UN Vote on Syria Reflects Changing Battlefield
UN Syria Resolution Signals Ebbing Western Legitimacy, Growing Western Aggression
by Tony Cartalucci
August 4, 2012 – Friday’s UN vote will no doubt be declared by the Western media as a resounding condemnation of Syria and a “universal” call for a “political transition” to install the US State Department’s stable of hand-picked and groomed administrative proxies. However, aside from CNN, BBC, and Qatari Al Jazeera’s ever-shrinking audiences, few on the planet will be convinced of these headlines.
Image: The UN General Assembly has become an instrument of corporate-financier interests. Able to abuse the one-nation, one-vote structure of resolution votes, it can repeatedly pass “resolutions” despite nations representing over half the world’s population abstaining or voting against said resolutions. It should also be noted that Western representatives cast votes and produce “resolutions” without input or approval of their own populations – it is the very embodiment of the dysfunction brought about by overly centralized, unchecked supranational governance.
133 nations did indeed vote for the resolution tabled by the despotic absolute monarchs of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both of whom are ironically conducting their own campaigns of brutal repression both at home, and in neighboring Bahrain – this not counting the overt weapons and militants they have sent into Syria to destabilize Syria in the first place. The hypocritical nature of the resolution’s sponsors is only outmatched by the feeble support it received. Should one actually analyze how many people were represented by the 133 nations that voted for the resolution, versus the 43 nations that did not support it, they would see a different story.
UN Vote is a Shift Away From Wall Street and London
31 nations abstained, a muted protest to the resolution, with 12 nations voting firmly “no.” The combined population represented by these votes consists of the majority of humanity, and had Western representatives actually reflected with their vote their own population’s sentiments toward what is becoming yet another overt case of military aggression built on false pretenses – just as the notoriously reviled Iraq War was – the majority standing in opposition to this resolution would have been greater still.
But the West’s UN representatives did not reflect the sentiments of their respective populations. Instead, they represented a minority sect of corporate-financiers whose vast ill-gotten fortunes and the unwarranted influence it grants them, has driven the political destabilization and violence sweeping the Arab World since the so-called “Arab Spring” began.
Nations who didn’t support the resolution included China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Pakistan, South Africa, India, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Iraq, North Korea, Belarus, Nicaragua, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe. It is an incomplete list that is already far too long, and already includes nearly half of the world’s population to be labeled as an “Axis of Evil.” It represents a shift from a Wall Street and London centric global hegemony, toward a balance of power amongst a multipolar world.
That such a resolution could be tabled by despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and then subsequently passed, exposes the shortcomings of “global governance” and the so-called “international community.” What little sense the UN General Assembly’s “one nation, one vote” arrangement makes is further undermined by the fact that representatives of their respective nations rarely vote according to the will and aspirations of their own people in the first place. The UN has become a tool entirely of corporate-financier interests, articulated by UN representatives detached from their own populations, who have hijacked their collective voice and use it to ram through their own narrow, self-serving agendas.
The UN, if it ever even had a realistic constructive role on Earth, has proven itself a menace – a variable ultimately undermining, not promoting world peace, justice, freedom, progress or any of the other pretenses its dominating members hide their true agendas behind. The UN has become a medium within which grand crimes against world peace can unfold, rather than a bulwark against them.
UN Vote Signals West’s Shift Toward Naked Military Aggression
The UN General Assembly vote signals yet another shift – one from feigned diplomacy by the West to achieve long planned hegemonic-driven regime change in Syria, to one of naked military aggression. Kofi Annan’s retreat from his self-mutilated peace plan follows the collapse of NATO’s “Operation Damascus Volcano” and the subsequent UN General Assembly vote.
His retreat allows for the West to clear the table of “diplomatic options” leaving only military aggression. This was forewarned in March 2012’s “UN’s Kofi Annan: An Agent of Wall Street,” where Annan’s ties to the very corporate-financier interests driving Syria’s destabilization were exposed. The peace plan was an admitted gambit aimed at satisfying public expectations that “diplomacy” would be tried before a more aggressive military campaign was launched.
UN’s Last Chance
With the court of global public opinion clearly turning against the machinations of Wall Street and London, now would be a good opportunity for a resolution to be leveled not against Syria, but against the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar who openly admit to funneling weapons and even foreign fighters into Syria. Libya could also be added to that list, with the United States, France, and Britain also cited under the resolution for undermining world peace and pursing an agenda that demonstrably supports international terrorism.
Surely the West could cobble together a majority based on its vast collection of neo-fiefdoms in the General Assembly, but it would yank the last bit of moral high-ground out from under them, forcing them, their policy makers, and the corporate-financier backers to proceed with their Hitlerian campaign in full light as the aggressors – as the villains.
UN Security Guard Kidnapped, Tortured and Mudered
Friends of Syria
August 18, 2012
Last week a UN security guard was kidnapped, tortured and murdered near his home. Why was this not news worthy?
“He will not survive,” my Syrian friend said, and I think he was right.
The man on the state television was bearded down to his chest, a self-confessed Salafist – nom de guerre “Abu Dolha”, real name Ahmed Ali Gharibo. A Syrian – “alas,” said my friend – from the Ghouta district of Damascus. He admitted, right there in front of the cameras, that he “regretted” killing 200 people with his own hands.
What did it take to get a man like this to admit such things on television? Sitting up in this breezy villa, 16 miles from Damascus – Bashar’s brother Maher lives just round the corner – I could well believe what my friend said: Ahmed Gharibo will not survive.
Like all civil conflicts, rumours turn into facts, facts into rumours. Damascus is almost deserted, near-empty boulevards with more military checkpoints than traffic lights, some “mukhabarat” security, some army, the occasional “shabiha”, friendly to me – they would be, wouldn’t they, as I drive towards the elite mansions outside town – but a bit down-at-heel.
“How in the West, being advocates of democracy and liberty and freedom, can you support these people?” my friend asks. “Do your readers know that Her Majesty sends weapons and money to these people?”
I am about to point out that HMG claims that it doesn’t give weapons at all – the word “claim” is all-important in Syria these days, like the conspiracy theory of history.
“The first step to dismantle Iran is to dismantle Syria – we are isolated and 123 countries are against us; that was the figure of those who gathered for the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ conference in Paris.”
I begin to think of the Serbs and their total conviction that the world was against them, that their innocence was without question. Ah, but like the old Yugoslavia, you only have to walk the streets of Damascus to realise that the storm has not yet fully broken. Behind the walls of the old French mandate barracks down from Umayyad Square, the burned wreckage of this week’s fuel-truck bomb stands below a wizened tree. Was it aimed at the run-down “caserne” that the Syrian army still uses or a little trick for the UN officers in the Dama Rose Hotel across the road? The last 100 military observers are packing for the road journey to Beirut airport on Wednesday. The transit point of Beirut rather than Damascus airport tells its own story. “We are defunct in five days,” I heard one of the UN officers say in the lobby. Funny word, “defunct”, French for dead.
But maybe the truck bomber wanted the UN dead too? Shortly after the explosion, several aimed shots were fired at the UN’s third-floor hotel offices. Is it true that a Syrian camera crew were already on the eighth floor, ready to tape the bomb? That ambulances came within three minutes?
The UN were beginning to realise that their men were increasingly endangered in the provinces. In Aleppo, they started off with a 30-mile radius of the city and within months, their government escorts would not venture beyond the last government checkpoint on the city limits. The rebels were less friendly to the UN, and several of the international observers saw foreign fighters among the “Free Syrian Army”.
Last week – the UN has not exactly advertised the fact – a security man working for the UN, a former government security agent, was kidnapped and tortured and then murdered near his home north of Damascus. They found 20 bullet wounds in his body. The UN’s men are not talking – rarely have they been so uncommunicative – but they have counted the corpses in Artous, 25 miles west of Damascus, 70 bodies in all, Sunnis, in a mass grave, just two weeks ago. Killed, it seems, by the “shabiha”.
The FSA have been well and truly cleared out of the centre of Damascus – the suburbs at night are a different matter – and few Damascenes seem to believe that the armed rebels are winning in Aleppo.
“The Christians are protesting,” another Syrian friend tells me. “The Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo has just made an appeal to the Western powers not to send weapons to the fundamentalists. The Syrian Catholic church in Aleppo has now been bombed.”
How does one reply to all this? Does the Syrian government really want the UN to leave? “No!” cries my friend. “We want UN pressure here to force these ‘people’ into dialogue.”
The Salafist told his audience today that his enemies were “Alawites [of course, for Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite] and Shiites and Christians”. So is that it? War by television? An acknowledgement that the man won’t live long beyond this broadcast. And the UN are indeed leaving. There is an idea of a miniscule office remaining in Damascus with a military and a political observer. But otherwise, the great gloomy eyes of the UN donkey will close sleepily on Wednesday; it’s the failure of another mission – and not a single international soldier will be left behind to watch the storm burst.
The Syrian Government is Not Isolated
Largest nations on Earth converge to support embattled Syrian government.
by Tony Cartalucci
August 11, 2012 – Iran has recently hosted 30 nations including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Oman, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Jordan, Tunisia, Palestine, and many others in Tehran this week in efforts to support the Syrian government against foreign destabilization. Upon the agenda were calls to end foreign arms currently flowing into terrorist hands inside Syria, proposals to broker a meaningful ceasefire, the coordination of humanitarian aid, and supporting the Syrian people’s right to reform without foreign interference.
The unique conference featured representatives of over half of the world’s population, and signals that indeed, Syria’s government is not as “isolated” as portrayed by Western neo-imperialists.
Image: An impressive counter to the so-called “Friends of Syria” confabs held by Wall Street and London corporate-financier interests in an attempt to sway global opinion toward a repeat of Libya’s destruction at NATO’s hands, the International Consultative Conference hosed by Iran seeks to end the flow of foreign arms into militant hands and resolve political differences through more civilized means.
The meeting comes as revelations emerge that the United States, United Kingdom, NATO-member Turkey, and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are supplying weapons, cash, and other assistance to foreign militants with direct links to Al Qaeda. These include Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) militants who are in fact listed by both the US State Department and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf) as a foreign terrorist organization and a proscribed terrorist organization respectively.
As foreign militants continue to flow over Syria’s borders bolstered with an increase in foreign aid, sectarian violence has spiraled out of control. The UN has categorically failed to condemn the West’s state sponsorship of international terrorism now ravaging Syria. It appears that nations around the world, including shareholders in the Anglo-American establishment, may be having second thoughts about the increasingly untenable enterprise the West has chosen to pursue.
Earlier this month, during a Saudi-Qatari sponsored, US-UK-backed UN resolution, a large number of nations either voted no, abstained, or failed to attend the vote, indicating slipping support for what is sometimes called the “Washington consensus.”
US, GCC, and NATO actions in Libya in support of sectarian militants to install a stable of Western-created proxies into power has stripped away much of the “primacy” of “international law” and left the willfully abused geopolitical tenant of “responsibility to protect” (R2P) irrevocably in tatters. With the West’s attempted destabilization of Syria stalled, global public opinion has grown aware of the true nature of Syria’s so-called “rebels,” and that many are foreign fighters committing an array of abhorrent atrocities. The UN’s failure to act, or even worse, its role in facilitating what equates to military aggression couched in “humanitarian” pretenses, jeopardizes international law all together.
The West has ungracefully faced this quandary of its own creation by simultaneously attempting to use the presence of Al Qaeda terrorists as a causus belli to militarily intervene while also rebranding Al Qaeda as champions of freedom in Syria. One breathtaking account was given by the Fortune 500-funded Council on Foreign Relations in their article, “Al-Qaeda’s Specter in Syria,” claiming:
“The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime’s superior weaponry and professional army. Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now.”
Clearly, no nation in good conscience, or at least interested in self-preservation, could condone the overt destabilization of Syria by foreign powers with disingenuous motives, using listed-terrorist organizations to do so. The potential of this same ploy then being turned against other nations including members of Iran’s 30 nation conference, or even the US and UK’s “Friends of Syria” confabs, becomes increasingly more likely if such tactics are not condemned and altogether balked.
While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks of “no-fly zones” with NATO-member Turkey this week, the successful conference in Tehran illustrates that any such act of aggression will be carried out unilaterally, further undermining the West’s own contrived “international order” with a growing number of nations standing in direct opposition, not in support of, Wall Street and London’s next move.
Iran plans to hold another such conference later this month.
For more information, please listen to the first half of Dr. Webster Tarpley’s August 11th broadcast of World Crisis Radio.
US-NATO Meddling in Syria Faces International Condemnation [video]
Land Destroyer Report
August 12, 2012
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTV – Tarpley.net
August 12, 2012
No-Fly-Zone over Syria illegal and an Act of War
by Christof Lehmann
nsnbc
August 18, 2012
After the so-called Free Syrian Army has again be defeated in Aleppo, and failed to get the foothold that would be necessary for a Libya-Style establishment of a Transitional Government within the country, the calls for a so-called No-Fly-Zone are back on the Subversives agenda, proposed primarily by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The recent capture of a Turkish General by Syrian military forces in Aleppo (1) made it evident that the Subversives alliance planned to throw as many forces as possible to secure the city of Aleppo. The underlying strategy behind the campaign for Aleppo is most likely a plan to mirror the model that was implemented in Libya; to secure one city as the seat of a transitional national government, that would be able to “quasi-legally” call for a military intervention, or a so-called No-Fly-Zone.
On her visit to Turkey and talks with Turkiey´s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu, last week, US Secretary of State proposed that the implementation of No-Fly-Zones around the city of Aleppo and other areas should be analyzed in-depth.
The Foreign Minister of The Russian Federation, Sergei Lavrov, responded to the calls for a No-Fly-Zone in an interview with Sky News Arabia, in which he stated that the crisis in Syria had to be solved by using methods that are put into practice by international law. Lavrov also stated that some countries are using the humanitarian crisis as a pretext to implement a no-fly-zone while the true purpose would be the establishment of safety zones for military purposes. Lavrov called this practice as unacceptable.
It must be reiterated, that the crisis in Syria is not a civil war but a war on Syria. The actual Syrian armed opposition makes up an insignificant part of the Syrian population. The vast majority of so-called opposition fighters or troops under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army consists of a rag-tag mercenary force, built up of over 18.000 fighters of the Al-Qaeda Associated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Saudi backed Al Qaeda Brigades, US/CIA backed Iraqi fighters, Lebanese Insurgents, Turkish backed brigades of the Turkish and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar backed Muslim Brotherhood brigades, and a cohort of Jihadi Organizations, many of which are designated terrorist organizations from throughout the greater Middle East.
While most of these brigades and units are supported by the one or the other NATO or GCC member state, Jordan, Libya and other, and while those nations provide support, ranging from political support, over financing and delivering of arms, to logistical and direct military support by special forces, these brigades often have internal rivalries.
Calling the crisis in Syria a civil war and the rag-tag army of terrorists, mercenaries and Jihadis as Free Syrian Army or Syrian Opposition is only possible in nations with a well-organized propaganda apparatus, which NATO countries in the so-called free West possess as much as the crackpots dictatorships in the Persian Gulf.
The implementation of a No-Fly-Zone without the endorsement of all members of the UNSC would be illegal. In fact, even if Russia and China would endorse a No-Fly-Zone at the UNSC it would still be illegal and in violation of the UN-Charter.
Christof Lehmann
18.08.2012
Notes
1) Turkish General Arrested in Aleppo, Syria; Turkey Denies, Iran Calls for Consequences. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/turkish-general-arrested-in-aleppo-syria-turkey-denies-iran-calls-for-consequences/
Syrians: NATO-backed Militants Seen Donning Gas Masks
Reports of Libyan chemical weapons brought in through Turkey, caches discovered in Damascus point to possible false flag.
by Tony Cartalucci
July 27, 2012 – For a Western media so fond of reporting “activist” accounts, rumors, and even fabrications, and with all the talk of an impending “massacre” in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, reports of so-called “Free Syrian Army” militants seen trying on gas masks, along with reports of Libyan chemical weapon caches & equipment being discovered in Damascus is surely headline news.
Images: (Top) FSA fighters, one on the left wearing a “Jihadist” headband, another on the right trying on a military-grade gas mask, were reportedly photographed in Aleppo, Syria. (Bottom) Chemical weapons and equipment from Libya have been reportedly discovered as troops search areas of Damascus after quelling last week’s militant attack.
Many Syrians and outside observers alike, fear that militants may deploy chemical weapons in one or more locations around Syria, creating a mass-casualty event to subsequently be blamed on the government by a coordinated Western media disinformation campaign. The so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) has already been conducting strings of devastating, indiscriminate mass-casualty bombings across the country, as reported by Reuters’, “Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs.”
Libyan weapons, cash, and fighters have also all been confirmed to have made it into Syria in an effort to undermine, divide and destroy Syria.
The London Telegraph reported in its article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels:”
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
The Telegraph has also learned that preliminary discussions about arms supplies took place when members of the Syrian National Council [SNC] – the country’s main opposition movement – visited Libya earlier this month.
Albawaba reported in its article, “Libyan fighters join “free Syrian army” forces,” that:
Libyan sources conveyed in recent days that 600 rebel fighters have already gone from Libya to Syria in order to support the Syrian opposition.
Albawaba’s report would later be confirmed by multiple Western media representatives now on the ground in Aleppo, Syria, including CNN which reported:
Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.
A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.
On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.
The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.
Clearly Libyan terrorists and their weapons have made it into Syria with the explicit backing of NATO’s recently installed client Libyan regime. The London Guardian had reported that Libya possessed some “25 metric tonnes of bulk mustard agent and 1,400 metric tonnes of precursor chemical used to make chemical weapons.” The Guardian also reported:
The abandonment or disappearance of some Gaddafi-era weapons has prompted concerns that such firepower could erode regional security if it falls into the hands of Islamist militants or rebels active in north Africa.
Clearly those “Islamist militants” as well as “rebels active in north Africa” are now on the ground in Syria. These militants bringing pilfered chemical weapons with them is entirely plausible, as is the possibility that these weapons were purposefully placed into their hands by either NATO or Libya’s current ruling regime. This very scenario was warned against last month in an article published by Russia Today titled, “Syrian rebels aim to use chemical weapons, blame Damascus – report.”
Why Isn’t the Western Media Investigating These Claims?
It should be remembered a single “tweet” from BBC’s Ian Pannell in Aleppo claiming “fighter jets have bombed eastern Aleppo,” triggered media hysteria. Pannell would expand on his earlier, unconfirmed, unsubstantiated claim by declaring, “what appeared to be Russian-made MiG planes arced through the sky. We watched as they dropped in, bombing and strafing rebel positions.”
It would later turn out that the planes Pannell observed were not “MiG planes,” where not “Russian-made,” and were not even “bombing” rebel positions. They were trainer planes carrying out reconnaissance and at most, deploying gun-fire on rebel trucks mounted with heavy weapons.
Image: A sole”tweet” from BBC’s Ian Pannell, now a confirmed fabrication, immediately made headlines across the Western media.
Similarly, by allowing claims of FSA militants preparing to deploy chemical weapons to go unreported, affords the West an opportunity to then blame the mass-casualty event that may follow on the Syrian government, thus providing an attractive opportunity for militarily intervene. That the media and governments of the West have not publicly looked into recent claims that the FSA is contemplating a false flag, weapons of mass destruction attack, makes them complicit should such an attack unfold. It will also make it all but impossible for the US to attempt to blame Libya and “Al Qaeda” alone if their dark deed is carried out, but subsequently exposed.
MUST SEE: Free Syrian Army: Killing Christians, burning Churches [video]
YouTube — ravenise00
August 15, 2012
Free Syrian Army: Killing Christians, burning Churches
PN 