It is wise to remember the U.S.S. Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin and Iraqi WMD in assessing the rationale for the U.S. attack last weekend on Syria, says Ann Wright.
By Ann Wright
Just a few hours before the arrival in Syria of UN chemical weapons inspectors to investigate the use of chemicals in Duma, a Damascus suburb where last week 42 persons were reportedly killed, the attack against Syrian government chemical facilities by the U.S. and its British and French allies with neither U.N. nor Congressional authorization is a bit suspicious–to put it mildly.
For the three Western nations to bomb before the international inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) could check the bodies of those killed for chemicals, take soil samples, talk to survivors and compare the results with what is in the Syrian government chemical facilities is bewildering– unless the U.S., UK and France knew the UN inspectors were going to find NOTHING to substantiate their assessment. Without any evidence, but with merely a “high possibility”, the three countries were going to attack Syria anyway.
With the alphabet soup of militias in Syria, hired and equipped by the US, UK, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Russia, the UAE, Qatar and Israel, each group has the capability of executing a Duma attack. Chemical attacks are easy to do, especially by groups that have access to the targeted area and to chemicals that can be used as weapons.
The question of why a group would execute such an attack should be leave fingerprints on the operation.
What would be the purpose for the Syrian government to use chemicals when they know Western countries are itching to use missiles to hit locations their militias have been unable to reach?
Would the Syrian government and their Russian allies purposefully use chemicals to invite an attack?
Are militia groups trying to keep their international sponsors and need an immediate reason to get continued funding especially when President Trump said last week that he wants to pull 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria?
Proof of responsibility for the attack was still missing the day before the missile strikes when Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said, “the US is looking for evidence” and the British government merely said “it is highly likely the Syrian government did the attack.”
This US strike follows in the line of other Presidential administrations that have ordered US military attacks that have gotten our country into civil wars, invasions, and occupations by telling Congress and the American people lies:
The U.S.S. Maine
Remember the Maine? (Cuba)
Remember the “Tonkin Gulf Attack”? (Viet Nam)
Remember US medical students “at risk?” (Grenada)
Remember “I saw Saddm’s troops throw Kuwaiti babies out of incubators”? (Iraq War 1)
Remember Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction”? (Iraq War II)
Remember the earlier gas attacks in Syria in which the British Parliament refused to authorize an attack on the Syrian government because it was unclear who was responsible–and Obama threw the decision of a U.S. attack to Congress–which to their credit voted No?
Remember Gaddafi is going to massacre the people of Benghazi and is giving viagra to his troops to rape the women? (Libya)
Remember the “nerve gas” attack in Salisbury, England that still has not been linked to Russia?
Remember Russia’s March 17 warning that the US was planning to stage a chemical attack in Syria to provoke a military “response”?
President Trump has been played by the war hawks in his cabinet–CIA Director Mike Pompeo and his new National Security Advisor, the eternal war-monger John Bolton.
Meanwhile the people of Syria continue to be killed by the bombings from all sides.
Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserve Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the weapons of mass destruction lies of the Bush administration for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”
Good for you, Ann Wright, for resigning in 2003 based on the Bush/Cheney lies on WMDs in Iraq.
Let’s not overlook the Failed false flag of the U.S.S, Liberty when the US was complicit in the Israeli sinking of an American navy ship in an attempt to create an excuse for America to attack Iran, nor the shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet, that was in it’s legal flight path with all beacons working and reported by neighbouring countries. Nor the attacks on Iranian oil rigs.
Ann Wright has lots of cred with the left. We know she is not a liar, or a war monger. So, if she can write this misiive with such confidence, I am with her. No more questions for me.
What’s going on with these colored mandala-like graphics left-hand top of each poster’s comment? Just saw it this afternoon first time. They appear to track an individual commenter, who gets assigned an individual-specific pattern. I am on an android phone. No purpose i can see other than a mark for some type of surveillance?
Jessika, interesting comment. Maybe consortium can explain these graphics which I’ve never seen before.
Always lacking of conversation within our MSM is Syria’s sovereignty. This ignorance is astounding as it ignores all international law. In fact by the Nuremberg Trail standards even our MSM is guilty of supporting war crimes. Just thought I’d throw that in there.
Yep. And this is why it doesn’t matter if congress passes a new AUMF or not. The bombing was still illegal under international law according to the Nuremberg laws. But when has this ever stopped our government from doing whatever the Hell it wants?
But what gets me is how many people are saying that Assad is guilty of poisoning his citizens? Especially when those same people saw through the WMDs scam? I believe that they are buying this because they lost their minds after Hillary lost the election. This is why they are buying Russia Gate too. Imagine how they would react if it was Trump saying that? They’d be laughing their little butts off at him. This is very sad.
Abby– they didn’t lose their minds after Jabba the Hut lost to T-rump; they never had a mind to begin with. I was appalled at the ignorance of liberal, well-off, supposedly well educated people when I would try to discuss the actual Hillary via-a-vis Bernie. They’d get hysterical! No facts, just attacks. It was then I realized that Yuppies were destroying the world. (Hyperbole? Only a little.)
I reckon 80 percent of Americans born after 1960 couldn’t provide a definition of sovereignty, much less find Syria on a map and they probably think Nuremberg is a type of cheese.
‘Spirit. are they yours.’ Scrooge could say no more.
‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Good point, Joe. The US, UK, France have intervened illegally. Russia and Iran are there legally, having been asked by the government. BTW, why would Assad attack his own people with chlorine when he’d already won the war? He didn’t. Also, every time he’s been accused, it’s been proven he didn’t do it…and one must always take a look at the timing. It’s always beyond belief the Syrian government would use chemical weapons at the times they’ve been used…in the last case, however, not used at all. Also, Russia (Putin) would never have poisoned the Skripals AT THAT TIME. Of course, they never would have anyway…it’s just amazing how gullible people are.
P.S. This note is for Ann Wright, whom I so admire. In fact, I’m going to Russia because of an article she wrote about her visit there. Thank you, Ann.
RR
It is an axiom of anthropology, no nation, tribe, group of humans EVER goes to war for humanitatian reasons, but rather only when there are gains to be had in terms of wealth and/or power. AND the enemy is always demonized and dehumanized, in order to galvanize a public who otherwise would lack the will, to support the killing of massive amounts of people. End of story. No exceptions.
Sorry I meant to submit my last comment as an original comment not a reply.
https://youtu.be/Xw7LpAEWrPs
Good article by Ann Wright. The French, U.K. and U.S. (F.U.K.U.S.) April 14 missile strike in Syria always had the pungent odor of fraud about it. Welcome to the great American Empire! Like rotting mackerel in the moonlight, it glitters as it stinks. By-the-way, the photo in the article captioned as the U.S.S. Maine is of the battleship U.S.S Delaware or its sister ship the North Dakota. These two vessels were dreadnought battleships.The Maine was not a dreadnought nor was it a real battleship, but actually a cruiser. The Delaware and the North Dakota were built just before the out break of World War One. The Maine was built in the 1890s and was sunk in Havana harbor in 1898. The U.S. Navy only settled on naming its battleships after states around 1900. I apologize for the nit-picking of a good and well thought out article. I guess it’s the copy editor in me. Also the acronym at the beginning of my reply i credit to the Moon of Alabama website.
It’s the line in the poem mike cited, “”It’s a sad thing to witness the widespread condition of critical faculties out of commission”. Thank, mike!
I wonder how a country such as ours can get so angry when we are attacked as in the NY 9/11 but we are so indifferent when our government attacks others as in Chile 9/11?
Brilliant, F.G.! Can’t stop laughing…has to be published!
France, the UK and US, have created a virtual mess.
Staged episodes, cruise missile payloads-
It’s the truth that they’ work to suppress!
Makeup artists paint kids’ faces blue. They capture that cyanide hue.
They claim it was gas, Assad gets no pass,
The White Helmets all swear that it’s true!
Nikki Haley says, “We’re locked and loaded! The Security Council’s outmoded!”
His own people were slaughtered, his regime must be tottered,
We’ve got missiles that must be exploded!
Our rockets are shiny and new. Did I mention they’re really smart too?
Seventy missed, now Raytheon’s pissed,
Their next Saudi arms deal could fall through!
Old Fisker plays eloquent games, but he never makes ludicrous claims.
He’s evasive, pedantic, a genius semantic-
Only fools would refute what he frames!
The Salisbury stakes got much higher. May’s feet are too close to the fire!
A trusted Swiss lab has just taken a stab,
And the Skripal charade may backfire!
The West Wing’s a Neocon cluster. They invited back Bolton for bluster.
Libby got pardoned, the rhetoric’s hardened,
And Nikki is nuts but they trust her!
Talk show generals pompous and crass, are all praising the cabinet brass.
It’s a Neocon romp, they’re all toasting the swamp,
And the only thing drained is the glass!
Jerry Corsi thinks “Q” is all knowing. 3D chess is the notion he’s sowing.
Lionel Nation spreads quaint peroration,
H. A. Goodman keeps “breaking news” flowing.
The Clinton Cabal might implode. But the Mueller probe hasn’t been slowed.
They claim there’s a movie that might even prove she…
Well, I’d rather not go down that road.
It’s a horserace to see what comes first. The tarmac debacle might burst!
Is it nuclear war, or more Stormy the…pure,
Will the F.UK.US coalition shoot first?
I’ve a theory that might just be true. I think I’ve identified “Q”.
Since going to jail, there’s revenge to detail.
I think it’s Anthony Wiener. What say you?
I’ve got to print this and show to my friends – thanks for this tremendous creation. Anthony Wiener is Deep Throat?
Man it’s good to have you back. Joe
F. G., This time you’ve outdone yourself! Good one!
Good one, TB. On a slight tangent, Barbara Bush has died. I remember her statement during the Iraq war that she would not bother her special mind to have to look at dead soldiers coming home in coffins. Also on Katrina, Blacks staying in the Houston Astrodome after losing their housing to the floodwaters, she remarked that they were much better off there.
“Aristocrats” don’t think the same way most of us do. It’s part of what makes them “special”.
WSJ headlines “Heaven get ready for Barbara Bush.” If she does get past those Pearly Gates, it will definitly save her having to spend eternity with her husband.
Why McCarthyism works?
Collapse of basic education and I am also talking about base college education that collapsed to the level of a high school freshmen circa 1955 and not only it is a failure of humanistic education including fundamental tenets of morality and ethical system but also they are virtual illiterate as far as hard sciences are concerned.
Now the chemistry in high school is taught in cooking class and hence they can be fooled by fancy names like chemical weapons ready to go to war with anybody who has chemicals one may find in any hardware store, or supermarket.
In this case as report surfaced people in Douma suffering from shortness of breath after the building where they hid in basement was hit by a missile or bomb spewing dust clouds reducing oxygen in crowded basement.
Upon arriving in hospital of first victims doctors immediately and correctly diagnosed as non Chemical weapon victims applying procedure and immediately alievated stressful condition, after a while white helmets phonies came in and spray victims with what doctor though was water but in fact it was diluted chlorine bleach to give impression of chlorine gas attack, in fact bleach was so diluted that only one witness of many with more acute sense testified that smelled chlorine mildly the rest did not smell anything.
It is clear that all those amateurish provocations from 2013 on with chlorine or sarin were designed for moronic uneducated western audience who do not know a crap about most anything but follow their idols on TV and their bask in their idiotism.
Idiots will just tune out the truth if they find it too troubling. If, however, a story has the element of ‘gotcha’, it becomes interesting, sort of like a sport.
Of course they tune out since western system, of what no longer can be called education in any shape or form, generates scored of immoral bastards, unaware of fundamental fact that ethical person do not act upon claims that are not verified by their own tested knowledge and life experiences and is not afraid to say I do not know, I doubt, since any act upon such external instigation bring personal responsibility for its consequences and cannot be shed as just following somebody’s advice and hence I am not responsible. Nazis learned this basic ethics when there were hanged in Nuremberg after they just followed, legal according to contemporary law they live under, orders.
This is basic ethics that if taught would shut down McCarthyism . So when west will understand the very basics ehical tenet that ironically coming directly from western philosophical tradition, before or after they are defeated and this belligerence and intimidation as religion stops.
Kalen, perfectly stated.
Mission accomplished equals failure or false news.
Bombings from all sides – that’s what those poor people are getting. I wish my government would get out of it.
You know, somebody needs to get to the bottom of this sarin crap – or “sarin-like substances” these official reports cover their rass with….. Scott Ritter said people should look into phosphine (organophosphate pesticide). It is a poor man’s sarin, if you ask me. Used all over the place as an insecticide for grain silos. Pellets get wet, release gas, and you get a very similar effect as the warfare agent. Pupils, arrested breathing, all that, but less deadly, if humans get involved. Phosphorous is richly available naturally in Syria, of all places.
Unlike sarin, though, phosphine can be weaponized in small, grenade-sized canisters. They leave telltale gray-white dust when exploded. Probably used several times by Syrian rebels. There’s a wikipedia website about cases of ‘chemical weapons use in Syria’ that has a table that I bet will dovetail the phosphine hypothesis well with some of the 2013 instances of supposed army use on civilians of a sarin-like substance (white-gray powder, small cans, captured army helicopter drops). Brown Moses Blog (ironic, isn’t it?) has a good discussion on sarin versus insecticide here, from 2013. http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2013/08/chemical-weapon-specialists-talk-sarin.html
Bashar al Assad has never used chemical weapons, as has been proven each time he’s been accused. Every time.
Great acronym i saw on a website for the tripartite alliance of aggressors against Syria, F.UK.US. Sergei Lavrov said these very three nations’ reps asked Russia several years ago not to sell the S-300 missile defense systems to Syria, and now Russia will get them to Syria.
Very good writing, Stephen. If only people would wake up.
Thanks Jessica, I often wonder the same thing.
Stephen J.
“A Ménage à Trois of War Criminals”
The “leaders” of the U.S,. Britain and France formed an illegal coalition and bombed Syria April 13, 2018. Their sycophants in the media mostly parroted approval of this illegal act which is a war crime and a violation of international law….
[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2018/04/a-menage-trois-of-war-criminals.html
A book arrived today – The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton. The thesis is that he was murdered, just as MLK and Jack Kennedy were, back in those days, and the crime covered up as an accident. On the back cover the author put this poem:
Idling Intellect
Whenever “conspiracy theory” I hear
I know that a brain has gone out of gear
the common phenomenon again I behold
of a person determined to believe what he’s told
by the press and political piowers-that-be
who have long had no credibility.
It’s a sad thing to witness the widespread condition
of critical faculties out of commission.
And a once-proud people cowed into submission.
David Martin
Article excerpt at link below from Chris Floyd website.
———————————————————————
“Alchemical Reactions: Transmuting Death-Dealing Dung Into PR Gold”
…
“One simple point: if the US/UK/France really believed the building they targeted (and hit) in a heavily populated civilian area of Damascus was actually making chemical weapons, what do they think would have happened if all that toxic material had been dispersed by explosions throughout the surrounding neighborhoods? Hundreds if not thousands of civilians would have died. So either the “Western powers” knowingly risked killing thousands of innocent people — or else they knew the building was not actually a chemical weapons facility.
“Thus we are left with two possible conclusions: either they are “gas-killing animals” happy to murder untold numbers of innocent people in a military action (the very crime of which they accuse Asad); or they are deeply cynical liars using entirely bogus “humanitarian” concerns to advance a geopolitical agenda of domination in the Middle East that has already killed more than a million innocent human beings, displaced millions more, destroyed several countries and destabilized the entire world. There really are no other options….”
[read more at link below]
http://www.chris-floyd.com/mobile/articles/alchemical-reactions-transmuting-death-dealing-dung-into-pr-gold-14042018.html
Another False Flag
Yes Uncle Bob another false flag, and I for one am not falling for their lies any longer….enough is enough. Great comment. Joe
How many Americans ever ask themselves: what the hell are we doing in Syria? Not many apparently, because we are still there – just like we have troops squatting in damn near every country on Earth. What on earth are we doing in all those places?? Well, we have this plan for world domination…………..
American’s don’t ask the questions because they are kept purposely ignorant & stupid, a situation they seem to enjoy? They are sheep, being lead around by a devious Shepherd, the US Govt, a morally corrupt, manipulative bunch of scumbags? American’s are totally brainwashed & gaslighted to death by their nefarious Govt & its propagandist “Ministries of Truth” the Mainstream Corporate Media, US State Dept & the shameful, ridiculous pantomime display of the pathetic US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley! American’s are like mushrooms? Kept in the dark & fed on crap!
KiwiAntz,
I’m currently on vacation in my country of birth. New Zealand
I’m finding out that a majority of New Zealanders are also like mushrooms? Kept in the dark & fed on crap!
And kept purposely ignorant & stupid, a situation they also seem to enjoy.
And brainwashed & gaslighted to death by their nefarious Govt !
How many times are you going to post these juvenile generalizations?
CN readers get it…you don’t like Americans!
What is your goal in posting this rubbish ad nausea?
Dennis, I am not sure whether such criticism is helpful or not. Of course people do not like to be insulted on nationality, even when they agree with the policy criticism. The potential good effect is to jar the thoughtless to consider the wrongs done by their country. That does not seem to require insulting everyone, but it might be more effective with some while alienating others. So I just take the message as one of good intentions intended for someone else. But I understand your offense.
KiwiAntz, I think that such comments can be amusing but would be more effective if you attack the bad foreign policy moves, maybe make a jab about how its looks from overseas and what people might think about Americans, and then note that critical readers here in general have not chosen these policies, and cannot merely vote to change them. Then more will listen.
Sam,
Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.
I guess my point is that nobody who reads CN, either in the US, or from overseas..
…..is thoughtless and needs to be jarred into considering the wrongs of American foreign policy.
Our friend is preaching to the choir, and insulting many Americans to boot.
If he is trying to change anybodies mind, surely this is not the way to do it.
I know that this type of rhetoric would not go down in well in any social gathering in the States I have attended.
And frankly, it says more about this posters immaturity, and ignorance about Americans than anything else.
And as I said to Abe yesterday, adds nothing, and only detracts from to this blog.
Iam a NZer and your description of NZers is accurate – a diversion from the very important Syrian issues, but there is some relevance, I will briefly continue. NZ conservative govts sold off our media to foreigners, ever since we are more complaint. We have been dominated by the US, especially since huge oil reserves (very deep) were found off NZ coast. Unlike Syria we have become US lackeys. The present Labour govt shows more spine but our mainly Australian owned media (with CIA links) will do everything to get rid of it.
Plse see my comment below, it should have been posted here
It’s all so obvious, that presenting any further argument about it reminds me of the Japanese saying about “painting legs on a snake”. The cui bono argument is so decisive, really nothing more should be needed to understand what happened in Syria. DUH!
It is really a testament to the gullibility and lack of interest of the American sheeple that these phony assertions constantly blared on the media are not just laughed out of court.
It is so obvious that Assad and his government would never, ever do anything as absurd as gassing his own people in these circumstances. Of course the spin doctors at work would just say, “well it just goes to prove that Assad is as crazy as we have said”. What’s really crazy is America risking nuclear war at the behest of slimy little Israel.
With regard to spin doctors, here is an important conversation between Chris Hedges and Mark Crispin Miller. Quite chilling.
https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/424191-us-ndependent-press-miller/
Good stuff, Stephen!
I thought that was an astonishingly good edition of Chris Hedges’ RT show. Highly recommended to all.
Stephen P, yes I saw it on rt and it was as you say an important conversation. I hope the other commenters here follow your link.
Watch this video, and come to your own conclusion.
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/04/17/carla-ortiz-and-the-white-helmets-lair-in-aleppo/
As they used to say on SNL: “they blowed it up real good!” The American-led action makes about as much sense as that dumb joke, if you were foolish enough to take them at their word.
Do I sense a trend by Washington, suggesting that they are not going to give up making such ludicrous excuses to commit mass murder? As the Saker said: expect more.
Great line, it reminds of the movie “A Fish called Wanda”, when the John Cleese character Archie & the Kevin Cline character Otto? Otto says to Archie, American’s & it’s Govts are winners? Archie answers back, Winners eh, what about Vietnam? Otto states it was a draw but Archie fires back “They (the Vietcong) really whooped your asses, like REAL GOOD HUH BOY”! This sums up America’s entire foreign policy? One of ineptitude & defeat!
Actually, that’s from “Hee Haw”, much earlier than SNL. “She done blowed up REAL good” was always the punchline. Hee Haw was like “Laugh-In” for hillbillies circa late 60’s.
Nope, Second City TV (SCTV) from Canada, a nation that unfortunately also jumped on the ‘Russian chemical attack’ meme to support dwindling Theresa May.
Canada also jumped on board: Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s not like the colonials (Canada, USA, Australia, NZ, even UK 99%ers and their Parliament), have any say whatsoever, about what The Crown and Its loyal City-of-London Oligarchs deem needs to be done. I count USA as a “recaptured” colony; Cecil Rhodes Round Table Group made sure of that, and they took maximum advantage of FDRs death to set in motion The Plan, which wasn’t secured until George W’s “Mission Accomplished” spilled from his lips. THIS was The Mission that the Bush clan has always worked for. Now; the question for the English-Speaking Tribe (Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, NZ) is: What are We The People of this Tribe going to do about this situation? Are we the five primary Nations of The English-speaking Tribe, or are we merely the “Five Eyes” of the Intelligence Community, owned & operated by The Crown and Its Oligarchy of 1%ers?
Gerald, NOT the way to use the word, “meme.” (Yes, it’s my pet peeve.)
You are undoubtedly correct as to the show. The gist was that both both the remark and the activity were pointless and stupid, things that only a reckless moron could admire.
“Sock it to me,” from Laugh-In was high culture in comparison.
Ann Wright has properly called attention to the very long history of US false-flag excuses for war, dating back to the seizure of US mass media by oligarchy. This is sufficient cause to discredit most such incidents. The “cui bono” considerations are also sufficient alone. This case and the Skripals case have so much additional absurdity and counter-evidence, that they serve only as a tests for liars. But that is a valuable tool, and these historical notes and cui bono articles may flush out warmongering liars for generations to come.
There is also a very long history,even predating the War for Independence, of Pro-Empire Tories versus Pro-Nationalist Patriots, and the Tories, more often than not, come out on top, winning the “Captain’s Chair” to call the policy shots. Since the “Tories” own most media operations and publishing Houses, this bit of History is totally blacked out, except for such dissenting “Patriot” organizations as Executive Intelligence Review, LaRouchePAC, Schiller Institute, and the Webster G. Tarpley group, probably some other minor players around who follow a coherent historical “Patriot” agenda. Such Agenda is totally forgotten or misunderstood by We The People now-a-days. I only happened to stumble upon this information by accident. I’ve always been “lucky” in that way, although I suspect some sort of mysterious Guidance (I don’t subscribe to any Orthodoxies, but am open to the idea that Experience is NOT circumscribed by the five senses and Logic).
Actually, it was Second City Television
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4FfNYjw6qU
Farm Film Report
with Big Jim McBob (Joe Flaherty) and Billy Sol Hurok (the late John Candy)
CIA documents from the US National Archives illustrate how the singular agenda to “blow up” Syria “real good” stretches back decades.
A 1983 document signed by former CIA officer Graham Fuller titled, “Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria” states:
“Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.”
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R001404090133-0.pdf
The report also states:
“If Israel were to increase tensions against Syria simultaneously with an Iraqi initiative, the pressures on Assad would escalate rapidly. A Turkish move would psychologically press him further. ”
Also mentioned in the document are a variety of manufactured pretexts listed to justify a unilateral military strike on northern Syria by Turkey. The document explains:
“Turkey has considered undertaking a unilateral military strike against terrorist camps in northern Syria and would not hesitate from using menacing diplomatic language against Syria on these issues.”
Comparing this 1983 US CIA document to more recent US policy papers and revelations of US funding of so-called activists prior to 2011, reveals not only continuity of agenda – but that attempts to portray the 2011 “uprising” in Syria as spontaneous and as merely exploited by the US are disingenuous.
Judicial Watch, a US-based foundation seeking “transparency” in government, released a 7 page document dated 2012, detailing the background and status of the Syrian conflict. It admitted that the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda formed the basis of the “opposition.” It then admitted that “there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered t he strategic depth of the Shia Expansion (Iraq and Iran).”
That “Salafist principality” mentioned by the DoD in 2012 came to be known the “Islamic State.” The DoD at the time openly admitted that the opposition’s foreign sponsors supported the creation of such a principality, and clearly ISIS must have had such support to maintain its hold on vast expanses of territory in both Syria and Iraq, while propping up a military machine capable of fighting the combined forces of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Indeed, the DoD’s admissions in this document explain precisely how ISIS has been able to perpetuate its activities throughout the region – with “Western countries, the Gulf States, and Turkey” supporting these efforts.
Thank you, Abe. You would be interested in the 170 or so page document produced by the Brookings Institute in 2009 called, “Which Path to Persia,” describing how to take Iran back after lost it to the revolution which was Iran taking its own country back after losing it to the US coup of 1953. The document is pretty ugly stuff. Well Brookings is ugly itself.