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Paul Merrell

How Iran and the US intersect in "Syraq" - RT Op-Edge - 1 views

rt.com/...7-us-iran-intersect-syria-iraq

war & peace Syria Iran Iraq ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15
     
    A Pepe Escobar "must read". Note in passing the mention that former U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford is now working for AIPAC. Ford was ambassador to Turkey and according to Yossef Bondansky was a key-figure in the false flag sarin gas attack in Syria. Working for AIPAC raises a suspicion that Ford had ties to Israel while working on that performance. 
Paul Merrell

The West Wants Turkey Out - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...the-west-wants-turkey-out

war & peace Turkey NATO-membership SU-24-shootdown

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The downing of Russia’s Su-24 bomber by the Turkish Air Force is “one of the nightmare scenarios that military planners had envisaged as a result of Moscow’s decision to enter the conflict,” reports The Financial Times.
  • In turn, The Washington Post believes that “NATO faced being thrust into a new Middle Eastern crisis… The incident marked a serious escalation in the Syrian conflict that is likely to further strain relations between Russia and the NATO alliance.” The Guardian argues that we’ve witnessed “a nerve-jangling event, that raised the spectre of a direct confrontation between two large powers: one a Nato member, the other nuclear-armed”. While it’s clear that neither Russia nor NATO wants to go to war against each other, each side is trying to deal with the situation and identify the reasons that provoked the recent crisis and, what’s even more important, to establish who’s at fault.
  • However, to resolve the difficult crisis that followed the destruction of the Russian Su-24 quickly, the West is now searching for those “guilty” of this blatant attack, which is, without a doubt, the Turkish leader – Tayyip Erdogan. It seems that NATO states are not afraid to criticize Turkey for its actions against Russia. Vice-Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) Sigmar Gabriel expressed harsh criticism of Turkey after the downing of Russia’s Su-24 bombers by labeling it an “unpredictable player”, reports the German Die Welt. The members of NATO fear that the “impulsive actions” of Turkey’s President will force them into a new major conflict, and NATO is not prepared to fight it yet. These “impulsive actions” may trigger the response that is required by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. No wonder Hollande, while declaring war against ISIL, made no reference of Article 5, by quoting the EU Lisbon Treaty instead.
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  • France is convinced that once the “Muslim Brotherhood” came to power in Turkey, headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become a major headache for Western politicians, says Le Figaro. According to its journalists, Turkey used to be an ally of the West, however, it is nothing of the kind anymore. Relations with Turkey took a U-turn once Erdogan started systematically “undermining” Turkey’s strategic relations with Israel which were stable since 1949. Anti-Turkish sentiments in the West were aggravated even further by the games Erdogan had been playing during the “Arab Spring”, when he first became a close friend of Bashar al-Assad, and then stabbed him in the back by allowing jihadists from around the world to swarm into Syria by crossing through Turkey’s territory. When the sworn enemies of Erdogan – local Kurds were dying in a heroic defense of the city of Kobani, Turkey did nothing to relieve their suffering, waiting for Western countries to save the population of the city instead. In this context it’s curious what the former NATO commander of Europe, Ret. General Wesley Clark, has been saying about Turkey : “Let’s be very clear: ISIL is not just a terrorist organization, it is a Sunni terrorist organization. It means it blocks and targets Shia, and that means it’s serving the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia even as it poses a threat to them All along there’s always been the idea that Turkey was supporting ISIS in some way… Someone’s buying that oil that ISIL is selling, it’s going through somewhere. It looks to me like it’s probably going through Turkey, but the Turks have never acknowledged it.” Here’s the reason why Russia was stabbed in the back by a NATO member country.
  • Once Russia began military operations against ISIL in Syria, Ankara’s relations with Washington started deteriorating rapidly. The situation we have on our hands now is further complicated by the fact that it was “defenseless” Turkomans who were shooting Russian pilots as they descended with parachutes, along with bringing down a Russian helicopter that was sent to rescue the pilots. All the recent NATO meetings have been stained by concerns that the Turkish agenda in Syria has little to do with the position of the West. Now that Erdogan’s arrogance has become apparent to everyone, even though he allowed the US Air Force to use a base in Turkey’s territory, he has also been launching attacks against Syrian Kurds that remain the most faithful allies of Washington in the fight against ISIL. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that a retired US Major General Paul Vallely accused the Turkish government of an attempt to create a new Ottoman Empire. According to him, due to all well-known facts of Ankara’s assistance to the Islamic State, Turkey should be expelled from NATO. The Washington Times is also questioning Turkey as a member state of NATO, while underlying that the attack on the Russian Su-24 makes this debate particularly relevant and timely. The newspaper notes that Ankara has been providing ISIL units with close air support when the latter was fighting Kurds in Syria and Iraq. Its journalists are convinced that Turkey has been turned into a theocratic Islamist dictatorship, where the freedom of the press is gradually been destroyed.
  • The conservative American Thinker goes even further by claiming it’s about time to replace Turkey with Russia in NATO, since the West has more in common with Russia than with the Islamist Turkey. To support this position, the magazine notes that when Turkey joined NATO back in February 1952, the advocates of this step argued that they need an Islamic state to prevent Soviet expansion in the region from happening. But it’s clear that this was a deal with the devil. After all, it was the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 that broke the alliance apart, forcing Greece to withdraw its troop from under NATO command. In 2012, Syria shot down a Turkish fighter since it was deliberately violating its airspace. Later that same year, Turkey bombarded government facilities in Syria. For decades, Turkey has used NATO membership, in order to achieve its own objectives, which, as a rule, do not coincide with the interests of the alliance. In the early 2000s, Turkey chose to demonstrate its support of Islamism, which has always been a more serious threat to the West than the Soviet Union. Therefore, it seems that the American Thinker has expressed the opinion of a larger part of the western public, by urging NATO to get in an alliance with Russia against Islamism, including the “Islamic state of Turkey.”
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Nov 15
     
    When considering Turkey being booted out of NATO, let's not forget its role in staging the false flag sarin gas attack in Syria that was aimed at provoking the U.S. into attacking Syria --- and almost succeeded.  But better still, let's dissolve NATO. Its reason for existence disappeared when the Soviet Union disintegrated. 
Paul Merrell

Iraq Smashes Al Qaeda 'Poison Gas Cell' - Yahoo! News UK - 0 views

uk.news.yahoo.com/poison-gas-cell-165516815.html

war & peace false flag chemical-warfare Iraq al qaeda

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al Qaeda cell working to produce poison gas at two locations in Baghdad for future attacks both home and abroad. Mohamed al Askari, spokesman for Iraq's defence ministry, said five suspects had been detained over the construction of two facilities in the capital to produce sarin and mustard gas, using instructions from another al Qaeda group.
  • The members of the cell were prepared to launch attacks domestically, and also had a network to smuggle the toxins to neighbouring countries, and also to Europe and North America, said Mr Al Askari. He said the group had managed to acquire some raw materials and formulas, but they had not produced any active chemical weapons. It was unclear how far along they were in their efforts. The arrests follow a joint operation between Iraqi and foreign intelligence services.
Paul Merrell

Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria - Middle East - World ... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...d-forces-in-syria-8660358.html

war & peace pro-war propaganda Syria Afghanistan WMD Iran Pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region. For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran – even before last week’s presidential election – to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years.  Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel.
  • In years to come, historians will ask how America – after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for  2014 – could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed. The profound effects of this great schism, between Sunnis who believe that the father of Mohamed’s wife was the new caliph of the Muslim world and Shias who regard his son in law Ali as his rightful successor – a seventh century battle swamped in blood around the present-day Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala – continue across the region to this day. A 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, compared this Muslim conflict to that between “Papists and Protestants”.
  • Iraq, a largely Shiite nation which America ‘liberated’ from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority in the hope of balancing the Shiite power of Iran, has – against all US predictions – itself now largely fallen under Tehran’s influence and power.  Iraqi Shiites as well as Hizballah members, have both fought alongside Assad’s forces.
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  • Washington’s excuse for its new Middle East adventure – that it must arm Assad’s enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them – convinces no-one in the Middle East.  Final proof of the use of gas by either side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush’s claim that Saddam’s Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.For the real reason why America has thrown its military power behind Syria’s Sunni rebels is because those same rebels are now losing their war against Assad.  The Damascus regime’s victory this month in the central Syrian town of  Qusayr, at the cost of Hizballah lives as well as those of government forces, has thrown the Syrian revolution into turmoil, threatening to humiliate American and EU demands for Assad to abandon power.  Arab dictators are supposed to be deposed – unless they are the friendly kings or emirs of the Gulf – not to be sustained.  Yet Russia has given its total support to Assad, three times vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that might have allowed the West to intervene directly in the civil war.
  • In the Middle East, there is cynical disbelief at the American contention that it can distribute arms – almost certainly including anti-aircraft missiles – only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria represented by the so-called Free Syria Army.  The more powerful al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, dominates the battlefield on the rebel side
  • From now on, therefore, every suicide bombing in Damascus - every war crime committed by the rebels - will be regarded in the region as Washington’s responsibility. The very Sunni-Wahabi Islamists who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September, 2011 – who are America’s greatest enemies as well as Russia’s – are going to be proxy allies of the Obama administration.
  • Iran’s support for Damascus will grow rather than wither.  They point out that the Taliban recently sent a formal delegation for talks in Tehran and that America will need Iran’s help in withdrawing from Afghanistan.  The US, the Iranians say, will not be able to take its armour and equipment out of the country during its continuing war against the Taliban without Iran’s active assistance.  One of the sources claimed – not without some mirth -- that the French were forced to leave 50 tanks behind when they left because they did not have Tehran’s help.
  • Israel’s policies in the region have been knocked askew by the Arab revolutions, leaving its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hopelessly adrift amid the historic changes.Only once over the past two years has Israel fully condemned atrocities committed by the Assad regime, and while it has given medical help to wounded rebels on the Israeli-Syrian border, it fears an Islamist caliphate in Damascus far more than a continuation of Assad’s rule.  One former Israel intelligence commander recently described Assad as “Israel’s man in Damascus”. 
  • Another of the region’s supreme ironies is that Hamas, supposedly the ‘super-terrorists’ of Gaza, have abandoned Damascus and now support the Gulf Arabs’ desire to crush Assad.  Syrian government forces claim that Hamas has even trained Syrian rebels in the manufacture and use of home-made rockets.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13
     
    Astute analysis of the Mideast situation, saving the lack of mention that to the U.S., U.K., and France, it's all about competing natural gas pipeline projects. Iran sending in its Revolutionary Guard troops to support the Syrian Assad government in response to Obama's decision to provide arms to the "rebels" under the pretext of Syrian use of chemical weapons. No surprise there, except to the Chief Idiot in the White House, who apparently has not yet figured out that every U.S. escalation is countered with a larger escalation from Syria's supporters and that the "rebels" already were being supplied with arms by other nations.   And using Syria to spark a regional Sunni v. Shia war is beyond idiotic, a formula for World War III.   Note the author's skepticism about U.S. claims of WMD use. 
Paul Merrell

Pat Buchanan: US Sarin Gas Claims: This Has Tonkin Gulf Written All Over It - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35300.htm

war & peace Syria WMD Sunni Shia

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • "We are getting ourselves into a conflict, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah on one side and us, Saudi Arabia, Qatar on the other side. It is Insane!"
Paul Merrell

Statement by Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes o... - 0 views

www.whitehouse.gov/...-strategic-communications-ben-

war & peace Syria WMD Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Following a deliberative review, our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.  Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information. 
  • We have no reliable, corroborated reporting to indicate that the opposition in Syria has acquired or used chemical weapons. 
  • Following on the credible evidence that the regime has used chemical weapons against the Syrian people, the President has augmented the provision of non-lethal assistance to the civilian opposition, and also authorized the expansion of our assistance to the Supreme Military Council (SMC), and we will be consulting with Congress on these matters in the coming weeks.  This effort is aimed at strengthening the effectiveness of the SMC, and helping to coordinate the provision of assistance by the United States and other partners and allies.  Put simply, the Assad regime should know that its actions have led us to increase the scope and scale of assistance that we provide to the opposition, including direct support to the SMC. These efforts will increase going forward. 
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: Hezbollah don't take no mess - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...MID-01-060613.html

Syria Hezbollah Iran Qusayr U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The "Friends of Syria" are appalled. Their much vaunted "rebel held" stronghold of Qusayr is gone. This BBC headline sums it all up: "Syria conflict: US condemns siege of Qusayr." For White House spokesman Jay Carney, "pro-government forces", to win, needed help from by their "partners in tyranny" - Hezbollah and Iran. Right: so the "rebels" weaponized by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the CIA, not to mention jihadis of the Jabhat al-Nusra kind, are partners in what, "freedom and democracy"? Spin out, facts in. This is a monster strategic defeat for the NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council-Israel axis. [1] The supply lines from <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> Lebanon to Homs of the Not Exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA) gangs and the odd jihadi are gone. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) will next move to Homs and the whole Homs governorate. The final stop will be two or three Aleppo suburbs still controlled by the FSA. There's absolutely no way Qusayr can be spun in the West as yet another "tactical withdrawal" by the FSA. The rebels insist they "withdrew". Nonsense. It was a rout.
  • This, in a nutshell, is how it happened.
  • When will the NATO-GCC axis ever learn? Hezbollah's Sheikh Nasrallah staked his reputation by going on air and promising a victory. Once again, he delivered. Contrary to Western spin, Hezbollah did not do it by itself; it was a combination of SAA, Hezbollah and Iranian specialists applying superior tactics and displaying crack urban warfare knowledge. It's also easy to forget that a prime wet dream among US Think Tanklanders these past few months was the possibility of pitting Hezbollah against al-Qaeda-linked jihadis inside Syria. They got their wish.
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  • There is a slight problem though. Buried in sensationalist reports in Le Monde or Liberation is the fact that the French scientific analyses - based on two samples, one of them collected by Le Monde reporters - do not specify who used sarin, the government or the "rebels". Even UN experts, in their official report, have admitted as much.
  • The Susan and Samantha show And now, to compound the drama, we have Susan Rice as the new US National Security Adviser and Samantha Power as the new US ambassador at the UN Security Council. It's always helpful to remember that along with Hillary Clinton, these were the Three Graces of "humanitarian intervention" that forcefully pushed for the bombing and destruction of Libya. Whatever replay strategy Susan and Samantha may come up with, Russia and China will veto. Moreover, even the Washington establishment admits all options are noxious. [4] To top it off, Turkey has been plunged into the Taksim/Occupy Gezi/Down with the Dictator maelstrom - and the last thing an embattled Erdogan will be thinking about is to further empower a bunch of "rebel" losers.
Paul Merrell

Government Assessment of the Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, ... - 0 views

www.whitehouse.gov/...use-chemical-weapons-august-21

war & peace Syria WMD Obama intelligence-summary must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting.Our classified assessments have been shared with the U.S. Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place.
  • We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely. The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition. Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation. We will continue to seek additional information to close gaps in our understanding of what took place.
  • We assess with high confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year, including in the Damascus suburbs. This assessment is based on multiple streams of information including reporting of Syrian officials planning and executing chemical weapons attacks and laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin. We assess that the opposition has not used chemical weapons.
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  • The Syrian regime has initiated an effort to rid the Damascus suburbs of opposition forces using the area as a base to stage attacks against regime targets in the capital. The regime has failed to clear dozens of Damascus neighborhoods of opposition elements, including neighborhoods targeted on August 21, despite employing nearly all of its conventional weapons systems. We assess that the regime’s frustration with its inability to secure large portions of Damascus may have contributed to its decision to use chemical weapons on August 21
  • On August 21, a Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus area, including through the utilization of gas masks. Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons.
  • Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21. Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah. This includes the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media. The lack of flight activity or missile launches also leads us to conclude that the regime used rockets in the attack.
  • Three hospitals in the Damascus area received approximately 3,600 patients displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure in less than three hours on the morning of August 21, according to a highly credible international humanitarian organization. The reported symptoms, and the epidemiological pattern of events – characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers – were consistent with mass exposure to a nerve agent. We also received reports from international and Syrian medical personnel on the ground.
  • We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage. We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack. We have a body of information, including past Syrian practice, that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on August 21. We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence. On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations.
  • To conclude, there is a substantial body of information that implicates the Syrian government’s responsibility in the chemical weapons attack that took place on August 21.As indicated, there is additional intelligence that remains classified because of sources and methods concerns that is being provided to Congress and international partners. Syria: Damascus Areas of Influence and Areas Reportedly Affected by 21 August Chemical Attack
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 13
     
    Well, here's what the public gets told, from a President and his intelligence community that have been caught in lie after lie in the NSA scandal this summer. And of course, to "protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence." One thing is certain: The "high confidence" of the summary does not acknowledge the doubt about that confidence expressed by government officials speaking anonymously to the Associated Press before the report was released. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-sources-intelligence-weapons-no-slam-dunk   I'll have more later. 
Paul Merrell

CNN Caught Staging News Segments on Syria With Actors - | Intellihub.com - 0 views

intellihub.com/...sed-actor-caught-multiple-lies

war & peace Syria CNN pro-war propaganda propaganda

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • The primary “witness” that the mainstream media is using as a source in Syria has been caught staging fake news segments.  Recent video evidence proves that “Syria Danny”, the supposed activist who has been begging for military intervention on CNN, is really just a paid actor and a liar.
  • By pointing out that the mainstream media is orchestrating their entire coverage of this incident, we are not denying that there is a tremendous amount of death and violence in Syria right now.  However, we are showing that the mainstream media version of events is scripted and staged propaganda. The following video shows him contradicting himself while off air, and even asking crew members to “get the gunfire sounds ready” for his video conference with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
  • “Syria Danny” has also appeared on many other news programs, and every single time his story on specific events has changed.
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs - 2 views

www.atimes.com/...MID-03-090913.html

war & peace Syria Obama Pipelinestan U.S.-credibility

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Sep 13 - No Cached
Gary Edwards liked it
  • There is nothing tragic about the Obama presidency, capable of drawing the analytical talents of a neo-Plutarch or a neo-Gibbon. This is more like a Pirandello farce, a sort of Character in Search of An Author. Candidates to Author are well documented - from the Israel lobby to the House of Saud, from a select elite of the industrial-military-security complex to, most of all, the rarified banking/financial elite, the real Masters of the Universe. Poor Barack is just a cipher, a <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> functionary of empire, whose ''deciding'' repertoire barely extends to what trademark smile to flash at the requisite photo-ops. There's nothing ''tragic'' about the fact that during this week - marking the 12th anniversary of 9/11 - this presidency will be fighting for its bombing ''credibility'' trying to seduce Republican hawks in the US Congress while most of the warmongers du jour happen to be Democrats.
  • Republicans are torn between supporting the president they love to hate and delivering him a stinging rebuke - as much as they are aching to follow the orders of their masters, ranging from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to military contractors. Once again, this is farce - caused by the fact that a man elected to finish off wars is eager to start yet another one. And once again without a United Nations vote. The White House ''strategy'' in this crucial negotiating week boils down to this; to convince the US Congress that the United States must start a war on Syria to punish an ''evil dictator'' - once again, as bad as Hitler - for gassing children. The evidence? It's ''indisputable''. Well, it's not ''irrefutable''. It's not even ''beyond-a-reasonable-doubt''. As Obama's Chief of Staff Denis McDonough admitted, with a straight face, it boils down to ''a quite strong common sense test, irrespective of the intelligence, that suggests that the regime carried this out''. So if this is really about ''common sense'', the president is obviously not being shown by his close coterie of sycophants this compendium of common sense, compiled by a group of top, extremely credible former US intelligence officials, which debunks all the ''evidence'' as flawed beyond belief. To evoke a farce from 12 years ago, this clearly seems to be a case of ''facts being fixed around the policy''.
  • The Arab street doesn't buy it because they clearly see through the hypocrisy; the desperate rush to ''punish'' the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria while justifying everything the apartheid state of Israel perpetrates in occupied Palestine. The Muslim world doesn't buy it because it clearly sees the demonization only applies to Muslims - from Arafat to bin Laden to Saddam to Gaddafi and now Assad. It would never apply to the military junta in Myanmar, which was clever enough to engineer an ''opening''; the next day Westerners were lining up to kiss the hem of Burmese longyis. It would never apply to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan because ''we'' always need to seduce him as one of our bastards away from Russia and China. It eventually applies, on and off, to the Kim dynasty in North Korea, but with no consequences - because these are badass Asians who can actually respond to an US attack. Informed public opinion across the developing world does not buy it because they clearly see, examining the historical record, that Washington would never really be bothered with the sorry spectacle of Arabs killing Arabs, or Muslims killing Muslims, non-stop. The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war is a prime piece of evidence.
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  • Then there's the ''credibility'' farce. The Obama administration has convoluted the whole world in its own self-spun net, insisting that the responsibility for the ''red line'' recklessly drawn by the president is in fact global. Yet the pesky ''world'' is not buying it.
  • At the Group of 20 summit last week, the BRICS group of emerging powers - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - as well as Indonesia and Argentina, clearly stressed that a war on Syria without UN Security Council approval would qualify Obama as a war criminal. Even among the European poodles ''support'' for the White House is extremely qualified. Germany's Angela Merkel and even France's attack dog Francois Hollande said the primacy is with the UN. The European Union as a whole wants a political solution. It's enlightening to remember that the EU in Brussels can issue arrest warrants for heads of EU governments guilty of war crimes. Someone in Paris must have warned attack dog Hollande that he would not welcome the prospect of slammer time. ''Evil'' as a political category is something worthy of the brain dead. The key question now revolves around the axis of warmongers - Washington, Israel and the House of Saud. Will the Israel lobby, the more discreet but no less powerful Saudi lobby, and the Return of the Living Dead neo-cons convince the US Congress to fight their war?
  • And then there's the curioser and curioser case of al-Qaeda - essentially the Arabic denomination for a CIA database of US-Pakistani-Saudi trained mujahideen during the 1980s: the oh so convenient transnational bogeyman that ''legitimized'' the Global War On Terror (GWOT) of the George W Bush years; the ''opening'' for al-Qaeda to move to Iraq; and now, no middle men; the CIA and the Obama administration fighting side-by-side with al-Qaeda in Syria. No wonder the denomination ''al-CIAeda'' has gone viral. With farce after farce after farce piling up in their own Tower of Babel, the much-vaunted ''US credibility'' is in itself the biggest farce of all. Politically, no one knows how the vacuum will be filled. It won't be via the UN. It won't be via the BRICS. It won't be via the G-20 - which is seriously divided; at least new multipolar players are carrying way more weight than US poodles. Much would be made to restore ''US credibility'' if the Obama administration had the balls to force both the House of Saud and Qatar (''300 people and a TV station'', in the epic definition of Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar Sultan - aka Bandar Bush) to end once and for all their weaponizing of hardcore ''rebels'' and ultimately hardcore jihadis, and accept Iran in the negotiating table for a real Geneva II peace process in Syria. It won't happen because this bypasses farce. Once again; helpless Barack is just a paperboy. The plutocrats in charge are getting extremely nervous. The system is melting - and they need to act fast.
  • They need a Syria as docile as the Arab petro-monarchies. They want to hit Russia bad - and then discuss missile defense and Russian influence in Eastern Europe from a position of force. They want to hit Iran bad - and then continue to issue ultimatums from a position of force. They want to facilitate yet another Israeli attempt to capture southern Lebanon (it's the water, stupid). They want a monster gas pipeline from Qatar for European customers bypassing Iran and Syria as well as Gazprom. Most of all, this is all about control of natural resources and channels of distribution. These are real motives - and they have nothing to do with farce. Farce is only deployed to kill any possibility of real diplomacy and real political discussion. Farce is a theatrical mask - as in ''humanitarian'' imperialism - the ''acceptable'' version of the Dick Cheney-run years. It's as if Dick Cheney had never left the building; paperboy Barack is Dick Cheney with a ''human'' face. The only good outcome in this multi-sorrowful tale is that the real ''international community'', all around the world, has seen the naked Emperor in all its (farcical) glory.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Sep 13
     
    What can I say? The iconoclastic Pepe Escobar strikes again. 
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Sep 13
     
    Outstanding article Paul. Wow! Watching the 911 link now. But here's one for you: Massimo Mazzucco's new 5-hour documentary "September 11- The New Pearl Harbor" summarizes 12 years of public debate on 9-11, looking at the events from all sides. Watch a trailer for the film here: http://goo.gl/M5c0dj Full five hours available here: http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167 I listened to a two hour interview with Massimo last night. Awesome stuff.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 13
     
    A 5-hour documentary will have to wait for tomorrow. I'm about 7 hours away from a deadline for the current development cycle's Help file. :-) I do think Pepe is a off on a couple of details in this article. The Neocons were mostly silent on this one and Rumsfeld came out against the intervention, saying that Obama hadn't made a valid case for war. That's most likely because the Neocons are joined at the hip with Israeli government and that government is a house divided this time around, with only factions supporting the military strike. The current thinking in Tel Aviv/Jerusalem is, in line with the Israeli right's long term strategy, that it's just fine with them to have Muslims running around killing each other in Syria. That long-term strategy is to destabilize Israel's Arab neighbor states while Israel builds its economic empire and military hegemony in the region. Israeli government isn't exactly thrilled by the prospect of Obama delivering fulfillment of the Saudi goal of transforming Syria from a secular state into a non-secular Islamic state run by Wahabi extremists. Such a state, armed to the teeth by the U.S. and/or the Saudi-Qatari zillionaires could be very bad news for Israel. Notably, the very strongest case thus far that the August 21 chemical attack was conducted by the opposition forces with the U.S. and Syria in on it to create a false flag attack, has been delivered in installments by Yossef Bodansky, an Israeli-American uber-scholar of Islamic "terrorism" and Soviet/Russian weaponry who is incapable of criticising Israel's decades-long terrorism inflicted on the Palestinian people and Israel's continuing unlawful occupation of Palestine plus parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Bodanysky sits at the center of an intelligence web of intelligence professionals from nations worried about Islamic "terrorism." In other words, he's extremely pro-Israeli and to boot, very close to Mossad and Israel's IDF intelligence forces. Israel's AIPAC lobby d
Paul Merrell

U.S. rejects claim that Turkey planned Syria atrocity Anadolu Agency - 0 views

www.aa.com.tr/...-turkey-planned-syria-atrocity

war & peace Syria WMD Turkey Seymour-Hersh

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The White House and State Department have refuted a media report that Turkey planned a deadly chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus that nearly brought the U.S. into open conflict with Syria, in a statement issued to Anadolu Agency.
  • The White House and State Department have refuted a media report that Turkey planned a deadly chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus that nearly brought the U.S. into open conflict with Syria, in a statement issued to Anadolu Agency. Seymour Hersh, a freelance journalist, published an article in the London Review of Books (LRB) in which he claimed that Ankara had supplied the al Nusra Front with chemical weapons that they used to carry out the August 2013 attack. The Washington Post and the New Yorker declined the story prior to its publication in the LRB. “The Assad regime, and only the Assad regime, could have been responsible for the chemical weapons attack that took place on August 21,” said Shawn Turner and Caitlyn Hayden in a statement initially issued to fact checkers working on the report and later sent to AA. “The suggestion that there was an effort to suppress or alter intelligence is simply false.” State Department Spokesperson, Jen Psaki, in her daily press briefing said there is no doubt that the chemical attack was carried out by the Syrian regime.
  • The White House and State Department have refuted a media report that Turkey planned a deadly chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus that nearly brought the U.S. into open conflict with Syria, in a statement issued to Anadolu Agency.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Psaki said, "In light of our reports and intelligence we had recieved, we believe beyond any doubt that the attack on 21 August had been carried out by the Syrian regime and we are still behind the same view shared by the international community." Hersh cited unidentified American officials and a classified intelligence analysis on the opposition's chemical weapons capabilities to back up his claim. “No such paper was ever requested or produced by Intelligence Community analysts,” said Turner and Hayden.     Hersh wrote that U.S. President Barack Obama had established September 2, 2013 as a fixed deadline for the U.S. military to undertake action in Syria following the chemical attack. Turner and Hayden rejected the claim as “completely fabricated”.  The journalist also wrote that the Obama administration had channeled weapons from Libya to the Syrian opposition through southern Turkey, a claim described by Turner and Hayden as “false”.
  • Turkey also reacted to the claim when Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was asked a question about Hersh's claim that Turkey had provided Sarin gas to the people who had conducted chemical attack in Ghouta region. He said "A note sent by the Turkish Foreign Ministry in this regard says that it is absolutely not true. The White House official has also qualified these claims as definitely false and speculative in response to a question regarding the matter." Arinc said, "The claims based on anonymous sources have been conclusively rejected by the White House officials and it has been reconfirmed that the Assad regime is solely responsible for the chemical attack." Noting that they are well aware of previous articles written by Hersh, Arinc said, "Everyone knows very well that the individual's views and claims heard from some unnamed persons are certainly not any verified information and knowledge. In fact, the U.S. officials have quite fairly explained the matter and strictly rejected the claim."
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 14
     
    Seymour M. Hersh is among the most highly regarded journalists in the world. Mainstream media used to compete for the rights to publish his articles. But apparently he's been digging a little to deeply in the belly of the beast lately. See his latest article that the White House is denying. http://www.lrb.co.uk/2014/04/06/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
Paul Merrell

Syria accuses rebels of planning gas attack near Damascus | News , Middle East | THE DA... - 0 views

www.dailystar.com.lb/...-gas-attack-near-damascus.ashx

war & peace Syria WMD

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Syria is charging in a letter to the United Nations that opposition groups are planning a toxic gas attack in a rebel-held area near Damascus so they can then blame it on government security forces. In a letter dated March 25 and circulated by the U.N. this week, Syria's U.N. envoy, Bashar Ja'afari, said his government had intercepted communications between "terrorists" that showed a man named Abu Nadir was secretly distributing gas masks in the rebel-held Jobar area. "The authorities also intercepted another communication between two other terrorists, one of whom is named Abu Jihad," Ja'afari said. "In that communication, Abu Jihad indicates that toxic gas will be used and asked those who are working with him to supply protective masks." Ja'afari said in the letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council that this information "confirms that armed terrorist groups are preparing to use toxic gas in Jobar quarter and other areas, in order to accuse the Syrian government of having committed such an act of terrorism."
  • Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to destroy his chemical weapons following global outrage over the large-scale sarin gas attack in Ghouta in August. The gas attack sparked a U.S. threat of military strikes, which was dropped after Assad's pledge to give up chemical arms. But the Syrian government, locked in a three-year-old war with rebels seeking to overthrow Assad, failed to meet a Feb. 5 deadline to move all of its declared chemical substances and precursors, some 1,300 tonnes, out of the country. Syria has since agreed to a new timetable to remove its chemical weapons by late April. Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and United Nations mission overseeing the removal of Syria's chemical weapons, is due to brief the Security Council on Thursday. Kaag told Reuters last month that Syria could ship out its remaining chemical weapons within a month and still meet a mid-year target for their final destruction.
  • In a separate letter to Ban and the Security Council, Syria's Ja'afari also warned that "armed terrorist groups continue to threaten and carry out terrorist attacks against chemical weapons facilities and the chemical substances." The senior Western diplomat said: "I don't think there's any evidence that any of the groups have any interest in attacking the convoys ... we don't see that as a major risk." Syria's three-year civil war has killed more than 150,000 people, a third of them civilians, and caused millions to flee.
Paul Merrell

Turkey Sends 300 Troops into Syria - Middle East - News - Israel National News - 0 views

www.israelnationalnews.com/...179846

war & peace Syria Turkey invasion false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed reports that Turkey has sent 300 troops into neighboring Syria to guard the tomb of a leading Turkish figure believed to be under threat from radical Islamist rebels, according to Today's Zaman. The Turkish military force, which also included several armored vehicles, is being sent to bolster a small existing unit at the tomb of Süleyman Shah, grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. The move - which essentially amounts to a limited military intervention in wore-torn Syria - should come as no surprise, after secret conversations were leaked online in which leading Turkish political and military figures can be heard discussing military intervention in Syria to protect the tomb from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). ISIS, a radical breakaway faction of Al Qaeda, has taken advantage of the chaos to implement its puritanical version of Islam in some areas of northern Syria.
  • The leaked conversations prompted a ban on Youtube in Turkey. Turkey's escalating intervention is not the first time a neighboring country has sent troops into Syria to protect its interests, using threats to Islamic shrines as a pretext. Shia Islamist fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah and a variety of other Iranian-backed Lebanese and Iraqi militias have played a prominent role in backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad, having initially justified their intervention as a way of protecting Shia Muslim shrines deemed heretical by Sunni Islamist rebels.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Apr 14
     
    More detail on the Turkish forces here. http://www.albawaba.com/conflict-syria/turkey-troops-syria-571489 (300 men, several armored vehicles, 6 tanks, and a "food truck." Note that staging an attack on the particular tomb, which is part of Turkey entirely surrounded by Syria, is the precise formula for the false flag attack spelled out in the leaked secret conversation. So is Turkey moving those troops to the tomb to repel the false-flag attack, or is it merely a precaution? The tomb is in the city of Homs, Syria, where the Assad Syrian government is in the mopping up stage of ejecting all "rebel" forces after a lengthy and fierce battle. Also see the latest by former CIA officer Philip Girardi adding further context to Turkey's false flag Sarin gas attack in Syria as well as the leaked secret conversation. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/turkey-cooks-the-books-in-syria/
Gary Edwards

Mideast war in March? - 1 views

www.wnd.com/...mideast-war-in-march

Aaron-Lein Middle-EAst Soros

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • NATO war in Syria in March? Meanwhile, according to the Middle Eastern diplomatic and security officials speaking to WND, the international community is considering launching NATO airstrikes on Assad’s forces as soon as March if the opposition does not make major strides toward ending Assad’s regime. The NATO members, however, have been satisfied with the momentum of the opposition in the last few days, which saw a number of defectors from the Syrian military join the rebels, a move that also precipitated the downfall of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime before the NATO campaign in Libya. Similar to Gadhafi, Assad’s regime has been accused of major human rights violations, including crimes against humanity, in clamping down on a violent insurgency targeting his rule.
  • Mass demonstrations were held in recent weeks in Syrian insurgent strongholds calling for the international NATO coalition in Libya to deploy in Syria. Just yesterday, 50 foreign ministers from Western and Arab nations got together in Tunis to demand that Syria allow aid to be delivered to civilians in the absence of any international force to resolve the conflict. Damascus officials claimed to WND that NATO troops are currently training in Turkey for a Turkish-led NATO invasion of Syria.
  • Any deployment would most likely come under the banner of the same “Responsibility to Protect” global doctrine used to justify the U.S.-NATO airstrikes in Libya.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Responsibility to Protect, or Responsibility to Act, as cited by President Obama, is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of “war crimes,” “genocide,” “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing.”
  • George Soros-funded doctrine
  • In his address to the nation in April explaining the NATO campaign in Libya, Obama cited Responsibility to Protect doctrine as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya. The Global Center for Responsibility to Protect is the world’s leading champion of the military doctrine. As WND reported, billionaire activist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Center for Responsibility to Protect. Several of the doctrine’s main founders also sit on boards with Soros.
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Sep 14
     
    Marbux is right - this report is filled with stunning information! "TEL AVIV - NATO countries are strongly considering the possibility of an international deployment to Syria if the Syrian opposition does not make major advances in the next few weeks, according to informed Middle Eastern diplomatic and security officials. Egyptian security officials, meanwhile, outlined what they said was large scale international backing for the rebels attacking the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad - including arms and training from the U.S., Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia."
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Sep 14
     
    One key point is that this article was published on February 24, 2012, long before the false flag sarin gas attack in late August of 2013 that was falsely attributed to the Assad government of Syria. Planning for a Libya-like NATO invasion of Syria was underway long before that attack. And the report gives us the information that the shipment of arms to and training of the Syrian opposition was already underway at that early date, if the report is accurate. All such activities were later confirmed by mainstream media, although I have not found any such reports that provide a beginning date. Hence the value of this report. The report also goes into some detail on the emerging international law norm of Responsibility to Protect ("RTP"), but misses some key aspects. RTP doctrine was an innovation in international law in response to massive genocidal events such as the Rwandan and Srebrenica Massacres. As international law stood before RTP, what happened entirely within the borders of a nation was an aspect of national sovereignty that international law could not interfere with. RTP cracked that barrier, holding that some human rights were so important that they deserved protection by international law, therefore the United Nations Security Council would be empowered to authorize intervention in cases involving wholly domestic genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. But omitted from the article is the fact that it is a doctrine to be exercised only by the U.N. Security Council; individual nations gain no license under the doctrine to launch their own wars to protect the citizens of another nation, whether directly or through proxies such as jihadi mercenaries. Russia has, quite properly in my opinion, vetoed U.S. sponsored draft resolutions based on RTP for Security Council authorization to intervene in Syria, because the U.S. is already an unlawful belligerent in Syria and because the U.S. so severely abused the Security Council's RTP r
Paul Merrell

Syrian Air Strike Exterminates Commander Behind 2013 Chemical Weapons Attack in Ghouta ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...mical-weapons-attack-in-ghouta

war & peace Syria Alloush Jaysh al-Islam Liwa al-Islam Ghouta sarin false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Zahran Alloush, the commander of the Jaysh al-Islam alliance was killed in a Damascus suburb. August 21, 2013 the Saudi intelligence asset Alloush was commanding Liwa-al-Islam when he gave the order to launch the chemical weapons attack against the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Zahran Alloush has been on the payroll of Saudi intelligence since the 1980s.
  • The Central Command of the Syrian Arab Army confirmed that it successfully launched an air strike in the Damascus suburb of Otaya, targeting and killing several Jihadist commanders. Among them the leader of Jaysh al-Islam, Zahran Alloush. Jaysh al-Islam is an alliance of several Jihadist militia, including Liwa-al-Islam. Jaysh al-Islam is allied with the Syrian Al-Qaeda Franchise Jabhat Al-Nusrah. An in-depth investigation by nsnbc international, in 2013, concluded that Zahran Alloush was the commander who gave the direct order to launch the chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta on August 21, 2013.
  • The investigation also concluded that command responsibility for Alloush’s decision led directly to the U.S.’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House, and to the Saudi government. Alloush would also be in control over choosing the “security guards” UN inspectors had to submit to while gathering evidence after the chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta. (see details and names in the report). Zahran Alloush, Liwa-al-Islam and Saudi intelligence also played central roles in the attempt to obstruct Syria’s decommissioning of chemical weapons by launching attacks against chemical weapons transports. The information about these transports was highly classified, leading the Syrian government to the conclusion that Saudi intelligence provided information to Liwa-al-Islam. Zahran Alloush was since the 1990s involved in the Salafist – Wahabbist terrorist networks in Syria which led to his arrest by Syrian intelligence. He was released in early of 2011, when the Assad administration granted a general amnesty. Immediately after his March 2011 release from prison, Zahran Alloush began receiving substantial funds and weapons from Saudi intelligence, which enabled him to establish Liwa-al-Islam as a de facto Saudi Arabia sponsored mercenary brigade under the auspices of the Saudi Interior Ministry.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Saudi intelligence assets Alloush and Liwa-al-Islam also played crucial roles in the demise of the predominantly Qatari and Turkish backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other, predominantly Qatari-backed insurgencies. In June 2013 in the Jobar district of Damascus, for example, Alloush withdrew his Liwa-al-Islam troops during a major battle with the Syrian Arab Army without announcing the sudden withdrawal to the Qatar-sponsored First Brigade and the Liwa Jaish al-Muslimeen. Both brigades were literally wiped out by the Syrian Army. The air strike that exterminated Zahran Alloush also exterminated one of the primary field commanders who were responsible for the transition from the primacy of Muslim Brotherhood linked insurgencies to Al-Qaeda-linked insurgencies in the Syrian theater. That includes the primacy of Jabhat al-Nusrah, Jaysh al-Islam, Liwa-al-Islam, and ultimately also the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIL, ISIS or Daesh.
Paul Merrell

The West Supplied Chemical Weapons to Syrian Rebels, Says Russian Foreign Ministry - 0 views

themoscowtimes.com/...russian-foreign-ministry-58681

war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy UK-foreign-policy gas-weapons terrorism™

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Aug 17 - No Cached
  • Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday there is evidence that the West is supplying chemical weapons to militants in Syria. “Yes, it’s true,” she told the state-funded Vesti FM radio station on Thursday morning. "Western countries and regional powers are directly and indirectly supplying militants, terrorists and extremists in Syria with banned toxic substances.” The comment came after Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said on Wednesday that chemical weapons supposedly produced by the United States and Britain had been found in areas previously held by Islamic State.*  The Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, which Russia backs, has been been widely accused of using chemical weapons. In June, a report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the banned nerve agent sarin had been used in an attack in northern Syria in April.A joint United Nations and OPCW investigation earlier said Syrian government forces had used chlorine gas in three attacks in 2014 and 2015.During the interview, Zakharova said the West was also providing terrorists in Syria with small arms, money and “informational support,” citing the White Helmets, a volunteer group which works in opposition-held territory in Syria, as an example.
Paul Merrell

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran | Foreign Policy - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...elped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Iran-Iraq-War WMD

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned. In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
Paul Merrell

Russia and Iran warn US they will 'respond with force' if red lines crossed in Syria ag... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...rikes-war-latest-a7675031.html

war & peace Syria Russia Iran red-lines

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Russia and Iran have warned the US they will “respond with force” if their own “red lines” are crossed in Syria. Following Friday’s cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase, in retaliation for the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun earlier in the week, the alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a joint statement threatening action in response to “any breach of red lines from whoever it is”. “What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well,” the group’s joint command centre said.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17
     
    Thanks to Trump and the necon/liberal alliaance that pushed him into war, World War III is now set to ignite in Syria.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17
     
    Thanks to Trump and the necon/liberal alliaance that pushed him into war, World War III is now set to ignite in Syria.
Paul Merrell

Chief of Russian General Staff Says Will Target US Aircraft if Strikes on Syrian Army E... - 1 views

russia-insider.com/...s-syrian-army-endanger-his-men

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Russia Syria

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • The United States on Monday warned it was ready to act in Syria if needed to end chemical attacks and “inhuman suffering” as it pushed for a new 30-day ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta at the United Nations Security Council The US ambassador [Nikki Haley] recalled that President Donald Trump had ordered missile strikes on a Syrian air base in April last year in retaliation for a sarin gas attack blamed on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
  • “We also warn any nation that is determined to impose its will through chemical attacks and inhuman suffering, most especially the outlaw Syrian regime: the United States remains prepared to act if we must,” Haley said. The Russian military at least is taking the threat seriously. The chief of Russia’s armed forces has issued a warning of his own: Moscow is ready to respond if lives of the Russian servicemen are endangered, including by strikes on Damascus, head of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov said. “There are many Russian advisers, representatives of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides and [Russian] servicemen in Damascus and at Syrian defense facilities,” Gerasimov stated. In case lives of Russian military personnel are put in danger, the Russian Armed Forces will respond with certain measure to both “missiles” and “lauchers” which are delivering these projectiles.
  • What Gerasimov is saying here is two-fold: Any strikes in and around Damascus would almost certainly endanger Russian military personnel. If that were to happen, the Russian military will take measures against any missiles, and also against launch vehicles delivering the payload. Meaning, the Russians won’t be passively absorbing US strikes. Instead they will use their potent anti-air defenses, including against any manned aircraft.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The US has so far struck the Syrian military on eight separate occasions. Mostly these attacks were carried out by its aircraft in the deserts in the east of the country. The one time when US struck the Syrian army in the densely-populated west of the country, where most of Russian military personnel is located, it used cruise missiles fired from eastern Mediterranean instead — and coupled them with warnings to the Russian military that the missiles were on the way.
  • American saber rattling on Ghouta comes a month after its massive airstrikes involving AC-130 gunships and Apache helicopters killed 10-20 Russian private military contractors in eastern Syria who were not taking part in any fighting.
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