Human Rights Watch: “Syrian Rebels” Guilty of Torture, Murder

Land Destroyer

As West’s narrative unravels – cognitive infiltration begins.
by Tony Cartalucci

September 19, 2012 – US, UK, NATO, Saudi, and Israeli backed terrorists carrying out a campaign of systematic atrocities in Syria have finally been acknowledged and reported on by Human Rights Watch, who has for nearly 2 years intentionally portrayed the conflict as one-sided violence carried out by the Syrian government alone.

With evidence and admissions emerging that the so-called “Syrian rebels” are in fact Libyan terrorists, armed, funded, and flown in by NATO to cross into Syria and attack government troops, organizations like Human Rights Watch have faced deteriorating legitimacy, even with watered-down admissions like their most recent report titled, “Syria: End Opposition Use of Torture, Executions.” In the report, Human Rights Watch admits that “armed opposition groups have subjected detainees to ill-treatment and torture and committed extrajudicial or summary executions in Aleppo, Latakia, and Idlib.”

Much of the torture described by Human Rights Watch involves obtaining false confessions by victims, admitting tat they are “shabeeha” militia men. The Western media has long excused terrorists operating in Syria for their atrocities, claiming that the victims were “suspected” shabeeha. It now appears, as was suspected all along, these victims were innocence, and the Western press, the BBC and CNN in particular, were complicit in covering up egregious crimes against humanity.

Human Rights Watch also acknowledged that those carrying out the atrocities are indeed the same groups being financed and armed by Western nations, and “urged countries assisting opposition groups to condemn publicly the human rights and humanitarian law abuses by those groups.”

Of course, despite the West using reports produced by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International – and other faux-NGOs funded and directed by the very interests arming terrorists in Syria – to justify the violent subversion of the Syrian government, it is already evident that reports illustrating that human rights abuses are being carried out by Western-backed terrorists will incur no condemnation, nor affect in any way the continued supplying of arms, cash, and covert military support.

“Syrian Rebels” Are Libyan Terrorists

The recent consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, resulting in the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, was carried out by the very terrorist groups the US and NATO armed and backed in the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011. These same terrorists organizations, predominately led by the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), promptly directed fighters, cash, and arms, funneled through NATO-member Turkey, to assist in the violent overthrow of the Syrian government.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and as recently as last month, CNN, whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:

Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.

A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.

CNN also added:

On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.

The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.

CNN’s reports provide bookends to 2011’s admissions that large numbers of Libyan terrorists flush with NATO cash and weapons had headed to Syria, with notorious terrorist LIFG commanders making the arrangements.

In essence, Syria has been under invasion for nearly a year by US and NATO-backed Libyan terrorists. Human Rights Watch now confirms that these terrorists are carrying out a brutal, systematic campaign of torture and extra-judicial murder. It should be remembered that they do so with Western, NATO, and Gulf State cash and weapons, as well as significant political support.

US-backed Syrian Terror Campaign Began in 2007 Under Bush, Continues Under Obama

A report published in 2007 by the New Yorker titled “The Redirection” (full article here), cited US, Saudi, and Lebanese officials who admitted that military and financial aid was already flowing to militant groups affiliated with both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood with the aim of destabilizing Syria and Iran. Former intelligence agents were also cited, warning that the plan, then being implemented under the Bush administration, would lead to a catastrophic sectarian bloodbath – the very sectarian bloodbath now unfolding in Syria today.

In the report, it explicitly states:

“To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.” –Seymour Hersh, The Redirection (2007)

Hersh’s report would also include:

“the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.” –Seymour Hersh, The Redirection (2007)

The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007 US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood:

“There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.” –The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

It is clear that the campaign to violently overthrow the Syrian government through the use of terrorists both domestic and foreign, all with ties to extremist groups including Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood began under Bush and continues to this day under current US President Barack Obama.

While methods of cognitive infiltration are attempted – most notably the recent “2016: Obama’s America,” – to manage public perception and revelations that the US is indeed militarily backing legions of Al Qaeda fighters from Libya to Syria and beyond,  Obama’s alleged ideological opponents, the Neo-Conservatives have literally penned letters to Obama imploring him to expand military support for terrorists operating in Syria – now exposed by Human Rights Watch as conducting vicious crimes against humanity.

The letter covered by Foreign Policy’s article, “Conservatives call on Obama to establish ‘safe zones’ in Syria,” was signed by notorious Neo-Conservative co-conspirators in the invasion of Iraq including Elliott Abrams, Karl Rove, Paul Bremer, Robert Joseph, and Douglas Feith, along with advisors to the Mitt Romney campaign, including Eric Edelman, Jamie Fly, Robert Kagan, and Stephen Rademaker, as well as Syrian National Council member, Radwah Ziadeh.

Radwah Ziadeh, it should be remembered, is also a “senior fellow” of the US State Department’s US Institute for Peace (USIP) which has just revealed it is behind training, coaching, and tutoring Syria’s opposition leaders as well as preparing Syria’s new constitution, currently being called a, “transition strategy document.”

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Neo-Cons’ letter is that it essentially calls for a Libya-style no-fly zone:

We urge you to take immediate steps, in close and continuing consultation with the Congress, to work with regional partners to establish air-patrolled “safe zones” covering already liberated areas within Syria, using military power not only to protect these zones from further aggression by the Assad regime’s military and irregular forces, but also to neutralize the threat posed by the Syrian dictatorship’s chemical and biological weapons.

Clearly, US involvement in both the Libyan and Syrian conflicts is not an exclusive feature of the “Obama administration,” but rather preceded it, permeates it, and will certainly survive it should Obama fail to be reelected in 2012. The only difference will be the narrative that is used to sell it for the next 4 years.

Bottom Line

Even the West’s own NGOs can no longer maintain the illusion that the wave of terror created to overthrow Wall Street and London’s enemies are somehow “freedom fighters.” Cognitive infiltration – the creation of “conspiracy theories” to spin and control public perception versus an emerging alternative media – is attempting to compartmentalize responsibility for the West’s use of listed terror organizations and the myriad of crimes they’ve carried out from Libya to Syria and beyond.

By rejecting the tired left-right paradigm, and realizing that there is a singular agenda, transcending all political parties and alleged “ideologies,” leaves bare the truth behind this agenda, regardless of who inherits it next. By rejecting these false paradigms, we hobble new narratives that attempt to carry forward this singular agenda – like Mitt Romney’s “American Exceptionalism,” and the establishment’s attempt to revitalize the fraudulent “War on Terror” narrative.

The agenda does not change, because the corporate-financier interests driving it do not change. If we aspire to change or obstruct this agenda of achieving global hegemony for the benefit of special interests at the cost of the people, we must identify, boycott, and replace the corporations and institutions themselves, not wrestle endlessly with their troupe of proxies, politicians, and controlled paradigms.

September 22, 2012 | Categories: co-opting and/or destabilization, Israel, Libya, NATO, news, sovereignty, Syria, tyranny, UK, US, videos, war | 2 Comments