Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Center for Research on Globalization, Montreal, on the back of UN concern for the Syrian war spilling over into other countries.
The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: The UN is warning of an explosion in the Middle East if the war on Syria continues. The question is what has the UN itself done to prevent the war from exacerbating?
Chossudovsky: First of all, that statement was made by the head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. And the statement says that if the fighting doesn’t stop… the fighting is going to stop because the terrorists have been defeated
And essentially if Western powers put a moratorium on their support to these al-Qaeda affiliated rebels, the war is over – at least, the ground war is over. Recent developments suggest and confirm that the country is under the control of the Syrian government. The rebel forces have been defeated in al-Qusayr and they’ve also been defeated in other parts of the country.
The question of humanitarian aid has to be, from my standpoint, addressed because, who are the protagonists for humanitarian aid, so-called humanitarian aid? Precisely the countries, which supported these rebel terrorists.
And I think what we should be raising at this stage is that it is well established that this war was waged by the United States, NATO and Israel with the support of the [Persian] Gulf states Qatar and Saudi Arabia in particular and that under international law what is now required is war reparations.
So I would say let us put the humanitarian dimension aside and focus on the billions and billions of dollars of war reparations, which are due to the Syrian government as a result of the legal support of these terrorist formations in Syria, which constitute essentially the ground forces – the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance.
Press TV: The recent victory in Qusayr and the recent revelation that Israeli-made weapons were seized from Syrian insurgents – What impact will this have on the dynamics of the conflict?
Chossudovsky: We’ve known from day one that Israel has supported al-Qaeda. And we also know that Israel has channeled weapons and logistic support to the rebels in the areas surrounding the occupied areas of the Golan Heights and in fact Israel even established a hospital facility for the al-Qaeda rebels and was bussing them back and forth, taking the wounded to the hospital and then sending them back to the war theatre.
Israel was involved in acts of aggression against a sovereign state together with NATO, particularly Turkey, Britain, France, the United States. French and British Special Forces, SAS forces, MI6 and CIA agents were involved – We know it because it’s documented. Who is training the rebels in chemical weapons? The Western military alliance.
Minister Laurent Fabius of France comes out – and it’s the typical sort of weapons of mass destruction saga accusing the government of using chemical weapons against civilians when in fact CNN confirms that Western forces are training the rebels in the use of chemical weapons; when the Turkish police arrests al-Qaeda rebels – it just happened a week or so ago.
So we know that all this is fabrications whereby the Western military alliance is accusing the government of committing atrocities, which they themselves have committed.
What we must now tackle at an intentional level is war reparations. The war is over unless of course the West decides to continue this war e.g. with a no-fly zone. That would be an extremely dangerous option at this stage because Syria has an advanced air defense system.
The S-300 is in place; it has been building up over the past 18 months; there are other elements of air defense; and it would be very unwise for the Western military alliance to impose a no-fly zone, which would immediately be subject to some kind of response.
So that is the background. This war has reached a point of transition if there is no intervention on the part of the Western military alliance, the war is over.
[Potent News editor’s note: via Pepe Escobar: For those who haven’t seen it yet. RT’s title is misleading; I meant “start” metaphorically; Obama’s Syria decision is a diversion from PRISMgate. At least for 24 hours it worked, bumping Snowden off the headlines.]
CIA whistle blower Edward Snowden has reportedly been stopped from flying to the UK. The man who lifted the lid on America’s secret surveillance activities is being pursued by Washington. For his latest revelation, he told a Hong Kong newspaper that the U.S. repeatedly hacks into Chinese computer networks. For more about the leaks and Snowden’s future we’re now joined live by Pepe Escobar, a roving correspondent for the Asia Times.
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 1 billion YouTube views benchmark.
In the course of its investigation into the Reyhanlı bombings (11 May 2013), the Turkish police conducted on Monday, 27 May 2013, a series of raids on the homes of Al-Nusra Front militants in Adana and Mersin. 12 suspects were arrested.
2 kg of sarin gas were found.
The Al-Nusra Front is the Levantine branch of Al-Qaida. The militants were preparing to use the sarin gas inside both Turkey and Syria. Sarin gas is a chemical weapon banned by the United Nations in 1991.
This discovery comes as the French daily Le Monde, in its edition dated May 28, published a five-part report by Jean-Philippe Rémy and Laurent Van Der Stockton “certifying” the use of gas by the Army Syrian Arab against the “rebellion” in Jobar (district of Damascus).
The report is a carbon copy of the one carried out in Homs, more than one year ago by the same newspaper, which was translated into the main European languages and published by all major outlets in NATO member states. The report contains several absurdities: journalists describe a chemical warfare at the heart of the capital supposed to affect only “opponents“; the people show diverse symptoms, but no convulsions; and photos illustrating the first installment point to an eye treatment which is incongruous with for poison gas (which penetrates the skin and is not a tear gas). This piece of propaganda was disseminated and widely relayed on the eve of the lifting of the EU embargo on sending weapons to armed groups in Syria.
Breaking news! CNN reports Obama is set to announce Syria has crossed the red line for military intervention by using chemical weapons to kill hundreds of civilians in Syria.
Details are just coming in but the news means the United States will now be launching military action against Syria as Obama has previously promised the use of Chemical weapons in Syria would be a “game changing” red line.
According the the reports from US intelligence officials given just moments ago to congress in a secret closed door meeting, the Syria government has been using Sarin gas.
After concluding that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the country’s insurgency, thus crossing a ‘red line,’ the Obama administration has decided to start sending arms to anti-Assad rebels for the first time, officials say.
An internal memorandum circulating within the Obama administration has assessed that chemical weapons, most likely the nerve gas sarin, were used multiple times in battle against the Syrian rebels.
The “intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year,” according to that memo, as cited by The New York Times.
President Obama has authorized to release of at least some US arms for Syria’s rebels as part of new military and political aid measures, according to a source who spoke with Reuters.
White House officials speculated over evidence that nerve gas had been used as of April, but that evidence is now being called “definitive” – with Congressional sources describing the conclusion as crossing the “red line” for US military intervention or backing as previously defined by the president.
“The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition, that will involve providing direct support to the (Supreme Military Council), that includes military support,” Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters on a conference call on Thursday.
“This is going to be different in both scope and scale in terms of what we are providing to the SMC than what we have provided before,” he adds.
According to officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the US military is currently considering a proposal for arming factions of the Syrian insurgency – as well as establishing a limited no-fly zone over the country to be enforced from nearby Jordanian territory.
That no-fly zone could stretch for up to 25 miles into Syrian territory, and would be set up in a bid to train and equip rebel forces and protect refugees, officials said.
A no-fly zone would not require the destruction of Syrian antiaircraft batteries, according to the accounts cited in American media. The White House could alternatively authorize the arming and training of the Syrian opposition in Jordan without a no-fly zone.
Congress was being notified of the conclusions over chemical weapons use in the country on Thursday in classified documents. Findings were corroborated by evidence sent to the US by France, which along with the UK claimed that Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons.
“There is a growing body persuasive evidence showing that the regime used – and continues to use – chemical weapons, including sarin,” a spokesman for Britain’s Foreign Office said Thursday.
“The room for doubt continues to diminish. Assad must grant the UN investigation unrestricted access to investigate on the ground in Syria and establish the full facts,” he added.
In a conference call to reporters on Thursday, the White House said that the intelligence community estimates that as many as 150 people, or about 0.16 per cent (0.0016) of the 93,000 reported deaths in the Syrian conflict, could have been a result of chemical weapons used by pro-Assad forces.
The White House said during the same call that the US “will make decisions on our own timeline” regarding the next steps on Syria. President Obama will consult with G8 partners, including Russia, about Syria next week.
Republican senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham called on the US to provide “lethal assistance, especially ammunition & heavy weapons” to Syria’s rebels on Thursday.
“The President must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad’s ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air,” said a joint statement by the pair.
As a UN probe was underway into allegations of chemical weapons use in May, lead investigator Carla Del Ponte said the findings showed that rebels were behind at least one chemical weapons attack. “This was used on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” Del Ponte told Swiss TV.
But the final report released in early June said the UN investigators failed “to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator” in the investigated attacks.
On several occasions media reported seizure of small amounts of sarin from militants of the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front. This happened both inside Syria and in neighboring Turkey, where many Syrian refugees live in camps along the border.
Abayomi Azikiwe, international affairs expert and journalist, says that US claims will be used to justify intervention at a time when the rebels are threatened with defeat on the battlefield.
“Based upon the developments that have been taking place in Syria over the last two weeks, in regard to the removal of rebels from various parts of the country, and also the overall international situation — which is very disadvantageous to US or NATO direct intervention in Syria –I believe that this being utilized to provide a rationale and justification for the escalation of military, political as well as diplomatic pressure against the Syrian government,” he adds.
Author and historian Gerald Horne said that Washington’s allegations are in “flagrant contradiction” with an assessment from the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, and may only serve to escalate the conflict.
“They’re under enormous pressure from former US President Bill Clinton, who just came out with a statement criticizing the Obama administration for not intervening more deeply in the Syrian morass,” Horne said. “Mr. Obama’s former competitor, Senator John McCain of Arizona, just took to the floor of the United States Senate saying that arming the rebels is not enough, presumably calling for air strikes to create a no-fly zone. It seems to me this is a very dangerous and ominous moment, particularly as Sunni clerics have just met in Cairo, Egypt and called for a holy war against the Assad regime. Instead of trying to calm things down, it seems to me the Obama administration is about to throw gas on the flames.”
Sad news from the Syrian capital Damascus. At least 14 people have been killed by two bomb attacks carried out by the foreign-backed militants and jihadists, often called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) or “democratic innocent people just defending themselves” by Western mass media. So according to the facts on ground in Syria since over two years, some might wish these European states some of these “democratic freedom-lovers” due the situation that their media and politicians love these militants so much.
The two bomb attacks in the Syrian capital Damascus were carried out near a police station after other explosive devices blew off near the known Marjeh Square in the central area of the Syrian capital Damascus. According to the Syrian Al-Ikhbariya television station, not only (at least) 14 people died due to the next terrorist attack in the Syrian capital, but also some 31 innocent Syrians were injured in this incident today.
Although there is so far no group which has claimed the responsibility for this terrorist attack in the capital of Syria, it seems logical that the foreign-backed militants and jihadists are behind such acts of pure terrorism against the innocent citizens of the Syrian capital. Thus, that the Syrian television channel Al-Ikhbariya has soon blamed the US-backed terrorists within Syria is not very far fetched, but logical.
After all the successful operations of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in recent weeks, for example in al-Qusayr and the countryside of al-Qusayr near the border to Lebanon and the recent successful operations in the largest Syrian city Aleppo and the northern region of Syria, these next car bombs and acts of terror against the Syrian citizens of the capital Damascus can be taken as a cruel revenge and a last attempt of these foreign-backed militants and Islamists to spread fear in the capital. It is possible that these armed thugs wanted to give a sign that they are still able to carry out such horrible attacks against civilians in the capital of Syria.
While this horrible sign by these uneducated thugs and al-Qaeda fanatics is sure bad in terms of that there is not yet a real level of security implemented by the Syrian government even in the capital of the country, this cruel sign just boosts the morale of the resistance against this sectarian terrorism and the proxy war by foreign nations, including Arab traitors in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are just working hand in hand with the Israeli regime and the American regime of terrorism, covered by mass media and politicians as the “world police” and “suppliers of democracy”. My ass.
Already some days ago, on June 8, at least eight people were killed in a car bomb blast in Al-Adawiya neighborhood of city of Homs. According to the reports, also some innocent Syrians were injured in this blast.
As mentioned, these recent horrible acts of terrorism came as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of the last militant bastion near the strategic town of al-Qusayr (al-Qusayyr) also in the province of the Syrian city of Homs and located near the Syrian border to Lebanon.
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