few months to encourage him to abandon al Qaeda and to discuss what support they could provide, the sources said.  They promised funding once it happens…  The Nusra Front is listed as a terrorist group by the United States and has been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. But for Qatar at least, rebranding Nusra would remove legal obstacles to supporting it.” Mariam Karouny, Reuters, “Syria’s Nusra Front may leave Qaeda to form new entity.” March 4, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/us-mideast-crisis-nusra-insight-idUSKBN0M00GE20150304.

9.) Associated Press in Ankara, Turkey, The Guardian, “Turkey and US ‘agree in principle’ to provide air support for Syrian rebels.” May 25, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/turkey-us-air-support-syria-rebels-agree-in-principle.

10.) Eli Lake, Bloomberg, “U.S. Saw Islamic State Coming, Let It Take Ramadi.” May 28, 2015. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-28/u-s-saw-islamic-state-coming-let-it-take-ramadi.

11.) Alastair Crooke, Huffington Post, “If Syria and Iraq Become Fractured, So Too Will Tripoli and North Lebanon.” June 1, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/syria-iraq-fractured_b_7471540.html.

12.) US blames lack of airstrikes on a sandstorm. Erich Shmitt, Helene Cooper, The New York Times, “ISIS Fighters Seized Advantage in Iraq Attack by Striking During Sandstorm.” May 18, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/world/middleeast/isis-fighters-seized-advantage-in-iraq-attack-by-striking-during-sandstorm.html?_r=0; US retracts statement about sandstorm after evidence emerges disproving these claims. Luis Martinez, ABC News, “Misunderstanding May Have Led Iraqi Troops to Leave Ramadi.” May 21, 2015. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/misunderstanding-led-iraqi-troops-leave-ramadi/story?id=31219607.

13.) Accounting Obama’s global drone campaign, the Guardian notes that out of 41 men targeted in Yemen and Pakistan, a total of 1,147 were killed, at least 149 of them being children, the reported data being only a fraction of those killed overall, the total civilian death toll likely being much worse. Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian, “41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground.” November 24, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147; A US-led airstrikes in northern Syria targets a town without any ISIS present, kills a total of 52 civilians in the process. Maya Gebeily, Agence France Presse, “US-led airstrikes ‘kill 52 civilians in northern Syria.’ May 2, 2015. http://news.yahoo.com/52-civilians-dead-coalition-strikes-syria-monitor-074747525.html; A series of Saudi airstrikes in May, conducted with the support of the US, struck a hospital and medical camp in southwestern Yemen killing at least 58 civilians and injuring another 67. The hospital was not being used by rebels and none of the dead was a rebel fighter.  Despite this and much more, US support for the assault continued. Hakim Almasmari, Melissa Gray, CNN, “Yemeni civilians killed in Saudi Airstrikes, officials say.” May 1, 2015. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/01/middleeast/yemen-crisis/index.html; US and Saudi naval blockade of Yemen blocks desperately needed aid, relegating 80% of the population under a humanitarian disaster. Julian Borger, The Guardian, “Saudi-led naval blockade leaves 20m Yemenis facing humanitarian disaster.” June 5, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/05/saudi-led-naval-blockade-worsens-yemen-humanitarian-disaster.

14.) Quote of Wahda Al-Jumaili, advisor to Iraq’s parliamentary speaker, The Middle East Media Research Institute, “Wahda Al-Jumaili, Advisor to Iraqi Parliament Speaker: Int'l Coalition Dropped Weapons, Which Enabled ISIS Takeover of Ramadi.” May 19, 2015. http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/4917.htm.

15.) Steven Chovanec, Underground Reports, “Iraq Sidelines US in Tikrit Offensive Amidst Accusations US is Arming ISIL.” March 12, 2015. http://undergroundreports.blogspot.com/2015/03/iraq-sidelines-us-in-tikrit-offensive.html.

16.) Ben Hubbard, The New York Times, “King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and the Royal Family.” May 10, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/world/middleeast/king-salman-upends-status-quo-in-region-and-the-royal-family.html?_r=0.

17.) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, C-SPAN. September 16, 2014. http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4509231/general-dempsey-acknowledges-us-arab-allies-funding-isis; Josh Rogin, The Daily Beast, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS.” June 14, 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html.

18.) Nafeez Ahmed, Middle East Eye, “Why the War on ISIS Will Fail.” December 16, 2014. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-war-isis-will-fail-1513487412.

19.) Roy Gutman, Mousab Alhamadee, McClatchy, “Rebels call for U.S. airstrikes as Islamic State advances near Aleppo.” June 1, 2015. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/01/268446/rebels-call-for-us-airstrikes.html.

20.)  Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf; Nafeez Ahmed, Medium “Ex-intel officials: Pentagon report proves US complicity in ISIS.” June 2, 2015.  https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/ex-intel-officials-pentagon-report-proves-us-complicity-in-isis-fabef96e20da.

21.) Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf; It is a tenant of law that the doer of an act must be taken to have intended its natural and foreseeable consequences. Given that the fall of Mosul and Ramadi were natural and foreseeable consequences and that the US-led coalition still continued the policies that were known to lead to these outcomes, the US and her allies must therefore be taken to have intended these outcomes, either directly or indirectly. Steven Chovanec, MintPress News, “New FOIA Doc Reveals How US Supported The Rise Of ISIS.” May 26, 2015.  http://www.mintpressnews.com/MyMPN/new-foia-doc-reveals-how-us-supported-the-rise-of-isis/; International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (1996), “Dissenting Opinion of Judge Weeramantry,” Chapter III, “Humanitarian Law,” section 10, “Specific rules of the humanitarian laws,” (a) “The prohibition against causing unnecessary suffering”.

22.) US-led coalition meets to discuss their “winning strategy” against ISIS, without inviting Russia, Iran, and Syria. BBC, “Iraq coalition winning against IS, says US.” June 2, 2015. http://m.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32962870; Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, “Isis in Kobani: Turkey’s act of abandonment may mark an ‘irrevocable breach’ with Kurds across the region.” October 7, 2014. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-kobani-turkeys-act-of-abandonment-may-mark-an-irrevocable-breach-with-kurds-across-the-region-9780941.html; Nafeez Ahmed, Ceasefire, “Story of a War Foretold: Why we’re fighting ISIS.” September 25, 2014. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/fighting-isis/.

23.) Alessandria Masi, International Business Times, “Hezbollah, Syrian Army Make Strategic Gains Against Al Qaeda-Led Rebels In Battle Of Qalamoun.” May 11, 2015.  http://www.ibtimes.com/hezbollah-syrian-army-make-strategic-gains-against-al-qaeda-led-rebels-battle-1917734; The Daily Star, “Hezbollah, Syrian army seize control of new Qalamoun hill.” May 15, 2015. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/May-15/298074-hezbollah-syrian-rebels-clash-for-control-of-west-qalamoun.ashx; Nour Samaha, Al Jazeera, “Nasrallah declares victory in Syria’s Qalamoun.” May 16, 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/nasrallah-declares-victory-syria-qalamoun-150516192033488.html; Leith Fadel, Al-Masdar News, “The Syrian Army and Hezbollah Triumph Over Al-Qaeda in the Qalamoun Mountains.” May 29, 2015. http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/the-syrian-army-and-hezbollah-triumph-over-al-qaeda-in-the-qalamoun-mountains/; Nour Samaha, Foreign Policy, “Hezbollah Is ‘Stronger Than Ever’.” June 1, 2015. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/01/hezbollah-is-stronger-than-ever-isis-syria/; Nour Samaha, Al Jazeera, “Why Qalamoun matters for Hezbollah.” May 11, 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/150511085809867.html.

24.) Jack Moore, Newsweek, “Iranian military mastermind Soleimani vows to ‘surprise’ world in Syria.” June 3, 2015. http://europe.newsweek.com/iranian-military-mastermind-soleimani-vows-surprise-world-syria-328161; DEBKAfile, “Iranian Rev Guards ready to intervene in Syria to save Assad. Soleimani: Expect major events in Syria.” June 3, 2015. http://www.debka.com/article/24639/.

25.) Agence France Presse, “Iraq, Iran fighters deployed to defend Damascus: security source.” June 3, 2015. http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-iran-fighters-deployed-defend-damascus-security-source-143253360.html; The Daily Star, “Iran sends 15,000 fighters to Syria.” June 4, 2015. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jun-04/300520-iran-sends-15000-fighters-to-syria.ashx; Patrick Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis, “Is Soleimani’s “Surprise” underway?” June 4, 2015. http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/06/httpwwwdailystarcomlbnewsmiddle-east2015jun-04300520-iran-sends-15000-fighters-to-syriaashx.html.

How the US Sponsored the Rise of ISIS and Aided the Fall of Mosul and Ramadi

The US-led coalition now attempting to appear as though they are fighting ISIS knowingly aided the rise of the Islamic State for the purposes of isolating Assad and combating expanding Iranian influence.

At least as far back as August of 2012 the very same anti-IS coalition knew full well that the precursors to ISIS, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), dominated the Syrian opposition along with other al-Qaeda affiliated groups.  They knew that AQI was declining during 2009-10, yet was resurrected due to the insurgency in Syria.  In spite of this, the US and her allies continued to provide aid, funding, weaponry, and training to these same extremist groups and their closest associates, specifically seeing their rise (and the horrendous crimes against humanity they committed) as a strategic asset for their geopolitical goals.

The rise of the Islamic State not only was predicted, it was the expressed aim of the powers sponsoring the Syrian opposition.  Despite the fact that the rise of an Islamic State was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, including the fall of Mosul and Ramadi, support from the US-coalition to the Syrian opposition continued to manifest, leading to the conclusion that this was either the expressed intent, or an accepted byproduct of these policy decisions.

A 7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated to August of 2012, recently released under a Freedom Of Information Act request, specifically states that the Syrian opposition was by that time “taking a clear sectarian direction,” and that “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”

AQI, the precursor group which later formed into the Islamic State, “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning.”  After suffering “a regression… during the years of 2009 and 2010" just prior to the outbreak of the conflict, it was the resumption of hostilities which revitalized them as "religious and tribal powers in the regions began to sympathize with the sectarian uprising."

Despite these facts, it is “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey [who] support the opposition,” while “Russia, China, and Iran support the regime."  It was predicted that “ISI (Islamic State in Iraq) could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria” if the situation continued to unravel, and that “there is a possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria” if support to the opposition continued.  This is exactly what transpired in the years after 2012 with the declaration of the Islamic State.  Yet not only was this predicted, it was also “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion.”(emphasis added)  This unwanted "Shia expansion" is explained as extending into Iraq.  The "supporting powers" who "want" these developments are “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.”

The report goes on to state that “the future assumptions of the crisis” are that “the regime will survive,” and that the current events are developing “into a proxy war” between Iran, Russia, and China, and the West, Gulf, and Turkey.  Further, the report accurately predicts the fall of Mosul and Ramadi 2 years before their occurrence, stating that “the deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation."  This deterioration "creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters.”  This could as well “create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”

This document was classified as “secret” and distributed to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the DIA, FBI, CIA, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, Central Command, and other agencies.  It is an Intelligence Information Report, not a “finally evaluated intelligence” assessment, yet its information was vetted before distribution.

Therefore, the US-led coalition that is now “fighting” ISIS continually supported an opposition it knew to be dominated by sectarian extremists, lying to the public while describing them as “moderate.”  The US predictably knew that this support would result in the establishment of an “Islamic State” yet continued to aid in such an establishment in order to weaken Assad and combat expanding Iranian influence.

It is a tenant of law that the “doer of an act must be taken to have intended its natural and foreseeable consequences.”(1)  Therefore, given that the rise of ISIS was a “natural and foreseeable consequence” of continually aiding a sectarian opposition, the US and her allies must be taken to have intended these outcomes, irrespective even of the documents own admission of intent.  Furthermore, the document specifically demarcates Iraq as a center for Iranian "Shia"expansion, while accurately predicting the fall of both Mosul and Ramadi to Sunni extremists, a fall which assures against this unwanted Iranian expansion, leading to the conclusion that the recent ISIS gains in both cities was not something that the US opposed, but something it desired.  Given that the fall of Mosul and Ramadi too were “natural and foreseeable consequences,” and as well the severely questionable ways in which each city fell, along with the fact that US policy in the region continued despite the fact that these outcomes were predicted, the US and her allies must therefore be taken to have intended these outcomes, whether directly or indirectly.

The fall of Mosul in June of 2014, it must be remembered, was "pretty remarkable," as described by Noam Chomsky.

"In fact, western military analysts were astonished," Chomsky continues. "Remember what happened.  Iraq has an army, and the Iraqi army knows how to fight.  During the Iran-Iraq war that army fought hard and viciously, and in fact ultimately won the war, with US support.  There was an Iraqi army of 350,000 men, armed to the teeth with all kinds of advanced weapons.  They had been trained by the United States for over a decade.  They were faced by a couple of thousand lightly armed jihadi’s.  First thing that happened was all the generals ran away. Then all the troops ran away, leaving their weapons behind them.  And then the jihadi forces just marched into Mosul and then into large parts of Iraq.  It was a pretty amazing phenomenon, it tells you a lot if you think about it.”

During this amazing phenomenon “the Iraqi security forces disintegrated and fled, the rout led by their commanding officers.”  According to one Iraqi soldier “on the morning of June 10 his commanding officer told the men to stop shooting, hand over their rifles to the insurgents, take off their uniforms, and get out of the city.”(2)

Mosul was simply given away to by a battle-hardened army of 350,000 men to a lightly armed brigade of roughly 1,300 Islamists (3), the commanding military officers specifically ordering their subordinates to leave their weapons for the jihadists and to flee.

Some pretty straightforward questions come to mind here.

Had this “remarkable” fall been desired by the US-coalition in order to “isolate” the “strategic depth of Shia expansion” in Iraq?  Or rather, “had the senior Iraqi commanders been instructed by their Western military advisers to hand over the city to the ISIS terrorists? Were they co-opted?” as Professor Michel Chossudovsky rightly had asked when this occurred? 

The more recent fall of Ramadi was equally as dubious.

The US-led coalition, which had promised to defend Iraq against the Islamic State, basically allowed Ramadi to fall, conducting only 7 airstrikes during the duration of the battle, which is such a low number as to be completely irrelevant to the outcome.  The remarkably weak excuse given for this was that a great sandstorm had prevented them from conducting regular attacks.  This despite the fact that the next day ISIS was seen holding victory parades among perfectly clear skies, the militants assembling in massive columns down wide open streets:

(MailOnline, May 19, 2015)

With no “sandstorm” present airstrikes could have easily wiped out entire factions of the extremists in a situation like this, yet no attempt had been made.  Why?  Had this too been desired by the US-coalition in order to “isolate” the “strategic depth of Shia expansion” in Iraq?

Further adding fuel to this fire is the accusation of Wahda Al-Jumaili, advisor to Iraq’s parliamentary speaker, who commented on the city's fall the very next day stating: “Whether this was the result of treason, neglect, or conspiracy, or a regional or international plot… Even the international coalition has played a bad role.  People saw the international coalition dropping weapons for ISIS.  They dropped heavy weaponry to the forces of terrorism in Ramadi.  This is an act of treason by the international coalition forces.”

This, however, was not the first time an Iraqi politician has accused the US-coalition of dropping weapons and aid to ISIS, albeit perhaps the first time the accusation came a day after the group overtook a major city.  This is a phenomenon that has been going on for some time now, in one incident two British planes were even shot down by the Iraqis under charges that they were dropping weapons to ISIS.  Photographic evidence was taken of the downed planes.  Iraqi parliamentarian Jome Divan stated that “The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons.  The coalition has not targeted ISIL's main positions in Iraq.”  This being only two of a plethora of Iraqi politicians who have consistently been making these claims.

In any event the spillover into Iraq and the fall of Mosul and Ramadi were no doubt predictable consequences of the Wests' Syria policy, and in some instances it appears as though the US specifically aided in their fall. Therefore, at the very least this spread of ISIS into Iraq was an accepted consequence of the US strategy in Syria, and at worst it represents an intended partition of Iraq by terrorist groups acting as proxies.

Given this, and the fact that the US-coalition continuously aided the Syrian opposition knowing full well that this would then lead to the declaration of an “Islamic State”, the consequences of which were the predictable fall of Mosul and Ramadi, coupled with the remarkable manner in which both fell, it would be wise to consider the claims of the numerous Iraqi politicians very seriously, and as well to sincerely question whether or not the fall of these two cities really does have a more believable, albeit much more sinister, explanation behind them.

Notes:

1.)   International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (1996), “Dissenting Opinion of Judge Weeramantry,” Chapter III, “Humanitarian Law,” section 10, “Specific rules of the humanitarian laws,” (a) “The prohibition against causing unnecessary suffering” (emphasis in original).

2.)   Cockburn, Patrick. "The Rise of ISIS." The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2015. 15. Print.

3.)   Ibid, 11.

Additional Sources:

Ahmed, Nafeez. "Iraq Blowback: Isis Rise Manufactured by Insatiable Oil Addiction." The Guardian. 16 June 2014. Web. Accessed 23 May 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/16/blowback-isis-iraq-manufactured-oil-addiction.

The Fall of Palmyra: The Result of US-Coalition Ramping up Aid to Extremists

News reports have begun to come in about the fall of Palmyra to ISIS in Syria, and while most Western media has rightly been concerned with the city’s ancient ruins, few mentions have been given to the welfare of the people living in the region, or the fact that “The Syrian army launched a massive operation to evacuate as many civilians as possible of the city’s 100,000 inhabitants before its epic defeat.” (Debkafile, May 20, 2015) 

Perhaps it is not expedient to the Western narrative to report the fact that the Syrian army is heavily invested in the protection of its people.

However, these outlets do note that “The capture of Palmyra is the first time the al Qaeda offshoot has taken control of a city directly from the Syrian army and allied forces, which have already lost ground in the northwest and south to other insurgent groups in recent weeks.” (Reuters, May 20, 2015) (emphasis added)

The title “insurgent groups” is a euphemism for al-Qaeda, as “the Syrian military opposition is dominated by ISIS and by Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qaeda representative, in addition to other jihadi groups,”(1) and their gains are not some recent aberration but instead are the direct result of the US-led coalition ramping up aid to their proxy forces in the region.

In the Israeli intelligence source Debkafile’s recent weekly newsletter they specifically point out that “Bashar Assad’s fortunes have been waning in recent weeks. His army’s morale is in the pits. Some units are keeping to the sidelines of battles. Iran no longer rushes forward with fresh military supplies. Hizballah, the strongest force still fighting for Assad, is taking heavy losses at the hands of Al Qaeda’s Syrian arm, the Nusra Front. All this is the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey – blessed by Washington after long hesitation.” (DEBKA Weekly Vol. 14, Issue 663, May 15, 2015) (emphasis added)

Thus the “insurgent” al-Qaeda groups that have recently been making gains against the Syrian army are doing so because of the heavy weaponry they have recently received from their backers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey… all blessed by the oversight and direction of Washington.

Further revealing Washington’s hand in leading al-Qaeda from behind is a recent report by analyst Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute Doha Center, in which it was admitted that the operation rooms headed by the US in Turkey and Jordan specifically encouraged forces of the Syrian opposition to work closely with al-Qaeda in order to achieve these recent gains, a cooperation that has been known to knowledgeable analysts for years, yet which is now fully admitted in the open: 

“The involvement of FSA groups, in fact, reveals how the factions’ backers have changed their tune regarding coordination with Islamists. Several commanders involved in leading recent Idlib operations confirmed to this author that the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey, which coordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to vetted opposition groups, was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation from early April onwards. That operations room — along with another in Jordan, which covers Syria’s south — also appears to have dramatically increased its level of assistance and provision of intelligence to vetted groups in recent weeks. 

“Whereas these multinational operations rooms have previously demanded that recipients of military assistance cease direct coordination with groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, recent dynamics in Idlib appear to have demonstrated something different. Not only were weapons shipments increased to the so-called “vetted groups,” but the operations room specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.” (Foreign Policy, “Why Assad is Losing”, May 5, 2015) (emphasis added)

Although the author acts as if this cooperation of US-backed rebels and Islamist extremist is a “change of tune”, in reality it is actually “business as usual,” at least by US-backed rebel commanders own admissions.  A video, which has been authenticated by the leading Syria expert in the US, Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma, documents a meeting between US Ambassador to Syria Robert Stephen Ford (for more information on Robert Ford consult this article) and Free Syrian Army Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi.  The same video shows Col. Okaidi celebrating a recent victory with ISIS Emir Abu Jandal.  The Free Syrian Army is the largest recipient of US aid and commonly referred to in Western media as the “moderate” opposition.  The video goes on to show footage of Col. Okaidi speaking in various interviews about FSA’s connection with ISIS and al-Qaeda, himself even stating that al-Nusra do not “exhibit any abnormal behavior, which is different from that of the FSA.”  He also states that “My relationship with the brothers in ISIL is good… I communicate almost daily with brothers in ISIL… the relationship is good, even brotherly.”  The video shows the same ISIS Emir Abu Jandal a few minutes after his celebration with Col. Okaidi stating that “The Islamic State is here to stay!” another ISIS fighter is then seen saying “I swear to Allah, O Alawites, we came to slaughter you.  Await what you deserve!”

This unfortunately is the true and shameful history of US support to the “moderate” Syrian opposition.

The recent gains of ISIS in Palmyra are not separate from these events however.  It must be remembered that the Islamists who are now receiving their first shipments of heavy weaponry from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey are not limited to al-Qaeda and the Nusra Front, but include ISIS as well.  The Western support for ISIS goes further than US-backed groups openly collaborating with ISIS.  In Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey’s own words, it is these same Arab allies, “our Arab allies,” who “fund ISIS.”

A recent report by the New York Times would further detail how our “Arab allies” are stepped up support for these extremist elements: 

“King Salman, 79, has shifted toward an activist foreign policy, going to war in Yemen and increasing support for rebels in Syria as he positions his country as the defender of the region’s Sunnis. In some cases, he has sanctioned allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda… And his support for Islamists could end up empowering extremists, just as Saudi support for the Afghan jihad decades ago helped create Al Qaeda… In another shift, King Salman appears to have discarded his predecessor’s rejection of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood as a fundamental threat to the regional order…  In March, he received Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Riyadh. The two agreed to work together to support the rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, according to Yasin Aktay, the foreign relations chief for Turkey’s governing party.

“Although Mr. Aktay said that only moderate groups received support, many of Syria’s most effective fighters are staunch Islamists who often fight alongside the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, raising the possibility that aid might also empower extremists. 

“King Salman has a history of working with Islamists. Decades ago, he was a royal point man and fund-raiser for jihadists going to Afghanistan, Bosnia and elsewhere.” (NYT, “King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and the Royal Family”, May 10, 2015)

Therefore, despite the Times whitewash of attempting to separate “support for Islamists” from support for extremists, stating that support for Islamists only could “end up empowering extremists” rather than the obvious fact that these are one in the same, what the Times is saying, without actually saying, is that “our Arab ally” King Salman, who has a “history of working with Islamists” and who “funds ISIS”, has recently increased “support for rebels in Syria”, has increased support for ISIS, sanctioned “allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda”, and has “discarded” a “rejection of political Islamists”, therefore fully embracing them.

Therefore the recent gains made by the extremist opposition in Syria is the direct “outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition… from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.”  These states are “our Arab allies who fund ISIS,” Saudi Arabia itself specifically “increasing support for rebels” and “sanctioning allying with Islamists.”  All of these developments of course being “blessed by Washington.”

The Obama administration recently approves the shipment of heavy weaponry to the Syrian opposition after long hesitation, the US-led operation rooms in Turkey and Jordan openly encourage working with al-Qaeda to defeat Assad’s army, and the new Saudi King Salman, whose country is the main funder of ISIS, openly has ramped up support to Islamists in Syria, all the while al-Qaeda makes recent gains in the northwest and south, while ISIS makes its gains in the eastern region of Palmyra.

All just one big coincidence?  I think not…

Notes:

1.)    Cockburn, Patrick. "The Rise of ISIS." The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2015. 3. Print.

The West Doesn't Want to End the Syrian Crisis

Western Leaders Feign Sympathy for a Crisis They Instigated & Intensified:

Obama in 2014 stated “we must… [pursue] the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all,” Senator McCain as well recently said “But what haunts me even more than the horror unfolding before our eyes in Syria is the thought that we will continue to do nothing meaningful about it.”  However it is helpful to ask, are our leaders at all serious in their remarks?

Ever since at least as far back as 2005 the US has been financing and training anti-government oppositions in Syria with a view toward regime-change.  When members of these US-funded groups complain about their connections to America, concerned over serving foreign interests rather than the national cause, evidence from Egypt shows that they are quickly ousted from membership. (1) 

The ostensible justification for this funding is ‘democracy promotion,’ however we should remember what International Relations scholar John J. Mearsheimer said about Washington’s democracy promotion activities abroad, referring to the crisis in Ukraine he stated “and when you talk about promoting democracy, what you’re really talking about is putting in power leaders who are pro-Western and anti-Russian… promoting democracy, which was all about putting in power pro-Western leaders.”

However, Syria was in the crosshairs of the empire long before 2005.  In a speech given in 2007, General Wesley Clark recounts a conversation he had with then Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in 1991 regarding Operation Desert Storm.  He quotes Wolfowitz as saying “one thing that we learned is that we can use our military in the Middle East and the Soviets won’t stop us, and we got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

In the same speech Clark recounts another conversation he had 6 weeks after 9/11 with an officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which the officer quotes a classified memo received from the Secretary of Defense’s office which stated that it was US policy to attack and destroy the governments of 7 different countries in the next 5 years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran.

Long before any outrage was spurned at Assad’s crackdown of protesters, and long before any pretexts or justifications were concocted, it was already decided that the US would attack and topple the Syrian government, going at least as far back as 1991.  The intention of regime change came first, propaganda and pretexts came later.

Further adding to this evidence is the testimony of former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, who stated on television that roughly 2 years before hostilities began in Syria British officials admitted to him that they were ‘preparing something’ in the country.  “England was preparing the invasion of the rebels in Syria,” he said, stating that the officials had asked him to participate, to which he refused. “This is to say that this operation comes from far away.  It was prepared, conceived, and organized… in the simple purpose of removing the Syrian government, because, in the region, it is important to know that this Syrian regime has anti-Israel remarks…  I’m judging the confidence of the Israeli Prime Minister who had told me a while ago: “We will try to get along with the neighboring states, and those who don’t get along, we will take them down.”  It is a policy.  It is a conception of history.”

Eventually this policy, this conception of history, coupled with the financing of regime-change opposition groups, deteriorating social conditions, and the legitimate need for reforms, culminated in very minor, small-scale and sporadic anti-government demonstrations in Syria in early 2011.  The real unrest began in mid-March when clashes between protesters and police occurred in the southern city of Daraa.  From that point the conflict began to escalate.  Media reports in the West became flooded with news of Assad’s violent crackdown of protesters, and the Syrian government is in no way justified for violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations and brutal military crackdowns, however little attention was paid to the fact that at this time the protesters had as well been armed, and had been attacking the security forces, or the fact that significant pro-government demonstrations also occurred.

In Daraa the unrest began when demonstrators destroyed governmental buildings which prompted a response from the government. (2)  It should be noted however that those protesting in Daraa were largely motivated by genuine desires for change and to oppose abuses of power, much like our own Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements in the West, and the courage shown by these individuals to demonstrate in a state where doing so meant harsh and brutal repressions deserves to be honored and commended.  However the possibility of foreign involvement threatened to exploit the unrest and usurp the population’s hardships for non-domestic interests, to use the Syrians blood, sweat, and tears to achieve their own self-interested geopolitical goals.  Thus while facing government repression another more daunting challenge faced the local demonstrators as well…

Amidst reports of violent crackdowns, Israeli National News on March 21^st would report that “Seven police and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday.” The report indicates that although the government’s response had been brutal, the opposition was not altogether peaceful, but instead were armed and firing at police.  There were more police killed than protesters in this incident.  (emphasis mine)

On March 29^th Reuters would report that tens of thousands of Syrians gathered for a pro-government rally, signifying that many in the country continued to support the government, corroborating later polls organized by Qatar which found that the majority of Syrians (55%) wanted Assad to stay in power.

Tens of thousands of Syrians gather for a pro-government rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011.  CREDIT: REUTERS/WAEL HMEDAN

By August 1^st, Israel’s Debkafile intelligence news source, awarded Forbe’s “Best of the Web” award, would report that “[Syrian forces] are now running into heavy resistance: Awaiting them are anti-tank traps and fortified barriers manned by protesters armed with heavy machine guns… Syrian troops encountered armed resistance… there is no shortage of arms.” (emphasis mine)

These were no typical protests, armed with anti-tank machinery and heavy machine guns.  How did they accomplish this without significant foreign assistance?

Debkafile would report on August 15^th “NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. Instead of repeating the Libyan model of air strikes, NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces… the arms would be trucked into Syria under Turkish military guard and transferred to rebel leaders at pre-arranged rendezvous…

Given Debka’s previous report, these heavy machine guns and anti-tank equipment seem to already have entered Syria.  This report would go on to state “Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria.” (emphasis mine)

This have since been verified.

It has been an open secret that there has been a steady supply line of arms and fighters from Turkey into Syria, Vice President Joe Biden even admitting as much, and recently Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) veteran Önder Sığırcıkoğlu has stated that all weapons supplies and militant incursions into Syria from Turkey were organized by MIT.  Estimates as well attest to the fact that not only thousands, but tens of thousands of foreign fighters hailing from over 80 different countries have made their way into Syria to fight for the opposition.  Reports surfacing later would as well detail the kinds of ‘Muslim volunteers’ that were being recruited and supported, Christian rights groups would document attacks on Christians amidst the chants “Alawites to the grave and Christians to Beirut!”, the New York Times would report that the flow of arms was going “largely to hard-line Islamists,” and other reports detailed how the rebels recruited and trained by the US were largely going on to join extremist elements like ISIS.

This all tells us that from the beginning of clashes in March the protesters were armed, and that by August they bore the resemblance of a full-on insurgency incorporated with extremist elements, yet how could this be possible without foreign sponsorship?

The reports also demonstrate that at least by August the West was drawing plans for an insurgency, however further evidence attests to the fact that this foreign intervention actually began much sooner.

In a series of reports in November and December, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, described as credible by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, would break the story that US and NATO, accompanied by hundreds of soldiers, were operating a secret training camp in Turkey to “organize and expand the dissident base in Syria,” since April-May of 2011, where operations were conducted to smuggle US weapons into Syria, conduct psychological and information warfare, and to help funnel intelligence and military operators across the border.  Sibel quotes high-level, insider governmental sources from both the US and Turkey, as well as journalists and eye-witnesses on the ground, who had first contacted main-stream news outlets who had refused to cover the story, one BBC reporter even being detained and barred from reporting on the matter.  It would be picked up by Turkish and Iranian media. (3)

These accounts, verified by high-level sources and foreign media outlets, further corroborate Debkafile’s reports of NATO arming and facilitating fighters to the opposition, though revealing that this had already begun long before Debka learned of it, and helps to explain the violent nature of the conflicts beginnings, a time when Western media was only reporting on the violence of government crackdowns, refusing to cover this story, and refusing to cover the violence of the protesters, all of this further suggesting that the violent nature of the opposition was largely a product of foreign involvement and that the Western press would not cover this fact.

A month before these revelations in September, WikiLeaks cables of Stratfor communications would attest to the violent nature of the protests “The opposition remains largely nonviolent,” and would go on to verify that the protests movements were incapable of large armed resistance, the kind that Debkafile had reported was already present, without substantial foreign involvement “the opposition is very unlikely to overwhelm and topple the regime without substantial foreign military and financial backing… Without foreign backing, the opposition movement is unlikely to acquire enough money or gain enough traction to acquire large quantities of weaponry, let alone achieve regime change. The movement is simply too small and too ill equipped.” (emphasis mine)

Sibel’s revelations of foreign aid beginning in April, corroborated by reports of armed protesters beginning at the end of March, Stratfor’s assessment that that a viable armed resistance was only possible through substantial foreign backing, and Debkafile’s reports of a heavily armed opposition by August, further verify the foreign hand in instigating and facilitating the beginning of the crisis; without substantial foreign backing the relatively small-scale protests would never have been able to spawn into the armed resistance that they did; the ‘civil war’ was a product of foreign intervention.

Further corroborating these assertions is a PressTV article quoted by Sibel in her reports, which cites Syrian state media detailing confessions made by captured rebels about receiving foreign aid “Confessions by a number of Syrian rebels about foreign-sponsored plans to carry out armed operations and killing ordinary people as well as security forces prove that recent developments in the country are part of an attempt to incite a revolt in the strategic country neighboring the Israeli regime, aiming to overthrow the current government and replace it with a US-backed regime... Damascus blames the violence on foreign-sponsored terrorist groups, with the Syrian state TV broadcasting reports showing seized weapons caches and confessions by terrorists describing how they obtained arms from foreign sources.”

A month after these reports in December another WikiLeaks cable would prove this foreign involvement. 

The cable accounts a December 2011 meeting at the Pentagon between Stratfor personnel and United States Air Force (USAF) officers at the Lieutenant Colonel level, who would detail how Special Operations Forces, presumably from the US, UK, France, Jordan, and Turkey, were “already on the ground focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces.”  The USAF officials would state that “there isn't much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now,” further validating the claim that the armed resistance was not domestic but instead was a product of foreign intervention. 

The officials would detail the nature of their mission “the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within,” no mention of freedom or democracy mind you, the goal was regime-change, the same goal behind the financing of opposition since 2005, and they were willing to use violence to do it. (emphasis mine)

That same month Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, would corroborate this information citing CIA sources “NATO is already clandestinely engaged in the Syrian conflict, with Turkey taking the lead as U.S. proxy… The intervention would be based on humanitarian principles, to defend the civilian population based on the “responsibility to protect” doctrine that was invoked to justify Libya…

“Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum [sic] on the Syrian border, delivering weapons from the late Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenals as well as volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council... French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause…

“CIA analysts are skeptical regarding the march to war. The frequently cited United Nations report that more than 3,500 civilians have been killed by Assad’s soldiers is based largely on rebel sources and is uncorroborated. The [Central Intelligence] Agency has refused to sign off on the claims. Likewise, accounts of mass defections from the Syrian Army and pitched battles between deserters and loyal soldiers appear to be a fabrication, with few defections being confirmed independently. Syrian government claims that it is being assaulted by rebels who are armed, trained, and financed by foreign governments are more true than false.” (emphasis mine)

Another enlightening revelation is gleaned from the previous WikiLeaks cable, especially in light of the pretexts used to justify the US bombing campaigns.  The Lt. Col. USAF officials were acutely aware that bombing was only possible if there was enough media attention on a massacre committed by Assad (read- the false claims that, now debunked, Assad had used chemical weapons in 2013) “They dont [sic] believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very public stage.”  Thus we see that there was an intention to bomb long before any ‘red-lines’ were crossed, long before any ISIL was present, and they needed perceived massacres by Assad to do it.  One need only look at Western media headlines to see this playing out in the supreme, laser-like focus that is given to Assad’s bombings, with nowhere near comparable attention given to massacres committed by US-backed rebels, even though death-toll figures indicate that the rebels are responsible for the majority of the deaths overall, and not Assad’s forces. (emphasis mine)

This intention of utilizing mass killings to justify military intervention is well known.  In 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, and current un-official aid and mentor to President Obama, wrote that “[America] may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat…  It [a consensus on foreign policy issues during WWII] was rooted, however, not only in deeply shared democratic values, which the public sensed were being threatened, but also in a cultural and ethnic affinity for the predominantly European victims of hostile totalitarianism.” (4) (emphasis mine)

Surely the consensus fashioned from perceived victims of Assad’s government is not the product of a shared affinity with other Europeans, however we can see how the same kind of consensus against hostile totalitarianism has been formed in the case of the Syrian crisis, and further how a US bombing campaign, and overt US military involvement more generally, necessitated this kind of perception amongst the public, something that is well known to high-level policy planners.

Without the hyper-focus on Assad’s crimes, and the complete media black-out of the nature of the armed insurgency, their presence as well as their aggressive actions, a foreign policy consensus for overt foreign involvement in the Syrian crisis would not have been possible.

Following these developments reports started to openly admit the foreign nature of the conflict, however while still portraying it as a domestic ‘civil war’ and not a proxy insurgency.  Yet we can see that this representation is not at all the reality, and that this conflict was instigated and started by the very same Western leaders who claim to want to see it end, erroneously blaming Assad for starting a conflict that their actions actually facilitated.  Remember that a violent and armed opposition was not possible without foreign intervention, that there was not ‘much of a Free Syrian Army’ present until NATO arrived, that Syria was in the crosshairs of the empire long before any ‘red-lines’ were crossed, and that as soon as Western involvement began throwing money, guns, and foreign fighters into the mix, the clashes between an armed opposition and the Syrian security forces began, and all blame was placed upon Assad because an affinity for ‘victims of hostile totalitarianism’ was needed to ‘fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues,’ and justify Western involvement in the eyes of the public.

How are we then to believe that our leaders are honestly seeking an end to the hostilities, when those very same leaders are the ones who began them?  When they as well continually insist on escalating the violence and bloodshed by pouring more money and weaponry into the country? 

The truth is they have never wanted to see it end, lest Assad was ousted and they themselves gained power over Syrian policy-making.  The recent calls by John Kerry for a negotiated settlement, if serious, represent a concession from the West that they have failed in their military goals, and are resorting to a political solution as a final resort.  Their real intent from the very beginning was always to foment unrest with a view toward regime-change, and then to highlight Assad’s inevitable crackdowns while supporting an armed insurgency against him, obfuscating the fact that there was an armed insurgency of their own making directed against government forces, and to use the violence of the government as justification for further attacks, thus making their attacks appear defensive rather than an offensive, which of course they were not.

Therefore, what occurred in Daraa was not simply an authoritarian regime violently cracking down on peaceful protesters but instead was a situation whereby the violent clashes involved significant foreign involvement.  The protest movement was hijacked by foreign powers who would seek to exploit the unrest for their own ends, and therefore the ‘revolution’ was actually anything but, and was instead the result of a proxy insurrection and attack upon the Syrian state by foreign powers which displaced the sincere protest base and eliminated any prospects for actual reforms, reforms which could have been possible had the Syrian people been left free from foreign intervention to determine their own affairs.  This is corroborated by the Syrian opposition activist Dr. Haytham Manna who was involved in the uprising since its inception “The first negative result of the use of arms was to undermine the broad popular support necessary to transform the uprising into a democratic revolution… the pumping of arms to Syria, supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the phenomenon of the Free Syrian Army, and the entry of more than 200 jihadi foreigners into Syria in the past six months have all led to a decline in the mobilisation of large segments of the population… and in the activists' peaceful civil movement. The political discourse has become sectarian; there has been a Salafisation of religiously conservative sectors.”

The media would then walk in lock-step with the narrative that suited the US establishment’s interests, even going so far as to detain journalists and block reporting when credible insider information came to light, thus obscuring the true nature of the situation in the eyes of the Western public, which made it possible to fashion a consensus for this specific foreign policy issue.

Surely the small scale and sporadic protests that began before March in 2011 were met with violent repression from the Syrian state, and none of these findings absolve the Assad government from blame for this, however it is also true that these opposition movements were financed, trained, and advised by the US through ‘democracy promotion’ endeavors, that evidence shows that when members of these groups complain about their connections to Washington they are subsequently ousted from membership.  The goal of financing these groups is regime-change, intended in Syria for 2 decades, and from the very beginning the US was arming and training the opposition to attack the state.  Money, weaponry, and foreign fighters flowed in and were facilitated by the US special forces from the onset with a view towards targeted assassinations and eliciting a collapse from within.  The government needed justification for this which was accomplished by the media’s refusal to report on information that ran counter to the official narrative. 

Open-source information detailed in this report demonstrates that what is commonly referred to as the Syrian “civil war” is more accurately described as a proxy insurgency that exploited the social unrest in the country to go about achieving a long-standing policy goal of regime-change in Damascus.  This further belies the stated claims of Western officials that they are at all serious about ending a crisis which they themselves instigated and escalated, and suggests that the only way the crisis will end is if the West achieves its stated goal of regime-change or if they are forced to accept a political settlement in the face of a military defeat or stalemate.

Recent developments suggest that they have failed in their attempts to oust Assad; the pro-government forces are too well equipped and the government maintains too large of a domestic support base.  Impediments to the West accepting the inevitable political solution consist of the intent to further inflame the conflict as a means to keep Syria weak and unstable, using that as leverage to force concessions from Damascus and weaken the resistance bloc of Syria, Iran, and Russia, the fears from US allies that the jihadi’s they have been backing for years would turn against their own regimes in light of a cessation of hostilities in Syria, and the US and its allies insistence on molding Syrian policy-making to conform to their own interests, shown in their persistence that Assad must step down.  Until these impediments are overcome, or until domestic populations force their leaders to stop committing these crimes, atrocities, and aggressions, the best we can hope for is to watch Syria’s secular society deteriorate until it falls victim to the fate of countless other recipients of Western ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’

The hope is that domestic populations overcome the propaganda narrative propagated by the main-stream media and the ideological supporters of state-terror and expose the Syrian crisis for what it really is, and demand to hold those guilty accountable for their crimes.

The Syrian population is strong and resilient in the face of imperial aggression, we in the West who are privileged enough to not be suffering a similar fate thus have a great responsibility to use all of our resources and democratic freedoms to reverse the tide of the unjust policies committed in our names by our governments, which constitute nothing less than crimes against humanity.  This is by no means impossible, and we in the West have the unique ability to oppose state policy with a great degree of freedom.  We should use this opportunity to combat imperialism, to give the Syrians back the sovereignty they deserve, and to restore back to America the values and ideals that are actually worthy of the people who inhabit it, those that we were taught our country represented in school, yet that since we have learned were mere ideological cover for something much worse. 

But we can change that.

We should be as strong as the Syrians who face with courage untold terror committed against them on a daily basis by our governments, and never let ourselves forget that “It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

And perhaps most absent from analysis on Syria are the voices of the Syrian people themselves, their thoughts, desires, feelings, and pronouncements.  Their experiences, the ones aggressor nations claim to represent, unfortunately fall upon deaf ears in the West.

To counter this, here I have quoted a lost voice from Lattakia, Afrona, a Syrian born architect, as she recounts her experience under the ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ that Washington had brought to her country, and the foreign involvement they had attempted to hide from the prying eyes of their domestic civilian populations:

“It was 2011 , the year of the color revolution , arab spring , the real color was black , and the real season was without features ,Obama and the global society never feel shy to announce it as it is a freedom revolution! 

 syrian people was worried of what was going on  in Egypt at that time , total mess , also was sad for Libya and the war crime against people there by the NATO.  

we recognized there is something planned for us , it is our turn ,as in domino game  

Here it is they started in my city, savage groups was rushing in streets with shameful slogan repeating it non stop (christian should displace to Beruit ,alawit will be in cemetery ) , they trained them to look like civil war , And the mainstream media started to talk about peaceful protests in Syria  

one of their first victims was a person in his way to his work , those gangs caught him , gathered as wolves around him and slaughtered him , his guilt was his religion , they want it to be real civil war , they want people to take revenge and kill each other by the name of religion  

at that time our government issued , that it is allowed to everyone to join demonstration , and it is not allowed to any police man to bother them , the result was those gangs killed young police man they shot him ,, they were armed gangs  

we realized more and more that we are under dirty war , not revolution at all , Then that scene we used to see in Afghanistan and those countries under terror  groups as Al-Qaeda which is  ,CIA” made , that scene of suicide bombers , car bombs , took place in Syria , not important for the world if the victims were kids students and innocent civilians , the western media turned blind eyes , and instead of reporting the truth , they were spreading lies  

later  the horrible crimes  started  by cannibals’ Free Syrian Army , Al-Nusra front , start to beheaded , eat livers , rape women , burn people alive …that was by FSA under the slogan Allaho Akbar, not by what they call now ISIS or Daesh , countries which r under FSA control suddenly ended up to ISIS ,  USA now invades  my country to fight ISIS ! , but they still arming financing and funding FSA  . 

who is ISIS , who is FSA who is Moderate rebels ? they are their doll here to invade Syria , clever plan , don’t forget The Creative Chaos of Condoleezza Rice  , and her preaching of new middle east ! ,  please keep Syria safe ,”

Given the fact that polls consistently show that the majority of Syrians support the government, this is not an isolated viewpoint.

For more on Afrona’s story, watch interviews here and here.  For further accounts of voices from Syria that the main-stream-media won’t report upon, follow Eva Bartlett at www.ingaza.wordpress.com, who regularly travels to Syria to account the voices of the voiceless.

“Please, keep Syria safe…"

Notes:

1.)    Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, “U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show”, April 17, 2011. “The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad… Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria… The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005.”; AFP, “US trains activists to evade security forces”, April 8, 2011. “The US government, Posner said, has budgeted $50 million in the last two years… And it has organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world.”; Ron Nixon, New York Times, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings”, April 14, 2011. “American government-financed organizations were promoting democracy in authoritarian Arab states…  But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections… Affiliating themselves with the American organizations may have tainted leaders within their own groups… some members of the group had accused… leaders of “treason”… the group ousted the members who were complaining…”

2.)   Joseph Holliday, Institute for the Study of War, “The Struggle for Syria in 2011”, December 2011.

3.)   Sibel Edmonds, BoilingFrogsPost, “BFP Exclusive: Syria- Secret US-NATO Training & Support Camp to Oust Current Syrian President”, November 21, 2011.  Sibel breaks the story on the secret US-NATO base in Turkey, and further explains its operations, to organize and expand the dissident base, smuggle in weapons, psychological operations and information warfare, and to funnel intelligence and military operators across the border;  Sibel Edmonds, BoilingFrogsPost, “US Media: Distorters of Reality & Gravediggers of Truth”, December 3, 2011.  Sibel follows up to her first story, citing insiders in Turkey and government insiders in the US.  She notes how Iranian media has picked up her story, but not the Western press.  She asks one of her inside sources why they hadn’t taken their information to the main-stream-media outlets first, to which they replied that they had tried but the Western press wouldn’t touch the story without State Department approval;  Sibel Edmonds, BoilingFrogsPost, “War on Syria Cover-Up Update: Who is Breaking the Blackout?”, December 9, 2011. Sibel recounts how Turkish and Iranian media have picked up her story, noting that US media did not have the guts to run the story even though it was backed by credible military sources in the US and abroad.  She states that she has further been contacted by additional credible sources, including a high-level military official in Syria;  Sibel Edmonds, BoilingFrogsPost, “BFP Exclusive- Developing Story: Hundreds of US-NATO Soldiers Arrive & Begin Operations on the Jordan-Syria Border”, December 11, 2011.  Sibel details how estimates of hundreds of foreign military personnel were seen amassing near the Jordan-Syrian border, that US forces had left Iraq and were re-routed to Jordan at a NATO Command Center there, and that according to Jordanian reports Western officials had requested the Jordanian King to establish a spy station near the border for the purpose of contacting Syrian officers to convince them to instigate a military coup;  James Corbett, CorbettReport, “BREAKING: US Troops Deploying on Jordan-Syria Border”, December 11, 2011. James Corbett reports on the developments from the BoilingFrogsPost story, conducting an interview with former Syrian journalist Nizar Nayouf, previously imprisoned for 10 years for speaking out against the Syrian government, who accounts how hundreds of foreign soldiers were seen moving back and forth near the Jordanian-Syrian border; Sibel Edmonds, BoilingFrogsPost, “Syria Coverage Update: BBC Reporter was detained & Prevented from Covering US-NATO- Syrian Operations in Turkey!”, December 15, 2011. Sibel details how a BBC reporter who went to Turkey to follow up on her story was placed under surveillance, prevented from following the story, stopped from interviewing key personnel, and how BBC subsequently excused the scandal.

4.)   Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Conclusion,” The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic Imperatives (New York, 1997), pg. 211.

            Additional sources:

• Raven Clabough, The New American, “Possible U.S. Involvement in Covert Warfare in Syria”, March 7, 2012.
• Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalization, “SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement?  Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention””, May 3, 2011.
• Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer, “Syrian Conflict Escalates”; “It’s Official: “Arab Spring” Subversion is US Funded”; and “Syria: Intervention Inevitable”.
•  Zafar Bangash, Crescent International, “ISIS takfirist: McCain-Obama’s offspring”, March 2015.