Sunday

Syria File



Related posts: 

[Editors comment] on Avaaz and their common policy with the US NATO military alliance in spinning "humanitarian aid" at the point of a gun.

 [The Art of Manipulation] Astroturfing and the Soros factor. Collection of summaries and links to articles describing the Soros networks. Dissidents have always been targeted by those in power as a threat, as a enemy to be controlled or destroyed as required. The oldest strategy is,  "the best way to defeat your enemy - is to lead them". See one way this is done in 2012.

Syria Destabilisation: These articles, many from main stream sources, show that there is another opinion about the violence that has erupted in Syria since early 2011


http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/wikileaks.html
"Military Intervention In Syria", US Training "Rebels" Since 2011 And The Complete Grand Plan - The March 2012 Leak (Stratfor/Wikileaks)



Posted 9th May 2013
Information Clearing House Syria articles 2013 collection



The West and its Allies Cynically Bleed Syria to Weaken Iran
By Seumas Milne / May 09, 2013

If western politicians were really interested in saving lives, they would use their leverage to negotiate a settlement.

US Maneuvering in Moscow
By Syria Report

The US is buying time while it considers further arms to militant groups in Syria.
Syrian "Rebel" Leader Admits Difficulty In Unifying Fighters
By David Enders

The defected Syrian general whom the United States has tapped as its conduit for aid to the "rebels" has acknowledged that his movement lacks the military skill needed to topple the government of President Bashar Assad.
Syrian Opposition Rallies Behind Menendez Bill to Arm Rebels
By John Hudson

The bill includes $250 million to the opposition for "basic services, "arms, military training and non-lethal supplies" to vetted elements of Syria's armed opposition.
Will the U.S. Violate Its Own Laws by Arming Rebels in Syria?
By Chris Ernesto

The administration appears to be gambling that people won't recognize the double standard of the U.S. being on the same side as al-Qaeda in the struggle to overthrow Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.
Syria, US Wars of Aggression, and the Wrong 'Red Lines'
By Richard Falk

What is missing from the debate on Syria, - namely, the prohibition of the use of international force by states other than in cases of self-defence against a prior armed attack.
Obama Uses Syria To Extend State Of Emergency
Video

The President took these actions to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the actions of the Government of Syria in supporting terrorism.





Posted 10th Dec. 2012
The big lie about Syria's chemical weapons:
won't get fooled again?
09 December 2012 Robert Fisk & Alex Thomson for Ch 4 News

All the usual pseudo-experts who couldn't find Syria on a map have been warning us again of the mustard gas, chemical agents, biological agents that Syria might possess – and might use. [More]





Posted 4th Oct
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/un-condemns-rebel-suicide-bombing.html
UN council condemns suicide bombings in Syria
By RON DePASQUALE, Associated Press – Oct 5, 2012  
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Friday condemned "in the strongest terms" four deadly suicide bombings in Syria's largest city after Syria requested the condemnation. [More]



Posted 19th Sept. 2012
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/turkeys-syrian-misadventure.html

Turkey’s Syrian Misadventure

http://www.eurasiareview.com/16092012-turkeys-syrian-misadventure-oped/
Jeremy Salt associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University Ankara,

"The recent statement of a ‘rebel commander’ in Aleppo that 70 per cent of the population remains loyal to the government probably means that 90 to 95 per cent support the government and not just in Aleppo, where local Christians have been forming armed groups to defend themselves. 

In Homs the FSA’s Faruq Brigade maintained a special squad whose job it was to cut the throats of the group’s captives. There is no reason why  any sane Syrian would want these people in their midst,  especially as many are not  even their countrymen but salafis/jihadis/takfiris – Pakistanis, Iraqis, Turks, Saudis, Chechens and Libyans – paid by Qatar and Saudi Arabia [More]


Posted 9.9.12

SYRIA: Next "Humanitarian" War?

A comprehensive overview by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky. Invaluable reference resource for checking reality on the "Responsibility to Protect" - R2P - invasion plans.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-nato-s-next-humanitarian-war/




Posted 9th Sept 2012
A rich source of diverse reports on the Syria conflict.
GLOBAL RESEARCH ONLINE INTERACTIVE READER SERIES
I-BOOK on Syria: Table of Contents at foot of page Global Research 
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Extract
A "humanitarian" military intervention modeled on Libya is contemplated. NATO Special Forces from Britain, France, Qatar and Turkey are already on the ground inside Syria in blatant violation of international law. Reports from British military sources (November 2011) confirm that:  [More]




Posted 24th Aug 2012
Robert Fisk is forced by the evidence before his eyes to acknowledge that considerable numbers of foreign fighters "appear" to be present in Aleppo.
'They Snipe at us Then Run and Hide in Sewers' 
Aleppo  Tuesday 21 August 2012 By Robert Fisk

August 21, 2012 "The Independent" -- Mortars crashed into the middle-class streets around us and a T-72 tank baked in the heat under a road viaduct, but Bashar al-Assad's most senior operational commander in Aleppo claims he can "clean"  Aleppo from "terrorists" in 20 days. Posted Aug 11th

So many Aleppo citizens talked to me, out of earshot of soldiers, about armed "foreigners" in their streets along with Syrians "from the countryside" that the presence of considerable numbers of non-Syrian gunmen appeared to be true.




Posted 18th Aug 2012
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/reporting-conflict-in-syria-bbc.html
Reporting conflict in Syria: BBC
Thursday, 7 June 2012        BBC World News        Jon Williams 
I spent three days in Syria earlier this week, talking to all sides involved in the current conflict.
"...... stories are never black and white - often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as "brilliant". But he also
"likened it to so-called "psy-ops", brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true"



Posted Aug 11th
Should Obama be Detained for Violating the NDAA?
By Joe Wolverton, II  The New American Magazine

August 10, 2012 "Information Clearing House" --  If President Obama is supporting al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces, should he be subject to indefinite detention under the terms of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)?
In light of the weight of the foregoing evidence, little if any doubt remains that President Obama is knowingly providing “substantial support” to al-Qaeda and associated forces operating in Syria. He is thereby violating Section 1021 of the NDAA and is subject to indefinite detention by the armed forces of the United States. 

In fairness, however, President Obama is not alone in this unlawful endeavor. Congressional leaders calling for U.S. military intervention in Syria on behalf of the rebels — whose ranks are rife with al-Qaeda militants — are complicit in the propping up of our supposed enemy in the never-ending War on Terror and should rightfully be apprehended and detained until the end of these hostilities. [More]




Posted 10th August 2012
Massacres in Aleppo by Western-armed "Free Syrian Army"
By Tony Cartalucci  August 5, 2012
 www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32205

"Responsibility to Protect" crumbles as Western-armed terror front slaughters civilians while foreign sponsors attempt to tie hands of Syrian security forces. 
For the people of Aleppo, their only hope is Syria's security forces restoring order. In the pockets of Syria's largest city the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) has dug into, a campaign of systematic detention, torture, and mass murder has been carried out against "enemies of the revolution." Demonized as either "Shabiha" or "government supporters," men have been rounded up, lined up against walls, and gunned down en mass. Others await barbaric "drumhead trials" where FSA warlords deal out arbitrary justice under the guise of "Sharia law."  [More]

Syrian rebels arrest a man who is claimed to be traitor at an old military base near Aleppo 



Posted 2nd August 2012
Humanitarian Military Intervention in Syria? 
Who is Behind the Atrocities?
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, July 30, 2012
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32117


The dubious justification for waging a "humanitarian war" on Syria hinges upon the West's "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) the Syrian people against their own government, which allegedly is involved in the routine killing of civilians.

 * According to the leaked Arab League Observer Mission Report:  which had initially been commissioned by the Arab League at Washington's behest:
"In Homs, Idlib and Hama, the Observer Mission witnessed acts of violence being committed against Government forces and civilians that resulted in several deaths and injuries. Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, killing eight persons and injuring others, including women and children. ...  Such incidents include the bombing of buildings, trains carrying fuel, vehicles carrying diesel oil and explosions targeting the police, members of the media and fuel pipelines. Some of those attacks have been carried out by the Free Syrian Army and some by other armed opposition groups." (League of Arab States Observer Mission to Syria, Report of the Head of the League of Arab States Observer Mission to Syria for the period from 24 December 2011 to 18 January 2012,

* The Vatican News Service Agenzia Fides largely confirms that the Western backed "opposition forces" rather than the Al Assad government are responsible for countless atrocities:
"The Syrian soldiers in fact, continue to face foreign fighters, mercenaries Libyans, Lebanese militants from the Gulf, Afghans, Turks. "The Sunni Salafist militants - says the Bishop - continue to commit crimes against civilians, or to recruit fighters with force. The fanatical Sunni extremists are fighting a holy war proudly, especially against the Alawites. When terrorists seek to control the religious identity of a suspect, they ask him to cite the genealogies dating back to Moses. And they ask to recite a prayer that the Alawites removed. The Alawites have no chance to get out alive." (Agenzia Fides, Vatican News Service, 4 June 2012)

AND MUCH MORE AT
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32117 


Posted 25th July 2012
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/sas-training-syrian-rebels-in-iraq.html
Daily Express 
By Marco Giannangeli   Sunday July 22,2012

A British Army source revealed last night that former SAS soldiers are training Syrian rebels in Iraq in military tactics, weapons handling and communications systems. 

More than 300 have passed through a base just inside the Iraq border, while a command course is run in Saudi Arabia. [More]



Posted 25th July 2012
Asian Times July 24th 2012
German intelligence: al-Qaeda all over Syria 
By John Rosenthal 

German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). [More]






Posted 10 July 2012 - See [Syria File] for much more
The Syrian Opposition: Who's Doing The Talking?

The media have been too passive when it comes to Syrian opposition sources, without scrutinising their backgrounds and their political connections. Time for a closer look …
By Charlie Skelton
July 13, 2012 "The Guardian" --  A nightmare is unfolding across Syria, in the homes of al-Heffa and the streets of Houla. And we all know how the story ends: with thousands of soldiers and civilians killed, towns and families destroyed, and President Assad beaten to death in a ditch.
This is the story of the Syrian war, but there is another story to be told. A tale less bloody, but nevertheless important. This is a story about the storytellers: the spokespeople, the "experts on Syria", the "democracy activists". The statement makers. The people who "urge" and "warn" and "call for action" [More]




Posted 12th July 2012

Is Israel Inciting Genocide Against Alawites as Prelude to Creation of Kosovo-style Enclave in Syria?
By Maidhc Ó Cathail

Alawites: Crusaders or Jews?

July 12, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -- Within the past week, fellows at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have used rather unfortunate analogies to describe the plight of Syria’s besieged Alawite minority. The comparison of the Alawites to two of the region’s least popular interlopers in Arab and Muslim memory was hardly calculated to endear them to an already resentful Sunni majority. [More]




Posted 2 July 2012  Pub 21.06.2012
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cia-steering-arms-to-syrian-opposition.html

C.I.A. Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition

By ERIC SCHMITT          New York Times       Published: June 21, 2012 

WASHINGTON — A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers. [More]






Posted 19th June 2012
Hidden US-Israeli Military Agenda: "Break Syria into Pieces"
Jerusalem Post  Intro by Global Research 

 A timely article in the Jerusalem Post last month brings to the forefront the unspoken objective of US foreign policy, namely the breaking up of Syria as a sovereign nation state --along ethnic and religious lines-- into several separate and "independent" political entities. The article also confirms the role of Israel in the process of political destabilization of  Syria.  The JP article is titled: "Veteran Kurdish politician calls on Israel to support the break-up of Syria' (by Jonathan Spyer) (The Jerusalem Post (May 16, 2012)
The objective of the US sponsored armed insurgency is --with the help of Israel-- to "Break Syria into Pieces". 




Posted 19th June 2012

Detailed analysis on Syria.Over 30 chapters, available from Global Research at no charge  
SYRIA: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War?
ONLINE INTERACTIVE I-BOOK
- by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - 2012-07-15
US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention" in Syria:
Towards a Regional War?

Published on Jun 7, 2012 by 

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization weighs in on the insurrectionary nature of the Syrian conflict and its potential to generate a larger regional conflict in the Middle East.




Posted 18th June 2012
HOULA MASSACRE / Eye witness
Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
By Marat Musin     Global Research, June 1, 2012

Global Research Editor's Note:  This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media. 
 
The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts.  Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists integrated by professional mercenaries were not pro-government militia as conveyed in chorus by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA): 





Posted 18th June 2012
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/houla-massacre-redux.html
Houla Massacre Redux
More background to Mother Agnes-Mariam and other witnesses

 Attempts have been made to discredit the testimony of  Mother Agnès-Mariam de la-Croix of the St. James Monastery in Qara, Syria. This article records more eye witness accounts and answers the challenge to the credibility of Rainer Hermann’s report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)



Posted 17th June 2012 Pub. June 8, 2012
CONFRONTING IRAN, "PROTECTING ISRAEL":
The Real Reason for America's War on Syria
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Secretary of  State Hillary Clinton is calling for an R2P humanitarian military intervention in Syria to curb the atrocities allegedly ordered by the government of president Bashar Al Assad. In a twisted logic, Clinton recognizes that while "opposition forces" are integrated by Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists, the government rather than the terrorists is held responsible, without a shred of evidence, for the ongoing massacre of civilians.

Amply documented, these sectarian killings and atrocities are being committed by foreign mercenaries and militia which are armed and supported by the Western military alliance. The killings are carried out quite deliberately as part of a diabolical covert operation. The enemy is then blamed for the resulting atrocities. The objective is to justify a military agenda on humanitarian grounds.



Posted 17th June 2012

FAZ "Again massacres in Syria."

Insurgents Named Responsible for Syrian Massacres
By Stephen Lendman  (Giving a partisan view of the crisis)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31544.htm

June 11, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -- A Syrian documentary aired on June 9, and a June 7 report by Germany's leading broadsheet provide more evidence. Both refutes Western media misinformation. More on the latter below. On May 10, suburban Damascus suicide bombings killed 55 and injured hundreds. The attack happened near Syria's military intelligence complex. Children were killed. So were drivers and others heading for work.
Western reports spuriously blamed Assad. On June 10, SANA state media's documentary discussed the Damascus incident.  It named Western-recruited Jabhet al-Nasra terrorists responsible. They also carried out earlier attacks. [More]


Posted 17th June 2012
Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2012/06/12/national-review-rebels-responsible-for-houla-massacre/
By John Rosenthal June 9, 2012

Extract
The FAZ report echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.
Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities’ being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite. They then attributed the crime to the regular Syrian army. “Even though this act has been attributed to regular army forces . . . , the evidence and testimony are irrefutable: It was an operation undertaken by armed groups affiliated with the opposition,” Mother Agnès-Mariam* wrote."


Posted 17th June 2012
Houla:
http://urwreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/bbc-newsnight-challenges-official-story.html
BBC Newsnight interviewee challenges official story 
2 June 2012

BBC's Newsnight last night interviewed a London based Syrian businessman who stated that the families murdered by terrorists in Houla were supporters of the Syrian government, not the opposition. [More]
THE HOULA MASSACRE:
Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
By Marat Musin     Global Research, June 1, 2012

Global Research Editor's Note
This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media.  

The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts.  Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists integrated by professional mercenaries were not pro-government militia as conveyed in chorus by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA):  [More]



Posted 1.1.12  Published November 20, 2011
The "Free Syria Army": Placard-Waving Protesters are actually Machine Gun-Wielding Terrorists by Tony Cartalucci

The "Free Syria Army" is literally an army of militant extremists, many drawn not from Syria's military ranks, but from the Muslim Brotherhood, carrying heavy weapons back and forth over the Turkish and Lebanese borders, funded, supported, and armed by the United States, Israel, and Turkey. The latest evidence confirming this comes in the form of a report out of the International Institute for Strategic Studies which clearly states that Syria's opposition is armed and prepared to drag Syria into more violence. [More]

Macmillan backed Syria assassination plot


Documents show White House and No 10 conspired over oil-fuelled invasion plan

Ben Fenton   The Guardian, Saturday 27 September 2003 



Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq, Britain and America sought a secretive "regime change" in another Arab country they accused of spreading terror and threatening the west's oil supplies, by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures.



Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria's pro-western neighbours, and then to "eliminate" the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.
Neocons Planned Regime Change
General Wesley Clark … said the aim of this plot [to "destroy the governments in ... Iraq, ... Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran”] 
.
He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: 
.
“one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.” 



SYRIA: 
Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention"
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky  3rd May 2011

 There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification from the outset of the protest movement in southern Syria on March 17th.

The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of the broader Arab pro-democracy protest movement, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria. Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed forces, which are accused of indiscriminately shooting and killing unarmed "pro-democracy" demonstrators. While these police shootings did indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were shooting at both the security forces and the protesters.

The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated. Many of the reports are "according to witnesses". The images and video footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not always correspond to the events which are being covered by the news reports. Read more at


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