Turkey and the U.S. have been supporting the Syrian opposition since April 2011, and the U.S. Air Force Base at İncirlik plays a pivotal role in that scheme. That is the claim made by the notorious whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds. And now, the news agency United Press International cavalierly announces that the ‘CIA officers’ have joined ‘[a]llies in southern Turkey helping Syrian opposition fighters’.[1]
In fact, the report refers to a New York Times article. Eric Schmitt’s piece, appropriately entitled “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”, purports to spill the beans on the U.S. support for Syrian opponents of President Assad. He writes that 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”.[2] Is this another one of those strategically leaked Obama administration secrets supposed to bolster the Democrat’s standing among his gun-toting electorate???
Now that their activities have been touted in the New York Times, the C.I.A. operatives in Turkeyare probably no longer “operating secretly”. Schmitt even adds detail to his scoop: these “C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkeyfor several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so”.[3] Even though the article does not set out to prove thatAmerica and Turkey have been secretly fueling the unrest in Syria, the above-quoted admissions nevertheless show that a lot of footwork has been done behind the scenes of Syria’s ‘uprising’. The administration’s disclosure that “neighbors” are arming Syria’s opposition reads like an admission of Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, and Libyan involvement in concocting the violent brew that isSyria’s internal armed struggle. Of course, the concept of neighbourhood has to be taken in a very broad sense.
The UPI report prophetically adds that the “struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters”.[4] The news agency takes the long view that could lead one to consider that the whole Arab Awakening has also been long in the making. I pointed out last year that the Egyptian revolution appeared to have been planned in 2008, that the U.S. State Department was scheming to shake up the Middle East in order to replace no longer useful regimes with new and more amenable systems.[5] The failure of the recent nuclear negotiations in Moscow seems to indicate that Iran could still be still a viable target . . .
An anonymous Arab intelligence official who appears to be in the know said that “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people”.[6] It seems that the Obama administration is taking no chances when it comes to Syria . . . perhaps that lessons were learned in Libya after all. Schmitt does make it clear that “[s]pokesmen for the White House, State Department and C.I.A. would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the Syrian rebels”.[7]
Prior to the full-scale invasion of Afghanistan, a C.I.A. team in the Hindu Kushprepared the ground as well, making contacts, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters. Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Nour Malas already reported that “U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, according to senior U.S. officials. As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training”.[viii] It seems that President Obama’s best-laid plan for dealing with Syria and possibly Iran too is slowly falling into place . . . As explained by , the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Nour Malas the “U.S. in many ways is acting in Syria through proxies, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, say U.S. and Arab officials. Saudi Arabia is particularly fixated on overthrowing Mr. Assad, said Arab officials, viewing it as a way to settle scores with an arch foe and weaken its chief regional rival Iran. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing the funds for arms, Arab officials and Syrian opposition leaders say. The Obama administration hasn’t agreed to arm the FSA [the so-called Free Syrian Army], the U.S. officials stressed. Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday [, 13 June] denied charges by Syria and others that the U.S. has armed the rebels. The U.S.’s stepped-up links with the FSA are also part of an effort to gain a better understanding of the rebels’ capabilities and of the identities and allegiances of fighters spread in disparate groups across the country, the U.S. officials said. The U.S. officials remain wary of some rebels’ suspected ties to hard-line Islamists, including elements of al Qaeda. They acknowledged the FSA doesn’t represent all parts of the insurgency against the Assad regime”.[9]
The armed conflict in Syria is very much a proxy-war, pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia, China, and their junior partner Iran. In this context, Russia’s naval base in Tartus recently gave President Putin the pretext to dispatch some armed comrades into the Mediterraneanand back again. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has now said that “The ship was carrying air defense systems, which can only be used to repel foreign aggression, and not against peaceful demonstrators, and yes — it was carrying three refurbished helicopters”.[10] On the one hand, the Obama administration strategically leaked its not-so covert support for the Syrian opposition, and on the other, the Russians freely admitted their unwavering backing for Bashar al-Assad. Syria is the first battle-ground in the as-yet undeclared New Cold War.[11]
In the previous presidential election cycle Senator McCain gained notoriety for maintaining that Iraqand Afghanistanappeared to be sharing a border region. Now in 2012, on the other hand, his knowledge of global geography seems to have improved quite a bit. In fact, McCain even went off-script recently: “I’m glad that some of the nations in the Gulf, the Saudis, are providing some weapons [to the Syrian opposition]”, is what he said on CNN on Sunday, 10 June.[1]
As I indicated in earlier entries, the whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds even maintains that the U.S.and Turkeyare providing training for the Syrian opposition, in addition to Saudi and Qatari assistance. The upshot of the conflict in Syriaover the past 15 months has been the loss of at least 10,000 lives, as estimated by the UN. Some opposition groups put the number as high as 14,000.[ii] Does McCain have some kind of an inside source, or is he merely operating his critical faculties??? As such, the Obama administration has recently had to contend with a number of leaks divulging sensitive information concerning the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The Privacy and Security Fanatic Ms Smith remarks that the “FBI is investigating who spilled national security secrets, this time about Stuxnet and the classified cyberattack program the U.S. launched against Iran nuclear facilities. Senator Feinstein has called for Capitol Hill hearings into the leak since ‘disclosures of this type endanger American lives and undermine America’s national security”.[3]
In the UK’s The Week, Robert Fox writes that the “book Confront and Conceal and a series of articles in the New York Times by David E Sanger [are primarily responsible for the uncomfortable revelations]. The author appears to have enjoyed the status of court chronicler to the Obama circle, much as Bob Woodward did in writing his series of articles and books about the regime of George W Bush. Obama expanded the Bush drone campaigns, but it is the revelation about his commitment to cyber operations that is most startling. According to Sanger’s account – now available as an ebook, though bizarrely not arriving in print for another month – the new president Obama immediately signed up to a series of cyber initiatives and plans under the codename ‘Olympic Games’. The main target was the nuclear fuel refining programme of Iran, specifically the centrifuges at Natanz. The Stuxnet malicious software – malware – was developed with Israel and inserted physically by human agents on the ground”.[4]
So, what about the recent Flame malware??? In Wired, Kim Zetter writes that the “sophisticated espionage toolkit known as Flame is directly tied to the Stuxnet superworm that attacked Iran’s centrifuges in 2009 and 2010, according to researchers who recently found that the main module in Flame contains code that is nearly identical to a module that was used in an early version of Stuxnet. Researchers at Russia-based Kaspersky Lab discovered that a part of the module that allows Flame to spread via USB sticks using the autorun function on a Windows machine contains the same code that was used in a version of Stuxnet that was unleashed on computers in Iran in 2009, reportedly in a joint operation between the United States and Israel. The module, which was known as Resource 207 in Stuxnet, was removed from subsequent versions of Stuxnet, but it served as a platform for what would later develop into the full-fledged Flame malware that is known today. The researchers believe the attackers may have used the Flame module to kickstart their Stuxnet project before taking both pieces of malware into different and separate directions. They’ve detailed the similarities between the modules in Flame and Stuxnet in a blog post”.[5]
And then there are also the drone attacks in Pakistanand Yemen. . . Mister Fox poetically says that President Obama’s “use of drone strikes has been far more profligate than had been suspected up to now”, as revealed in Sanger’s new book, adding that “Obama inherited the drone campaign – used extensively in the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands and in Yemen – from his predecessor, George W Bush”.[6] Or, the more things change, the more they stay the same . . .
Syria’s opposition party the Syrian National Council names Adbul Baset Saida its new president (10 June 2012).
Will this PR stunt convince Syria’s minorities, Kurds and Christians primarily, that the opposition is not hell-bent on establishing an Islamic state after they succeed in toppling the Assad regime. In Today’s Zaman, Sinem Cengiz thinks that the “election of Abdelbasset Sida, a Kurd, to lead the Syrian National Council (SNC), Syria’s main opposition umbrella group in exile, is expected to help enlist the support of the 1.5 million-strong Kurdish community, which has largely stayed on the sidelines of the 15-month uprising in Syria”.[1] Turkey’s wily Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu declared that ““[Irrespective of his ethnicity] the new elected leader’s Syrian identity is enough for us. It is important to see our Kurdish brothers in a management position. Any injustice towards the Kurds will be considered an injustice towards us. We defended this brotherhood, which has a long history, and will continue to defend it forever”.[2] Funny that . . . Davutoğlu was apparently talking about the Turkish-Kurdish compact in place since the days Sultan Selim I and his attempt to invade Iran in the early 16th century. Turkey has been dealing with the PKK insurrection since the mid-1980’s and currently, Turkey’s Kurds appear more restive than peaceful. Transposing this Turkish “brotherhood of Turks and Kurds “ to the current situation in Syria, Davutoğlu’s words appear to indicate that Turkey’s support for the Syrian opposition and the SNC will not waver, in spite of the new Kurdish element in the mix. A Turkish diplomatic source told Today’s Zaman that “The most important thing is that Syrians were deciding their fate”, reiterating Turkey’s pseudo-Ottoman stance of strict non-interference and non-aggression.[3]
Clarifying matters, Cengiz explains that “Sida . . . is a secular member of Syria’s minority Kurd community . . . [who has been] living in exile in Sweden for several years, [and who] was the only candidate for the three-month presidency to replace liberal opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun, who had presided over the council since it was created last August”.[4] So, now the Kurds have been given three months to join the fray and oust Assad . . . Fawaz Tello, a prominent dissident who resigned from the SNC last May, gives this assessment: “Sida was in exile for 40 years. He is not supported by the Kurdish majority in SNC, including the Kurdish individuals and activists. He is also not supported by the Kurdish majority who are not in the SNC, for instance, the Kurdish political council”.[5]
In other words, it remains unclear what the election of Adbul Baset Saida will bring and how he would be able to mobilize the Kurds (and other minorities) into joining the opposition . . . it seems that his election is nothing but a delaying tactic that should allow more forceful elements to prevail in Syria, in an effort to persuade the UN to intervene and topple Assad in a manner comparable to the Libyan debacle.
When the Tahrir Revolution occurred last year, I published a piece in a Turkish newspaper which took a look at possible machinations behind the scenes. The piece suggested that the U.S. State Department was really behind the events, and that the sudden high visibility of new media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube was more than just the outcome of global fashion movements. In the next instance, I wrote another piece for the same paper that interpreted the turmoil in the Arab world as possibly presenting a stage for new proxy-wars between the superpowers competing with one another for resources and influence.
The fact that the situation in Egypt has not really changed all that much, that the military is still pulling the strings behind dark curtains, seems all but confirmed by the popular unrest sparked by the Mubarak verdict and the now distinct possibility that his life sentence will be commuted at some stage in the future. InLibya, the NATO intervention followed by the U.S.-led execution of Colonel Gadhafi has now led to a volatile situation that could still push Libya over the brink turning it into a North-African Afghanistan, beset by years of civil war with the civilian population as the major victim. In Yemen, the U.S.-brokered withdrawal of Ali Abdullah Saleh has only led to replacing him with his erstwhile right-hand, Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi. The more things change, the more they stay the same . . .
But global public opinion can still be united in its justified aversion of Bashar al-Assad. Right??? Not only is he a hereditary dictator who quietly took over the reins of the country after his father’s demise, events in the small town Houla have clearly shown that he is a bloodthirsty tyrant who does not even shy away from killing the innocents. But, in the face of this outrage, Russia and China still maintain their support for the embattled dictator. The fact that Iran equally persists in openly expressing its backing for the Assad regime surprises no-one. After all, Iran’s own undeclared nuclear programme deserves combined U.S.-Isreali efforts to undermine Tehran’s virtual infrastructure by means of Stuxnet and other Flames.
The world population’s sensibilities are not to be manipulated to supply its leadership with a satisfactory pretext to push for intervention in Syria. What does it matter that Tehran was planning to build a new pipeline connecting Iran, Iraq and Syria??? And the fact that the Syrian opposition has been safely and securely based in Turkey, a country that in 1999 nearly invaded Syria, is but a normal circumstance. Turkey’s Nabucco pipeline project, which has jettisoned Iran’s cooperation, would not have been served well by the new spirit of mutual aid and cooperation that had suddenly engulfed Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus– the Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian leadership having reached a Memorandum of Understanding in late July 2011 after months of arduous negotiations. Nor is the fact that the violence in Syria has now seriously undermined Russia’s plans to refurbish its naval base in the Syrian por tof Tartus, used by theSoviet Union since the late 60s and scheduled to resume operations in 2011, of any concern. In addition, Russia also had plans for setting up naval logistic facilities on the Socotra Island, Yemen, as well as in Tripoli, Libya.
The legitimate grievances of the suppressed Arab populations have now ensured that Iran will not be challenging Turkey’s intentions of supplying Europ ewith an alternative to Russian oil and gas. At the same time, these same complaints have now also thwarted Russia’s plans to establish a serious presence on the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Yemen.
Over the past months, Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of the Assad regime. Tayyip Erdoğan has more than once called for Assad’s removal. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on the other hand, has instead called for calm and deliberation in dealing with Damascus, insisting on the implementation of the Annan Plan. Earlier this year, the recently much-publicised U.S. whistleblower Sibel Edmonds declared publicly that her sources indicated that the Syrian armed opposition has been receiving logistic aid and military training since April 2011. Edmonds also declared that the U.S. and Turkey had been cooperating on this, and that the U.S. Air Force base in İncirlik (Turkey) is used as a training facility for the so-called Free Syrian Army and other opponents of the Damascus regime. At the same time, reports have surfaced that Libyan fighters from Misrata went to Syria in an effort to support attempts to overthrow Assad. In addition, rumours have equally abounded about Saudi Arabia and Qattar’s mobilization of Jihadi fighters to undermine the secular Baath regime in Syria.
All these stories have become irrelevant, now that the Houla massacres have shown Assad’s real face to the world. Or, is there another story behind the gruesome pictures??? Last Sunday, Syria’s president addressed the world in an attempt to tell his side: “A year and a half after the crisis began, things became clear and the masks were removed . . . the international role in what is taking place was exposed since decades . . . colonialism remains unchanged but its methods and faces are changing and the regional role exposed itself”. Assad, like Pontius Pilate before him, washed his hands in innocence, indicating that foreign-sponsored terrorists were responsible for the killings in Houla. The Russian television channel Anna News sent a crew to Houla to find out what had really happened. Anna News’ Viktor Reznov (arguably named after the videogame character) writes that the inhabitants of Houla “had a good relationship with the Syrian soldiers; they even divide food and water with the Syrian soldiers”. Reznov, quoting the inhabitants, calls the killers “terrorists” who had come from “Ar-Rastan or Hama” and that they “asked the residents” of Houla “to either kill Syrian soldiers with them or [that] they [‘d] be killed [instead]”.
Can this be true??? Were foreign-backed terrorists responsible for the slaughter of innocents in Houla??? Was the massacre an elaborate attempt to convince the world’s public opinion that the time had come to send in air support and possibly ground troops to overthrow Assad???
2011 erlebte die Welt mit dem Arabischen Frühling die Rebellion des Volkes.Oderdoch nicht? Nahost-Experte Christoph R. Hörstel ist sich sicher, dass in allen Ländern, in welchen das Volk gegen das vorherrschende Regime auf die Straße geht, die USA ihre Finger mit im Spiel hatten. Deutlich wird dies zum Beispiel an den NATO-Luftwaffen-Übungen zum bevorstehenden Krieg in Libyen, welche bereits 14 Tage vor den ersten Aufständen in Libyen stattfanden.
Auch im aktuellen Konflikt mit Syrien, ist es alles andere als ein Zufall, dass ausgerechnet jetzt die Aufständigen gegen Damaskus ziehen. Nachweislich handelt es sich bei einigen der Rebellionsführer, welche unbedarfte Syrier reihenweise als Kanonenfutter gegen Assads Militär anstürmen lassen, um von der CIA installierte “Aufständige”, welche einige Monate zuvor bereits die Libyer anführten.
Und wo sich Russland und China bei der UN Resolution gegen Gaddaffi noch ihrer Stimme enthielten, erteilten sie ienem erneuten Vorgehen der NATO ein klares Nein und legten ihr Veto gegen den geplanten Angriff auf Syrien ein. Schätzungsweise 60.000 bis 80.000 Libyer sind durch die NATO Bomben ums Leben gekommen. Mehr als der gestürzte Diktator sich hätte zu Schulden kommen lassen können.
Nachdem Syrien bald gefallen sein soll, steht der nächste Gegner schon vor der Tür. DerIran. Dass ein militärischer Konflikt mitdiesemLandaber eine ganz andere Dimension darstellt als gegen Afghanistan, Irak oder Liyben, wissen hierzulande die Wenigsten. Ein Krieg gegenIrankönnte ganz schnell zum 3. Weltkrieg eskalieren und wir sehen im Jahre 2012 eben dieser Gefahr erschreckend nah ins Auge.
Mimi Al-Laham, better known as SyrianGirlpartisan on YouTube,[1] here appears on Press TV to explain her views on the ongoing situation in Syria.
(24 April 2012)
Many months ago I wrote and posted several pieces on Libya and the way in which the “Assisted Rebellion” had apparently been organized and funded by outside sources,[2] how the Arab Awakening is becoming a proxy battleground for the New Cold War between the West (the U.S., NATO, and the EU) and the up-and-coming new superpowers: “Is the Arab Awakening turning into the beginning of a New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia? The conservative American writer Conor Friedersdorf reminds people of the high stakes: ‘If you’ve lost count, that’s Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen where the Obama Administration will be warring’. Will these conflicts turn into proxy-wars fought between America and Russia, possibly aided by China?”.[3]
Currently, the violence in Syria appears to have been primarily initiated by the Assad regime (or has it??), but the so-called Free Syrian Army does not seem completely innocent either. The well-known whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has already indicated that her sources point out that the armed Syrian opposition has been trained and supplied since April 2011.Edmonds’ claim is that theU.S., in cooperation with its allyTurkey, has been supporting the armed Syrian opposition from the Army Base İncirlik in south-easternTurkey. Others have even claimed that the Syrian opposition fabricates claims of government violence to garner Western support that might lead to yet another “humanitarian intervention”, like the one that brought an end to Qaddafi’s rule in Libya.
World Report 2012: Strengthen Support for ‘Arab Spring’
Governments Should Support Rights, Not Abusive Allies
(Cairo, January 22, 2012) — Many democracies have allowed their ties with repressive allies to temper their support for human rights in the Arab Spring protests, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012. For reasons of principle and long-term interest, governments should stand firm with the people of the Middle East and North Africa when they demand their basic rights and work to ensure the transition to genuine democracies.
The 676-page report, Human Rights Watch’s annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major rights issues in more than 90 countries, reflecting the extensive investigative work carried out in 2011 by Human Rights Watch staff. On events in the Middle East and North Africa, Human Rights Watch said that firm and consistent international support for peaceful protesters and government critics is the best way to pressure the region’s autocrats to end abuses and enhance basic freedoms. A principled insistence on respect for rights is also the best way to help popular movements steer clear of the intolerance, lawlessness, and revenge that can threaten a revolution from within, Human Rights Watch said.
“The people driving the Arab Spring deserve strong international support to realize their rights and to build genuine democracies,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Loyalty to autocratic friends shouldn’t stand in the way of siding with democratic reformers. International influence is also needed to ensure that the new governments extend human rights and the rule of law to all, especially women and minorities.”
The World Report 2012 documents human rights abuses worldwide, including: violations of the laws of war in Libya and Afghanistan; the plight of political prisoners in Vietnam and Eritrea; the silencing of dissent in China and Cuba; internet crackdowns in Iran and Thailand; killings by security forces in India and Mexico; election-related problems in Russia and the Democratic Republic of Congo; mistreatment of migrants in Western Europe; neglectful maternal health policies in Haiti and South Africa; the suppression of religious freedom in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia; torture in Pakistan and Uzbekistan; discrimination against people with disabilities in Nepal and Peru; and detention without trial in Malaysia and by the United States.
The European Union is preparing a new batch of sanctions against Syria, which the French foreign minister says will be the harshest yet. It comes after an EU-backed resolution that could have paved the way for military intervention, was struck down at the UN. We’re also getting disturbing footage from the rebel stronghold city of Homs, which opposition sources say is being shelled by the Syrian army. There are reports of casualties – although this can’t yet be verified. Earlier, opposition fighters operating out of Homs attacked a number of police patrols and army bases. Elsewhere in the country, security forces say they’ve cleared all but two rebel outposts near the capital, seizing vast caches of arms and explosives along the way. Our report from Sarah Firth, contains some images you may find disturbing (6 February 2012).
What is really happening in Syria??? Is Bashar al-Assad really in charge or is he a mere puppet in the hands of the military or other unseen puppet masters behind the scene??? And who are the people fighting the Assad Regime??? Are Libyans fighters really infiltrating into Syria?? Is Saudi Arabia fomenting a Sunni takeover?? Is the conflict the first chapter in the emerging New Cold War I alluded to some months ago??? Is the Arab Awakening nothing but the outcome of perfidious plans hatched during the Bush administration???
Each passing day, the situation in Syria is becoming more and more dangerous. . . UN intervention seems to be on the agenda. But, in the game of alliance-building and unintended domino-effects, it seems that the overt armed participation of outside actors could very well lead the way to World War III. On the one hand, it would trigger a war with Iran, Syria’s lone serious backer, and secondarily, Russia and China would be sucked into the hostilities as well, turning a hidden New Cold War into an explicit battle between America’s allies and the new Superpowers-in-the-making . . . Throwing light on the dangers lurking in the Syria situation, here is the ever-contrary broadcaster RT’s take on the issue.
(31 Jan 2012)
(31 Jan 2012)
In the meantime, the search for a peaceful resolution continues, as CNN reassures us: ‘Russia proposes a separate UN resolution to try and resolve the crisis in Syria. CNN’s Phil Black reports’.
And now, the ball has really been set in motion, as reported by RT: the ‘UN draft resolution on Syria calls for President Assad to hand power over to his deputy and clarifies that no foreign forces will be deployed to the country, the Associated Press reports. The resolution also demands the Syrian government put “an end to all human rights violations and attacks against those exercising their rights to freedom of expression.” Previously, Russia and China had slammed what they saw as forced regime change and say they will block the move come what may. Western diplomacy is making another attempt to use the UN as a tool to promote its foreign policy agenda, drafting a new and ambiguous resolution on Syria which sets out a roadmap to topple President Bashar Assad. The resolution fails to take account of the positions of countries like Russia and China, which have presented a united front opposing regime change in Damascus. Moscow says the new resolution contains a threat to “adopt further measures if Syria does not comply with the terms of the resolution,” opening the door to a Libya-style foreign intervention in the conflict-torn Middle Eastern country. Reportedly, tensions are running so high that the US Secretary of State’s spokeswoman has accused Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, who is currently visiting Australia, of being unavailable by phone when Hillary Clinton allegedly called him to discuss the situation. Sergey Lavrov told journalists he was simply unable to take the call while in the midst of negotiations with his Australian partners, but promised to discuss Syria with Hillary Clinton at the first available opportunity. He said the Americans had insisted on setting the time of the call for a period already reserved for talks in Sydney which could not be rescheduled. Commenting on Washington’s inability to rearrange the call, Russian FM speculated that “this might be explained by their manners.” Sergey Lavrov said the UN Security Council would never support a tour de force against Syria. “If [the Syrian] opposition refuses to sit at a negotiation table with the regime – what is the alternative? To bomb the regime? I’ve seen that before,” Lavrov said, “I guarantee the Security Council will never approve this.” Clinton is to join her British and French counterparts at the UN headquarters on Tuesday to add additional firepower to the Western push for a vote on the resolution’. Paddling his expert opinion, author and Middle East expert John Bradley simply states that “NATO is determined to bring the Assad regime to its knees as a prelude to invading Iran. The Syrian opposition is under huge pressure from outside powers who want these talks [between the Assad regime and the opposition] to fail even before they begin – most obviously NATO”.
The BBC’s Mark Urban reveals just how much planning and scheming went into the toppling and the execution of Gaddafi: “British efforts to help topple Colonel Gaddafi were not limited to air strikes. On the ground – and on the quiet – special forces soldiers were blending in with rebel fighters. This is the previously untold account of the crucial part they played. The British campaign to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi’s regime had its public face – with aircraft dropping bombs, or Royal Navy ships appearing in Libyan waters, but it also had a secret aspect. My investigations into that covert effort reveal a story of practically minded people trying to get on with the job, while all the time facing political and legal constraints imposed from London”. In other words, this BBC report all but confirms what I wrote some time back: ‘But, how did the situation in Libya transform into an all-out armed rebellion so quickly? On this point, the Israeli independent internet website DEBKAfile, founded by a team of journalists in June 2000, which aims to provide an intelligence and security news service, reported on 25 February 2011 that “[h]undreds of US, British and French military advisers have arrived in Cyrenaica, Libya’s eastern breakaway province, Debkafile’s military sources report exclusively. This is the first time America and Europe have intervened militarily in any of the popular upheavals rolling through the Middle East since Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution in early January. The advisers, including intelligence officers, were dropped from warships and missile boats at the coastal towns of Benghazi and Tobruk Thursday Feb. 24, for a threefold mission: 1. To help the revolutionary committees controlling eastern Libyan establish government frameworks for supplying two million inhabitants with basic services and commodities; 2. To organize them into paramilitary units, teach them how to use the weapons they captured from Libyan army facilities, help them restore law and order on the streets and train them to fight Muammar Gadhafi’s combat units coming to retake Cyrenaica. 3. To prepare infrastructure for the intake of additional foreign troops. Egyptian units are among those under consideration”. Since then, there has also been the embarrassing capture of an SAS team in Libya – an eight-strong group, who were escorting a junior British diplomat – which indicates that there is clearly more than meets the eye in the state of Libya. And there were also reports that Russian satellite surveillance did not show any kind shelling or bombardment in Libya, prior to the UN-imposed No-Fly Zone that is. The Russian state-sponsored news broadcaster RT at the time worded the revelation in this way: “the Russian military, monitoring the unrest via satellite from the very beginning, says nothing of the sort [of violence and bombing as reported] was going on the ground”. Then, it also transpired that U.S. “President Obama [had] . . . signed a secret order – a so-called “presidential finding”— authorising covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi”. And now, the rebels have finally overrun Tripoli with the help of NATO bombs. The much-hated figure of Muammar Gadhafi, however, is nowhere to be found. Again, similar to the case of Public Enemy #1 Usamah bin Laden following the conquest of Afghanistan, rumours have now emerged that the elusive colonel is hiding in an underground network of fortified tunnels, even rumoured to hold a tank battalion’. These words were written prior to the capture and brutal execution of the Libyan leader on 20 October 2011.
In my piece, I continue that the ‘reason behind NATO’s military intervention seems plain to see: Libya’s supplies of sweet oil destined for European and other markets. An eminent scholar and Mid-East specialist like Professor Juan Cole can publicly pronounce that to think that “[t]his was a war for Libya’s oil . . . is daft. Libya was already integrated into the international oil markets, and had done billions of deals with BP, ENI, etc., etc. None of those companies would have wanted to endanger their contracts by getting rid of the ruler who had signed them”. Still, Libya’s underground wealth is there to see for anybody who cares to look. According to the Global Trade Atlas, published by International Energy Agency (IEA), in calendar year 2010, 28% of Libya’s oil exports went to Italy, 15% to France, and 10% to Spain and Germany each. The U.S. only received 3% of Libya’s exports. Following the successful conquest of Tripoli, the Transitional National Council (TNC), now renamed NTC, was quick to point out that existing contracts would be honoured. It should not come as a surprise that Italy is able to carry off the lion share of Libya’s oil exports – Libya briefly was an Italian colony after all (1911-47)’.
But the BBC’s Urban really goes down to the nitty-gritty of the affair: the “first significant involvement of British forces inside Libya was a rescue mission mounted just a couple of weeks after the rising against Gaddafi broke out. On 3 March, Royal Air Force C130 aircraft were sent to a desert airstrip at Zilla in the south of the country to rescue expatriate oil workers. Many had been threatened by gunmen and bandits. This airlift of 150 foreigners, including about 20 Britons, to Valletta airport in Malta went smoothly, despite one of the aircraft being hit by ground fire soon after taking off. Accompanying the flights were about two dozen men from C Squadron of the Special Boat Service (SBS), who helped secure the landing zone. It was a short-term and discreet intervention that saved the workers from risk of abduction or murder, and caused little debate in Whitehall. Events, though, were moving chaotically and violently onwards, with the Libyan armed forces breaking up and Benghazi emerging as the centre of opposition. The government sought to open contacts with the National Transitional Council both overtly and covertly”. This successful intervention was followed by the March 2011 debacle I alluded to higher, but things did not end there, as “key figures in the Downing Street discussions were convinced that air strikes alone would not achieve the result they wanted. At sessions of the National Security Council, Gen Richards and Mr Fox made the case for planning to provide training and equipment for the revolutionary forces of the NTC”. Urban continues that at a “meeting near the end of March [2011], we have been told, authorisation was given to take certain steps to develop the NTC’s embryonic ground forces. This involved the immediate dispatch of a small advisory team, and the longer-term development of a “train and equip” project. Ministers were advised, say those familiar with the discussion, that this second part of the plan would take at least three months to implement. When half a dozen British officers arrived at a seaside hotel in Benghazi at the beginning of April, they were unarmed and their role was strictly limited. They had been told to help the NTC set up a nascent defence ministry, located in a commandeered factory on the outskirts of the city. The first and most basic task of the advisory team was to get the various bands of Libyan fighters roaring around in armed pick-up trucks under some sort of central co-ordination. As reporters had discovered, most of these men had little idea of what they were doing, and soon panicked if they thought Col Gaddafi’s forces were attacking or outflanking them. There were a number of legal issues preventing them giving more help. Some Whitehall lawyers argued that any type of presence on the ground was problematic. Legal doubts were raised about arming the NTC or targeting Col Gaddafi. Once the air operation was put on a proper Nato footing, these issues became even more vexed, insiders say, with the alliance saying it would not accept men on the ground “directing air strikes” in a way that some newspapers, even in late spring, were speculating was already happening. The British government’s desire to achieve the overthrow of Gaddafi while accommodating the legal sensitivities registered by various Whitehall departments led to some frustration among those who were meant to make the policy work”.
Urban elaborates that although “plenty of people in Whitehall still remembered the March debacle, it was agreed to allow a limited number of British advisers to take a direct part in training and mentoring NTC units in Libya. Sources say the number of men sent from D Squadron of 22 SAS Regiment was capped at 24. They were performing their mission by late August [2011]. While France and Qatar were ready to provide weapons directly, the UK was not. However, this made little practical difference since the SAS was operating closely with Qatar special forces who had reportedly delivered items such as Milan anti-tank missiles . . . During the months that this project had taken to come to fruition, the slow grinding down of Gaddafi’s forces by air attack had continued. Soon after the foreign trainers arrived, NTC units swept into Tripoli. Some people close to the Libyan revolution say that the Qatari chief of defence staff claimed credit for coming up with the strategy of pushing simultaneously towards the Libyan capital from different directions. Certainly, the foreign special forces on the ground played a role in co-ordinating the different columns. The SAS had meanwhile strayed beyond its training facility, with single men or pairs accompanying the NTC commanders that they had been training back to their units. They dressed as Libyans and blended in with the units they mentored, says someone familiar with the operation. There had been concerns that they would be spotted by the press, but this did not happen. “We have become a lot better at blending in,” says someone familiar with the D Squadron operation. “Our people were able to stay close to the NTC commanders without being compromised.” Instead, as the revolutionaries fought their way into Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, they were assisted by a handful of British and other special forces. Members of the Jordanian and United Arab Emirates armies had fallen in behind the Qataris too. When, on 20 October, Gaddafi was finally captured and then killed by NTC men, it followed Nato air strikes on a convoy of vehicles carrying leading members of the former regime as they tried to escape from Sirte early in the morning. Had British soldiers on the ground had a hand in this? Nobody will say yet. In keeping with its long standing policies on special forces and MI6 operations, Whitehall has refrained from public statements about the nature of assistance on the ground. The Ministry of Defence reiterated that policy when asked to comment on this story. Speaking at a public event late last year, though, Gen Richards commented that the NTC forces “were the land element, an ‘army’ was still vital”. He also noted that “integrating the Qataris, Emiratis and Jordanians into the operatiLon was key”. He did not, however, allude to the presence of more than 20 British operators on the ground. ast October the Chief of the Qatar Defence Staff revealed that “hundreds” of his troops has been on the ground in Libya. British sources agree Qatar played a leading role – and accept it put more soldiers in than the UK – but question whether the number was this large. Around the more secret parts of Whitehall, the suggestion is that the number committed on the ground by all nations probably did not exceed a couple of hundred. As for Britain’s decision finally to deploy an SAS squadron, “they made a fantastic difference”, argues one insider. It is part of the essence of troops of this kind that they often operate in secrecy, providing their political masters with policy options that they might not wish to own up to publicly”.
In a pensive mood, Urban ends his account with the words, “given that the UK’s earlier relationship with Col Gaddafi and his intelligence services caused great embarrassment, it could be that attention will one day focus more closely on British assistance to the NTC, particularly if the Libyan revolution comes unstuck”. And here is a video by the YouTuber StopNATOcrimes highlighting Gaddafi’s positive achievements, which have now been undone by the victorious NATO alliance and its NTC allies, before going on a tangent about Rothschild-owned banks and what have you.
(1) Mark Urban, “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi” BBC News Magazine (19 January 2012).
(2) C. Erimtan, “Libya: The End of Gadhafi and the Economic Aftermath” IRCNL.
(3) C. Erimtan, “Libya: The End of Gadhafi and the Economic Aftermath”.
(4) Mark Urban, “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi”.
(5) Mark Urban, “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi”.
(6) Mark Urban, “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi”.
(7)Mark Uban, “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi”.
(8) Mark Urban, “Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi”.
The New Cold War: The CIA Prepares Battleground Syria???
Turkey and the U.S. have been supporting the Syrian opposition since April 2011, and the U.S. Air Force Base at İncirlik plays a pivotal role in that scheme. That is the claim made by the notorious whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds. And now, the news agency United Press International cavalierly announces that the ‘CIA officers’ have joined ‘[a]llies in southern Turkey helping Syrian opposition fighters’.[1]
In fact, the report refers to a New York Times article. Eric Schmitt’s piece, appropriately entitled “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”, purports to spill the beans on the U.S. support for Syrian opponents of President Assad. He writes that 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”.[2] Is this another one of those strategically leaked Obama administration secrets supposed to bolster the Democrat’s standing among his gun-toting electorate???
Now that their activities have been touted in the New York Times, the C.I.A. operatives in Turkeyare probably no longer “operating secretly”. Schmitt even adds detail to his scoop: these “C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkeyfor several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so”.[3] Even though the article does not set out to prove thatAmerica and Turkey have been secretly fueling the unrest in Syria, the above-quoted admissions nevertheless show that a lot of footwork has been done behind the scenes of Syria’s ‘uprising’. The administration’s disclosure that “neighbors” are arming Syria’s opposition reads like an admission of Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, and Libyan involvement in concocting the violent brew that isSyria’s internal armed struggle. Of course, the concept of neighbourhood has to be taken in a very broad sense.
The UPI report prophetically adds that the “struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters”.[4] The news agency takes the long view that could lead one to consider that the whole Arab Awakening has also been long in the making. I pointed out last year that the Egyptian revolution appeared to have been planned in 2008, that the U.S. State Department was scheming to shake up the Middle East in order to replace no longer useful regimes with new and more amenable systems.[5] The failure of the recent nuclear negotiations in Moscow seems to indicate that Iran could still be still a viable target . . .
An anonymous Arab intelligence official who appears to be in the know said that “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people”.[6] It seems that the Obama administration is taking no chances when it comes to Syria . . . perhaps that lessons were learned in Libya after all. Schmitt does make it clear that “[s]pokesmen for the White House, State Department and C.I.A. would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the Syrian rebels”.[7]
Prior to the full-scale invasion of Afghanistan, a C.I.A. team in the Hindu Kushprepared the ground as well, making contacts, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters. Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Nour Malas already reported that “U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, according to senior U.S. officials. As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training”.[viii] It seems that President Obama’s best-laid plan for dealing with Syria and possibly Iran too is slowly falling into place . . . As explained by , the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Nour Malas the “U.S. in many ways is acting in Syria through proxies, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, say U.S. and Arab officials. Saudi Arabia is particularly fixated on overthrowing Mr. Assad, said Arab officials, viewing it as a way to settle scores with an arch foe and weaken its chief regional rival Iran. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing the funds for arms, Arab officials and Syrian opposition leaders say. The Obama administration hasn’t agreed to arm the FSA [the so-called Free Syrian Army], the U.S. officials stressed. Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday [, 13 June] denied charges by Syria and others that the U.S. has armed the rebels. The U.S.’s stepped-up links with the FSA are also part of an effort to gain a better understanding of the rebels’ capabilities and of the identities and allegiances of fighters spread in disparate groups across the country, the U.S. officials said. The U.S. officials remain wary of some rebels’ suspected ties to hard-line Islamists, including elements of al Qaeda. They acknowledged the FSA doesn’t represent all parts of the insurgency against the Assad regime”.[9]
The armed conflict in Syria is very much a proxy-war, pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia, China, and their junior partner Iran. In this context, Russia’s naval base in Tartus recently gave President Putin the pretext to dispatch some armed comrades into the Mediterraneanand back again. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has now said that “The ship was carrying air defense systems, which can only be used to repel foreign aggression, and not against peaceful demonstrators, and yes — it was carrying three refurbished helicopters”.[10] On the one hand, the Obama administration strategically leaked its not-so covert support for the Syrian opposition, and on the other, the Russians freely admitted their unwavering backing for Bashar al-Assad. Syria is the first battle-ground in the as-yet undeclared New Cold War.[11]
[1] “CIA joins allies helping Syrian opposition” UPI (21 June 2012). http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/06/21/CIA-joins-allies-helping-Syrian-opposition/UPI-61861340260200/?spt=hs&or=tn.
[2] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition” The New York Times (21 June 2012). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all.
[3] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”.
[4] “CIA joins allies helping Syrian opposition”.
[5] C. Erimtan, “Behind the scenes of Egypt’s revolution” Hürriyet Daily News (27 February 2011). http://tiny.cc/fz7tf.
[6] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”.
[7] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”.
[8] Jay Solomon and Nour Malas, “U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria” The Wall Street Journal (13 June 2012). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577464763551149048.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
[9] Jay Solomon and Nour Malas, “U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters inSyria”.
[10] Kirit Radia, “Russia Admits Attack Choppers Aboard Syria-Bound Ship” ABC News (21 June 2012). http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/russia-admits-attack-choppers-aboard-syria-bound-ship/story?id=16620312.
[11] C. Erimtan, “The Arab Awakening and the never-ending Cold War” Hürriyet Daily News (22 June 2011). http://tiny.cc/p7q3b.
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