NATO Member Turkey Harboring Terrorist Army
Warns Syria about defending its own borders – brazen act of war, crime against world peace ignored by feckless United Nations.
by Tony Cartalucci
June 29, 2012 – After losing a fighter jet earlier this month while conducting a high-speed, low altitude invasion of Syria’s airspace, Turkey has now pledged to treat any Syrian operation along its borders as a military threat.
“Turkey’s warning could tilt the dynamic along the border, which has become an incubator for Syrian antigovernment rebels who are seeking increased levels of international support. Turkey’s pledge to respond to aggression from Syrian forces could help the rebel Free Syrian Army by deterring Syrian forces from attacking—or else result in Turkish retaliation for cross-border attacks on rebels,” reported the Wall Street Journal in their article, “Turkey Warns of Retaliation Against Syria.” This encapsulates the brazen warping of logic applied by NATO aggressors as they seek to perpetuate the bloodbath and destabilization caused by their own proxy forces, primarily harbored, armed, and deployed from NATO member Turkey.
Syrian Rebels are Al Qaeda Terrorists
By US officials’ own admissions, since 2007 a combined US-Israeli-Saudi effort to assemble and deploy against Syria and Iran an army of sectarian extremists drawn from the ranks of Al Qaeda and its affiliates has been underway. In Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection,” he reported, “The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
Within Hersh’s report, not only is this army of fanatical terrorists described as being fully backed by the West in order to create a sectarian bloodbath to be used to achieve Western foreign policy objectives, but it was fully anticipated that this army would commit abhorrent atrocities, particularly against ethnic and religious minorities throughout the region. In particular former CIA agent Robert Baer in Lebanon warned about the fate of Christians located in the region.
Today, Baer’s warning has manifested itself in a genocidal campaign against Syria’s Christians increasingly more difficult for the Western media to hide. This is confirmed by LA Times’ “Church fears ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Christians in Homs, Syria,” and more recently in USA Today’s distorted, but still telling, “Christians in Syria live in uneasy alliance with Assad, Alawites.”
Also mentioned was the Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, who by 2007 was already receiving significant backing from the West and Israel to destabilize Syria – despite its feigned anti-Western, anti-Israeli rhetoric.
As clandestine military operations became larger in scale and more difficult for the complicit Western media to obfuscate, it was announced that hundreds of fighters as well as torrents of weapons and cash began flowing into Syria from NATO-armed terrorists in Libya. The Al Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (a US State Department listed terrorist organization – #28) led by Abdul Hakim Belhaj, spearheaded efforts to bolster what is essentially a foreign terrorist operation in Syria beginning as early as November 2011, according to the London Telegraph.
After Belhaj’s visit to the Turkish-Syrian border and his pledge to send cash, weapons, and fighters, up to 600 Libyan terrorists were reported to have made the journey to Syria to join the fighting. At least one ship flush with weapons from Libya was interdicted by Lebanon on its way to rebels’ hands in Syria.
In addition to LIFG terrorists admittedly entwined with the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), more recent reports indicate that Iraqi terrorists have also joined their ranks. Reuters in their article, “Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs,” admit that not only is the FSA conducting a terrorist bombing campaign against the people of Syria, but that it is facilitated by rebels who “fought with Al Qaeda elements in Iraq” and learned their bombing skills while attacking both sectarian Iraqi targets as well as Western troops.
Ironic indeed, that the US in particular is backing entirely terrorist forces that thousands of Americans have shed their blood allegedly fighting in the “War on Terror.” It appears that Al Qaeda, admittedly a creation of the CIA in the 1980’s to draw in and fight Soviets in Afghanistan, is still patronized by the West and used as both a convenient casus belli as well as a terrorist proxy force against enemies of Western foreign policy.
Turkey is Helping
According to the New York Times, “a small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.” While the Times article attempts but fails to allay fears that the FSA is in fact a terrorist front, the real significance of the article is that it confirms Turkey is serving as a willing conduit to harbor, arm, and deploy terrorist forces against neighboring Syria – a crime against world peace.
The Gulf States, which provided the bulk of the “hijackers” allegedly behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, are now the primary weapons and cash suppliers for the FSA, with Saudi Arabia leading the way – as Seymour Hersh reported they would be in 2007. These weapons, according to the UK Independent, are being transferred to terrorists via Turkey. It is also reported that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood then distributes the weapons once they make their way into Syria – belying the narrative that the unrest is anything but an foreign-facilitated extremist terror campaign.
Perhaps most disturbing is a report published by Michael Weiss of the Neo-Con corporate-financier funded (beginning on page 18, .pdf) Henry Jackson Society, titled, “Syrian rebels say Turkey is arming and training them.” In the report, Weiss claims that, “rebel sources in Hatay told me last night that not only is Turkey supplying light arms to select battalion commanders, it is also training Syrians in Istanbul. Men from the unit I was embedded with were vetted and called up by Turkish intelligence in the last few days and large consignments of AK-47s are being delivered by the Turkish military to the Syrian-Turkish border.”
Weiss can hardly be considered a reliable source, and is just as likely fabricating his entire narrative for the purpose of psychologically targeting Syria. However, Turkey has made no attempts to refute such claims, made more frequently and by an increasing number of sources. Turkey is admittedly serving as a conduit for weapons, and is most likely participating in a more direct role to train, arm, fund, and support terrorists operating along the Turkish-Syrian border.
And despite all of this, the United Nations has remained mute over these transgressions, acts of war, and crimes against world peace. While it feigns outrage over the violence in Syria, it has failed categorically to identify the driving forces behind it – namely the unending torrent of weapons, cash, and foreign fighters flowing over Syria’s borders – supplied by NATO and its Gulf State partners.
Turkey Plays Pivotal Role in Psychologically Breaking Syria
Turkey is clearly harboring a terrorist front within its borders and facilitating their violent-subversive actives within Syrian borders. While the US and NATO hypocritically use a similar narrative to justify cross-border raids into Pakistan, it is attempting to tie Syria’s hands from even operating up to and along its own border to stem very real, admitted terrorist networks maintained by NATO and their Gulf State partners.
The goal of NATO is to create enough chaos in Syria, long enough, to shake the Syrian people’s faith in their government and their armed forces by dividing and destroying Syria’s national institutions. Just as in Libya, such divisions brought on by unwarranted panic will accelerate, not stem the violence. The stated goal by Western policy makers is to create divisions, doubt, and defections – and they are trying to achieve this through a combination of propaganda, economic sanctions, and overt Western-backed terrorism. They pursue this course of action because a full-scale military operation is untenable, as is the prospect of their terrorist proxies achieving any meaningful tactical victory. Syria, by remaining united and exhibiting perseverance will defeat NATO aggression.
Libya proves that capitulation is not an option, with sectarian genocide the result, subjecting capitulators, defectors, and even NATO’s hand-picked proxies to post-Qaddafi violence and mayhem. There is no option but to continue resisting.
Bowie: ‘UN Should Investigate Arms Smuggling into Syria’ [video]
Russia Today
July 9, 2012
At a July 6th, 2011 meeting of the Friends of Syria conference in Paris, the United States and its European Partners led calls for the implementation of new sanctions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton threatening Russia and China for their stance on the issue. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called on the UN to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, mandating economic sanctions, an arms embargo, and potentially, military force. UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan admitted his six point peace plan had not succeeded and later criticized those nations undermining the plan by providing arms and assistance to Syria’s rebel fighters. Assad would not rule out direct negotiations with Washington and stated, “as long as you offer any kind of support to terrorists, you are partner. Whether you send them armaments or money or public support, political support in the United Nations, anywhere.”
NATO Determined for War At Any Cost
“Fictitious Enemies” and “Combat Scenarios”: The Pentagon and NATO Rehearse for War against Russia?
by Rick Rozoff
Global Research
July 3, 2012
Stop NATO – 2012-07-02
Last month was a busy one for U.S.-NATO military exercises in the Baltic Sea. Three major multinational training exercises, including naval maneuvers, amphibious landings and preparation for deployment to Afghanistan, occurred in the region in June, in one case overlapping.
From June 10-22 the U.S. Seventh Army’s Joint Multinational Training Command (JMTC), based in Grafenwöhr, Germany, conducted this year’s Saber Strike, the largest multinational military exercise in the area. Approximately 2,000 troops from seven NATO nations – the U.S., Britain, France, Canada, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – participated in training to “engage the enemy, as they overcome challenges in interoperability, ” according to the JMTC’s account of the drills in Estonia and Latvia.
The former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the rotating sites for Saber Strike exercises and “share resources and capabilities to meet the training requirements of organic units and elements, who may deploy in support of contingency operations in Afghanistan. ”
JMTC’s lead exercise planner, Tony Bonarti, said of the training: “In pursuing operational cohesiveness, these nations expect to achieve vast improvements in their respective defense and host-nation governments that allow them to be prepared to address both national and international crisis events.”
Live-fire and field training exercises were conducted at the Ādaži Training Area in Latvia and other events were held at facilities in Estonia. The scenario employed for the live-fire exercise was “defending a Forward Operating Base.” A U.S. Army Europe website report of a war game simulation held at the Tapa Training facility said: “Working cooperatively with allied partners, the Estonian forces are exercising a combat action scenario in a fictitious country that is undergoing civil unrest and facing an invasion by neighboring foreign forces sympathetic to the civil unrest.”
During an exercise in Estonia, a local brigade was joined by multinational forces from several NATO and NATO partner nations. The Ämari Air Base in Estonia, recently upgraded to accommodate NATO warplanes, hosted airmen from the Michigan Air National Guard who operated fighter and aerial refueling aircraft.
American units participating in the war games were personnel from the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, the Michigan Air Guard and the 4th Marine Division as well as a Joint Terminal Air Controller (in charge of directing air combat operations) team from the Washington Air Guard.
During Saber Strike 2012 the website of the JMTC, the only U.S. Army training command that regularly trains U.S. and multinational forces jointly, disclosed that its Joint Multinational Simulation Center conducts approximately 40 NATO exercises annually.
From June 1-16 the U.S.-led annual Baltic Operations (BALTOPS), the largest multinational maritime exercise held in the Baltic Sea, occurred in the territorial waters of Estonia, Lithuania, Germany and Poland. Thirty warships, as many aircraft and an estimated 1,500 marines and sailors from the U.S., Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and Sweden participated.
For the first time in the exercise’s 40-year history a major amphibious landing operation was conducted in this year’s host nation, Lithuania (in Palanga). It involved the U.S. Marine Corps (including its Black Sea Rotational Force 12), Lithuanian Special Operations Force troops, personnel from Lithuania’s Iron Wolf Motorised Infantry Brigade, the USS Normandy guided missile cruiser, two B-52 strategic bombers, two German Pa 200 Tornado fighter jets, two Lithuanian Mi-8 helicopters, a joint battalion of the Estonian-Latvian- Lithuanian Baltic Naval Squadron (BALTRON), a Dutch diving team and two Polish Lublin class amphibious warfare ships.
The scenario used for the exercise was described as a crisis in a fictitious nation named Arcadia which “affects the entire region of the Blue Sea.” Acting on a United Nations Security Council mandate, international forces are deployed to the imaginary (or only slightly disguised) Blue Sea region which enforce an arms embargo, a blockade, a stabilization operation in Arcadia and “assistance in counter-terrorism actions.”
Though separated from the Baltic Sea by Lithuania, Belarus could well be the scenario’s Arcadia.
An amphibious landing operation was also held in Estonia on the coast of Paldiski. Estonian Defense Forces Chief of Staff Peeter Hoppe said before the event that “Paldiski’s southern harbor will have a pre-positioning exercise, where a large array of various allied military vehicles will be brought ashore.”
The exercise was observed and led by the U.S. Marine Corps’ Lieutenant General Richard Tryon, Lieutenant General Frank Panter, Jr., Brigadier General Charles G. Chiarotti and Brigadier General Roger Machut as well as Britain’s Rear Admiral Russell Harding.
Estonian Public Broadcasting published a report on June 4 which said of the exercise that “The aim is to practice bringing an over 1,000-strong battalion battle group to Estonia and readying it for combat.”
Estonia’s Hoppe further spoke specifically on his nation’s armed forces working with U.S. Marines:
“They will learn survival skills from us, as we have a special climate, wetland landscape, which cannot be found everywhere. In return, we will learn from them patrolling, an ability that we do have, but which they are extremely skilled at.”
“The common denominator is [the] receiving of allies, cooperation between units, combined effort of civilian authorities and [the] private sector. All this strengthens Baltic cooperation with America and [other] allies. Naturally it also strengthens regional partnership in the northern region of the Baltic Sea and allows cooperation procedures to be tested.”
The integrated U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Strike Group Two website stated this year’s BALTOPS was “designed to promote regional cooperation and foster multinational interoperability to train for joint combat of regional and transnational threats.”
Vice Admiral Frank Pandolfe, commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet and of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (“a rapidly deployable Maritime Headquarters to plan, command and control maritime operations including if necessary a Maritime Expanded Task Force for larger scale operations”) , stated:
“BALTOPS has one common goal – to improve maritime security in the Baltic Sea through increased interoperability and collaboration among regional allies.
“As in past years, our sailors and Marines will be working side-by-side with their colleagues from partner nations, both on land and at sea, becoming familiar with each other’s military operating procedures and practices. That partnership – that collaboration – leads to increased understanding and increased interoperability.”
On June 28 the Baltic Host 12 NATO Host Nation Support exercise began simultaneously in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with the involvement of military personnel from Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, U.S. European Command and Naval Striking and Support Force NATO.
The fourth annual Baltic Host exercise is providing the U.S. and NATO the opportunity to increase military interoperability with the armed forces of the three Baltic nations and to prepare those nations for hosting NATO forces for assorted missions, including armed conflicts. That is, war. War close to home is the most likely prospect.
This year’s exercise will prepare for a NATO Response Force exercise codenamed Steadfast Jazz to be conducted in 2013.
The Baltic Sea region is an expanding theater for Pentagon and NATO operations. From regular ground, air and sea exercises to the training of multinational forces for deployment to Afghanistan and the beginning of the Northern Distribution Network to move supplies and equipment to that nation. From the eight-year-old NATO Baltic air patrol to the opening of a NATO cyber warfare center of excellence in Estonia and the upgrading of air bases in Estonia and Lithuania. From the deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles to Poland two years ago to the scheduled stationing of Standard Missile-3 interceptors there in 2018.
USS Normandy, which participated in this year’s BALTOPS, is equipped to fire Standard Missile-3s, and may well join other American guided missile cruisers and destroyers in the Baltic Sea as part of the U.S.’s global missile interception system.
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