Syria: Game Over for Western Propaganda [video included]
Syrian Activists Caught Lying, Syrian Rebels Caught Committing Atrocities.
by Tony Cartalucci
March 6, 2012 – Why should the West intervene in Syria when it turns out “activists” giving daily body counts, the sole source of “evidence” for the UN’s ever climbing grand total, are caught not only lying, but staging entire interviews complete with fake gunfire directed “off stage?” Why should the US, UK, EU, or the West’s stable of Arab proxy-regimes be allowed to arm Syrian rebels admittedly carrying out their own horrific atrocities? Clearly Syria’s opposition have turned out, just as they have in Libya, to be craven, murderous, and ultimately deceitful extremists – making any further contact with them by the West a direct violation of their own national and international laws.
The omnipresent “Danny” from Syria has been recently exposed in a video showing him relaxed, joking, and preparing off-camera staged-gunfire, before getting into character for a hysterical “casualty report” given to CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Danny” isn’t the first fraud caught being used by a duplicitous Western media to sell military intervention in Syria, there was also “Gay Girl in Damascus” who turned out to be a 40 year-old American man based in the UK. It is exactly “activist-based” reports like this, that the UN and corporate media have used shamelessly to advocate Wall Street and London’s mandates.
It was revealed that the UN Human Rights Commission UNHC report late in 2011, was based entirely on “witness accounts” recorded not in Syria, but rather in Geneva. It was further revealed that the report itself was compiled by a director of a corporate-funded US think-tank representing the collective interests of the very corporations pushing for Syrian “regime change.”
Since then, the UNHC has inflated their numbers, and organizations including Soros-funded Human Rights Watch have likewise weighed in with reports based entirely on “witness” and “activist” accounts, with one exception – they also include grainy satellite images implying that every pockmark visible, every crater imaged, was the result of Syrian security forces, excluding the possibility that the admittedly armed “Free Syrian Army” may also share responsibility. Many times these casualty numbers are not even phoned in from Syria, but instead based on “third-hand” reports out of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London.
Image: Homs? What about Sirte? Pictured is Sirte, Libya, after NATO-armed rebels surrounded it, cut off power, water, food, and emergency aid, and allowed NATO to bombard it with daily airstrikes before a final orgy of death and destruction left its streets and facades crumbling. This is the “civilian protection” the UN and its enforcement arm NATO plan on bringing to Syria.
What was left was a cratered, devastated, wasteland, created by NATO munitions, NATO-armed, funded, and trained rebels, media and diplomatic cover by the West, and UN complicity in direct violation of the very laws they are now selectively enforcing against Syria and its operations in Homs. If it is possible for the international community to justify a foreign military doing what was done to Sirte, Libya in a crowed population center with absolute impunity, how can a sovereign nation seeking to restore order in its own city be criticized let alone sanctioned economically or militarily?
The West has lost all moral authority – authority that only billions of dollars in manipulative media and military supremacy can buy – but is easily lost as the facade begins to crumble. How many more Syrian “Danny’s” or “Gay Girls in Damascus” are there, staging interviews, fabricating body-counts, and attempting to manipulate the good intentions of millions around the world? How long will the West attempt to convince the world that the Syrian rebels, admittedly armed, admittedly carrying out their own growing list of atrocities, and clearly infiltrated by Al Qaeda terrorists, are worthy of US diplomatic support, funding, training, weapons, and even US airpower?
Most importantly, how long are people going to allow themselves to be lied to, their intelligence insulted, before they decide to speak out, and commit to sanctioning with boycotts the corporations driving this agenda?
There was no widespread killing in Syria before the US State Department, John McCain’s International Republican Institute, and the National Endowment for Democracy trained, funded, and directed the unrest back in early 2011. Along every step of the way, instability, chaos and death in Syria has been the result of the West propping up these terrorists and perpetuating the deadly conflict as Syria’s government attempts to restore order.
With lies, atrocities, and open acts of war the West seeks to complete their predetermined regime change before turning their deceitful war-machine toward Tehran. But as the facade crumbles, they do so as a naked act of military aggression, as Hitlerian invaders, not hallowed liberators – their crimes, committed before the eyes of an awakening world, will echo through history.
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[hat tip: Activist Post]
Warmongers & Chickenhawks: ‘McCain still very dangerous’ [video]
Russia Today
March 6, 2012
Leading Senator John McCain has become the first U.S. politician to publicly call for airstrikes against the Syrian regime. He says Washington has a ‘moral and strategic obligation’ to force Assad out. California State University professor Paul Sheldon Foote told RT that John McCain is still very dangerous.
RT on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_com
RT on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
The Real McCain: ‘Call to strike Syria ASAP exposes neo-con mindset’ [video]
Russia Today
March 6, 2012
Who needs diplomacy, or international law? Not former presidential candidate (R-AZ) John McCain, who became the first senator to publicly call for a US-led military strike on Syria in order to halt the nearly year-long conflict there. Taking the Senate floor, McCain said there will be no UN mandate for the air strikes he deems the only way to stop the violence — but that a mandate isn’t necessary.
Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation talks to RT. He claims McCain’s idea is a typical neo-con conservative mindset of foreign intervention which implies a regime-change operation aimed at ousting one dictator in order to install another, US-approved dictator.
RT on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_com
RT on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
[Potent News Editor’s note: Jacob Hornberger is definitely right about Maher Arar. For more information on Maher Arar, the innocent man that the US took to Syria to be tortured in 2002, see Arar’s official website, MaherArar.net
A brief look at what happened to him should serve to remind all of us that the US does not care about justice in Syria in any way, shape or form.]
Jacob Hornberger is right –
Some Thoughts on Syria and Iran
by Andrew J. Fell
Activist Post
March 6, 2012
I had a disheartening conversation with my friend a few days ago. We were discussing, as we often do, the current geo-political events that are unraveling and the subject moved onto Syria pretty quickly. I don’t often watch TV, but I sat with him and watched some of the coverage pretending to be news and felt sick to my stomach; the media bandwagon is whooping and cheering its way into yet another conflict — deja vu doesn’t quite describe it.
The reason I said the conversation was disheartening is that not only did my friend, who is normally a staunch advocate of peace, feel that it was right for ‘us’ (as he put it) to be arming an armed insurgency in a sovereign country, but he strongly supports the West becoming embroiled in another regime change for the second time in a year.
This isn’t to say he is now a bad human being — far from it — merely that he, like most of the general population, continues to be duped, time and again by an ever more crafty military-industrial propaganda machine. Coverage from the BBC, CNN, CNBC and all the other ‘alphabet’ news agencies are testament to that — if one were to believe their word alone, this conflict has been a purely one-sided affair where President Assad has just suddenly decided to start massacring his civilian population for holding up some protest signs. I would say ten minutes research into these claims should put them to rest, or, at the very least, demonstrate that neither side is in the right. The key issue, once again, is not the information contained within the corporate media’s news coverage, but it is the systematic omission of key facts regarding the relevant background to these events — thus not allowing people to make their own critical decisions based upon all the information available. The question should be asked, how did this chain of events start in the first place?
The Assad government in Syria is not smelling of roses, but this whole scenario has been carefully set in motion from its inception via the pumping of money and training of armed groups by the Western powers — something admitted to only 2 years ago by the American Government — to its unfortunate, seemingly inevitable, conclusion: Assad being deposed and Syria [followed by Iran perhaps?] in chaos and flames. It’s pretty much the exact definition of the Hegelian Dialectic — problem, reaction, solution. For example, if the US had not been funding armed militants in Syria, there would be no unrest and therefore no interventionist solution would be required. The US hasn’t been funding the opposition in Saudi Arabia have they?
But what about the humanitarian situation? Isn’t it the moral duty of NATO, with the backing of the UN, to start bombing Syria in order that its civilians be saved, ergo the twisted logic of today’s mass media? The very suggestion that America is concerned about the humanitarian crisis is laughable to say the least; the examples of Bahrain, Iraq or Israel puts that to rest!
If the Americans were funding armed opposition groups in (lets pick some arbitrarily) Bahrain, Egypt, China, Oman, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Israel, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Nigeria, Thailand, Morocco, Qatar — how do you think these governments would react? I would argue that not only would they react comparably, but in actuality even more ruthlessly; one only has to look at the brutal crackdown and murder of its own citizens during the uprising by both Bahraini and Saudi forces last year to see this in practice — not to mention the jailing of dozens of doctors for doing nothing more than assisting the injured. Similarly, there have been massacres committed in China (Ngaba) and Uzbekistan (Andijan) just within the past few years during protests there. There are many more examples throughout the world.
Imagine foreign-funded snipers taking pot-shots at the police in the UK? Not only would this be treated as an act of war, but I’m pretty sure the authorities would come down on them like a ton of bricks — just like they did in Northern Ireland in the not-so-distant past.
I’m not seeking to excuse the killing of civilians by Assad, and I’m not suggesting that we support these despotic governments, but we should look at the wider context of what is going on and how this particular state of affairs has been fomented from the start.
Who exactly is this opposition? Are they any better than Assad? Search for ‘US funding Syrian Opposition’ or ‘Syrian Opposition Terrorist’ and you will see articles including this one http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html which shows openly how the West has been posturing for this current stand-off for several years. Or this: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/intelligence-chief-concerned-about-al-qaeda-in-syria-conflict. And this: http://theintelhub.com/2012/02/20/two-us-senators-call-for-arming-syrian-opposition-filled-with-al-qaeda-terrorists which shows that the ‘intelligence’ [sic] services are fully aware that the very same people who are fighting US troops in Iraq are now being backed by the US in the insurgency in Syria. Wednesday — terrorist, Thursday — freedom fighter. It boggles the mind!
This rhetoric directed towards Syria is, of course, inexorably linked with that being directed toward its ally Iran with — and I say this with a sad heart — a larger regional war being the probable eventual outcome.
If we can recall, the media and the government prior to the Iraq invasion were absolutely adamant that not only did Saddam Hussein have WMD’s, but that he could use them in a matter of minutes, sexed up or not! The similarities between current reporting and the news stories, then, are staggering — have a quick watch of this video for some examples of this occurring:
I don’t believe, however, that Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons, as has been confirmed by all 16 US Intelligence Agencies, theintelhub.com/2012/02/25/u-s-intelligence-agencies-agree-no-evidence-of-iranian-nuclear-weapons-program: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-intel-20120224,0,5827032.story. And we shouldn’t forget that they, so far at least, have been developing their civilian nuclear program well within the auspices of their international commitments — it is in fact their right to do this, having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike Israel which never complies with any international sanctions or agreements directed towards them).
Another point worth considering: would the policies being put into place, the sanctions etc., actually not have the opposite effect and put Iran in the direction of actually trying to develop a nuclear capability due to their backs being against the wall? If this is the case, then the question must be posed, Why the hell would anybody in their right mind want to do this? Well, it’s a fairly easy question to answer — the elites are completely and utterly out of their minds with barely any semblance of rational morality!
However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that what they say concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions has a semblance of truth. If we are to contemplate the logical process of Iran having WMD’s, we also have to consider what Iran would do if indeed they did have them. I would say, without any hesitation, precisely nothing; just like if this had been the case of Saddam having them. Would Iran really attack nuclear-armed nations such as the US, Israel, or Britain? Would they hell! If they did develop this capability would it not serve as a deterrent, just like in the case of North Korea? I think, fairly obviously, it would. This is without going into the discussion on the morality of anyone having these horrendous, insane devices in the first place, but I feel the point is made.
One doesn’t have to look too hard to see that the West has been doing everything in their power to evoke a reaction from the Iranians. Here are but a few: the banning of all currency transactions with the non-Rothschild-owned Iranian Central Bank; the electronic blocking and subsequent banning of the broadcast of PressTV; the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists on the streets of Tehran; the positioning of carrier groups just outside of Iranian territorial waters; flimsily blaming very fishy attacks on Israeli diplomats on Iran; etc etc.
The global elites are not pursuing peace in any shape of form as they claim to be, which should be patently obvious to any rational observer; far from it, they are doing everything in their power to not only foment a war, but one the likes of which we have never seen. A war which would most likely drag in China and Russia, and truly polarize this world in which we live.
War, especially pre-emptive war, does not solve these issues, and only leads to more human misery without improving the plight of those who are having to live through it — look at Iraq — prima facie!
So, in conclusion, if what is being presented to us is not the truth then what is? This is a loaded question with a multitude of possible subsidiary questions which, together, probably all form a part of the real story. Some of these are below and not all of them tie in with my current thinking, but they should at the very least be put into consideration:
- Is it a stepping stone along the way toward instituting a One World Government? Probably — in order for the elites to introduce their concept of a NWO (look up Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley) they must first remove any obstacles from their path, and that would include regimes who are not sympathetic to their goals — Syria and Iran are quite firmly in this category.
- Is the West deliberately attempting to draw the other great super-powers, China and Russia into an all-out war by squeezing them of both their influence and their oil supplies? Quite probably — Russia has a large naval presence in Syria, whilst China has lost major oil contracts with Libya and Sudan over the past year and is increasingly relying on Iran. It is also worth noting that Zbigniew Brzezinski, a key foreign policy adviser to Obama and previous administrations, has advocated through books such as the Grand Chessboard, the deliberate playing off of China and Russia through the disruption of China’s oil supplies from the Middle East, thus forcing them to look greedily northwards towards Siberia. A seemingly outlandish view on the face of it, but increasingly more likely once you look at a map and see how China’s supply lines are being increasingly taken away.
- Are they purposefully destabilizing the Middle East in order to create an actual terrorist threat? Quite possibly — the actions of the past 10 years certainly could be explained somewhat by this, especially in the context of September 11th, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which I think most people would agree have not reduced the so-called ‘terrorist threat’ by any measure of the imagination.
- Is it part of the Zionist plan for a greater Israel of which Syria would be a part, or the Zionist/Evangelical Christian Belief (of which George Bush is one) that the ‘rapture’ will only come once there is a major conflict in the Middle East? The fact that so many politicians in the west are publicly pro-Zionist in their philosophy gives more weight to this scenario. (Source)
- Creating war will help save the world’s economy from meltdown? I doubt it — at most it would put the economic problems on hiatus. However, considering that the world’s economic problems can largely by blamed on these same people who are creating these wars, I think that it is unlikely this is their reason for starting them.
I’ll leave it for you to decide what the real reasons are, for these are only some possible explanations for this seemingly inexplicable insanity. The only thing that I’m truly sure of at this point is that the pretext being fed to us for war is a lie and, personally, I’m trying to work backwards logically from that point.
We must learn our history and see that in many respects it is repeating itself. It is a very Orwellian thing to say ‘war is peace and peace is war’ but that to me, in no uncertain terms, is exactly what is being presented to us. We should be outraged at this ridiculous state of affairs! Spread the word.
Andrew Fell lives in the Czech Republic and is a lecturer of English at a Social Work College in Prague. He has a keen interest in geo-politics, ethics, history, cooking and playing music. He can usually be found armed with a smile, sipping a cup of tea at a čajovna in Prague.
Syria: Seeking a Convenient Casus Belli
Land Destroyer Report
February 22, 2012
Alleged death of two Western journalists in Syria used to dance around UNSC veto.
commentary by Tony Cartalucci
You are an embattled nation with the entire world watching. Your allies Russia and China just made a major decision at the UN Security Council in your favor with much of their reputation and future at stake. Western propagandists have been relentlessly making up news stories regarding your nation no matter what you do, for nearly a year, starting with “Gay Girl in Damascus” who Syrian activists insisted was still real even after doubts began to surface, and leading up to daily reports from “activists say” coming out of London, England.
Your choices: continue a campaign to restore order in Homs which is admittedly overrun by cross-border militants and foreign terrorists operating with NATO support and arms, fighting under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army.” Or, spend your time instead purposefully killing women and children in front of British and French journalists before plotting over easily-intercepted radios their spectacular deaths in front of a watching world?
Image: Syria’s rebels are armed. Were they running loose in New York City, a military operation mobilized to neutralize them would not be described as a “massacre” by the corporate media.
Quite clearly there is something wrong with this narrative being given to us by the West, who have established themselves by a comfortable margin as serial liars. Iraq lost a million sons and daughters to these lies. Libya likewise was portrayed as a nation “massacring civilians” when it is now clear these “civilians” were US State Department-listed terrorists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who are now conducting nationwide murder sprees.
Reading any report out of the corporate-media, we find Syria’s campaign against admittedly armed rebels paradoxically referred to as a “massacre,” and an almost palpable fervor to justify circumventing the latest UNSC resolution veto. As news comes out of the death of two foreign journalists in Homs, Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin who sneaked into Syria and were operating there illegally to begin with, Western leaders are unanimously calling this the “breaking point.” France’s Nicolas Sarkozy even stated, “that’s enough now, this regime must go and there is no reason that Syrians don’t have the right to live their lives and choose their destiny freely.”
One wonders where Sarkozy’s moral fortitude was when in January, while covering a pro-Assad rally in Homs, French journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed in a rebel attack. Unbelievably, not only does this contradict the news we’ve been told all along of Assad persecuting a brutal campaign against peaceful protesters, but while the attack was condemned by France, it was the Syrian government who was blamed for notprotecting their journalists from armed thugs. Where were the calls for the rebels to lay down their arms? Where was the cessation of political support for the “Free Syrian Army?” Where was the decision by NATO to discontinue their support for rebels who had now murdered a Western journalist?
Clearly, reason is not driving Western foreign policy, rather a search for a convenient “casus belli” to serve where their “responsibility to protect” doctrine has failed. We will not know what really happened in Syria this week regarding the two journalists allegedly killed there, so long as “activists say” is attached to each claim made about the events.
What we do know is that the West has long ago predetermined that regime change will occur in Syria, and that they will do anything necessary, at any cost to achieve it.
Syria: Rogue Elements Rampant
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research
February 26, 2012
“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” (J.EdgarHoover, 1895-1972.)
Smelt any proverbial rats, lately? If not, you have not been paying attention, there are plenty about.
Consider for instance this: “Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now” and “must step aside …” Hilary Clinton (Asia Times, 9th February 2012.)
“I strongly condemn the Syrian government’s unspeakable assault … and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside …” said President Barack Hussein Obama. (i)
Yet responsibility for US victims, in their hundreds of thousands, spanning Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are wholly unaccountable – and uncounted..
Responsibility for tyrannicide (including the horrific, state sponsored assassinations of Osama bin Laden and others, Libya’s Head of State, Colonel Quaddafi, have, seemingly entered a Presidential memory hole.)
“This (Syria’s) is a doomed regime as well as a murdering regime. There is no way it can get its credibility back either internationally or with its own people”, Britain’s little Foreign Secretary, William Hague, chimed in obediently, from the Washington script, on Sky News.
“Because the regime is so intransigent, because it is conducting ten months unmitigated violence and repression – more than 6,000 killed, with 12,000 or 14,000 in detention and subject to every kind of torture and abuse – it is driving some opponents to violent action themselves”, concluded Hague.
Hypocrisy reigns supreme. Walking distance from Hague’s office: “living in style and protection”, is Bashar Al Assad’s Uncle Rifaat, under whose Defence Brigades onslaught killed up to perhaps thirty thousand people in the city of Hama, which was also partially destroyed, Falluja style. The thirtieth anniversary of a truly terrible event is commemorated today, 25th February. (See Robert Fisk, Independent, 25th February 2012.)
Of Libya, in March 2011, Obama stated: “Going forward, we will continue to send a clear message: The violence must stop. Muammar Gaddafi has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave. Those who perpetrate violence against the Libyan people will be held accountable. And the aspirations of the Libyan people for freedom, democracy and dignity must be met.”(ii.)
An anomaly (apart from the script similarity): In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, deaths resultant from US-UK and “allied” actions are: “impossible to verify”, by Washington and Whitehall.
Indeed, this month, the (UK) Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence, issued a Report, after an Inquiry in to operations in Libya, stating that: “Britain has no way of knowing how many civilians died in the Libyan conflict as a result of Nato bombing.” (iii)
Back in March 2011, however, the exact figure of Quaddafi’s victims was “known.” Coincidentally, it was also exactly 6,000, stated a “political analyst” – using remarkably State Department-similar phraseology.(iv)
As under Saddam Hussein in Iraq (with no diplomatic presence) in Libya and now little in Syria – with no point of contact bar, seemingly, a satellite dish fitter, in Coventry, England, alleged to be the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” – exact death and casualty figures are always miraculously available.
A new nemesis appears on the horizon – or “Arab street”- and precise numbers are trumpeted. Yet when Western forces, “Viceroys”, “Intelligence” services, “mentors” and myriad, general meddlers, mercenaries and marauders pitch up, murder and occupy, none are available.
Of course no proposed invasion (sorry, “humanitarian intervention”) regime change and accompanying mass slayings would be complete without forces of a wicked tyrant switching off electricity to babies incubators.
For anyone who has forgotten the details, the (1990-1991) Iraq model went like this: vast US government employed PR agency, Hill and Knowlton (“we create value by shaping conversations: we start them, we amplify them, we change them. We can connect seamlessly with all of your audiences…”)produced a fifteen year old girl called “Nayirah”, a “Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of … her tortured land.”
“I volunteered (tears) at the Al Addan Hospital .. I saw the Iraqi soldiers ..with guns, they took fifteen babies out of incubators, left them on the cold floor and took the incubators.”
Strangely, no one asked why she didn’t pick them up and wrap and tend to them, or checked who she really was.
She was the daughter of Saud al Sabar, the Kuwaiti Ambassador to US. The incubators story of course, was a complete fabrication.
October 10th 1990, Amnesty presented evidence against Iraq with Hill and Knowlton at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill. Amnesty International trustingly endorsed the incubator story. Apparently never investigating who “Nayirah” was, and in a charged situation, whether propaganda might not be rampant.
“Amnesty US Executive Director, John Healey, compounded the incubator baby story in testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 8th.January 1991. The carpet-bombing of Iraq began nine days later.”(v)
Amnesty, enjoined by Human Rights Watch, are amongst the most enthusiastic champions of Syrian intervention and onward to Armageddon. Glen Ford writes all you ever need to know.(vi)
The first Syria incubator baby story surfaced last August. “Syrian government troops”, had cut the electricity. It was quickly exposed as beyond questionable.(vii)
Another one came up on 8th February (viii) with numbers varying from eighteen poor mites, to a subsequent eighty. With both tales, as the Iraq version, no distraught parents, extended family, were found, no funeral gatherings, then the stories, too, quietly vanished.
Coincidentally, the current Speaker of the eighty eight Member Arab Inter-Parliamentary union, which backs intervention in Syria, is Kuwaiti, Ali Al-Salem Al-Dekbas, calling for all Syria’s Ambassadors to be expelled, confrontation with Russia over her stance – and in remarkable US-speak, for swift intervention, to stop the Syrian government “killing (their own) people.” (Reuters, 4th February 2012.)
The new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, is Suzanne Nossel, formerly Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Assistant for International Organization Affairs, at the State Department. She has also previously worked for Human Rights Watch.
She: “… has launched several campaigns against Iran, Libya and Syria.”(viii)
The allegation that Kuwait gave Amnesty $500,000 for backing the Iraq incubator baby story has never gone away. But the little island, famously once called:”An oil company posing as a state”, with population just 2,595,628 (July 2011) which includes 1,291,354 non-nationals, also has powerful American-proxy clout.
In 1999, an agreement was signed between the USA and Kuwait for a permanent US force to be stationed there, in twelve facilities (there are a further eight “spares”, seemingly not currently in use.)
The agreement for the bases, incidentally, was named: “Operation Desert Spring.”(x)
Here is a further coincidence. In March 2010, Libya was voted, near unanimously, on to the UN Human Rights Committee, after a glowing Report on human rights progress. After a ferocious campaign by Geneva based UN Watch(xi) not only were they expelled from it, but nineteen months later, their country lay in ruins, their leader lynched and most of his family dead.
Last November, Syria was elected to the Committee and the fifty eight Member Arab board added their votes to the country’s place on UNESCO panels.
UN Watch railed that: “Western democracies, unanimously elected Syria to a pair of Committees – one dealing directly with human rights issues – even as the Bashar al-Assad regime maintains its campaign of violence against its own citizens.“ Syria’s Committee places, as Libya before it, died a death.
Amnesty’s Ms Nossel, unsurprisingly, has spoken at a number of events with UN Watch Director, Hillel Neuer, a Montreal born attorney, whose career has included serving as a judicial law clerk for Justice Itzhak Zamir, at the Supreme Court of Israel.
In March last year, there seemed a glimmer of hope that the US and “allies”, would back away from repeating the tragic disaster that was unfolding in Libya – and had already struck Afghanistan and Iraq.
Secretary of State Clinton committed on CBS (27th March 2011) that the US would not intervene in the way it had in Libya.
Now, it seems, a miracle is needed, as it emerges Saudi Arabia and Quatar are among those subsidizing insurgents with vast sums – as French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe announced that the EU is about to further tie the government’s hands, by freezing the assets of the Syrian Central Bank, from 27th February. Syria is already under a crippling raft of sanctions.(xii) France was, of course, one of the leading and most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the destruction of Libya.
At the same “Friends of Syria” Conference in Tunis (24th February 2012) UK Foreign Minister William Hague declared that the UK recognized the insurgents and Hilary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton called Russia and China:”despicable”, for their veto at the UN, which may well have blocked further “intervention.”
The US said it will consider military assistance to the insurgents – a representative of them said they were already receiving “western aid.”
With “friends” like these, Syria certainly needs no enemies.
The US has, of course, “despicably”, vetoed thirty five UN peace Resolutions relating to the Middle East(xiii) including on“Operation Cast Lead”, the 2008-2009 Israeli Christmas-New Year onslaught on Gaza, and Israel’s 2006 blitzkrieg of Lebanon.
A “new world map.”
Chillingly, no outrage, or cries of “despicable” has been given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement, in Switzerland, the day before the Tunisia conference, that there: “would be no Lebanon in the new world map.”(xiv)
He stated, further, that an Israeli strike against Lebanon would be supported by the United States and Gulf States countries.
There surely is a wildlife park of elephants in the room. Given George W. Bush’s “Crusade”; the belief by extreme right Israeli circles in their control of the Middle East: “from the Nile to the Euphrates” and General Wesley Clark’s revelations of 2007, that the Pentagon planned:“(taking) out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”, there is an obvious question, sparked by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s confidence over a Lebanon attack:
Are these AIPAC and Israel’s wars?
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Notes i. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/04/obama-condemns-unspeakable-assault-in-syria/?hpt=hp_t2 ii. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2057191,00.html iv. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/168203.html v. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0520083989 (For timely reminder that propaganda sells wars, well worth revisiting. A crash course.) vi. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29422 viii. http://bikyamasr.com/56287/18-babies-killed-in-syrias-homs-as-power-cut/ ix. http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/01/us-state-departmentfake-ngo-conflict-of.html x. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Kuwait xi. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24151 xii. http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/factbox-sanctions-imposed-on-syria xiii. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html |
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| Felicity Arbuthnot is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Felicity Arbuthnot |
Syria: Red Cross distributes aid, Baba Amr not reached
Russia Today
March 4, 2012
Red Cross teams have begun handing out humanitarian aid near Syria’s war-ravaged city of Homs. The relief mission remains blocked from bringing supplies into the city’s devastated Baba Amr district.
International Commission of the Red Cross aid workers began delivering supplies to areas near Baba Amr, to areas people had fled to, the ICRC said.
ICRC said its workers had started to hand out humanitarian aid meant for Baba Amr, in the city of Adel, three kilometers away from Homs.
Homs and other cities will also get food, water, medical supplies and milk for children.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross continues negotiations with Syria’s government to get access to Baba Amr, which violent fights between Assad’s loyal forces and opposition have left in chaos.
Local infrastructure has been badly damaged, according eyewitness reports. There is no water, food or electricity. Shops and schools remain closed.
On Saturday the ICRC president slammed the delay as “unacceptable,” expressing his hope that the convoy would enter the area “in the very near future.”
On Thursday a Red Cross relief mission got the green light to enter the neighborhood, but was denied access on Friday when seven trucks loaded with humanitarian aid arrived to Homs from Damascus.
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source:
http://rt.com/news/syria-humanitarian-aid-homs-817/
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