Countdown To Armageddon In Syria: Terror Supporting States of Saudi Arabia and Turkey Prepare to Invade Syria

Illustration by DonkeyHotey

A Dramatic Escalation Appears Imminent in Syria

By The Saker
The situation in Syria has reached a watershed moment and a dramatic escalation of the war appears imminent. Let’s look again at how we reached this point.

During the first phase of the operation, the Syrian armed forces were unable to achieve an immediate strategic success. This is rather unsurprising. It is important to remember here that during the first weeks of the operation the Russian did not provide close air support to the Syrians. Instead, they chose to systematically degrade the entire Daesh (Note: I refer to *all* terrorist in Syria as “Daesh”) infrastructure including command posts, communication nodes, oil dumps, ammo dumps, supply routes, etc. This was important work, but it did not have an immediate impact upon the Syrian military. Then the Russians turned to two important tasks: to push back Daesh in the Latakia province and to hit the illegal oil trade between Daesh and Turkey. The first goal was needed for the protection of the Russian task force and the second one hit the Daesh finances. Then the Russians seriously turned to providing close air support. Not only that, but the Russians got directly involved with the ground operation.

The second phase was introduced gradually, without much fanfare, but it made a big difference on the ground: the Russians and Syrians began to closely work together and they soon honed their collaboration to a quantitatively new level which allowed the Syrian commanders to use Russian firepower with great effectiveness. Furthermore, the Russians began providing modern equipment to the Syrians, including T-90 tanks, modern artillery systems, counter-battery radars, night vision gear, etc. Finally, according to various Russian reports, Russian special operations teams (mostly Chechens) were also engaged in key locations, including deep in the rear of Daesh. As a result, the Syrian military for the first time went from achieving tactical successes to operational victories: for the first time the Syrian began to liberate key towns of strategic importance.

Finally, the Russians unleashed a fantastically intense firepower on Daesh along crucial sectors of the front. In northern Homs, the Russians bombed a sector for 36 hours in a row. According to the latest briefing of the Russian Defense Ministry, just between February 4th and February 11th, the Russian aviation group in the Syrian Arab Republic performed 510 combat sorties and engaged 1,888 terrorists targets. That kind of ferocious pounding did produce the expected effect and the Syrian military began slowly moving along the Turkish-Syrian border while, at the same time, threatening the Daesh forces still deployed inside the northern part of Aleppo. In doing so, the Russians and Syrian threatened to cut off the vital resupply route linking Daesh to Turkey. According to Russian sources, Daesh forces were so demoralized that they forced the local people to flee towards the Turkish border and attempted to hide inside this movement of internally displaced civilians.

This strategic Russian and Syrian victory meant that all the nations supporting Daesh, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the USA were facing a complete collapse of their efforts to overthrow Assad and to break-up Syria and turn part of it into a “Jihadistan”. The Americans could not admit this, of course; as for the Saudis, their threats to invade Syria were rather laughable. Which left the main role to Erdogan who was more than happy to provide the West with yet another maniacal ally willing to act in a completely irresponsible way just to deny the “other side” anything looking like a victory.

Erdogan seems to be contemplating two options. The first one is a ground operation into Syria aimed at restoring the supply lines of Daesh and at preventing the Syrian military from controlling the border. Here is a good illustration (taken from a SouthFront video) of what this would look like:

According to various reports, Erdogan has 18,000 soldiers supported by aircraft, armor and artillery poised along the border to execute such an invasion.

The second plan is even simpler, at least in theory: to create a no-fly zone over all of Syria. Erdogan personally mentioned this option several times, the latest one on Thursday the 11th.

Needless to say, both plans are absolutely illegal under international law and would constitute an act of aggression, the “supreme international crime” according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, because “it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Not that this would deter a megalomaniac like Erdogan.
[...]

In purely military terms, Russia has taken a number of crucial steps: she declared a large scale “verification” of the “combat readiness” of the Southern and Central military districts. In practical terms, this means that all the Russian forces are on high alert, especially the AeroSpace forces, the Airborne Forces, the Military Transportation Aviation forces and, of course, all the Russian forces in Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet. The first practical effect of such “exercises” is not only to make a lot of forces immediately available, but it is also to make them very difficult to track. This not only protects the mobilized forces, but also makes it very hard for the enemy to figure out what exactly they are doing. There are also report that Russian Airborne Warning and Control (AWACS) aircraft – A-50M – are now regularly flying over Syria. In other words, Russia has taken the preparations needed to go to war with Turkey.

Needless to say, the Turks and the Saudis have also announced joint military exercises. They have even announced that Saudi aircraft will conduct airstrikes from the Incirlik air base in support of an invasion of Syria.

At the same time, the Russians have also launched a peace initiative centered around a general ceasefire starting on March 1st or even, according to the latest leaks, on February 15th. The goal is is transparent: to break the Turkish momentum towards an invasion of Syria. It is obvious that Russian diplomats are doing everything they can to avert a war with Turkey.

Here again I have to repeat what I have said already a million times in the past: the small Russian contingent in Syria is in a very precarious position: far away from Russia and very close (45km) to Turkey. Not only that, but the Turks have over 200 combat aircraft ready to attack, whereas the Russians probably has less than 20 SU-30/35/34s in total. Yes, these are very advanced aircraft, of the 4++ generation, and they will be supported by S-400 systems, but the force ratio remains a terrible 1:10.

Russia does, however, have one big advantage over Turkey: Russia has plenty of long-range bombers, armed with gravity bombs and cruise missiles, capable of striking the Turks anywhere, in Syria and in Turkey proper. In fact, Russia even has the capability to strike at Turkish airfields, something which the Turks cannot prevent and something which they cannot retaliate in kind for. The big risk for Russia, at this point, would be that NATO would interpret this as a Russian “aggression” against a member-state, especially if the (in)famous Incirlik air base is hit.

Erdogan also has to consider another real risk: that, while undoubtedly proficient, the Turkish forces might not be a match for the battle-hardened Kurds and Syrians, especially if the latter are supported by Iranian and Hezbollah forces. The Turks have a checkered record against the Kurds whom they typically do overwhelm with firepower and numbers, but whom they never succeeded in neutralizing, subduing or eliminating. Finally, there is the possibility that Russians might have to use their ground forces, especially if the task force in Khmeimim is really threatened.

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Russia's Aleppo Gamble Pays Off: The West's Jihadi Mercenaries On Verge of Major Defeat in Syria

When it comes to ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra (Syrian Al-Qaeda group), Jaysh Al-Mujahiddeen, Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki, and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, Russian leaders have repeatedly said that that they will not relent until the jihadists are either killed or captured. This is why Russia’s airstrikes continued during Geneva, because most of the fighters in Aleppo are dyed-in-the-wool terrorists.

Russia's President Putin has completely outmaneuvered Turkey, Saudi Arabia and President Obama's neocon
cronies. (Illustration by DonkeyHotey)

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Putin's Aleppo Gamble Pays Off

By Mike Whitney
Last week’s game-changing triumph in northern Syria has moved the Russian-led coalition to within striking distance of a decisive victory in Aleppo. After breaking a 40 month-long siege on the cities of Nubl and Zahra, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has encircled the country’s industrial hub and is gradually tightening the noose. Crucial supply-lines to the north have been cut leaving the Sunni extremists and anti-government militias stranded inside a vast, urban cauldron. It’s only a matter of time before these disparate renegades are either killed or forced to surrender. A victory in Aleppo will change the course of the war by restoring government control over the densely-populated western corridor. This is why the Obama administration is frantically searching for ways to either delay or derail the Russian-led juggernaut and avoid the impending collapse of US policy in Syria.

Recent peace talks in Geneva were convened with one goal in mind, to prevent Syrian President Bashar al Assad and loyalist forces from retaking Aleppo. The negotiations failed, however, when Washington’s mercurial allies, the so called “moderate” rebels, refused to participate. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Syrian opposition withdrew “under pressure from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, two of the main backers of the rebels.” The WSJ’s admission was later confirmed by Secretary of State John Kerry who according to a report in the Middle East Eye “blamed the Syrian opposition for leaving the talks and paving the way for a joint offensive by the Syrian government and Russia on Aleppo.”

“Don’t blame me,” Kerry said, “Blame the opposition. It was the opposition that didn’t want to negotiate and didn’t want a ceasefire, and they walked away.”

None of this will surprise readers who followed the talks closely. The meetings were surrounded by confusion from the very onset. The US delegation headed by Kerry was focused entirely on reaching an agreement that would involve a ceasefire and stop the government-led onslaught. The Saudis, Turks and opposition leaders, however, were on a different page altogether. They seemed oblivious to the dire situation on the ground where their jihadist foot soldiers were taking heavier losses by the day. Kerry, the realist, was looking for a way to stand-down and save US-backed militants from certain annihilation. But the Saudis and Turks felt they had a strong-enough hand to make demands. The clash in viewpoints was bound to produce disappointing results, which it did. The meetings were cancelled before they even began. Nothing was settled. Here’s more from the WSJ:

“About a half-dozen cities and towns targeted in the new regime offensives have one thing in common: All were held by a mix of Islamist and moderate rebel groups funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Complicating the picture is that some, but not all, of these groups collaborate with the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. That gives the regime and its allies fodder for their claim that they are fighting terrorism.”

(“Saudi Arabia, Turkey Pushed Syrian Opposition to Leave Talks“, Wall Street Journal)

This should dispel any illusion that that the fighters that are trying to topple the government are merely disgruntled nationalists determined to remove an “evil dictator”. That is not the case at all. While there are a fair amount of indigenous insurgents, the bulk of fighters are Sunni extremists bent on removing Assad and creating an Islamic Caliphate. This is why Moscow refused to implement a ceasefire during the talks in Geneva. Russia adamantly opposes any remedy that allows internationally-recognized terrorists from escaping their eternal reward.

Kerry has deliberately misled the public on this matter. Just last week, he said, “Russia has indicated to me very directly they are prepared to do a ceasefire… The Iranians confirmed in London just a day and a half ago they will support a ceasefire now.”

This is false and Kerry knows it. Moscow has tried to be flexible about other so called “moderate” opposition forces, but when it comes to ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra (Syrian Al-Qaeda group), Jaysh Al-Mujahiddeen, Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki, and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, Russian leaders have repeatedly said that that they will not relent until the jihadists are either killed or captured. This is why Russia’s airstrikes continued during Geneva, because most of the fighters in Aleppo are dyed-in-the-wool terrorists.

It’s worth noting that the Russian-led military offensive clearly hews to UN resolution 2254 which states:

… for Member States to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIL, and other terrorist groups, […] and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Syria, and notes that the aforementioned ceasefire will not apply to offensive or defensive actions against these individuals, groups, undertakings and entities, as set forth in the 14 November 2015 ISSG Statement.” (Thanks to Moon of Alabama)

In other words, Moscow is not going to comply with any ceasefire that spares homicidal jihadists or undermines UN resolution 2254. Russian military operations are going to continue until ISIS, al Nusra and the other terrorist militias are defeated.

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Welcome To Their Fantasy World: #1 Funder of Terror Organizes 'Anti-Terror Coalition' — Saudi Arabia

The #1 purveyor of Muslim-on-Muslim terror dishes out a bowl of bullshit about their "anti-terror" coalition

By Al Jazeera
Saudi Arabia has formed a coalition of 34 mainly Muslim countries - including powers such as Egypt and Turkey - to coordinate a fight against "terrorist organizations".

RELATED STORY: ISIS - A US-Saudi Chicken Come Home to Roost

The alliance was announced by Mohammed bin Salman, the country's defence minister and deputy crown prince, on Tuesday.

Arab countries such as Qatar and the UAE will join the coalition, as well as Middle Eastern, Asian and African states including Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria.

RELATED STORY: When the Jihadists Turn on Their Masters - Saudi Arabian Royalty Nurtured a Frankenstein for Four Decades

"It is time that the Islamic world take a stand, and they have done that by creating a coalition to push back and confront the terrorists and those who promote their violent ideologies," said Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi's foreign minister, speaking in Paris.

When asked if the alliance would deploy troops on the ground, Jubeir said "nothing is off the table".

RELATED STORY: Crazed Jihadis Get Their 'Fighting Spirit' From Drugs — Supplied By the Saudis

Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran and its allies Syria and Iraq were excluded from the alliance, despite the states sharing a common enemy in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Bin Salman said the states would work together to target "any terrorist organisation, not just ISIL" in countries including Iraq, Syria. Libya, Egypt, and Afghanistan.

Military operations would work in accordance with local laws and in cooperation with the international community, he added.

RELATED STORY: Saudi Arabia's Cluster Bombs Harming Civilians in Yemen — Courtesy of the USA

In an earlier press statement issued by the Saudi Press Agency, officials said the group would be led by Saudi Arabia, which would host a "joint operations centre to coordinate" efforts.

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Tracking ISIS to Washington's Doorsteps: It Appears That the US and its Allies are Involved in Feeding ISIS, Not Fighting It

By Ulson Gunnar
The problem with America’s “anti-ISIS coalition” is not a matter of poor planning or a lack of resources. It is not a matter of lacking leadership or military might. The problem with America’s “anti-ISIS coalition” is that it never existed in the first place. There is no US-led war on ISIS, and what’s worse, it appears that the US, through all of its allies, from across the Persian Gulf to Eastern Europe and even within Washington itself, are involved in feeding ISIS, not fighting it.

Going from Syria itself, outward according to geographical proximity, we can trace ISIS’ support all the way back to Washington itself. And as we do, efforts like the “talks” in Vienna, and all the non-solutions proposed by the US and its allies, appear ever more absurd while the US itself is revealed not as a stabilizing force in a chaotic world, but rather the very source of that chaos.

In Syria

Within Syria itself, it is no secret that the US CIA is arming, training, funding and equipping militant groups, groups the US now claims Russia is bombing instead of “ISIS.” However, upon reading carefully any report out of newspapers in the US or its allies it becomes clear that these “rebels” always seem to be within arms reach of listed terrorist organizations, including Jabhat al Nusra.

Al Nusra is literally Al Qaeda in Syria. Not only that, it is the terrorist organization from which ISIS allegedly split from. And while the US has tried to add in a layer of extra plausible deniability to its story by claiming Nusra and ISIS are at odds with one another, the fact is Nusra and ISIS still fight together on the same battlefield toward the same objectives.

And while we’ll get to who is propping up these two terrorist groups beyond Syria’s borders, it should be noted that the US and European media itself has reported a steady flow of weapons and fighters out from its own backed “rebel” groups and into the ranks of Nusra and ISIS.

Articles like Reuters’ “U.S.-trained Syrian rebels gave equipment to Nusra: U.S. military” give at least one explanation as to where ISIS is getting all of its brand new Toyota trucks from:

Syrian rebels trained by the United States gave some of their equipment to the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in exchange for safe passage, a U.S. military spokesman said on Friday, the latest blow to a troubled U.S. effort to train local partners to fight Islamic State militants.

The rebels surrendered six pick-up trucks and some ammunition, or about one-quarter of their issued equipment, to a suspected Nusra intermediary on Sept. 21-22 in exchange for safe passage, said Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, in a statement.

Before this, defections of up to 3,000 so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) “rebels” had been reported, even by the London Guardian which claimed in its article “Free Syrian Army rebels defect to Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra” that:

Abu Ahmed and others say the FSA has lost fighters to al-Nusra in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and Deir al-Zor and the Damascus region. Ala’a al-Basha, commander of the Sayyida Aisha brigade, warned the FSA chief of staff, General Salim Idriss, about the issue last month. Basha said 3,000 FSA men have joined al-Nusra in the last few months, mainly because of a lack of weapons and ammunition. FSA fighters in the Banias area were threatening to leave because they did not have the firepower to stop the massacre in Bayda, he said. Advertisement

The FSA’s Ahrar al-Shimal brigade joined al-Nusra en masse while the Sufiyan al-Thawri brigade in Idlib lost 65 of its fighters to al-Nusra a few months ago for lack of weapons. According to one estimate the FSA has lost a quarter of all its fighters.

Al-Nusra has members serving undercover with FSA units so they can spot potential recruits, according to Abu Hassan of the FSA’s al-Tawhid Lions brigade.

Taken together, it is clear to anyone that even at face value the US strategy of arming “moderate rebels” is a complete failure and that to continue proposing such a failed strategy is basically an admission that (in fact) the US seeks to put weapons and trained fighters directly into the ranks of Al Nusra and other hardcore terrorist groups.Of course, in reality, that was the plan all along. So even before our journey leaves Syria, we see how the US is feeding, not fighting terrorism, completely and intentionally.

Turkey

And of course, before many of the fighters even reach the battlefield in Syria, they have spent time training, arming up and staging in Turkey and Jordan. There has been a lot of talk in Washington, London and Brussels about establishing safe havens in Syria itself for this army of rebel-terrorists, but in reality, Turkey and Jordan have served this purpose since the war began in 2011. All the US and its allies want to do now is extend these safe havens deeper into Syrian territory.

But before that, a steady stream of supplies, weapons and fighters have been pouring over the border, provided by the Persian Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular) and with the explicit complicity of the Turkish government.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle videotaped hundreds of trucks pouring over the Turkish border, bound for ISIS in Syria as part of its story, “ISIS and Turkey’s porous borders” (video here). It was not a scene one would describe as “smuggling” behind the back of Turkish authorities, but rather a scene reminiscent of the Iraq War where fleets of trucks openly supported the full-scale invasion of Iraq by America’s military.

Turkey’s borders aren’t merely porous, they are wide open, with the Turkish government itself clearly involved in filling up the fleets of supply trucks bound for ISIS on a daily basis.

In recent days, as Russia has begun decimating fleets of these trucks, and in particular, oil tankers that, instead of bringing supplies into Syria, are stealing oil for export beyond Syria’s borders, there has been talk about just who this oil is being sold to. Turkey’s name comes up yet again.

Business Insider in its article “Here’s How ISIS Keeps Selling So Much Oil Even While Being Bombed And Banned By The West” reveals:

Most of the oil is bought by local traders and covers the domestic needs of rebel-held areas in northern Syria. But some low-quality crude has been smuggled to Turkey where prices of over $350 a barrel, three times the local rate, have nurtured a lucrative cross-border trade.

And if some readers don’t find the argument that ISIS sustains itself from within Turkish territory entirely convincing, perhaps a direct admission from the US State Department itself might help. Its Voice of America media network recently reported in an article titled “US, Turkey Poised for Joint Anti-ISIS Operation, Despite Differences” that:

Some have even suspected the Turkish government of cooperating with IS, making allegations that range from weapons transfers to logistical support to financial assistance and the provision of medical services. The Cumhuriyet daily this week published stories that alleged Turkish Intelligence was working hand-in-hand with IS. A former IS spy chief told the paper that during the siege of the Syrian city of Kobani last year, Turkish Intelligence served McDonald’s hamburgers to IS fighters brought in from Turkey.
Some analysts say the pending border operation could help silence some of the criticism.

That the US is still working openly with Turkey despite increasing evidence that Turkey itself is sustaining ISIS in Syria, indicates that the US itself is also interested in perpetuating the terrorist group’s activities for as long as possible/plausible.

Eastern Europe

Those nations in Eastern Europe who have either joined NATO or now aspire to, also appear to be directly involved. The large torrent of weapons needed to sustain ISIS’ terrorism within Syria cannot, as a matter of managing public perception, appear to be coming entirely from US arsenals themselves (though hundreds of TOW missile systems and M16s do regularly show up in the hands of Nusra, ISIS and other terrorists organizations). Instead, Soviet bloc weapons are needed and to get them, the US has tapped NATO members like Croatia and aspiring NATO member Ukraine to help arm its ISIS legions.

In 2013 it was revealed by the New York Times in their article Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A. that:

Although rebel commanders and the data indicate that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey to the opposition since early and late 2012, respectively, a major hurdle was removed late last fall after the Turkish government agreed to allow the pace of air shipments to accelerate, officials said.

Simultaneously, arms and equipment were being purchased by Saudi Arabia in Croatia and flown to Jordan on Jordanian cargo planes for rebels working in southern Syria and for retransfer to Turkey for rebels groups operating from there, several officials said.

One wonders how many of these weapons “coincidentally” ended up in Nusra or ISIS’ hands.

More recently, the NATO-installed junta in Ukraine has been implicated not in supplying weapons to ISIS by proxy, but supplying them to ISIS much more directly after a high-profile bust was made in Kuwait implicating Kiev.
International Business Times reported in its article “Ukraine Weapons To ISIS? Kiev Denies Charge After Islamic State Terrorists Caught In Kuwait” that:

The Ukrainian military has denied knowledge of how its weapons made it into the hands of Islamic State group terrorists. Lebanese citizen Osama Khayat, who was arrested this week in Kuwait with other suspects, said he purchased arms in Ukraine that were meant to be delivered to the militant group in Syria via smuggling routes in Turkey.

Perhaps readers notice a pattern. Washington is using its vast global network and allies to arm and fund terrorists in Syria, supported by massive logistical networks flowing through Turkey and to a lesser extent, Jordan. Everyone from America’s allies in Kiev and Zagreb, to Riyad and Doha, to Ankara and Amman are involved which goes far in explaining just how ISIS got so powerful, and why it still remains so powerful despite its widening war on what appears to be the entire world.

The United States

And all of this brings us back to Washington itself. Surely Washington notices that each and every single one of its allies is involved in feeding, not fighting ISIS. When each and every one of its allies from Kiev to Ankara are involved in arming and supplying ISIS, Washington not only knows, it is likely orchestrating it all to begin with.

And proving this is not a matter of deduction or mere implications. Proving this requires simply for one to read a 2012 Department of Intelligence Agency (DIA) report (.pdf) which openly admitted:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is 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 (Iraq and Iran).

If, at this point, one is unclear on just who these “supporting powers to the opposition” are, the DIA report itself reveals it is the West, NATO (including Turkey) and its allies in the Persian Gulf.

This Salafist (Islamic) principality (state), or ISIS for short, was not an indirect consequence of US foreign policy, it was (and still very much is) a concerted conspiracy involving multiple states spanning North America, Europe, and the Middle East. It could not exist otherwise.

While Russia attempts to reach westward to piece together an inclusive coalition to finally put an end to ISIS, it is clear that it does so in vain. Washington, Brussels and their regional allies in the Middle East have no intention of putting an end to ISIS. Even today, this very moment, the US and its allies are doing everything within their power to ensure the survival of their terrorist armies inside of Syria for as long as possible before any ceasefire is agreed to. And even if a peace settlement of some sort is struck, all it will do is buy Syria time. No matter how much damage Russia and its own, genuine coalition consisting of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon deal ISIS within Syria, the networks that fed it from Turkey, Jordan, the Persian Gulf, Eastern Europe and Washington itself remain intact.

One hopes that these networks can be diminished through the principles of multipolarism within the time being bought for Syria through the blood, sacrifice and efforts of Syrian soldiers and Russian airmen.


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Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Reprinted with permission from New Eastern Outlook

CONFIRMED: NATO Member Turkey Responsible for False Flag Sarin Gas Attack in Syria — Whistleblowers

The sarin gas attack was a false flag operation run by Turkey's secret service which was designed to draw the United States into an attack on Syria's government after it allegedly passed the so-called "red line" of using chemical warfare on the opposition.

Hersh Vindicated?: Turkish Whistleblowers Corroborate Story on False Flag Sarin Attack in Syria

By Peter Lee
This is quite the bombshell delivered by two CHP deputies in the Turkish parliament and reported by Today’s Zaman, one of the top dailies in Turkey.

RELATED STORY: The Syrian Sarin Gas Scam — The Threatened US  Missile Attack On Syria Was Based On Evidence Known To Be Flimsy - And Most of the Media Failed Us Again

It supports Seymour Hersh’s reporting that the notorious sarin gas attack at Ghouta was a false flag orchestrated by Turkish intelligence in order to cross President Obama’s chemical weapons “red line” and draw the United States into the Syria war to topple Assad.

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Turkish Officials Recorded Plotting False Flag Attack in Syria
(Recording and Transcript)

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If so, President Obama deserves credit for “holding the line” against the attack despite the grumbling and incitement of the Syria hawks at home and abroad.

And it also presents the unsavory picture of an al-Qaeda operatives colluding with ISIL in a war crime that killed 1300 civilians.

RELATED STORY: Was Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack? — Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Seymour Hersh Has Info That Points at Turkey's Intel Agency

I find the report credible, taking into full account the fact that the CHP (Erdogan’s center-left Kemalist rivals) and Today’s Zaman (whose editor-in-chief, Bulent Kenes was recently detained on live TV for insulting Erdogan in a tweet) are on the outs with Erdogan.

Considering the furious reaction it can be expected to elicit from Erdogan and the Turkish government, the temerity of CHP and Today’s Zaman in running with this story is a sign of how desperate their struggle against Erdogan has become. Note that the author is shown only as “Columnist: Today’s Zaman”.

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Turkey Censors YouTube After Plot of False Flag Attack in Syria Leaked

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I expect the anti-Erodgan forces hope this will be a game changer in terms of U.S.and European support for Erdogan.

It will be very interesting to see if and how the media in the U.S. covers this story. In case it doesn’t acquire enough “legs” to make into US media, I attach the full Zaman piece below:

CHP deputies: Gov’t rejects probe into Turkey’s role in Syrian chemical attack

Two deputies from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have claimed that the government is against investigating Turkey’s role in sending toxic sarin gas which was used in an attack on civilians in Syria in 2013 and in which over 1,300 Syrians were killed.

CHP deputies Eren Erdem and Ali Şeker held a press conference in İstanbul on Wednesday in which they claimed the investigation into allegations regarding Turkey’s involvement in the procurement of sarin gas which was used in the chemical attack on a civil population and delivered to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to enable the attack was derailed.

Taking the floor first, Erdem stated that the Adana Chief Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into allegations that sarin was sent to Syria from Turkey via several businessmen. An indictment followed regarding the accusations targeting the government.

“The MKE [Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation] is also an actor that is mentioned in the investigation file. Here is the indictment. All the details about how sarin was procured in Turkey and delivered to the terrorists, along with audio recordings, are inside the file,” Erdem said while waving the file.

Erdem also noted that the prosecutor’s office conducted detailed technical surveillance and found that an al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin, adding: “Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims that it is fighting terrorism,” Erdem noted.

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What A Murderous Terror Attack Looks Like Pt - 2: Bombing of the Turkish Border Town of Suruc

Victims of the bombing at a rally of mostly Kurdish activists in the southern Turkish border town of Suruc. The
attack is thought to have killed at least 31 people and was believed to be carried out by an ISIS suicide
bomber on July 20, 2015. (Screen capture from Google video)

RELATED STORY: What A Murderous Terror Attack Looks Like - Pt 1: Boko Haram Attack On the Capital of Nigeria

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ISIS is Bringing Arms and Fighters in From NATO Territory — TIME Magazine Admits

By Tony Cartalucci, NEO
Late last year, Germany’s broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) investigated what turned out to be hundreds of trucks a day carrying billions of dollars in supplies, flowing across the Turkish border into Syria and directly into the hands of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS).

The border crossing near the Turkish city of Oncupinar, approximately 100km west of the Syrian city of Kobani, is apparently only one of many such crossings where ISIS fighters, weapons, and materiel move directly under the watch and apparent assistance of NATO.

TIME in their recent article titled, “ISIS Fighters Kill 200 Civilians in Syrian Town,” reported that:

The attacks also came after the group [ISIS] suffered a series of setbacks over the past two weeks, including the loss last week of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad — one of the group’s main points for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies.

Tal Abyad, a Turkish-Syrian border crossing east of Kobani, is now a second, confirmed point of entry into Syria used by ISIS to supply its ongoing campaign within the country.

Reports of confirmed, extensive logistical networks passing through NATO and US-ally territory, into Syria, contradict the current prevailing narrative that ISIS is an “indigenous” terrorist organization, funded and self-sustaining within the territory it currently holds in both Syria and Iraq. The Western media has attempted to claim with little evidence that ISIS’ immense, global operations are somehow underwritten by “ransom payments” and “black market oil” it has seized in eastern Syria.

Clearly, not only are these reports as untenable as they are untrue, the Western media itself has reported precisely how ISIS has been sustaining its impressive fighting capacity – with billions of dollars of state-sponsored aid flowing through NATO territory, directly to their front lines.

Were the supplies flowing over the Syrian-Iraqi border, it may be possible to argue plausible deniability – with the governments of either nation unable to control either side of the border. However, Turkey, a NATO member since 1952 and host of the United States Air Force’s Incirlik Air Base, has full control of its borders meaning that ISIS-bound convoys not only pass over its borders with the apparent approval of Turkish border guards, but are assembled somewhere within Turkey itself before arriving at the edge of Syrian territory.

No effort has been made to stem the flow of supplies to ISIS from NATO territory, with the Turkish government officially denying the trucks DW videotaped and reported on even exist. This indicates clear NATO complicity in the arming and supplying of ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates who are in fact invading Syria from NATO-territory, as well as from US-ally Jordan.

For the West, which feigns indignation in the wake of recent ISIS attacks on France, Tunisia, and Kuwait, while posing as the primary force engaged in war with ISIS directly, it would be a simple matter to close the Turkish-Syrian border with NATO troops to ensure ISIS was shut off completely from the supplies it depends on to maintain its fighting capacity. That the borders are intentionally left open for this extensive daily torrent of supplies, weapons, and fighters to pass over unopposed, is proof positive that ISIS is and has been from the beginning a proxy force intentionally created to stoke fear and support at home for unending war abroad.

Without the threat of ISIS and the chaos it is creating across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the ability for the West to wage war on its enemies and justify extraterritorial meddling would be severely limited. In fact, the very ISIS forces clearly being armed and supplied by NATO directly, are being used as a pretext by US policymakers to execute recently laid plans to incrementally invade and occupy Syria with US military forces.

The Brookings Institute from which these plans originated, recently used an ISIS assault on Kobani to call for “US boots on the ground” in Syria, an assault which would have been logistically impossible were it not for the daily torrent of supplies the US and its NATO-ally Turkey have themselves intentionally enabled for years to cross into Syria.

To defeat ISIS, its supply lines must be cut – a simple matter to perform that requires only Turkish and other NATO troops to move in and disrupt overt ISIS logistical networks running within their own territory. Instead, the US State Department and US-operated NGOs have even gone as far as condemning what little attempts have been made to control Turkey’s border with Syria. The US State Department’s Voice of America in their article, “Turkish Border Crackdown Imperils Syrian Refugees,” used the pretext of “human rights” to condemn Turkey for what meager control measures it has attempted to put in place.

The fact that the US, with a military base in Turkey itself, has elected not to call for or attempt to implement stricter border security to stem the flow of ISIS supplies, and instead has gone as far as bombing Syrian territory in feigned efforts to “fight ISIS,” proves that the terrorist organization is both a proxy and a pretext. No serious military campaign would be launched against an enemy without identifying and cutting off its supply lines, especially when those supply lines run through that military’s own territory.

The general public across the West, if they truly desire an end to ISIS and its atrocities, will demand what least the West can do – shutting the borders of Turkey and Jordan and ending the flow of supplies to ISIS. This will never happen, thanks to both elementary but effective “divide and conquer” rhetoric miring the Western public in endless circular debate, and the fact that the average Westerner’s understanding of modern warfare and military logistics is derived from Hollywood and television, not maps, history, and basic knowledge.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

Reprinted with permission from New Eastern Outlook

Rand Paul Makes More Sense than the Democrats’ 'Left' Champion, Bernie Sanders — No, This is NOT an Endorsement

“Having pledged in advance to support Hillary after he drops out of the race, de facto Democrat Sanders cannot risk running a campaign that might reveal the sheer awesomeness of her evil.”

U.S. rulers have designated Hillary Clinton as the Democrats’ next front person, while Sen. Bernie Sanders has volunteered to be the loyal “lefty” opposition – who will step aside and endorse Clinton at the proper time. Sanders will refuse to indict Obama or Hillary for embarking “on a war against world order and civilization, itself, in which Salafist death cults are its frontline storm troopers.” But Rand Paul, the right-winger, will.




By Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
The whole world knows that the United States and its closest allies created the ISIS-al Qaida juggernaut in Syria, Iraq, Libya and proliferating points elsewhere in the Muslim world. Russian President Vladimir Putin knows it, and has now begun to denounce the crime against civilization on the world stage. Rand Paul knows it, and has made the fact central to his campaign for the U.S. presidency. Every world leader, whether a vassal of the Washington or part of the resistance to U.S. imperialism, is fully aware that the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan gave birth to the international jihadist network in the mountains of Afghanistan, and have nurtured, financed, trained and armed the monster ever since.

The trajectory of the Wahhabist horror show was both planned and predictable. Back in 2012, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said bluntly that “Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey” wanted an “Islamic state” to arise in eastern Syria, and foresaw that al Qaida would soon “return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi” in Iraq – all of which, and much more, has come to pass.

Muammar Gaddafi prophesized correctly that NATO’s transformation into a jihadist air force would turn Libya into “another Somalia” – a vortex of Salafist chaos that would destabilize the entire region. “We came, we saw, he died,” cackled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who yearns to bring the same ghoulish statecraft to the Oval Office in 2017. Does any decent person actually consider this banshee a “lesser evil”?

Bernie Sanders does. The Vermont senator promises to endorse Clinton as soon as he drops out of the presidential race – thus nullifying whatever “message” he plans to deliver during the Democratic primary process. But of course, having pledged in advance to support Hillary, de facto Democrat Sanders cannot risk running a campaign that might reveal the sheer awesomeness of her evil. Therefore, there will be no Democratic Party discussion of U.S. and allied sponsorship of the Islamic State and al Qaida, in the same way that serious criticism of Israel is off-limits for Sanders and all national Democrats.

“Sanders will not acknowledge that U.S. governments of both parties deploy jihadists as foot soldiers for U.S. imperialism.”

The Party is a trap. Not that its strictures, alone, force Sanders to bite his tongue. He actually has nothing much to say about U.S. and allied sponsorship of jihadists. Instead, he buys into the lie that the Obama administration is eager to fight the Islamists – at least the Islamic State component – and puts his foot down at giving the president sweeping powers to do so. But, he will not acknowledge that U.S. governments of both parties deploy jihadists as foot soldiers for U.S. imperialism.

Rand Paul does. Just last week, the Tennessee Republican senator told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:

“ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately. And most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad], which would have made ISIS's job even easier.

“They created these people. ISIS is all over Libya because these same hawks in my party loved -- they loved [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya. They just wanted more of it."

Democrats will not get the equivalent analysis from Sanders, or even from Dennis Kucinich, should he decide to re-enter the fray as a Democrat.

Paul speaks from a political space in the Republican Party that is deeply opposed to “internationalism,” which it equates with foreigners, people of color, socialists, and other folks that are anathema to “good white Americans.” Paul’s anti-interventionism strikes a chord with rightwing whites that oppose entanglements with people who don’t share their “values.” Their revulsion to the U.S. becoming polluted by foreign entanglements – a race-based reaction – moves them to oppose foreign wars.

“Paul’s anti-interventionism strikes a chord with right-wing whites that oppose entanglements with people who don’t share their ‘values.’”

Sen. Paul has been consistent in indicting the United States for the scourge of the Islamic State. Last June he told CNN:

"We have been fighting alongside al Qaeda, fighting alongside ISIS. ISIS is now emboldened and in two countries. But here's the anomaly. We're with ISIS in Syria. We're on the same side of the war. So, those who want to get involved to stop ISIS in Iraq are allied with ISIS in Syria. That is real contradiction to this whole policy."

Bernie Sanders, representing largely rural, whiter-than-white Vermont, also makes a kind of “American values” appeal. In an appearance on CNN, in September of last year, he said:

"I'm sitting here wondering where Saudi Arabia is, where Kuwait is, where Qatar is. I'll be damned if kids in the state of Vermont – or taxpayers in the state of Vermont – have to defend the royal Saudi family, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars."

Sanders frames the conflict as Saudi Arabia’s war, absolving the United States, the Saudi’s senior partner in promoting jihadist war for generations. Besides, says Sanders, the war costs Americans too much money, which could be better spent on creating jobs at home. "While we focus all of our attention on ISIS, the middle class in this country continues to collapse," Sanders said.

Rand Paul’s position is far closer to Russian President Putin’s. Speaking to a meeting of the BRICS nations, Putin declared:

”We know what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa now. We see problems caused by a terrorist organization, which calls itself ‘The Islamic State.’ However, there was no terrorism in those states before the unacceptable interference from the outside took place without an approval of the UN Security Council. It is obvious that the consequences are tough. Everything that has happened in the international arena over the last couple of years needs to be re-adjusted.”

In the language of diplomacy – in which Putin is well versed, unlike the crude, cackling Hillary – these are very harsh words, reserved for times of crisis. Putin urged fellow BRICS leaders to take collective steps for their own security against the lawlessness that the U.S. and its allies have created.

The United States is embarked on a war against world order and civilization, itself, in which Salafist death cults are its frontline storm troopers. The fact that U.S. imperialism is now dependent on jihadists who must inevitably turn on their royal and western backers, is among the best evidence that the empire has arrived at a fatal stage.

The Democratic Party is no place or vehicle to engage such issues of planetary life and death. When a libertarian Republican is saner on international affairs than the Democratic Party’s “left” champion, it’s time to lower the curtain on that show.

P.S. Anyone that thinks this piece was an endorsement of Rand Paul or the Republicans – should not be reading BAR.

____________________
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

So, What Did the Muslims Do For the Jews?: Islam Saved Jewry — A History Lesson

By David J Wasserstein

Originally published in the The Jewish Chronicle

Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity – also in Christendom – through the medieval period into the modern world.

By the fourth century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman empire. One aspect of this success was opposition to rival faiths, including Judaism, along with massive conversion of members of such faiths, sometimes by force, to Christianity. Much of our testimony about Jewish existence in the Roman empire from this time on consists of accounts of conversions.

Great and permanent reductions in numbers through conversion, between the fourth and the seventh centuries, brought with them a gradual but relentless whittling away of the status, rights, social and economic existence, and religious and cultural life of Jews all over the Roman empire.

A long series of enactments deprived Jewish people of their rights as citizens, prevented them from fulfilling their religious obligations, and excluded them from the society of their fellows.

Had Islam not come along, Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance and Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult.

This went along with the centuries-long military and political struggle with Persia. As a tiny element in the Christian world, the Jews should not have been affected much by this broad, political issue. Yet it affected them critically, because the Persian empire at this time included Babylon – now Iraq – at the time home to the world’s greatest concentration of Jews.

Here also were the greatest centres of Jewish intellectual life. The most important single work of Jewish cultural creativity in over 3,000 years, apart from the Bible itself – the Talmud – came into being in Babylon. The struggle between Persia and Byzantium, in our period, led increasingly to a separation between Jews under Byzantine, Christian rule and Jews under Persian rule.

Beyond all this, the Jews who lived under Christian rule seemed to have lost the knowledge of their own culturally specific languages – Hebrew and Aramaic – and to have taken on the use of Latin or Greek or other non-Jewish, local, languages. This in turn must have meant that they also lost access to the central literary works of Jewish culture – the Torah, Mishnah, poetry, midrash, even liturgy.

The loss of the unifying force represented by language – and of the associated literature – was a major step towards assimilation and disappearance. In these circumstances, with contact with the one place where Jewish cultural life continued to prosper – Babylon – cut off by conflict with Persia, Jewish life in the Christian world of late antiquity was not simply a pale shadow of what it had been three or four centuries earlier. It was doomed.

Had Islam not come along, the conflict with Persia would have continued. The separation between western Judaism, that of Christendom, and Babylonian Judaism, that of Mesopotamia, would have intensified. Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance in many areas. And Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult.

But this was all prevented by the rise of Islam. The Islamic conquests of the seventh century changed the world, and did so with dramatic, wide-ranging and permanent effect for the Jews.

Within a century of the death of Mohammad, in 632, Muslim armies had conquered almost the whole of the world where Jews lived, from Spain eastward across North Africa and the Middle East as far as the eastern frontier of Iran and beyond. Almost all the Jews in the world were now ruled by Islam. This new situation transformed Jewish existence. Their fortunes changed in legal, demographic, social, religious, political, geographical, economic, linguistic and cultural terms – all for the better.

First, things improved politically. Almost everywhere in Christendom where Jews had lived now formed part of the same political space as Babylon – Cordoba and Basra lay in the same political world. The old frontier between the vital centre in Babylonia and the Jews of the Mediterranean basin was swept away, forever.

Political change was partnered by change in the legal status of the Jewish population: although it is not always clear what happened during the Muslim conquests, one thing is certain. The result of the conquests was, by and large, to make the Jews second-class citizens.

This should not be misunderstood: to be a second-class citizen was a far better thing to be than not to be a citizen at all. For most of these Jews, second-class citizenship represented a major advance. In Visigothic Spain, for example, shortly before the Muslim conquest in 711, the Jews had seen their children removed from them and forcibly converted to Christianity and had themselves been enslaved.

In the developing Islamic societies of the classical and medieval periods, being a Jew meant belonging to a category defined under law, enjoying certain rights and protections, alongside various obligations. These rights and protections were not as extensive or as generous as those enjoyed by Muslims, and the obligations were greater but, for the first few centuries, the Muslims themselves were a minority, and the practical differences were not all that great.

Along with legal near-equality came social and economic equality. Jews were not confined to ghettos, either literally or in terms of economic activity. The societies of Islam were, in effect, open societies. In religious terms, too, Jews enjoyed virtually full freedom. They might not build many new synagogues – in theory – and they might not make too public their profession of their faith, but there was no really significant restriction on the practice of their religion. Along with internal legal autonomy, they also enjoyed formal representation, through leaders of their own, before the authorities of the state. Imperfect and often not quite as rosy as this might sound, it was at least the broad norm.

The political unity brought by the new Islamic world-empire did not last, but it created a vast Islamic world civilisation, similar to the older Christian civilisation that it replaced. Within this huge area, Jews lived and enjoyed broadly similar status and rights everywhere. They could move around, maintain contacts, and develop their identity as Jews. A great new expansion of trade from the ninth century onwards brought the Spanish Jews – like the Muslims – into touch with the Jews and the Muslims even of India.

A ll this was encouraged by a further, critical development. Huge numbers of people in the new world of Islam adopted the language of the Muslim Arabs. Arabic gradually became the principal language of this vast area, excluding almost all the rest: Greek and Syriac, Aramaic and Coptic and Latin all died out, replaced by Arabic. Persian, too, went into a long retreat, to reappear later heavily influenced by Arabic.

The Jews moved over to Arabic very rapidly. By the early 10th century, only 300 years after the conquests, Sa’adya Gaon was translating the Bible into Arabic. Bible translation is a massive task – it is not undertaken unless there is a need for it. By about the year 900, the Jews had largely abandoned other languages and taken on Arabic.

The change of language in its turn brought the Jews into direct contact with broader cultural developments. The result from the 10th century on was a striking pairing of two cultures. The Jews of the Islamic world developed an entirely new culture, which differed from their culture before Islam in terms of language, cultural forms, influences, and uses. Instead of being concerned primarily with religion, the new Jewish culture of the Islamic world, like that of its neighbours, mixed the religious and the secular to a high degree. The contrast, both with the past and with medieval Christian Europe, was enormous.

Like their neighbours, these Jews wrote in Arabic in part, and in a Jewish form of that language. The use of Arabic brought them close to the Arabs. But the use of a specific Jewish form of that language maintained the barriers between Jew and Muslim. The subjects that Jews wrote about, and the literary forms in which they wrote about them, were largely new ones, borrowed from the Muslims and developed in tandem with developments in Arabic Islam.

Also at this time, Hebrew was revived as a language of high literature, parallel to the use among the Muslims of a high form of Arabic for similar purposes. Along with its use for poetry and artistic prose, secular writing of all forms in Hebrew and in (Judeo-)Arabic came into being, some of it of high quality.

Much of the greatest poetry in Hebrew written since the Bible comes from this period. Sa’adya Gaon, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Ezra (Moses and Abraham), Maimonides, Yehuda Halevi, Yehudah al-Harizi, Samuel ha-Nagid, and many more – all of these names, well known today, belong in the first rank of Jewish literary and cultural endeavour.

W here did these Jews produce all this? When did they and their neighbours achieve this symbiosis, this mode of living together? The Jews did it in a number of centres of excellence. The most outstanding of these was Islamic Spain, where there was a true Jewish Golden Age, alongside a wave of cultural achievement among the Muslim population. The Spanish case illustrates a more general pattern, too.

What happened in Islamic Spain – waves of Jewish cultural prosperity paralleling waves of cultural prosperity among the Muslims – exemplifies a larger pattern in Arab Islam. In Baghdad, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries; in Qayrawan (in north Africa), between the ninth and the 11th centuries; in Cairo, between the 10th and the 12th centuries, and elsewhere, the rise and fall of cultural centres of Islam tended to be reflected in the rise and fall of Jewish cultural activity in the same places.

This was not coincidence, and nor was it the product of particularly enlightened liberal patronage by Muslim rulers. It was the product of a number of deeper features of these societies, social and cultural, legal and economic, linguistic and political, which together enabled and indeed encouraged the Jews of the Islamic world to create a novel sub-culture within the high civilisation of the time.

This did not last for ever; the period of culturally successful symbiosis between Jew and Arab Muslim in the middle ages came to a close by about 1300. In reality, it had reached this point even earlier, with the overall relative decline in the importance and vitality of Arabic culture, both in relation to western European cultures and in relation to other cultural forms within Islam itself; Persian and Turkish.

Jewish cultural prosperity in the middle ages operated in large part as a function of Muslim, Arabic cultural (and to some degree political) prosperity: when Muslim Arabic culture thrived, so did that of the Jews; when Muslim Arabic culture declined, so did that of the Jews.

In the case of the Jews, however, the cultural capital thus created also served as the seed-bed of further growth elsewhere – in Christian Spain and in the Christian world more generally.

The Islamic world was not the only source of inspiration for the Jewish cultural revival that came later in Christian Europe, but it certainly was a major contributor to that development. Its significance cannot be overestimated.

_______________
David J Wasserstein is the Eugene Greener Jr Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. This article is adapted from a May 2012 Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Copyright David J Wasserstein, Jewish Chronicle, 2012

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

Something Strange About ISIS: Key Allies of US in the Middle East Appear Untouched by ISIS

ISIS fighter refuels a vehicle.

By Gordon Duff
I recently returned from the Terrorism and Religious Extremism Conference in Damascus. While there, I had the opportunity to meet with Syrian militia leaders. What they had to tell me and show me confirmed some of my suspicions. I already knew that the United States had trained at least 3000 ISIS “cadre” leaders at camps in Jordan. Colonel Jim Hanke US Army Special Forces (ret) had accompanied me and spoke of this during the conference.

However, the militia leaders brought evidence. They had photographed not only ISIS dead but their identity papers as well. One group of 74 killed in fighting near Kobani included 15 Ukrainians and 8 Chechens. Others included fighters from Saudi Arabia, Yemen but the rest were from North Africa. There was no gloating over the dead despite the fact the exchange took place in a restaurant at the Damas Rose, a government owned hotel in Syria. There was a sadness, a solemnity about this as even ISIS dead, reputed to be mass murderers, looked no different than others, all young, bearded though many distinctly European.

What was surprising was the lack of curiosity as to how any of these fighters had gotten into Syria in the first place. I had traveled through Lebanon, was picked up by security at the airport and, on the way to Damascus, stopped many times at military checkpoints and subjected to 4 hours of background checks at remote border crossings. Even inside Syria it took hours to get clearance despite carrying a letter from the Minister of Justice.

Simply put, jihadists don’t just walk through Lebanon. This leaves only two possibilities, they travel through Turkey, something more than obvious or they receive transit across Israel. A cursory examination of the geography of the region leaves only two other remote possibilities. One is that they manage to cross the Red Sea like Moses or they are flown in somehow, magically passing through airport security checkpoints all overseen by Interpol, America’s Department of Homeland Security and NATO financed security forces.

It is assumed that any Islamic male, traveling alone or with others, in transit toward Iraq or Syria, is a terrorist. I was certainly questioned several times. One could only assume that perhaps planes the CIA had used to transport narcotics or torture victims had been “retasked” for the purpose of bringing terrorists into Syria and Iraq. There are certainly reports of unmarked planes flying in and out of Mosul despite the fact that American fighter/interceptors maintain what they claim is a “stranglehold” on airspace in the region.

Syrian officials informally voice their own suspicions about ISIS. Though not publicly spoken of, they are of the opinion that American and Israeli advisors are serving with ISIS. Based on an analysis of ISIS tactical capabilities and their apparent access to secure communications, easily jammed by the US if they wished, such beliefs are not without foundation. Simply put, not everyone can operate complex American built mobile artillery pieces or armoured vehicles. ISIS seems to have no problem with this or any difficulty acquiring Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft as well.

It is claimed that these missiles move from Libya, through Sinai and somehow magically jump over Israel. Oddly, none seemed to make their way into Gaza as evidenced during last summer’s Israeli air assault.

One key area of what appears to be tacit cooperation between the “Islamic State” and NATO, namely Turkey, is seen in the looting of Syria. As with Lebanon, Turkey maintains well defended borders. However, there is more than adequate proof that whenever ISIS moves into an area of Syria or even Iraq, the Turks aren’t far behind. Like locusts, streams of heavy trucks, engineers, equipment movers join ISIS, stealing everything of value and moving it past the border into Turkey, a border that refugees spend days waiting to pass. However, a hundred heavy trucks carrying away a Syrian automobile assembly plant is able to negotiate the Turkish border without a hiccup.

Similarly, entire banks, cash, computers systems, vault and all have made the trip into Turkey followed by endless antiquities that find their way into the auction houses of London, New York and Paris. Unless ISIS is infected with an altruistic love of all things Turkish, it is reasonable to assume they are in it together, sharing the spoils. As ISIS is a “named terror organization” by both the US and EU, any individual or organization that is involved either directly or indirectly, no matter through how many hands, in commerce is guilty of “material support of terrorism.” For a state, such as Turkey, such violations necessitate sanctions. For an individual, be they a London art dealer or German machine tool broker, typical punishment should involve rendition, torture and gulag imprisonment.

Instead, American and European war profiteers openly trade with ISIS, no fear of sanctions or the all-powerful Office of Foreign Asset Control getting involved. The “fix” is obviously in, looted cities, looted museums, looted banks, all to be shared as long as politicians get their cut.

To say that there is something strange about ISIS is perhaps the understatement of all time. Can we call them “The Not Very Islamic State?” What they seem to have is friends, people who give them intelligence help, satellite photos, people who train them to operate complex American weapons, people who shepherd their personnel around like diplomats. What they also have are business partners, partners who are clearly above the law. Who has that kind of influence?


_____________
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/12/31/something-strange-about-isis/

Reprinted with permission from New Eastern Outlook

Geopolitics of the War Against Syria and Against the Daesh

In this new and original analysis, Thierry Meyssan exposes the geopolitical reasons for the failure of the war against Syria and the real objectives of the so-called war against Daesh. This is particularly important for understanding current international relations and the crystallization of conflict in the Levant (Iraq, Syria and Lebanon).


By Thierry Meyssan

The three crises in the Coalition

We are witnessing the third crisis in the camp of the aggressors since the beginning of the war against Syria.

In June of 2012, at the Geneva Conference 1, which was to mark the return of peace and organize a new division in the Middle East between the United States and Russia, France, which had just elected Francois Hollande, put forth an restrictive interpretation of the final communiqué. Then she organized the revival of the war, with the help of Israel and Turkey and the support of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus.

Clinton and Petraeus having been eliminated by President Obama, Turkey, in the summer of 2013, along with Israel and France, organized the chemical bombing of the Damascus ghoutta in such a way as to attribute it to Syria. But the United States refused to launch a punitive war.

In January, 2014, the United States, in a secret session of Congress, voted to fund and arm Daesh with the mission to invade the Sunni areas of Iraq and the Kurdish region of Syria to divide these large states. France and Turkey then armed Al-Qaeda (al-Nosra Front) so that it would attack Daesh and compel the United States to return to the original plan of the Coalition. If Al-Qaeda and Daesh reconciled in May following an appeal for calm by Ayman al-Zawahiri, France and Turkey are still not participating in Allied bombing.

In general, the Coalition of Friends of Syria, which, in July 2012, included "a hundred countries and international organizations," now includes not more than 11. The Coalition against Daesh, for its part, regroups officially "more than 60 states," but they have so little in common that their list is kept secret.

Distinct interests

In fact, the Coalition is made up of many states that each pursue specific goals and fail to agree on their common goal. One can distinguish within it four forces:

The United States seeks to control the oil of the region. In 2000, the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) chaired by Dick Cheney had, through satellite imagery and drilling data, identified global oil reserves and had observed immense reserves of Syrian gas. During the military coup of 2001, Washington decided to successively attack eight countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Syria, Sudan, Somalia and Iran) to seize their natural resources. His staff then adopted a plan to remodel the "Broader Middle East" (which also includes the dismantling of Turkey and Saudi Arabia), while the following year the State Department created its MENA department to organize the "Arab spring."

Retired general Wesley Clarke describes the plan to attack and
overthrow over a dozen Middle East nations

Israel defends its national interests : in the short term, it continues its step by step territorial expansion. Simultaneously and without waiting to control the entire space between the two rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates, it intends to control all economic activity in the area, including of course the oil. For its protection in the age of missiles, it means on the one hand to take control of a security zone on its border (now it has pushed blue helmet peacekeepers from the border of the Golan and replaced them by Al -Qaïda) and on the other hand to neutralize the Egyptian and Syrian armies taking them from behind (deployment of Patriot missiles from NATO in Turkey, creating a Kurdistan in Iraq and South Sudan).

France and Turkey continue the dream of restoring their empires. France hopes to get a mandate over Syria, or at least a portion of the country. She created the Free Syrian Army and gave it the green, white and black three-star flag of the French mandate. Turkey, for its part, intends to restore the Ottoman Empire. As of September 2012, it appointed a wali to administer this province. Turkish and French projects are compatible because the Ottoman Empire had admitted that some of its provinces be administered with other colonial powers.

Finally, Saudi Arabia and Qatar know they cannot survive other than by serving the United States and fighting secular regimes, of which the Syrian Arab Republic is now the sole expression in the region.

The evolution of the Coalition

These four forces have not been able to work together except during the first part of the war, from February 2011 to June 2012. It was indeed a fourth generation strategy: some Special Forces Groups organized incidents and ambushes here and there, while Atlanticist and Gulf TV portrayed an Alawite dictatorship repressing democratic revolution. The amounts invested and soldiers deployed did not amount to much and everyone thought they could take advantage once the Syrian Arab Republic was overthrown.

However, in early 2012, the Syrian people began to doubt that President Bashar al-Assad was torturing children and that the Republic would be overthtown in favor of a Lebanese type of confessional system. The seige of the Takfirists of the Islamic Emirate of Baba Amr foreshadowed the defeat of the operation. France then negotiated an end to the crisis and the return of French officers who had been taken prisoner. The United States and Russia negotiated to replace the United Kingdom and France and to share all of the region such as London and Paris had done with the Sykes-Picot agreements of 1916.

Since that time, nothing works in the Coalition. Successive failures show that it cannot win.

In July of 2012 in Paris, France brought together with great fanfare the most important meeting of the Coalition and relaunched the war. The speech by Francois Hollande was written in English, probably by Israelis, and translated into French. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Robert S. Ford (trained by John Negroponte) were engaged in the most vast covert war in history. As in the past in Nicaragua, private armies recruited mercenaries and sent them to Syria. Except this time, these mercenaries were managed ideologically to train jihadi hordes. Overseeing operations escaped the Pentagon to befall the State Department and the CIA. The cost of the war was huge, but it was not attributed to the treasuries of the United States, France and Turkey, for it was entirely paid by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

According to the Atlanticist and Gulf press, a few thousand foreigners came to lend a hand to the "Syrian democratic revolution." But on the ground the "democratic revolution" was nowhere to be found, only groups of fanatics chanting slogans such as "Peaceful Revolution: Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave! " [1] or " No to Hezbollah, no to Iran, we want a president who fears God! " [2]. According to the Syrian Arab Army, these were not a few thousand, but 250,000 foreign jihadists who came to fight, and often die, from July 2012 to July 2014.

But the day after his re-election, Barack Obama forced the CIA director, General David Petraeus to resign, and he got rid of Hillary Clinton during the formation of his new administration. So that at the beginning of 2013, the Coalition was based practically only on France and Turkey, the United States doing as little as possible. This was obviously the time the Syrian Arab Army was waiting for to launch its inexorable reconquest of the territory.

Francois Hollande and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus expected to overthrow the secular republic and impose a Sunni regime that would have been placed under the direct rule of Turkey, but including French senior officials. A model inherited from the late nineteenth century, but that held no interest for the United States.

Democrat Barack Obama and his two Secretaries of Defense, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel are driven by radically different politics: Panetta is from the Baker-Hamilton Commission and Obama was elected on the program of the Commission. According to them, the United States is not and should not be a colonial power in the Mediterranean sense, that is to say, they should not envisage territorial control by installing settlers. The experience of the Bush administration in Iraq was extremely expensive compared to its return on investment. It should not be reproduced.

After Turkey and France tried to enrol the United States in a vast bombardment of Syria, by staging the chemical crisis of the summer of 2013, the White House and the Pentagon decided to regain control. In January 2014, they convened a secret meeting of Congress and made it pass a secret law approving a plan for dividing Iraq into three and secession of the Kurdish region of Syria. To do this, they decided to fund and arm a jihadist group able to achieve what international law prohibits to the US Army: ethnic cleansing.

Barack Obama and his armies are not envisaging the remodeling the "broader Middle East" as a goal in itself, but only as a means to control natural resources. They use a classic concept of divide and conquer, not to create positions of kings and presidents in new states, but to continue the policy of the United States since Jimmy Carter.

In his speech on the State of the Union on Jan. 23, 1980, President Carter outlined the doctrine that bears his name: the US believes that it owns the hydrocarbons in the Gulf which are vital to its economy. Therefore, any questioning by anyone of this axiom will be considered "prejudicial to the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an attack will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." Make no mistake, President Carter was not talking about supplying the US with Gulf oil instead of local oil, but of controling the world oil market using dollars, in the way the United Kingdom assured its 19th century power base by controlling the world coal market. Over time, Washington has developed the instrument of this policy, the CentCom, and extended its reserved zone to the Horn of Africa.

Therefore, the current bombing campaign of the Coalition no longer has any connection with the initial goal of overthrowing the Syrian Arab Republic. It has no connection either with its "war on terrorism". It is concerned exclusively with defending the economic interests of the United States alone, if necessary by creating new states, but not necessarily.

Currently, the Pentagon is symbolically assisted by a few Saudi and Qatari planes, but by neither France nor Turkey. It admits to having conducted more than 4,000 sorties, but having killed just over 300 fighters of the Islamic Emirate. If we stick to the official line, that is more than 13 sorties and an unknown number of bombs and missiles to kill one jihadist. These would be of the costliest and most inefficient air campaign in history. But if we consider the reasoning that preceded it, the attack by Daesh against Iraq corresponds to a manipulation of oil prices that have been reduced from $115 a barrel to $ 83, a decrease of nearly 25 %. Nouri al-Maliki, the legitimately elected Iraqi Prime Minister, who sold half of his oil to China, was suddenly stigmatized and overthrown. Daesh and the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government themselves have reduced their oil theft and export by approximately 70%. All the oil facilities used by Chinese companies have simply been destroyed. De facto, the Iraqi oil and Syrian oil has escaped the Chinese buyers and been reintegrated into the international market controlled by the United States.

Ultimately, this air campaign is a direct application of the "Carter Doctrine" and a warning to President Xi Jinping who is trying to conclude here and there, bilateral contracts to supply his country with hydrocarbons, bypassing the international market.

Anticipating the Future

From this analysis we can conclude that:

In the current period, the United States is willing to lead a war only to defend its strategic interests of controlling the international oil market. Therefore, it can go to war against China, but not against Russia.

France and Turkey will never be able to realize their dreams of recolonisation. France should think about the role that AfriCom has assigned to it on the black continent. She can continue to intervene in all states that are trying to get closer to China (Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Central African Republic) and restore "Western" order, but she will never be able to restore her colonial empire [3]. Turkey should also tone it down. Even if President Erdoğan manages to make an alliance against nature between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Kemalist officers, he will have to abandon his neo-Ottoman ambitions. Above all, he should remember that as a NATO member, his country is more than any other susceptible to be the victim of a pro-US coup, as were before him Greek Georgios Papandreou and Turkish Bülent Ecevit.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar will never be repaid the billions they invested at a loss to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic. Worse, it is likely they will have to pay for part of the reconstruction. The Saud family should continue to respond to the economic interests of American officials, but not to pursue major wars and consider that at any time, Washington can choose to partition their private property, Saudi Arabia.

Israel can hope to continue playing underhand to cause the effective division of Iraq into three in the medium term. It would thus obtain an Iraqi Kurdistan comparable to what South Sudan has already created. It is however unlikely that it can immediately connect it to northern Syria. Similarly, it is unlikely to oust UNIFIL in southern Lebanon and replace it with Al Qaeda as it did with the FNUOD Force at the Syrian border. But in 66 years, Israel has become accustomed to try much and often to get a little more still. It is actually the only winner in this war against Syria and within the Coalition. It has not only weakened its Syrian neighbor for years, but it has managed to force it to abandon its chemical arsenal. In this way, it is the only state in the world to officially have both a sophisticated nuclear arsenal and a chemical and biological arsenal.

Iraq is de facto divided into three separate states of which one, the Caliphate, will never be recognized by the international community. Initially, we do not see what would prevent the secession of Kurdistan, other than the difficulty of explaining by what enchantment it increased its territory by 40% from its administrative definition, including the oil fields of Kirkuk. The Caliphate should gradually give way to a Sunni state, probably governed by men who have officially "left" Daesh, but in a less cruel manner. These would be a process comparable to that of Libya where veterans of al Qaeda were placed in power without raising the slightest protest.

Syria will gradually regain peace and focus on its long reconstruction. It will look for this to Chinese companies, but it will keep Beijing away from its hydrocarbons. To rebuild its oil industry and to exploit its gas reserves, it will turn to Russian companies. The issue of pipelines which cross it will depend on its Iranian and Russian supporters.

Lebanon will continue to live under the threat of Daesh but the organization will never play a role other than that of terrorists. Jihadists are just a way to gel a little more the polical operation of a country sinking into anarchy.

Finally, Russia and China should urgently intervene against Daesh, in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, not out of compassion for the local people, but because this tool will soon be used against them by the United States. Already, if Daesh is controlled by Saudi Prince Abdul Rahman, who finances, and by the caliph Ibrahim, who heads the operations, its principal officers are Georgians, all members of military intelligence, and sometimes Chinese Turkic speakers. In addition, the Georgian defense minister acknowledged, before changing his mind, his hosting of training camps for jihadists. If Moscow and Beijing hesitate, they will face Daesh in the Caucasus, in the Ferghana Valley, and in Xinjiang.
Translation
Roger Lagassé

[1] "Peaceful revolution" means here that we will not hurt Sunnis.
[2] At the beginning of the war, Hezbollah was not present in Syria, but Syria militarily supported Hezbollah in its fight against the Israeli aggressor. It was therefore not a matter of putting Hezbollah out of Syria, but of ceasing support for the resistance.
[3] I will in a future article return to the current presence of officers of the French Foreign Legion on a secret mission in Syria. In April 2014, seven of them were killed while leading an al-katiba of the al-Nosra Front (Al-Qaeda) and wielding Milan missiles.

Reprinted with permission from Voltairenet