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Syria: Endgame approaches as conspiracy continues [video]

Land Destroyer Report
January 11, 2012

Three people have reportedly been killed by security forces across Syria on Wednesday. Bashar Al-Assad has spoken to supporters in Damascus for the second time in the last 24 hours, reiterating his dismissal of calls to step down. He’s blaming the ten-month-long unrest in the country on foreign-funded terrorists, promising to crush them with extreme prejudice. The UN says Damascus has stepped up its crackdown on protesters, but Assad claims no order was ever given to fire on civilians. The President’s pledged commitment to Democratic reform, promising a referendum on a new constitution by March, and free elections soon after. RT talks to independent news editor James Corbett.

….

See more of James Corbett’s work at his site, The Corbett Report. The cables and US State Department admissions James Corbett is referring to can be found in the excerpt below taken in part from, “IISS: Syria’s Opposition Is Armed” and “Syria’s Bashar Assad Speaks to Western Press.”

“The unrest in Syria from the beginning was entirely backed by Western corporate-financier interests and part of a long-planned agenda for region-wide regime change. Syria has been slated for regime change since as early as 1991. In 2002, then US Under Secretary of State John Bolton added Syria to the growing “Axis of Evil.” It would be later revealed that Bolton’s threats against Syria manifested themselves as covert funding and support for opposition groups inside of Syria spanning both the Bush and Obama administrations.

In an April 2011 CNN article, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated, “We’re not working to undermine that [Syrian] government. What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil society support, is to build the kind of democratic institutions, frankly, that we’re trying to do in countries around the globe. What’s different, I think, in this situation is that the Syrian government perceives this kind of assistance as a threat to its control over the Syrian people.”

Toner’s remarks came after the Washington Post released cables indicating the US has been funding Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005 and continued until today.

In an April AFP report, Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, stated that the “US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments.” The report went on to explain that the US “organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there.” Posner would add, “They went back and there’s a ripple effect.” That ripple effect of course is the “Arab Spring,” and in Syria’s case, the impetus for the current unrest threatening to unhinge the nation and invite in foreign intervention.”

January 30, 2012 | Categories: co-opting and/or destabilization, news, sovereignty, Syria, tyranny, videos | Leave a comment

‘Assad’s family attempts to escape Syria’

The Jerusalem Post
January 30, 2012

Sources tell Egyptian daily that Syrian security forces tried to help smuggle Syrian president’s family out of country.

Syrian security forces attempted to smuggle Syrian President Bashar Assad’s family out of the country, sources from the Syrian opposition told Al-Masry-Al-Youm Sunday evening, according to a report published by the Egyptian daily.

According to the report, security forces tried to aid the president’s wife Asma Assad, to escape via Damascus, along with his children, mother and cousin.

[CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE]

[hat tip: Drudge Report]

January 30, 2012 | Categories: co-opting and/or destabilization, news, sovereignty, Syria, tyranny, war | Leave a comment

It Is Time To Legalize All Drugs

I saw this written on a park bench somewhere in Halifax. Sure, the author could have been lying but the doubt alone is a statement.

By Amir Alwani
Potent News
January 28, 2012

I have a right to ingest/smoke whatever I want and to explore the contents of “my own mind” in the process, so long as I am not hurting anyone else, even if it kills me. This is a human right, albeit one that few people think of.

Imagine if you had the right to have a shed in your backyard but you didn’t have a right to explore the contents of that shed. That would be a little insulting, wouldn’t it?

Those who want to limit our mental exploration are to be held highly suspect. Those same people, for instance, often advocate that perfectly normal and healthy individuals go on 7 psychotropic pharmaceuticals at the same time. Limiting access to information is usually a form of domination.

We don’t truly have access to our own minds right now. Some of us do, but there is a huge effort to dumb all of us down and re-engineering us. Fluoride in our water supply destroying our third eye (pineal gland) is just one of many examples of this.

Decriminalization of pot is a sad effort to appease control freaks. I see no reason to demand anything short of full-on legalization (of all drugs).

The nanny-state should get off of our backs. Waving its finger, the state pretends it’s looking out for our best interest but half the time it’s dealing the very drugs that it’s punishing people for possessing.

Drugs are prohibited in order to instill a monopoly (e.g. coke/heroin) and/or to mold a society’s consciousness (e.g. magic mushrooms, LSD, DMT).

State-owned education and the mainstream media are the mouthpieces of the government and that is bad enough but we should now (or sometime soon) also deal with the reality that social engineers have prohibited specific substances precisely because those substances have, for thousands of years (in many cases), helped people become more self-aware, helped people discover that the ego is an illusion and that the true self knows no borders.

Whether this discovery happens rapidly via a deep introspective journey fomented by a heroic dose of magic mushrooms or whether a slower but slightly similar process unfolds over time with the aid of the occasional toke of a flower that allows one to relax and decompress, the name of the game is self-discovery and elites seem to passionately hate this game.

While this is technically an insane and sinister state of affairs – and, of course, those guilty should be held accountable – I personally think we need to clean up our act a little bit and look in the mirror, especially with respect to how we treat each other and how we dominate the other creatures that inhabit this planet. Otherwise we will have simply learned nothing, can easily be shown to be inconsistent and at that point we cannot expect to be taken seriously.

Misguided Rage

If you are one of those people who puts their blind trust in a government, you might find yourself at a soccer riot, filled with rage, fighting with someone over a ball going into a net, ignoring the true culprits behind the shaping of your depressing life, all just because you listened when they (government/society) told you “we know what’s best for you” and because you had not yet made the decision to face the reality that you had no sound reason to believe them (I’m not saying it’s an easy decision, I’m just saying it’s a decision… one that you likely can still make).

The pharmaceutical industry makes more money when people are ignorant of the fact that marijuana & hemp can replace a lot of the “traditional” drugs out there (and indeed, hemp does represent a massive threat to the oil industry as well) but at the end of the day elites are really giving each other high fives over the fact that they’ve more-or-less successfully banned one of the most awesome things in the world.

Pot is illegal because pot is absolutely amazing and has the ability to dramatically improve many different aspects of your life in a variety of different ways.

It’s great that people are fighting so hard for patients to be able to get effective medicine, but where does that put those of us who just want to have a good time with that same medicine? And wouldn’t those who want their medicine also benefit from the efforts of those who want total freedom to enjoy that which is harmless?

Do I have to sit here and wish I get cancer or some other serious ailment just so I can one day finally enjoy smoking a joint in peace? This is absurd.

Comedian Doug Stanhope eloquently echoes my initial point, that the real problem is one of individual rights:

“If you’re gonna have a pro-drug argument, start the argument where it starts: I have the right to do what ever the hell I want to my own body, if it kills me slowly, happy for me, f*ck you, “clack clack” (miming a pump-action shotgun) stop me!”

When I came across the headline, “Snoop Dogg’s marijuana drug bust highlights idiocy of the failed War on Drugs,” I was happy that Natural News was reporting on such a blatant attack on individual rights. I mean Snoop did have a medical marijuana license, when all is said and done, and these mixed messages about pot are getting ridiculous. When I finally had time to actually read the article a week later, however, I was shocked and amazed.

As a disclaimer, I will say that I have been an enormous fan of Natural News for years (and probably will continue to be). In the past I’ve even sent the editor, Mike Adams, a letter of gratitude for putting Natural News on the map.

I’m grateful to be able to upload some of my videos on Natural News’s video section as well and I’m going to continue to have Natural News’ RSS feed on the Potent News website because I value a lot of the other content that Natural News reports on with regard to cancer-cures, food freedom, the highly detrimental effects of vaccines, other health issues, the growing police state, etc., but I want to make it known that I now find myself very confused by Mike Adams’ take on marijuana and drug laws in general.

I do have a lot of respect for Mike Adams but this issue is one that has deeply affected my life in a number of ways and so I will not hesitate to be blunt.

Wikimedia Image: Cannabis female flowers close-up

A Drug Court For Pot?

The article states,

Ideally, marijuana possession should be de-criminalized to free up law enforcement resources for more important tasks (and to take the ego out of the DEA, which is a rogue government ~~agency~~ gang that openly violates state law).

Barring that, the next best option is to pass state laws that put marijuana possession under the jurisdiction of a drug court, not a criminal court. In fact, this idea of approaching drug possession from a health care point of view (rather than a criminal point of view) works for all street drugs: meth, heroin, cocaine, etc.

Later the article elaborates on the drug court:

Drug problems needed to be treated in a “drug court” where court options include:

• Mandatory drug detox treatment.
• Mandatory drug counseling.
• Nutritional support programs for detox and overcoming drug addiction.
• Paying of relatively small fines, similar to traffic tickets.
• Regular drug testing for a limited period of time to determine compliance.

My first thought is, “are you joking?”

My second thought is, “why not make all drugs legal?”

This probably only sounds radical to those who have a residue of a holier-than-thou attitude whereby they think they know what’s best for everyone. To me, a drug court for pot sounds radical.

Freedom is an all-or-nothing thing. You can’t be a half-slave.

As many people have pointed out, decriminalization is a flimsy concept. I almost find the concept offensive. It’s saying you can have “small amounts”. What a tease! There is no dignity in decriminalization and it only delays the inevitable.

Also, I don’t know if Mike Adams forgot, but it’s worth mentioning that marijuana is not only “far less harmful” than alcohol, as he put it, but marijuana is also a medicine that treats over 100 conditions (1,2). I don’t say that as an argument for legalization. This is simply something which Natural News has covered before but which is apparently irrelevant now (although, to be fair, he didn’t write the specific Natural News article I’m thinking of).

Personally, I think it would have been ideal if Mike Adams mentioned operation Fast and Furious (which he has covered before), as globalist-funded coke gangs spilling into the US with guns given to them by the ATF and the White House would definitely be relevant to a discussion of the root causes of drug-culture.

The current marijuana situation is a joke. The whole drug war is a joke. They ship the narcotics in and then bust us for using them. There’s no bargaining with these people. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.

This whole thing is a very complex issue and deserves a lot of attention. We are at a particular stage in our evolution. Our relationship to each other and our relationship to the world is reflected accordingly. We cannot reasonably hope to reclaim our humanity while simultaneously allowing others to use every excuse they can come up with to dictate the parameters of our behavior and mental exploration. We do not need to be treated like infants.

Let’s pause for a moment to examine one thing. When you spend your time with friends and family, you start to sound like them. We all know that.

Similarly, we are trapped, so to speak, in a Matrix-like world that is constructed by unseen cockroaches, and so those cockroaches have rubbed off on us.

I mean, it seems like the powers-that-be think they know what’s best for everyone and everything. It follows that we’ll mimic their dominating ways when exposed to the constructed reality they have manufactured for us (at least a bit, in some ways, I mean they’re not our “friends” but you catch my drift).

It’s not all bad. Conversely, the evil scumbags must also have the good people rub off on them. It’s only a matter of time before the nanny-state gains a bit of sanity and we all understand where we’re all coming from.

Rewind

While doing more research, I found an earlier Natural News article about Willie Nelson’s arrest for pot, where Mike Adams advocated legalization (and taxation… I don’t understand why we should tax this… maybe I’m missing something but I’m going to ignore this for now).

Legalization seems to be a much more sound position but I don’t know why a little more than a year later Mike Adams became content demanding the above mentioned de-criminalization / drug court (which I feel represents a compromise).

In this article on the Willie Nelson bust, Mike writes,

For the record, I’m not a marijuana smoker, and I would never encourage any individual to take up such a habit unless they had a legitimate medical need for pain relief. However, I am totally against the continued persecution of individuals who buy, possess or consume this medicinal herb. They harm no one but themselves, and smoking marijuana produces side effects that are far milder than drinking alcohol.

I find the “harm no one but themselves” part to be a little pompous. Personally, I would recommend that everyone try it at least once. There, I said it. I’m also not the only person who’s said it.

Legendary comedian Bill Hicks has joked that marijuana should not only be legalized but should also be mandatory (fast-forward to 3:45):

Comedian Kat Williams also gets the message across very succinctly:

It helps me make visual art and music, it helps me write articles, and above all, it helps me be more patient and understanding with people. Perhaps as a result of a combination of all of these things, it helps me be more self-aware and allows me to not waste my energy fighting other peoples’ battles.

Influential writer Alan Watts was largely responsible for popularizing Zen in the west and he has said that a lot of the problems in life occur simply from not thinking things through all the way to the end.

Marijuana helps many people slow down and not panic so much, to the point that we can actually think for once. State-owned education seeks to accomplish the opposite of this and that’s an important thing to keep in mind. Your government wants you in the dark about substances that make you less afraid.

Mike Adams goes on to write things which are indeed 100% accurate but which nevertheless don’t capture the whole picture:

Why is marijuana criminalized in America? The answer is simply that marijuana prohibition is the cornerstone of the American police state. Keeping this herb illegal keeps millions of people employed in law enforcement who otherwise wouldn’t have jobs. It keeps the prison industry strong and gives cops a reason to search vehicles.

It even gives law enforcement officers yet another excuse to hold “terrorism drills.” Seriously: A recent terrorism drill in Northern California imagined pot heads taking over Shasta Dam and blowing up vehicles (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle…). These cops must have a lot of free time on their hands to dream up these wild (and highly improbable) scenarios. But keeping marijuana criminalized allows them to spend more taxpayer money running these useless drills that, after all, keep them all well paid.

At the same time, it causes billions of dollars a year to flow into the underground black market economy — money that would otherwise be used to raise tax revenues for states. (http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy…)

Yes, these are all true reasons. In fact, even in Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, back in April of 2011, police threw a flash-bang grenade into a guy’s son’s bedroom window (for suspicion of some pot and a weapon) and the guy even turned out to be the wrong guy. The cops were at the wrong house. If that man’s son was asleep in that bed he could have been killed.

I agree that police do need an excuse to push people around these days but they’re not just picking some random excuse. It’s not just a happy coincidence that this particular excuse has to do with a drug which, as I mentioned before, helps people make art and write (books, plays, films, documentaries, reports, articles, etc.), helps them think/meditate, and helps to dissolve the ego. Did I mention it helps people love each other? Is that a medicinal benefit?

A Mountain of Laws

It’s worth noting that I was surprised to even find out that there was a time when people could drive cars without a “driver’s license” (and then I was surprised at the fact that I was surprised). Many years ago when I visited France I was shocked to see that their laws are such that they allowed 16 year old kids to purchase alcohol at the corner store. They allowed you to drink in a car as long as you were a passenger and not the driver. They also allowed people to drink outside on the streets.

In Canada, the laws were a lot less lenient and yet I saw more car accidents, more teenagers getting drunk for the sake of getting drunk, more drinkers making fools of themselves on the streets, etc.

We must get rid of this idea that we have some sort of right to put a law on everything, every human activity. Simply saying, “It’s for the greater good”, is not sufficient. Those who purport this overreach often say they’re doing so for our best interest but any sensible person has witnessed the pattern that has emanated from the tentacles of the machine/cabal driving this accelerating global tyranny and it is an ugly pattern.

In fact, when one reads the writings of influential elites like Edward Bernays, one gets the overwhelming impression that he’s trying to convince everyone that if they didn’t allow society to be run by “men we’ve never heard of” tragedy would follow. Compartmentalization is the kind of thing that allows a disgusting Brave New World like ours to run smoothly.

Of course, by running smoothly I mean that we remain seemingly eternally ignorant of our true nature and of what/who we really are, our astronomical potential for true progress, and we get closer and closer to assimilating the traits of those who dominate us, we continue to allow our energy to be drained and our lifeblood to be sucked out of us, until we no longer recognize ourselves. That’s what “running smoothly” really is to people like Edward Bernays.

I’d like to think that now, in 2012, we’re past this naive attitude and can see the organic nature of our existence.

Not everybody is a good drinker but laws aren’t the solution to that. I don’t know if there is a “top-down” solution to that kind of problem. I have a strong hunch that things like that come down to personal responsibility. You can’t make a law, for example, saying “everybody is allowed to drink… except Jeff… Jeff sucks at drinking so he’s not allowed”.

Imagine if that’s what the law actually said. That would be insane.

Why? Because Jeff is not the only bad drinker and you can’t keep track of all the bad drinkers. Even if you could keep track of them, wouldn’t you have better things to do with your time? It doesn’t matter if Jeff’s a bad drinker. It doesn’t matter if everybody’s a bad drinker. The law isn’t there to make everybody perfect in every way.

Adding laws shouldn’t be a pastime. It shouldn’t be something you do for fun. In fact, history tells us that it’s best to have as few laws as possible.

You are not their God. You don’t own them. The only reasonable thing to do is to let everybody drink despite the fact that a few people might ruin that freedom for the rest. And historically, that’s what has happened. If a person can’t control himself, no nanny-state is going to teach him to control himself by controlling him for him. I’m not saying, “abolish the drinking and driving laws” or anything like that, but can anybody remember how well the prohibition of alcohol worked? How well do you think people would have taken to alcohol being regulated by a special drug court?

A baby is not going to learn how to walk if you don’t give him/her a chance to walk.

With all this in mind, however, even though we have not shed this naive attitude, I will remind all of you that it is not a hindrance that few people think of this, for indeed times of great change are often ushered in by an irate minority. Remember that.

Cocaine = Speed = Ritalin = Coffee

Wikimedia Image

Another thought I had after reading the suggestion to have a drug court regulating pot is that I can’t count how many people I’ve seen lose a big chunk of their humanity simply from ingesting coffee all the time.

[ADDENDUM NOTE/UPDATE May 16, 2015: Over the years my attitude towards coffee has shifted. Indeed, coffee can be addictive and I still see it as similar to cocaine in some ways as discussed below, but to be fair I must admit I have come across a lot of information that shows positive health effects of drinking coffee].

An argument that is sometimes given for the prohibition of these “harder” drugs is that people end up stealing to support their habit. First of all, caffeine is a drug. If coffee or cigarettes were very expensive, perhaps we’d see many more segments of the population stealing to support those habits as well (and indeed as the economy turns to crap, people will start to steal food from each other… is that any reason to outlaw food?)

The real reason that truly destructive narcotics like cocaine are illegal in the first place has nothing to do with the fact that cocaine may lead to destructive behaviour and nothing to do with any possible altruism on the part of your government. The reason harder (and more useless) drugs like cocaine are illegal is, again, to impose a monopoly on the narcotics.

Drug dealers generally don’t like that they might go to jail, but I’d be willing to bet that at least some of them love the cash they get to keep when they successfully stay out of jail and they might also love the price inflation that occurs when one of their “peers” (who they didn’t know, maybe) gets locked up.

Mike Adams was indeed accurate in raising the point that there is little difference between drugs like Ritalin vs. cocaine or meth. I can personally attest to this as six years ago I was doing cocaine every week for 3 months (or what was likely cocaine that dealers diluted with “incense powder”, baking soda, or other cocaine-looking things — another reason to legalize all drugs). I also had the opportunity to snort a line of Ritalin in those days and rest assured, the Ritalin high feels almost identical to the cocaine high. That’s right, folks. Most of these ignorant parents are basically giving their 9 year old kids cocaine in the form of Ritalin.

This happening all while the parents are completely oblivious that the coffee they drink every day produces the same effects/feelings as cocaine as well. People treat coffee like it’s water.

I’ve heard of people trying to “sober up”, after a night of drinking, by ingesting caffeine (as though being high on coffee is sobriety). Similarly, I’ve seen cocaine work wonders with respect to “sobering” drunk people up. A guy who is so drunk that he can barely walk or talk is literally a line or two away from coming off as though he has had almost no alcohol the entire night. I’ve seen this happen.

Wikimedia Image: Vector cup of coffee (author: Assassingr)

While things like speed are more synthetic, the feeling of the high is basically the same. It is a travesty that so few people are aware of these things. Maybe someone more versed in chemistry would be able to split hairs here, but alas, the feeling of the high for these drugs is dauntingly similar.

Personally, caffeine makes me want to go to the washroom and take a dump, makes my hands shake, makes me feel nervous (when it wears off), and gives me the exact same “boost” that I got from cocaine back in the day. Could this be why cocaine was once an ingredient in Coca Cola?

I have caffeine as seldom as possible – maybe once every few months when no ginseng is around. Ginseng wakes me up without any of those bizarre side effects.

Personal Responsibility

I’m not going to lie – the pharmaceutical drug ads on TV are not helping the situation but I don’t think we have a drug culture because of ads on television. I submit to you that we have a drug culture because we want to have a drug culture.

Maybe we have a drug culture because drugs distract people and everyone’s too lazy and lacking in foresight to actually deal with the world’s problems. Maybe we choose to sedate ourselves and our children because we fear the responsibility we would have to take on when we realize how powerful we really are. We have this vague feeling that the longer we’ve thought a certain way the harder it is to change, however, I think too many people barely ever even try to change.

It seems to me that making it illegal to put drug advertisements on television would be a giant waste of time. Nobody (except for maybe victims of MK Ultra or some cruel thing like that) is forced at gunpoint to watch television. In general, we sit and waste our lives via our own free will. Let’s own up to that. We almost love the propaganda. More laws is not the answer.

Raising your child is your responsibility, not the TV’s responsibility and not the state’s responsibility. In fact, this type of Orwellian thought is the very reason the dictator in the novel 1984 is named “Big Brother”. It gets you used to the idea of feeling like you can trust the state and that it can replace your family. Arguably, globalists have been fairly successful in destroying the family and indeed this is one of their multifaceted tactics of global domination.

Let’s Get Real

Let’s stop pretending we’re that different from the people who dominate us. We should set an example and be the change we want to see.

Why are we so surprised?

Many of us now believe in karma, after all. How many of you have a cat that you’ve mutilated, euphemistically referring to that act as “spaying” or “fixing”? Hey, I’m not saying I’m better than you. I once got a veterinarian to “fix” a cat that I had too (when I was living on “auto-pilot” more). I’m just saying let’s be honest with ourselves.

How many of you have allowed your son (or daughter, in some places) to be victims of the barbaric act of circumcision?

How many of you have a gold fish in a tiny glass jail in your house?

How many of you don’t give two sh!ts when you see those poor lobsters at the grocery store living in conditions that I would call torture, as they are forced to be surrounded by their own crap and urine in a fluoride filled tank with their claws clamped shut, all these lobsters on top of one another in a mountain of misery, staring at artificial lights as they count down the days they have left?

You might think that’s funny or irrelevant, but in a world that is pure consciousness your intentions or negligence have an instantaneous affect on everything. You’re putting out bad vibes by not looking at the facts.

Sure, many other animals suffer as a result of stores like these existing and it’s definitely not always in-your-face like with the lobsters – people have the opportunity to separate “beef” from “cow” in this way – but I have never met anyone who has even mentioned this lobster abuse to me or what they think of it. I’ve seen people in front of fancy restaurants protesting with signs against foie gras being served (as they should – foie gras is an abomination), but never any love for the lobsters.

The fact that we can put up with this level of abuse right in front of our faces is, I think, a huge part of the problem. Just walking into a pet-store should kill anyone’s mood, but for some reason it doesn’t.

When I was young, I had a neighbour who “owned” a dog. The neighbour would let the small dog roam around in a tiny fenced-in jail-like area in the backyard but the dog also had some sort of electronic device on its collar that seemed to automatically electrocute the poor thing every time it barked. I would often hear the dog try to bark and then I would instantly hear the loud high pitched cry of pain that it let out upon getting zapped/tazed.

I have more stories like this, but I think you get the picture.

When I came across the headline “Marijuana Prevents PTSD In Rats” I thought two things:

#1: How the hell would anybody give post-traumatic stress disorder to a rat?

#2: Do you really need to torture rats to find out pot’s effectiveness? I mean, it doesn’t grow everywhere for nothing and I’m sure you could have found many humans who had PTSD and simply asked them, “Does pot help you?”

The above video is funny, I’ll admit (I laughed) but it also underscores a sad reality. Equally important to scrutinizing the power structure of our civilization is our ability respect each other in the moment, on a day to day basis, so that we can remember what it is we’re trying to save in the first place.

It is in our best interest to act humanely to all the different creatures and spirits that inhabit our planet. Otherwise we are chasing our tails and we can look forward to wasting even more energy on a fabricated war on drugs that only serves to divide and conquer us.

By the way, the day I read the Snoop-arrest article my website registered 420 site-hits. If that’s not a synchronicity, I don’t know what is.

Amir Alwani is a psychonaut who makes metal, electronic and hip-hop music. He is also the founder and editor of the online independent media outlet known as Potent News.

January 28, 2012 | Categories: Amir Alwani, Canada, drug war, health, marijuana, news, police state, Potent News, psychedelics, tyranny, videos | 8 Comments

Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio – part VIII

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
January 26, 2012

It gives me no pleasure to report that the situation with Iran is only getting more heated and the push for war continues to get stronger.

An Israeli investigative journalist and highly connected analyst for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Ronen Bergman, recently wrote a piece for the New York Times magazine which states that indeed Israel will strike Iran in 2012.

Bergman bases his analysis and conclusions on meetings with “many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and intelligence.”

He says that the United States may choose to intervene, something which I think is quite likely, but he does say that “from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that.”

I am not quite sure why they would think that the United States would take a back seat in this conflict given the unmatched power the Israel lobby has in Washington coupled with the growing American presence in region of the Persian Gulf, which I have been detailing in this series.

However, the British Guardian rightly points out that Bergman’s words are more significant than those coming from most analysts and pundits given his close ties to political, military and intelligence figures in Israel.

The Guardian writes that since he spends “a significant amount of time with the politicians, spies and generals who are going to make the ultimate decision … his assessment carries more weigh[t] tha[n] your average Israel-Iran analyst.”

Note: I had to modify the above text (and other excerpts), as for some reason the Guardian’s article had an egregious amount of errors which one would think might be caught by the editor of a large news outlet but apparently not. It’s always humorous to me when a one-man-operation like End the Lie churns out higher quality content than a large-scale enterprise like Guardian.co.uk which recorded £1 million in profits in 2006 and is owned by the Scott Trust.

Bergman says that the Israelis are already preparing for the strike, something which I think is quite obvious and mirrored in the actions of the United States’ military as well.

Bergman writes, “The Israeli Air Force is where most of the preparations are taking place. It maintains planes with the long-range capacity required to deliver ordnance to targets in Iran, as well as unmanned aircraft capable of carrying bombs to those targets and remaining airborne for up to 48 hours. Israel believes that these platforms have the capacity to cause enough damage to set the Iranian nuclear project back by three to five years.”

Other estimates are much more conservative, but I honestly think that the Israeli estimate isn’t too wildly off the mark, although the author of the Guardian piece characterizes it as “very confident.”

This is mostly due to estimates from the likes of United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta who estimated one to two years in a best case scenario and Rafi Eitan, a Mossad veteran, who told Bergman it would set them back “not even three months.”

The two factors at play here are Iran’s physical capability to continue the nuclear program after taking a massive hit along with Iran’s drive to become self-sufficient and a scientific leader in the region.

It seems that Iran has been able to survive and continue their efforts in the face of tough sanctions, something which the country’s Supreme Leader Khamenei boasted about not too long ago.

There were also reports of roughly 1,300 students switching their major over to the field of nuclear sciences due to the most recent assassination and the many others that have occurred as of late.

It seems to me that the Western world’s hyperfocus on Iran has only served to embolden their efforts, as they feel they’re being unfairly targeted and thus should fight back by doing exactly what the West is trying to stop them from doing.

However, I must emphasize that this does not mean that I believe Iran will use a nuclear weapon against Israel or any other target, as I think it is quite clear that they are not, in fact, pursuing any nuclear weapons program at all.

Indeed Leon Panetta himself said as much on national television, yet the talking heads in the establishment media and the bought-and-paid-for politicians in Washington continue to spread disinformation about their nuclear ambitions.

I think that continued strikes and sanctions will in fact serve to embolden the Iranians and drive them to work even harder on their nuclear program.

A direct strike on their facilities would likely have a similar effect but the larger question is if they actually have the money and material capability to continue at this rate after an attack.

While they have indeed announced that they have created an underground enrichment facility which would be much harder to take out from the air, this is only one facility and I doubt that they have enough facilities which are sufficiently protected from air strikes to sustain their program after an Israeli assault.

If Israel managed to strike all above-ground facilities and take them out completely, perhaps even damaging their underground facilities with the use of so-called “bunker buster” bombs, I seriously doubt that they would be able to recover in the “not even three months” cited by Eitan.

Honestly, I think Eitan’s statement very likely represents the ever-present Israeli fearmongering about Iran which is intended to make us believe that Iran is some bloodthirsty nation itching to pull the trigger and nuke Israel and/or the West.

I think this assertion is laughable in its inaccuracy given that Iran is more peaceful than both Israel and the United States and they likely are well aware of the fact that any strike would be seen as justification for an attack on their nation.

I seriously doubt that the Iranian leadership is clueless enough to think that the West wouldn’t take any attack as an opportunity to utterly destroy Iran.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, spent a great deal of time with Bergman which allows us to get a peek into how the Israeli leadership views Iran.

“From our point of view,” Barak said, “a nuclear state offers an entirely different kind of protection to its proxies. Imagine if we enter another military confrontation with Hezbollah, which has over 50,000 rockets that threaten the whole area of Israel, including several thousand that can reach Tel Aviv. A nuclear Iran announces that an attack on Hezbollah is tantamount to an attack on Iran. We would not necessarily give up on it, but it would definitely restrict our range of operations.”

“And if a nuclear Iran covets and occupies some gulf state, who will liberate it?” Barak asked. “The bottom line is that we must deal with the problem now.”

This is a prime example of the Israeli approach: propagandize, instill fear, posit hypothetical situations with no basis in reality, then once you have your subject completely fearful and looking for a solution, you offer the solution which is inevitably a strike on Iran.

The problem here is that all of what Barak said is completely divorced from reality.

Since when was Iran threatening to occupy a gulf state? In reality, it is the United States and the West in general which poses a greater threat of occupying a gulf state.

Furthermore, if anyone is guilty of occupation, it is Israel, which has illegally occupied Palestinian land for decades and committed egregious war crimes in the process.

Has Iran done such a thing? Is Iran flouting international law on a daily basis by illegally occupying territory captured during a war?

However, not all individuals are easily duped by this type of psychological operation which is exemplified by Barak.

Take, for instance, Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East specialist for the CIA.

In a recent piece published in the Lebanese Daily Star, Riedel argued that even if Iran had a nuclear bomb (which it doesn’t) it would still not be an existential threat to Israel.

The Guardian thinks that Riedel’s view is representative of the majority opinion of the CIA and White House, even though there are no indications that this is the case.

Bergman goes on to examine this supposed divergence between the approaches of the United States and Israel (something which I think is wholly superficial) and wonders what notice, if any, Israel would give Washington of an attack on Iran.

Israel has previously said that they will not necessarily warn the United States of an upcoming attack on Iran, but I do not think that Israel would actually carry out a large-scale attack without telling the United States.

First of all, these two nations are the closest of allies, secondly the United States would likely be aware of an Israeli air campaign the second it began due to the presence of carrier strike groups in the region which have advanced radar capabilities.

However, a piece recently published in Mondoweiss claimed that Israel would give the United States 12 hours of warning before an attack on Iran because Netanyahu supposedly doesn’t trust Obama. This seems a bit off to me given that 12 hours is enough time to mobilize the troops in the region to some extent.

On the other hand, Matthew Kroenig, who was formerly an advisor at the Pentagon, now serving at the infamous Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), thinks that Israel’s warning will be “an hour or two [before the attack], just enough to maintain good relations between the countries but not quite enough to allow Washington to prevent the attack.”

This is borderline absurd to me, given that the United States has no ostensible interest in preventing an attack on Iran.

Figures in the United States’ military establishment have been pushing for an attack on Iran for years, leading many analysts to believe that an attack was imminent even though it never materialized.

What’s more, the increasing American military presence in the region surrounding Iran, which you can read about in painstaking detail in the previous installments of this series (a list of which can be found at the bottom of this article), indicates that the United States is indeed preparing for an assault on Iran.

In writing for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg rightly points out that the same individuals giving intelligence to Bergman had convinced Goldberg that an attack on Iran would come last summer.

Goldberg blames his miscalculation on the success of the Stuxnet attack, although honestly I think this is more of an attempt to keep whatever scrap of reputation he has left untarnished.

This makes me wonder, why would Israeli military and intelligence figures be trying to convince individuals in the media that a strike on Iran is imminent?

I believe that this very well might be in an attempt to pressure individuals in America to preemptively strike Iran or prepare for such a strike in order to make the Israeli job easier.

My impression is reflected in the Guardian piece in the passage which reads, “Clearly, [Israel] has a motive in conveying the impression that an attack might be imminent, to stir up urgency in the West to confront Iran.”

In my analysis of the events surrounding Iran, I have found that this is very likely the case and the constant “leaks” regarding plans to attack Iran are meant to push the United States into taking action first.

The military buildup in the region very well might be proof that this approach being taken by Israel is working.

There is also the issue of a third carrier strike group making its way into the Persian Gulf region, a group which would include the aging USS Enterprise.

In the previous installment of this series, I discussed the possibility that the “Big E” could be used as a target for a false flag attack which would give the West free license to assault Iran.

I find this to be likely because it would not only give the West the justification they so desperately have been seeking which has been proving difficult to achieve through pure propaganda, but it would also save the United States a great deal of money in decommissioning the vessel.

While I went over this in some detail before, I believe it is worth exploring more closely in an article devoted entirely to the subject, something which I plan to do in the near future.

If you have any information to share which could help me in this series or in my analysis of a possible false flag attack on the USS Enterprise, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at admin@EndtheLie.com with whatever you have to share.

Short URL: http://EndtheLie.com/?p=35681

January 27, 2012 | Categories: Iran, Israel, news, tyranny, war | Leave a comment

Report: Russia to deliver combat jets to Syria

Business daily Kommersant cites source close to Russia’s Rosoboronexport state arms trader, that $550-million deal envisages delivery of 36 Yak-130 aircraft.

Haaretz.com
January 23, 2012

Russia has signed a contract to sell combat jets to Syria in a show of support for President Bashar Assad’s regime, a newspaper reported Monday.

The business daily Kommersant said, citing a source close to Russia’s Rosoboronexport state arms trader, that the $550-million deal envisages the delivery of 36 Yak-130 aircraft. A spokesman for Rosoboronexport refused to comment on the report.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE…

[hat tip: Pakalert Press]

January 27, 2012 | Categories: co-opting and/or destabilization, news, Russia, sovereignty, Syria, tyranny, war | Leave a comment

The Syria debacle – part II

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
January 20, 2012

This is part two in my new series following the complex developments in the Syrian uprising which I began just days ago. For previous coverage of this issue please scroll to the bottomof the article to find a reading list of previous material I have written.

Today the Washington Post reported that senior officials in the Obama administration have said that they are preparing to close the American embassy in Damascus and evacuate all personnel if President Bashar al-Assad cannot provide additional security.

If Assad cannot give additional security to the U.S. embassy, they reportedly plan to close the facility by the end of January.

Officials said that the United States is not alone in pulling their diplomatic missions out of Syria with other Western countries and Arab embassies making similar moves over the past week.

Currently they are still in talks with Assad’s government and have not reached a final decision.

Yet, they do say that there have been no visible results in terms of additional protection for the embassy.

This is hardly a surprise given that U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford previously met with leading figures in the opposition, a move which not only rightly enraged the Assad government but also the Syrian people who reacted in a violent manner.

“We have serious concerns about the deteriorating security situation in Damascus, including the recent spate of car bombs and about the safety and security of embassy personnel,” said a statement from the United States’ State Department.

“We have requested that the government of Syria take additional security measures to protect our embassy, and the Syrian government is considering that request. We have also advised the Syrian government that unless concrete steps are taken in the coming days we may have no choice but to close the mission,” the statement said.

The car bombs mentioned are part of no less than three unexplained car bomb attacks recently which killed up to 80 people in the Syrian capital of Damascus which was previously relatively peaceful.

Emphasizing that these car bombings are unexplained is quite important as there is a good chance those responsible very well might be the Western-backed opposition forces and their armed insurgent arm (arguably a terrorist organization) known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The FSA have bragged about attacking government targets in the past, so bombings in the capital very well might be an attempt to create chaos and further destabilize the Assad regime.

The process of removing personnel from the American embassy began last week, reportedly due to the bombings.

The Syrian government put the blame for the bombings on al Qaeda, while some activists predictably pointed the finger at the Syrian government itself, according to the Washington Post.

Of course, this would be completely illogical as car bombings in the nation’s capital only serve to further destabilize Assad’s power and erode his support.

A poll commissioned as part of the Doha Debates – thus sponsored by Qatar which has called for foreign military intervention in Syria – actually found that the majority of Syrians do not, in fact, want Assad to resign immediately.

The poll found that 81% of the Arabs questioned (over 1,000 which is far from a huge sample) wanted Assad to step down but since these individuals are not Syrians, their opinion is completely irrelevant.

Therefore, with 55% of the public supporting him, I can see absolutely no reason why he would seek to weaken such support by conducting bombings which make the Syrian people feel as though they are in danger under his rule.

The Obama administration has, unsurprisingly, not ruled out possible involvement in the attacks on the part of the Syrian government, but unnamed American officials stated that signs indicate Syrian and Iraqi militants linked to al Qaeda were involved.

“It smells like a terrorist attack and looks like a terrorist attack, but none of us knows for sure,” the anonymous official said, according to the Washington Post.

Logic alone would tell us that the most likely culprits would be militant opposition forces like the FSA who would benefit from such a terrorist operation.

By murdering innocent people in Damascus, they could say that Assad cannot even keep control over his own capital and keep his people safe, proving that he should step down from power immediately before more people die.

The specifics of the security measures being sought by the United States for the embassy have not been disclosed.

U.S. officials also refused to comment on if there had been specific threats to the embassy other than saying that the car bomb attacks “have brought the situation in Syria to another level.”

The Washington Post says that if Sunni extremists had come from Iraq to become involved in the Syrian uprising “it would add an alarming new dimension to what has been an overwhelmingly peaceful uprising that has been brutally attacked by the decades-old dictatorship.”

Of course, for those of us who have been paying attention, it is quite obvious that it has not been “an overwhelmingly peaceful uprising” but in fact both sides have engaged in violent acts since the beginning.

The Washington Post cites “Many Syrian opposition activists” (the typically ambiguous label leveraged by the Western media to control the narrative by giving a false sense of consensus) who “already are concerned about signs of a creeping Islamization of the revolt,” much like what is occurring in every other nation embroiled in the so-called Arab Spring revolts.

They claim nonsensically, “the failure of the West to intervene will open the door to Islamists, threatening the kind of destabilization that took hold in Iraq following the U.S. invasion there.”

Of course to most analysts like myself, this is nothing short of laughable.

Western intervention will not help stifle the Islamist element in the uprisings; in fact it will just serve to reinforce this anti-Western Islamist sentiment.

This is because many people will see the intervention has unwelcome meddling in their domestic affairs, which is exactly what it is.

Informed citizens would know immediately that the West will move in, destroy the infrastructure, and then loot the nation’s natural resources and wealth by getting all the contracts to rebuild the same infrastructure they destroyed.

We have seen this exact process in Libya and I do not see how any individual in the Arab world would think Western intervention is a good idea after seeing what happened there.

It appears that the car bomb attacks – if they are indeed carried out by the FSA – are achieving exactly what I believe they could be trying to do.

The anonymous senior official in the Obama administration cited by the Washington Post made this very clear in saying that the deteriorating security situation in Syria “demonstrates further that Assad is losing control of the country and reinforces our point that Assad has lost all legitimacy.”

Knowing that these bombings are in fact hurting the Assad regime, as I said, how could they still say that his government might be involved?

We can apply the classic qui bono logic here and in doing so realize that all roads lead to the armed insurgent groups like the FSA.

The Washington Post speculates that in explicitly warning that they might close the embassy, the Obama administration might be “signaling Assad that [the Obama administration’s] patience is running out.”

However, I would argue that they have been attempting to give that impression for months now and instead this move might be a warning that foreign military intervention is just over the horizon.

The Washington Post also mentions that Robert Ford returned to Syria last month after he was removed in October due to threats.

These threats were hardly surprising given that Ford not only vocally criticized the Assad government on the official embassy website (behavior hardly becoming of a diplomat) but even met with opposition leadership which clearly angered the many pro-Assad Syrians.

It seems the United States either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Syrians do not take kindly to the United States openly getting involved in Syria’s domestic problems.

The Washington Post writes that, “Officials emphasized the importance of maintaining direct contact with opposition leaders and providing the opportunity of real-time reporting from Damascus.”

Do American officials really think that having a close relationship with opposition leaders will make them look impartial or evenhanded in their approach to Syria’s problems?

The Washington Post makes sure to highlight the Assad government’s security efforts, saying “Damascus felt as though it was under siege. Soldiers sealed off several major roads and checkpoints dotted the city. Outside one of the main offices of the security branches, there were sandbagged machine gun positions. Soldiers wearing flak jackets and machine guns kept guard.”

This is hardly a drastic measure given that the FSA has attacked government targets several times.

Furthermore, it is almost guaranteed that whatever police state measures they have in place pale in comparison to the security situation near American military facilities or in places like Washington.

Al Arabiya is also reporting today that “Pressure mounted on the Arab League Friday to seek U.N. intervention in the face of growing exasperation that the bloc’s hard-won observer mission in Syria has failed to staunch 10 months of killing as [the] death toll mounted across the country.”

However, U.N. intervention is very unlikely given Russia and China’s opposition to such an operation.

Many analysts, myself included, say it is much more likely for the West to create something like the “coalition of the willing” created to invade Iraq outside of the U.N.

General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi is preparing to report to foreign ministers of Arab League nations who will then decide if the Arab League’s observer mission will be extended for another month.

Meanwhile, Burhan Galiun, the head of the opposition’s Syrian National Council, traveled to Cairo in an attempt to get Arab ministers to refer the findings of the Arab League’s observer mission to the United Nations Security Council for what Al Arabiya called “tough action.”

Of course this is ignoring the veto power of Russia and China – both nations wholly opposed to another foreign intervention after the horrific Libyan intervention.

An official statement from the Syrian National Council (SNC) said that Ghaliun planned to “ask the head of the Arab League and Arab foreign ministers to transfer the file on Syria to the U.N. Security Council with a view to securing a decision to establish a buffer zone and a no-fly zone.”

It is hard to understand why anyone would call for a no-fly zone over Syria after seeing what NATO and the Arab League nations did in Libya, but then again given that many of the SNC’s members are not even inside Syria at the moment; it is somewhat understandable that they would be divorced from the situation on the ground.

“The SNC delegation will insist that the report contain a clear text concerning the ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ carried out by the [Syrian] regime against unarmed civilians,” the SNC’s statement said.

This makes it clear that they care not what the observers actually find, but instead care only that they come to the conclusions the SNC and the West want.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the Arab League should urge the United Nations Security Council to impose more targeted sanctions which should include an arms embargo.

However, this is one again failing to recognize the strong opposition in the Security Council from Russia and China.

The Arab League’s panel on Syria is set to meet Saturday before the foreign ministers meet.

This panel is far from objective, with Qatar chairing the panel and calling for Arab troops to invade Syria, as I discussed in the previous part of this series.

However, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe claimed such an approach was not in the works in an interview published today in the French Ouest-France daily.

“In the present regional context we are not working towards such a scenario,” Juppe claimed.

On the other hand, French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a much different impression of France’s position.

Sarkozy said that France would not silently stand by and watch the crackdown occur, hinting that indeed such an approach was being considered, if not planned as the Russians have been saying for a long time now.

“We cannot accept the ferocious repression by the Syrian leadership of its people, a repression that has led the entire country into chaos, and a chaos that will help extremists of all kinds,” Sarkozy said.

Sarkozy also seems to hold the delusional position that the United Nations Security Council must vote in condemnation of the crackdown and support the Arab League’s mission in Syria, despite the fact that Russia and China have made it clear no United Nations Security Council resolutions targeting Syria will be passed.

Repeatedly saying that the Security Council should do something doesn’t change this fact, although far too many individuals seem to not realize this.

In an interview with BBC’s world service recently, I heard a representative of the SNC repeating these same statements while constantly contradicting herself when confronted with the facts.

In a span of about five minutes the representative said that they represent the people demonstrating on the streets then said that they do not represent anyone and thus are not legitimate in the traditional sense because no one voted for them.

It was an incredibly painful interview with the BBC presenter lobbing softballs in the SNC representative’s direction just to have the representative fall on her face trying to swing at it.

The BBC presenter’s most important point, one which was likely made unintentionally, was made when the presenter pointed out that most of the SNC not only doesn’t live in Syria currently but in fact many haven’t lived there for years.

The woman being interviewed had not even been in Syria since she was around 10-years-old, proving that she is no more connected to Syria’s domestic affairs and on-the-ground daily reality that most Westerners.

Sufian Allaw, Syria’s Oil Minister said yesterday that the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States were in fact having a drastic economic impact on Syria. “We have suffered important losses as a result of our inability to export crude oil and petroleum products,” Allaw said, citing over $2 billion in losses since September 1.

The sanctions have also hurt the Syrian currency, pushing it down to record lows which hurts the average Syrian civilian more than anyone else.

Adib Malayeh, the governor of Syria’s central bank said that they will be introducing a managed float of the currency this coming week, which is essentially devaluing the currency, according to the Financial Times.

MENA quoted Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Muslim learning according to Al Arabiya, urging “Arab rulers to take the necessary measures to halt bloodshed in Syria,” quite clearly hinting at foreign intervention.

In addition to all of the unilateral sanctions currently being leveraged against Syria, the European Union is expected to expand the sanctions against Syria to include individuals, institutions and companies as well.

Before the oil sanctions were imposed back on September 2, the European Union purchased the majority of Syria’s estimated 130,000 barrels of oil exports every day.

As we saw with Iraq, the people who are ultimately hurt the most by the sanctions aren’t the governments and corporations they are supposed to target, but instead everyday people who have absolutely no ability to change their government’s policies.

This led to the deaths of countless Iraqis and likely will lead to the deaths of many Syrian civilians.

The unfortunate reality is that we will likely not see the impact these sanctions have until years after they have already impacted the lives of innocent people.

The push for foreign intervention is only increasing by the day and I sincerely hope that people around the world – but especially in the Western nations that are pushing so hard to oust Assad like the United States and the United Kingdom – start fighting back against the tide of disinformation in order to give a more accurate impression of what is really going on there.

We must also realize that the majority of Syrians do not want Assad to be removed from power right now, and if the West really values democracy as they so often claim to, then this will be respected.

Unfortunately, democracy only counts to them when they say it does and when the democracy aligns itself with Western interests.

However I do think that through raising awareness of the situation in Syria and what is really going on there, we can avoid an all-out conflict which would undoubtedly involve Russia and whatever foreign powers decided to take part in the intervention.

Please take a few moments and share this with your friends, family and contacts in order to help us get this information out there.

If I missed anything or you would like to contribute to our coverage, please do not hesitate to email me at admin@EndtheLie.com with your tips, comments, or insults.

The Syria debacle – part I

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
January 18, 2012

I have been writing about Syria and the attempts at pushing a foreign intervention on the nation for months now (see the bottomof the article for a partial list of previous works on the subject).

I believe it has become such a multifaceted and important issue that I must devote a series to covering the developments as I have done with Iran and the global growth of the United States’ and NATO’s hegemony.

As the days go by the tensions between the West and Syria only get more pronounced, especially when it comes to the increasingly vocal opposition from Russia.

Russia’s opposition is far from something new. They were one of the first nations to come to Syria’s defense and protect – or at least attempt to protect them – from foreign meddling.

This has incarnated in many forms, some overt and military in nature – like the delivery of anti-aircraft missile systems and most recently a Russian naval group docking in the Syrian port of Tartus – others political, like the statements of the head of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev.

The political rhetoric has become increasingly heated and firm, and today’s news is no different.

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reportedly had a phone conversation in which they “affirmed the need to defend the independence and [sovereignty] of Syria and Iran from the siege and interference in their internal affairs carried out by colonialist countries,” according to Syria’s SANA.

This is just another affirmation of Russia’s staunch opposition to any foreign intervention in Syria and Iran which is indeed a real threat, despite any assurances otherwise coming from the wholly untrustworthy Western establishment.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said that Chavez and Putin also discussed the strategic ties between the two nations in the fields of finance, the economy, commercial and industrial matters and military cooperation as well.

What remains to be seen is how Russia will actually step in on Syria’s behalf if the press to intervene in Syria continues.

Russia and China have both blocked increased sanctions when they were brought to the United Nations Security Council, but it is unclear exactly what they would do if the West ignores the writing on the wall and conducts another intervention like in Libya.

Russia has made their military presence in the region very well-known and their transfer of advanced military equipment underlines their position.

China, on the other hand, is a bit of a more unknown variable in this equation.

They have repeatedly voiced their distaste with the Western attempts at intervening in Syrian domestic affairs and blocked new sanctions, but it is unclear if China would take up arms in defense of Syria if it came down to such a situation.

If Russia were to take action and come under threat from the Arab League, NATO or the West as a whole, I think it is only logical to assume that China very well might come to Russia’s aid.

The Arab League has had a very interesting role in the Syrian conflict, given that most leaders of Arab League states are little more than Western puppets.

The League’s observer mission has been characterized as a failure in some quarters, and I found the entire situation quite ironic given the presence of a general accused of creating the brutal “janjaweed,” which was responsible for some of the worst atrocities during the Darfur genocide, in the Arab League’s observer force.

Yesterday China’s Xinhua reported that the Syrian Foreign Ministry has totally rejected Qatari Emir’s suggestion of dispatching Arab troops into Syria, supposedly to help curb the violence.

This is hardly a stupid move on Syria’s part, given that Qatar is now openly admitting that their forces were running most of the ground operations for the rebels in Libya.

Knowing this, it is only logical to think that the Qatari forces would not, in fact, act to help stop the violence but instead encourage it and run operations for the armed opposition in order to enact regime change.

Ultimately, the whole uprising is about regime change, as the opposition has made it clear time and time again that they will not consider negotiations with President Bashar al-Assad nor any option that does not involve Assad being removed from power completely.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry stated that they absolutely reject any calls like the ones coming from Qatar as it could not only make the situation worse but also set the precedent for a greater foreign intervention in Syria’s domestic affairs.

Of course, al Jazeera, the Qatari state-funded propaganda house which operates under the guise of anti-Western alternative news (laughable though the claim may be, many consider it indeed to be such an outlet) would utilize their position to push for a greater intervention just as they did in Libya.

Pointing to the failure of the Arab League’s observers to stop the violence in Syria, Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani stated that he was in favor of deploying Arab troops into Syria.

Statements like this are regularly made, usually claiming that such a move would stop or at least decrease the violence.

Based on what we’ve seen in Libya, I think it is hardly an accurate assumption to make. Bringing in armed foreign troops to solve a domestic conflict is hardly conducive to peace.

In making the statement, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani made himself the first Arab leader to openly call for military intervention in Syria, saying, “For such a situation … some troops should go to stop the killing.”

Once again, this is operating on the nonsensical assumption that for some reason bringing armed troops into a conflict would not increase violence but in fact decrease it.

We saw how well that worked in Libya, not to mention Iraq, both of which are still rife with violence and civil strife.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry’s statement was quite strongly worded, saying that Syria “rejects all kinds of foreign intervention in its affairs, under any title, and would confront any attempt to infringe upon Syria’s sovereignty and integrity of its territories.”

What exactly they mean by “confront” isn’t quite clear but I believe it is safe to assume that they mean they would meet military intervention with military confrontation in hopes that Russia and perhaps China would come to their aid.

Syria also stated that while they are agreeing to stick to the Arab League’s plan, they ask for Arab nations and the Arab League as a whole to make an effort “to stop all instigating campaigns and media mobilization that aim to ramp up the situation in Syria.”

I believe this to be a not-so-subtle jab at Qatar which has used its propaganda arm to shape the narrative throughout the so-called Arab Spring since the beginning.

The statement also said that Arab states should assist Syria in blocking the movement of weapons into Syria in order to “reinforce stability and security that would pave the way for a constructive national dialogue that aims to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.”

Unfortunately, it seems this hope is a bit misguided, as the Syrian opposition – especially the armed insurgent group the Free Syrian Army – have repeatedly stated that they have no interest in “a constructive national dialogue” nor a political solution unless it involves complete regime change.

The Arab League’s monitors began their mission in Syria on December 26, 2011 and they are due to issue an assessment on January 21.

Contrary to the Western narrative, the Syrian government states that the violence in Syria is being incited by terrorists and foreign-backed armed gangs, which is not entirely untrue as the establishment media makes out.

Indeed the United States has been busted funding anti-government propaganda stations which were beamed into Syria via satellite.

The United States’ ambassador to Syria has also openly met with opposition leadership, a move which elicited a violent reaction from the Syrian people.

According to Syrian government reports, over 2,000 army and security personnel have been killed during the uprising.

The Free Syrian Army, for one, has openly bragged about attacking government forces, even blowing up government transport vehicles.

The United Nations has estimated the death toll to be over 5,000 although their numbers are based largely – if not entirely – upon the unverified reports of so-called “activists” and “human rights groups” which have dubious intentions.

While NATO has repeatedly denied that they are working towards a no-fly zone over Syria along with so-called “humanitarian corridors” or “buffer zones” along the borders, Russia today dismissed these claims and insisted that they have information that such tactics are currently being discussed.

“Our partners int he West are in fact discussing a no-fly zone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, according to Bloomberg.

“There are other ideas being realized, including humanitarian convoys, in the hope they could provoke a response from government forces, border guards,” Lavrov added.

Lavrov also said that Russia would continue to block any attempt at passing a resolution for military intervention in the United Nations Security Council.

He also dismissed the American condemnation of Russian arms shipments to Syria, saying that they were not violating international law by simply supplying Syria with weapons.

Indeed this is true and one must consider the almost laughable hypocrisy displayed by such statements coming from the United States when they are providing the weaponry to Bahrain used to crack down on their own domestic uprising.

Both the European Union and the United States have already put an arms embargo against Syria in place.

The United States’ ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, stated that the U.S. has “very grave concern[s]” about Russian arms being given to the Assad government.

One must wonder if this is because it would allow the government to put up a greater level of resistance to foreign intervention and Western-backed armed insurgent groups currently operating in Syria.

These statements echo ones I reported on previously made by Patrushev which at the time were by far the most heated we had seen.

Patrushev stated that Turkey may play a key role in such an operation and unsurprisingly the same day Turkey along with the United Kingdom and France all denied that such a move was a possibility.

However, the French denial makes very little sense when one remembers that in November Alain Juppe, the French Foreign Minister, suggested that military forces should establish humanitarian corridors to deliver aid in Syria.

Of course the aid would likely only be delivered to anti-Assad groups and insurgents, while pro-government demonstrators and citizens would probably end up getting shafted as they were in Libya.

There is very little we can do at this point to stop another bloody foreign intervention other than spreading the awareness of this campaign.

Please make an effort to share this article and other works by myself and the many others who have been bringing attention to this situation as much as humanly possible.

Only through a greater number of people becoming fully cognizant of the destabilization operation in Syria and other nations which don’t tow the Western line can we hope to stifle these deplorable efforts.

Please, take the less than 30 seconds to share this with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or whomever you can on whatever social network/medium you prefer.

Every single person who becomes aware of these issues is another person who can spread the truth and help push back against the wave of disinformation and warmongering.