HIGHLY POTENT NEWS THAT MIGHT CHANGE YOUR VIEWS

co-opting and/or destabilization

Syria Half of Homs Destroyed – Homs Professor [video]

108morris108
December 27, 2012

Intellectuals are targeted by sophisticated snipers – using computers and cameras

Travelling from Homs is difficult – it is not known who is manning the road blocks

This is the first part of a multi part interview by Professor Mohammad Al-Ahmad


New Syria massacre? Rebels claim 20, including kids, killed in regime strike [video]

Russia Today
December 26, 2012

Activists claim shelling in northern Syria has killed 20 people, with at least eight of them said to be children. The province where the alleged attack happened, has seen fighting between the rebels and troops escalate in recent months – READ MORE http://on.rt.com/em0k45

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

Subscribe to RT! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=RussiaToday

Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_com
Follow us on Google+ http://plus.google.com/+RT


West unleashing terrorism against Syria: Mark Glenn [video]

PressTV
December 25, 2012

An analyst says the US and Israel is getting away with what any other country would not, initiating terrorism as a tool to topple a sovereign government.

In the background of this, insurgents in Syria have carried out threats to storm Christian towns in the central province killing several civilians in one village before being chased off by Syrian forces. Insurgents are bolstered by NATO support in the form of the deployment of US Patriot missile systems and troops along the Turkish Syria border. UN Arab League Envoy Lakhdar Ibrahimi is in Syria now to work for a political solution, but the US and its allies seem only interested in a NATO-supported military intervention to achieve an overthrow of the Assad government and the death of many innocent men, women and children.

Press TV has interviewed Mr. Mark Glenn, Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, Idaho about this issue.

Follow our Facebook on: http://www.facebook.com/presstvchannel
Follow our Twitter on: http://twitter.com/presstv
Follow our Tumblr on: http://presstvchannel.tumblr.com


Govt airstrike kills dozens in central Syria – activists [video included]

Russia Today
December 23, 2012

Screenshot from youtube.com @Souria2011archives / Video titled “Assad MIG Mass Murder of Bakery Bread Line in Halfaya 12-23-12”

An airstrike by Syrian regular forces killed over 180 people in the town of Halfaya, not far from the central city of Hama, says the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“In Halfaya, regime forces bombarded a bakery and committed a massacre that killed dozens of people, including women and children, and wounded many others,” said Lebanon’s Naharnet, quoting the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots network of activists.

Activists say the strike hit a line of people queuing outside a bakery. The account is supported by an amateur video released on YouTube which shows scores of dead or wounded people in the rubble. The footage also depicts men carrying victims out of a bombed one-story block, and a crater in the road beside it.

A MiG [jet] has attacked! Look at [President Bashar] Assad’s weapons. Look, world, look at the Halfaya massacre,” says the unidentified cameraman, adding the ruined building used to be a bakery.

The video, however, has not yet been independently verified. If it is authentic, it remains unclear why Syrian forces targeted the town. But reports suggest this might have been a counter-strike as Halfaya appears to have fallen into rebel hands. Moreover, on Monday the opposition forces claimed to be launching an all-out assault on army positions across the Hama region, which has been one of the centres of the uprising.

In recent days, rebels have been clashing with government troops in the region around Halfaya, according to the Associated Press. Activists say rebels have taken over a number of regime checkpoints and proclaiming Halfaya a “liberated area“. It’s part of a wider strategic effort to gain control over the country’s main north-south highway.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and Arab League special envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has arrived in Damascus to discuss ways to end the civil unrest. Brahimi was forced to travel via Beirut because of fighting near Damascus airport. The special envoy is expected to meet Syria’s foreign minister and President Assad.

Syria’s crisis began in March 2011 with political protests which eventually fomented into a civil war, with scores of rebel groups across the country battling Assad’s forces. The President says he is fighting a foreign insurgency. The conflict has taken lives of over 40,000, Syrians and created a further 164,000 refugees.

Screenshot from a video released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Screenshot from a video released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Screenshot from a video released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Screenshot from a video released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

[Potent News Editor’s note: Click HERE to see the video that is discussed above.]


Syrian Military: Militants Using Chemical Weapons

by Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer

Chemical weapons reportedly used by NATO-armed, funded terrorists near Damascus.

December 24, 2012 (LD) – PressTV has reported (more details via Fars News) that chemical weapons have been used by militants fighting Syrian government forces in Daraya, near Damascus. PressTV also reported that threats have been made against Syria’s ethnic minorities that their water supplies will be poisoned by militants – this on the heels of the UN itself warning of (and preemptively spinning) impending sectarian-driven genocide.

Image: (via the Guardian) “Chemical containers in the Libyan desert. There are concerns unguarded weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants. Photograph: David Sperry/AP” As increasing evidence reveals Libyan fighters and weapons are pouring into Syria, the West has been preparing to cover up the inevitability that Libya’s chemical arsenal will also found its way into the besieged nation. It now appears that such weapons are being deployed by NATO’s terrorist proxies.

….

AFP reported that the NATO-backed terrorists’ threats against Syria’s 1.8 million Christians have become so serious that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has made an official statement condemning the militants. AFP reported:

 The world’s largest Muslim body on Sunday condemned threats made by Islamist rebels in Syria against two Christian towns, warning of fresh confessional strife in the war-torn country.

The use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, will indicate a desperate new dimension to NATO’s proxy war with Syria – one meant solely to sow fear and terror, as well as sectarian strife, where the Western axis has otherwise failed both tactically and strategically. With NATO-backed terrorists openly threatening sectarian genocide, there are fears that not only NATO, Saudi, and Qatari weapons and funds will be used to carry it out, but a large arsenal of weapons brought with Al Qaeda terrorists from Libya, including its large cache of chemical weapons.

The Western media, and Western government officials have been preparing the public for the imminent use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, trying to pin responsibility on the Syrian government, regardless of which side actually uses them.

As early as 2007, the US, Saudi, and Israeli government had been preparing to unleash armed, sectarian extremists tied directly to Al Qaeda, with the intent on waging a region-wide sectarian war to destroy Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Despite US and Lebanese officials warning of the “cataclysmic conflict” the West and its regional allies were planning, the plot was put into full effect come 2011. As sectarian genocide unfolds, the Western media, in tandem with Western officials, feign ignorance and shock at the conflict they themselves purposefully engineered over the last several years.


US-NATO Supported Syria Rebels use Chemical Weapons against Government Forces

Global Research
December 24, 2012

PressTV

Militants fighting against the Syrian government have used chemical weapons against the army in Daraya near the capital, Damascus, military sources say.

According to a commander of the Syrian Presidential Guard, at least seven Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday after they were attacked by a chemical weapon which produced a toxic yellow gas.

The soldiers were reportedly killed within an hour after inhaling the gas.

Foreign-backed militants have repeatedly threatened to use chemical weapons against the army and pro-government civilians in recent days.

They have also threatened to contaminate Syria’s drinking water supply in a bid to kill all Alawite Shias and the supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.

The threat was made in a video posted on YouTube in which militants tested water contaminated with a lethal mixture on lab rabbits. The rabbits stopped breathing and their chests swelled shortly after drinking the poisoned water.

The militants had earlier released a footage in which lab rabbits were killed by inhaling poisonous gas.

The militants’ use of chemical weapons come as the US and its allies have alleged that the Syrian government possesses the deadly weapons and is prepared to use them against militants.


UN Defends NATO’s Premeditated Genocide in Syria

by Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer

As long-planned sectarian bloodbath unfolds, UN deceitfully labels atrocities as “reprisals.” 

December 21, 2012 (LD) – As early as 2007, it was reported that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, together were not only organizing, funding, training, and arming militants directly linked to Al Qaeda to be used against Syria and Iran, but knew well in advance that by doing so, they would trigger an unprecedented “cataclysmic conflict” driven by sectarian extremism. Not only was such sectarian violence expected, it was desired ahead of redrawing a new map for the Middle East – one that favored Western corporate-financier and geopolitical interests, while keeping the region weak, divided, and infighting.

Now, the UN is feigning indignation over the inevitable, increasingly overt sectarian nature of the so-called “Free Syrian Army” and its so-called “rebellion.” Entire communities of minorities face extermination. To blunt the impact this will have on public opinion, UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng has preemptively stated:

“I am deeply concerned that entire communities risk paying the price for crimes committed by the Syrian government.”

According to Reuters’ article, “U.N. anti-genocide envoy: Syria minorities face reprisal risk,” the genocide NATO and its allies are arming, funding, and willfully fueling is merely “reprisals.” What Reuters doesn’t report is that US, Saudi, and Lebanese officials had for years warned that US foreign policy, started under Bush and continued in earnest under Obama, would trigger this very sort of sectarian violence – driven by Al Qaeda-style fanaticism, not “reprisals.” 

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh writing for the New Yorker, wrote in his 2007 article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” that: 

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

Hersh’s report would continue by stating:

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

Further admissions of a joint US-Israeli-Saudi conspiracy against Syria included:

“…[Saudi Arabia’s] Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” –The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

 In regards to sectarian extremism in particular it was forewarned that: 

“Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites” –The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)  

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah was also featured in Hersh’s report and had also warned of imminent and spreading sectarian war purposefully stoked by the West:

Nasrallah said he believed that President Bush’s goal was “the drawing of a new map for the region. They want the partition of Iraq. Iraq is not on the edge of a civil war—there is a civil war. There is ethnic and sectarian cleansing. The daily killing and displacement which is taking place in Iraq aims at achieving three Iraqi parts, which will be sectarian and ethnically pure as a prelude to the partition of Iraq. Within one or two years at the most, there will be total Sunni areas, total Shiite areas, and total Kurdish areas. Even in Baghdad, there is a fear that it might be divided into two areas, one Sunni and one Shiite.”

He went on, “I can say that President Bush is lying when he says he does not want Iraq to be partitioned. All the facts occurring now on the ground make you swear he is dragging Iraq to partition. And a day will come when he will say, ‘I cannot do anything, since the Iraqis want the partition of their country and I honor the wishes of the people of Iraq.’ ”

Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.”

The UN once again is abusing its own self-appointed authority by excusing and spinning premeditated sectarian genocide designed to advance a documented conspiracy admitted to years ago. More recently, this conspiracy to destroy Syria through engineered and purposefully protracted violence was documented further by the very corporate-financiers themselves amongst the pages of reports turned out by their own policy think-tanks. 

The Brookings Institution in their Middle East Memo #21: Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” openly stated they sought to “bleed” Syria in purposefully protracted violence:

“The United States might still arm the opposition even knowing they will probably never have  sufficient power, on their own, to dislodge the Asad network. Washington might choose to do so simply in the belief that at least providing an oppressed people with some ability to resist their oppressors is better than doing nothing at all, even if the support provided has little chance of turning defeat into victory. Alternatively, the United States might calculate that it is still worthwhile to pin down the Asad regime and bleed it, keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention.” –pages 8-9, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Such documents completely contradict the public statements issued by the West, which attempt to portray their involvement in Syria as motivated by “humanitarian concerns,” “moral imperatives,” and the “promotion of democracy.” In reality, the goal is to prolong the violence as long as possible, expedite the loss of life, and to destroy the nation by fueling violent militants – just as it was the plan in 2007 when Hersh penned “The Redirection.” The sectarian component of the current conflict is not an unexpected result of violence that began only in 2011, it was an integral part of the West’s foreign policy since 2007. 

The sectarian genocide in Syria was purposefully engineered by Western policy makers, and now is willfully covered up, spun, and excused by the UN and the Western mass media alike.