Exclusive: The U.S. political/media establishment only permits the propaganda version of the Syrian conflict – and Hillary Clinton fully embraced it in her belligerent comments in the second presidential debate, writes Daniel Lazare.
By Daniel Lazare
In case there was still any uncertainty, Hillary Clinton banished all doubt in her second debate with Donald Trump. A vote for her is a vote not only for war, but for war on behalf of Al Qaeda.
This is clear from her response to ABC reporter Martha Raddatz’s painfully loaded question about the Syrian conflict. With Raddatz going on about the hundreds killed by the evil twins, Bashar al-Assad and Putin and even tossing in the Holocaust for good measure, Clinton saw no reason to hold back:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Well, the situation in Syria is catastrophic and every day that goes by we see the results of the regime – by Assad in partnership with the Iranians on the ground, the Russians in the air – bombarding places, in particular Aleppo where there are hundreds of thousands of people, probably about 250,000 still left, and there is a determined effort by the Russian air force to destroy Aleppo in order to eliminate the last of the Syrian rebels who are really holding out against the Assad regime.
“Russia hasn’t paid any attention to ISIS. They’re interested in keeping Assad in power. So I, when I was secretary of state, advocated, and I advocate today, a no-fly-zone and safe zones. … But I want to emphasize that what is at stake here is the ambitions and the aggressiveness of Russia. Russia has decided that it’s all in in Syria, and they’ve also decided who they want to see become president of the United States too, and it’s not me. I stood up to Russia, I’ve taken on Putin and others, and I would do that as president.”
It was an astonishing performance, even for a presidential debate. Rarely have more lies and misstatements been crammed into a single two-minute statement.
Where to begin? For starters, there are not 250,000 people in Aleppo, but somewhere around 1.75 million, only a small portion of whom live in a rebel-controlled enclave in the city’s east. Despite Clinton’s claim that Russia is trying to “destroy Aleppo,” most of the city manages to carry on quite peacefully despite rebel “hell cannons” lobbing explosive-packed gas canisters into government-controlled areas at regular intervals.
“One of the most striking things about Aleppo,” New York Times reporter Declan Walsh wrote last May, “is how much of the city appears to be functioning relatively normally. Much of the periphery has been reduced to rubble. But in the city center, I saw people on the sidewalks, traffic flowing, hotels and cafes with plenty of customers, and universities and schools open for students.”
Not so in the rebel-held east, however. Juan Cole described the area as “a bombed-out slum,” a ghost town with a population conceivably as low as “a few tens of thousands.” Life under the rebels is “miserable,” he went on. “Some neighborhoods are controlled by Al-Qaeda, some by the hard line Salafi Jihadi ‘Freemen of Syria’ (Ahrar al-Sham), some by militias of, essentially, the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The Truth About the Rebels
Although Clinton seems to regards such elements as valiant freedom fighters, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman confirmed last April that Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s affiliate that recently renamed itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or the Syria Conquest Front, was firmly in charge. “It’s primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo,” Col. Steve Warren told a press briefing.
Journalist James Foley shortly before he was executed by an Islamic State operative.
When Secretary of State John Kerry tried to persuade “moderate” rebel forces to sever ties with Al Nusra during last month’s brief ceasefire, The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the largest factions responded by “doubling down on their alliance” and drawing even closer to Al Qaeda. In other words, they flipped Kerry the bird.
The people Clinton supports are thus the same forces that brought down the World Trade Center 15 years ago, killing nearly 3,000 people and triggering a global war on terror that has allowed Al Qaeda to metastasize across half the globe, including its spinoff group, the Islamic State or ISIS.
The statement that “Russia hasn’t paid any attention to ISIS” was similarly bizarre. When ISIS converged on Palmyra, in central Syria, in May 2015, it was the U.S. that held off bombing even though the ISIS fighters would have made perfect targets as they crossed miles of open desert. Why didn’t the United States attack and possibly keep the antiquities of Palmyra out of ISIS’s hands?
Explained The New York Times: “Any airstrikes against Islamic State militants in and around Palmyra would probably benefit the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. So far, United States-led airstrikes in Syria have largely focused on areas far outside government control, to avoid the perception of aiding a leader whose ouster President Obama has called for.”
In other words, the U.S. allowed ISIS to take one of the richest archeological sites in the Middle East even though it could have stopped it in its tracks. By the same token, it was Russian air strikes – some of the heaviest, in fact, since Moscow entered the war in September 2015 – that enabled Syrian forces to retake the city the following March.
The idea that Russia doesn’t care about ISIS stood reality on its head. Moreover, when U.S. jets killed at least 62 government soldiers outside the ISIS-besieged town of Deir Ezzor last month, ISIS took advantage by launching an offensive just minutes after the bombing had ceased.
So, by holding its fire in the case of Palmyra and unleashing it in the case of Deir Ezzor, Washington – inadvertently or not – enables ISIS to advance and then gets huffy when anyone objects. As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power declared when Russia dared call an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting in response: “Even by Russia’s standards, tonight’s stunt, a stunt replete with moralism and grandstanding, is uniquely cynical and hypocritical.”
The words were shocking not only because scores of people were dead, but also because Power was defending a bombing raid that had taken place on Syrian territory in flagrant violation of international law. While Syria’s sovereign government has requested Russia’s assistance, it has objected to the violation of its territory by the United States and its allies. That means the U.S. coalition has no legal right, under international law, to be operating in or over Syria.
Dangerous Escalation
As for the “no-fly zone” that Clinton invoked, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned in early 2012 that it would mean mobilizing as many as 70,000 US military personnel to neutralize Syria’s extensive anti-aircraft network – and that was before Russia decided to buttress Syria’s defenses by installing sophisticated S-300 and S-400 missiles. A “no-fly-zone” also would be an act of war in which the U.S. would not only have to fire on Syrian forces, but on Russian and Iranian forces, too. Instead of peace, the result would be a vast escalation.
A Russian orchestra performs a concert at Palmyra’s ancient Roman theater on May 5, 2016, after Syrian troops, backed by Russian air power, reclaimed the ancient city from the Islamic State. (Image from RT’s live-streaming of the event)
Finally, Clinton’s reflexive Russia-bashing showed just how bellicose her worldview has become. If Trump was the first person in a presidential debate to threaten a rival with jail, Clinton was the first to label her opponent an agent of a hostile foreign power.
Yet, Clinton’s efforts to blame Russia for the Syria debacle make little sense. After all, Russia didn’t enter the war until September 2015, more than four years after the blood had started to flow. Rather than ambitions and aggressiveness, it’s clear that it concerns are far more practical. Russian President Putin knows all too well that if Assad falls, it will be a repeat of the Taliban victory in Afghanistan in 1996, but on a far grander scale.
As Alastair Crooke, a diplomat and veteran of British military intelligence, observed in late 2015, Putin sees Syria as “Russia’s veritable front line”:
“Russia recalls how, after the Afghan war, radical Wahhabi-style Islam spread out from Afghanistan and reached up into Central Asia. Russia also recalls how the CIA and Saudi Arabia inflamed and used the Chechen insurgency to weaken Russia. …
“But equally, President Putin shares the perception of many in the region that America and its allies are not serious about defeating ISIS. And sensing that the West was finally about to be lured by Turkey toward a no-fly zone – which would only end, as it did in Libya, in chaos – Putin played his surprise hand: he entered the war on ‘terrorism,’ blocked Turkey’s project to ‘re-Ottomize’ northern Syria, and challenged the West to join with him in the venture.”
The idea was to force the U.S. into waging a real war against violent Salafists who were threatening Russia via its soft underbelly. If so, the effort backfired since the only thing it accomplished was to anger Washington’s hardline foreign-policy establishment, which will undoubtedly be beside itself with fury if the rebels in east Aleppo are defeated.
Trump’s Foggy Account
Trump, fatuous businessman that he is, mostly seemed lost in a fog of his own making. Once or twice, though, he seemed to have a glimmer of an idea of what was at stake. “Now, she talks tough,” he said of Clinton:
Ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was murdered on Oct. 20, 2011.
“She talks really tough against Putin and against Assad. She talks in favor of the rebels. She doesn’t even know who the rebels are. You know, every time we take rebels whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else, we’re arming people. And you know what happens? They end up being worse than the people [they overthrow]. Look at what she did in Libya with Gaddafi. Gaddafi is out. It’s a mess. And by the way, ISIS has a good chunk of their oil. I’m sure you’ve probably have heard that. It was a disaster. The fact is almost everything she has done has been a mistake and it’s been a disaster.”
Trump’s comment was correct, more or less. Either Clinton doesn’t know who the rebels are or is so consumed by enmity for Putin and Assad that she doesn’t care.
Trump was also right that rebels often turn out to be worse than the strongmen they topple. In real life, Muammar Gaddafi was a grotesque goon. But compared to some of the Salafist head choppers who have filled the resulting power void in Libya, he seems more like Desmond Tutu in retrospect.
Much the same can be said for Assad. Arguably, he is little more than a Syrian Michael Corleone. But after somehow managing to survive five years of a U.S.-Turkish-Saudi onslaught – and in comparison to the barbarous Al Qaeda and ISIS fanatics operating in Syria – he now seems like Nelson Mandela.
In any event, Hillary Clinton has made it crystal clear. Anyone who votes for her is voting for greatly expanded warfare in the Middle East and probably military confrontation with Russia elsewhere as well. As bad as things are in Syria, in a few months they could get a lot worse. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon.”]
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).
For what little it may be worth, it should be noted that British Prime Minister Teresa May when questioned in Parliament today refused to support the idea of a Syrian no-fly zone. This is likely to be the position of all the European allies of the US
She was one of the most vocal cheer leaders for Iraq II along with “W” and Chaney. She is beholden to the money men and women who pay her a quarter of a million dollars to come and speak for an hour. This is no different than dark money except it’s out in the open and called something else. This is better than a campaign donation because this allows her to buy a mansion close to her benefactors. Her whole life is owed to them, not just an election. What do you think she will tell her chief enforcement people about the banks on Wall St when she takes over the White House. Go after them? Not likely. She won’t give them a cabinet appointment because there’s nothing they want except no enforcement. She’s in a perfect position to deliver that when the time comes. The laws don’t matter if the cops on the beat don’t enforce them. You could make insider trading a death penalty offense and it still has no effect if it’s not enforced. I don’t look for a lot of indictments on Wall St in the next 8 years. We might get an Indian or another foreigner but not the real powers that be on that storied street. This is what Hillary doesn’t get. This is why she has the highest negatives of anyone running for the office. America is catching on the to Israel scam too. The Democrats have taken away the blank check approach to Israel so they are turning to the racist southern voters and Armageddon. That’s the real danger, especially since Russia entered the picture. Putin is as smart as any of them and he won’t be pushed around. She will bring more death and destruction to the Middle East, at least until Israel decides to call off the massacre. She is not an independent voice or an astute observer of the consequences of her actions and policies for that part of the world. Russia almost went to war there in 1973 when Nixon was on his back in the last days of his presidency and Kissinger was busy committing treason behind his back and telling the Israelies to keep fighting after the armistice had been signed. She won’t be any better. I am truly afraid of what the future will bring us in that part of the world if she gets the job.
All this crazy right wing nonsense about her and Bill belonging in jail, blah, blah blah. None of that matters even if it were true. It’s the war in the Middle East that poses the danger to us because Putin has drawn a line. He’s not going to take the bullying anymore and he sees the false narrative for what it is. A Trojan Horse for regime change in Syria and maybe Russia too.
So what’s in Allepppooo? Al-Qaeda, apparently. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the UN offered to whisk Al-Qaeda/Nustra Front/Shams out of Aleppo, to save it and them from the Russian and Syrian army. Who really are fighting and are very well motivated to fight extreminst sunni jihadis funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
http://www.rferl.org/a/un-offers-escort-al-qaeda-offshoot-out-aleppo-syria-stop-bombing-russia-assad/28037157.html
The people Clinton supports are thus the same forces that brought down the World Trade Center 15 years ago, killing nearly 3,000 people and triggering a global war on terror that has allowed Al Qaeda to metastasize across half the globe, including its spinoff group, the Islamic State or ISIS.
—
That the US and al Qaeda are inbed together and have been in bed together should be very very obvious, but to swallow this simplistic dribble that these are the ” forces that brought down the World Trade Center 15 years ago’, nothing more to see, just keep moving along…………you would have to be blissfully ignorant of a mountain of facts, reports and evidence that paints a very different and far more complicated picture.
No, that’s a point refuted a thousand times.
Hillary will follow in the lying footsteps of Obama. The US government created this mess, just like they created a mess in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Don’t get me wrong, Bush 41 and 43 were also liars (and they still are), just like Slick Willie was in is a liar. https://waitforthedownfall.wordpress.com/get-bashar-al-assad/
Don’t leave out Slick Hillie.
We are screwed.
After finally falling asleep I feel less depressed but now I’m wondering. Consortium News doesn’t go in for CTs like 9/11 inside job, and nowhere near Newtown faked, but that said, is all this not a CT as byzantine as 9/11? Talk about how many people would have to be in on it! I mean that someone or some cabal in the US government is arming Muslim mercenaries to take down an established administration in order to goad the Russians thereby profiting the US arms industry. And then there are all the media companies and their employees who perpetuate the myths and propagandize their audiences, not to mention bribing politicians who legislate and fund this, yes, false flag operation. All this is happening when all one has to do is to come to this site and read an article to see the truth of the matter. If this is the truth. I mean does Hillary Clinton or anyone on that side of the story really want a war with Russia? Does that make sense? As I said, I’m wondering.
jimbo: yes, she does. She’s said so in her emails which I have read. First Iran, then Russia. She may well go down as the most destructive president in history, when you count the bodies she has already piled up and the bodies to come.
It doesn’t matter what Hillary, or any other politician wants Jimbo, whatever happens is what the International Zionist Conspirators want. They run, and control, the politics of most of the world with their central banking systems. They have fomented and financed virtually all wars the West has been involved in since the Napoleonic wars. Their motives are the massive profits they make from interest, and the deaths of their hated enemies – non-Jews.
Saying that a specific candidate is a candidate of war is rather simplistic. The US is a country of war throughout its history. Either war outside or war within. How many Americans now are making their daily living by working directly or indirectly for the Military-Security- Industrial Complex?! America spends about ONE TRILLION DOLLARS every year on military and security. It is the biggest BUSINESS in the country and any president will have to keep the machine well oiled……….America will continue its militaristic way of living until it kills itself………Just go around America and see how many homeless are out there. Not to mention, the veterans taking their own life……….
Disappointing article First off as a Canadian it seems like warmongering is a nonpartisan thing that US presidents all do. So I groan when the left treats warmongering Democrats as shocking hypocrites. Empire = unjust war. Isis/Deash and Al Qaeda are not the same force. Defeating either Deash or Assad will benefit the other one but some situations have no good solutions. Obama is choosing minimal intervention and he can’t be feeling happy about the results he is seeing. I mistrust the author because he criticizes Obama for not bombing troops approaching Palyrma but also criticizes Clinton for wanting to be more aggressive. It is intellectually dishonest to pretend that the Syria challenge is an ordinary foreign policy problem. The situation on the ground and diplomatically is too complex for two minute debate answers to stand up to scrutiny. Don’t imply that Clinton is taking a simplistic view because of how she describes it on television. Remember that it is television. Finally is the author for or against military action in Syria. It seems like American action would be reprehemsible but Russian action is defensible.
It seems like American action would be reprehemsible but Russian action is defensible.
I don’t know about the “reprehensible” business, but whatever the US does in Syria is totally illegal. On the other hand, the presence of the Russians is authorized by the invitation of a legal Syrian government, an ally of theirs.
Apparently, “Canadians” don’t get it either. (See my comment above) But I suspect Mike mentions Canadianhood in order to imply that he is a member of the “international community” that ratifies the Anglo-Franco-American consensus. The plug for Hillary was a gratuitous giveaway. Poor Hillary, she only sounds like a warmonger because of a two-minute time constraint. With more time, I suppose she would have sounded like Indira Ghandi?
Zachary Smith you are absolutely correct.
On the whole this is a good article that I agree with, but Lazare needs to take another look at Libyan history and just who Gaddafi was and what he accomplished or tried to. He was not, by my reading, “a grotesque goon” but a man (rather quixotic, but not a goon) who did a great deal of good for his people and also for some other African countries. The US and other western countries wanted him out because Gaddafi nationalized his oil so that the profits would go to his people and not to Exxon, Shell, BP etc. We have used “regime change” repeatedly in other countries in Central and South America and around the world when they don’t behave economically as we want. Gosh we can’t have that! Gotta get rid of that guy.
Mr. Lazare, please don’t be another patsy who falls for the propaganda our government gives out. Stand up for truth and accuracy in reporting! Have you even looked at the report recently put out by the British government which basically states what I have just said?
They have to demonize the leaders of the nations they want to destroy.
And even journalists who care to write some truth, cannot help themselves (for some reason) to stain just what they wrote with the very propaganda lies that are at the heart of the slaughter.
I applaude Lazare’s will to write the truth.
But I despise Lazare’s weakness in falling in line with the propaganda he tries to disseminate.
ranney moss: Well said.
I have been posting this everywhere
Hillary last night outlined how she will enable a world wide nuclear war. With her no fly zone (war with Russia) and other stupid foreign policies which will KILL YOU.
Let’s just hope her Zionist, Jewish handlers keep her under control.
I’m actually depressed and i can’t sleep because this is just about the only site in all of media that talks about the US’s aggression. There is nothing worse than war and the US, my country, is a major catalyst. None of my friends online or off give a shit. All other issues pale in comparison. Trump, Clinton, even police brutality are piffles compared to what the US is doing in Syria. Everyone is fretting over refugees, spending, terrorism, all problems that spring from this one huge problem but no one seems to recognize that this enormously horrible America-made problem even exists. I remember chuckling when “Red” China would talk about the “hegemony” of the US and how how “sinologists” were needed to read between the lines of Chinese newspapers. I remember, too, naturally disbelieving the propaganda of Pravda. Walter Cronkite didn’t lie. Maybe the US has always been a horror maker but the sad truth is hitting me today, that the US is no better, maybe even worse than the Russia and China of the past. Yes, we were warned but no one is heeding the warning. May God have mercy on the victims and may God damn the USA.
Avaaz has just launched a new petition to create a no fly zone for Syria, exactly what the Neocons have wanted all along. However, I have just launched a counter petition to persuade them to cancel their petition. Would you want to help me promote this? Here is the link::
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Avaaz_Stop_Avaazs_Neocon_no_fly_zone_for_Syria_petition/
Done
Avaaz’s on-the-ground engagement in Syria has earned the organization its recent fame. Avaaz says it was one of the first NGOs to react to murmurs of rebellion in the country. “Everyone told us that Syria wasn’t going to blow up,” 35-year old Avaaz founder Ricken Patel told me. “We didn’t buy that.” In April 2011, Patel hired a veteran Lebanese activist, 37-year-old Wissam Tarif, to run the Syrian mission.
As for the Tarif fellow:
Wissam Tarif was another one of the original poster boys for the regime change marketing campaign in Syria, launched almost exclusively by public opinion changers, Avaaz in 2011 with a little help from their friends in CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera.
I’d bet Avaaz was created as an ‘astroturf’ operation by the organizers of the Destroy Syria For Israel campaign. Of course I don’t know that as a fact, but that’s where I’d bet my money.
I would make the same bet, and be very confident of the outcome.
As for D Lazare’s comments on the character of Gaddafi and Assad, compared to the recent american presidents, Assad and Gaddafi are the equals of Mother Theresa.
Excellent article. So what can we do to stop this – wait for a draft and then protest? With proxy fighters we will be well into destruction by then?
“Hillary Clinton: Candidate of War”
What can I say besides applauding this as really good.
Americans need to realize that voting for anyone who wants to kill people will lead to more of the same.
If you think that a warmer, more crowded, more inequitable planet will be a better place with a president who kills then you are also part of the problem.
To TRUTH FIRST: Amen. I am in total agreement with your incisive, succinct opinions.
Well, that certainly precludes Ariel Sharon and Bibi Netanyahu, doesn’t it?
The so-called “debates,” along with the Twittering, et cetera, sound like schoolyard scrapping between juveniles:
“did so; did not” “am not; are so” “you lie; do not” “she called me names; did not” “you’re a lunatic; am not; yes you are, am not”
“he pushed me; did not” “look what he caused; she’s making that up” “I hate you; good!” “her fault; is not”
To moderator Chris Wallace, Questions for the next debate;
> would either of you two candidates continue the Pentagons policy of providing air support for ISIS?
> would imposing a ‘no fly zone’ over Syria be legal, considering Syria is a sovereign nation and we are not invited to fight alongside them?
> with the U.S. bombing several Middle Eastern nations over the last 15 years, and killing countless civilians, would not the U.S. be guilty of war crimes since Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia and Syria of committing war crimes for doing what the U.S. has been doing for over a decade?
> would either of you as president create a plan for what kind of government would replace the Assasd government in Syria if it should fall? Would Syria not just become another Libya?
> will either of you as president explain to the American people that we are now supporting the same Al-Qaeda who we are told was responsible for 911?
And lastly a question for Mr Trump;
> How exactly does one grab a pussy?
Joe, all great questions…but for the last one. You comedic devil ! But seriously, we can only hope that some of those questions are asked…. I would really like to hear Clintons lies …and obfuscation .
The Israeli Mossad was responsible for 9-11.
Just as one grabs a bowling ball.
Daniel Lazare, I eagerly await your follow-up article about how you can’t trust one word Trump says or promise that Trump makes to keep us out of war. Certainly you can’t believe Trump won’t do the opposite of what he says he’s going to do (or not do). Just like he’s the opposite of who he pretends to do? Are you that Hillary-obssessed and -blinded NOT to follow up with a DONALD TRUMP – CANDIDATE OF WAR article?
I thought so.
The way you talk, I’m surprised you’re not a Trump fan.
From a former classmate of Trump’s at the New York Military Academy:
“…another former classmate, Peter Ticktin, who today runs a law firm, had this to say about the man in a Facebook post on March 4, 2016:
As a law firm, we at The Ticktin Law Group do not like to get involved in politics. As soon as we endorse one side, we risk alienating everyone on the other side. Also, our lawyers and staff are, themselves, on both sides. Politics is not our game. However, Justice is! If you saw a guy get publicly smeared, and you knew him well from the days you were friends and seniors together in high school, if you knew him to be a decent and honest man, would you want to say something? This is why I need to share what I know.
Mr. Ticktin goes on to write about the man as follows:
“(He) was my captain, and I was his 1st Platoon Sergeant. I sometimes joke that I ran his first company for him, Company “A.” People don’t really change much from the ages of 17 and 18, and I know this guy. I know him to be a good decent guy. We lived and breathed an Honor Code in those years. It wasn’t just a rule. It was our way of life.
and
“Of the 99 guys (no girls in those days) in our class, there is not one who I know who has a bad word to say about (him).”
Backwards, thanks for sharing your experience while at the Military Academy and your Captain. What with all the BS from the media, and the deserters within the Republican ranks…. Mr. Trump is a threat to the political games they play and they are afraid he’ll win the election. Their self interests are evident…. there’s no Semper -Fi in their ranks.
I just wish someone on TV could say what’s really been going on lately but they need their jobs just like everyone else. Actually saying what’s real would be career suicide and we have to turn to and support these independent blogs just so we don’t get overwhelmed with constant propaganda. When younger I couldn’t foresee the demise of the US in my lifetime but now I’m not so sure and am glad I have no children to worry about. I do hope the psychos in the beltway don’t destroy everything that is good about the human race as there actually are some good qualities of good peaceful people worth saving and the future children of our species. So thanks for all the good essays on this site and I’ll keep reading until I can’t or am vaporized and right now I’m not sure which will come first.
My friend do not be naive, the people on tv are just reading what is put in front of them, what you hear is not coming from them, they have a piece in their ear, and are told when to change the subject, some are personalities specifically to fool us, so we think they are independent, Alas the criminals have been successful, because they have most effective propaganda machine that any movement has had in history, “The media”
“At the time of decadence bases prosper; at the time of progress nobles prosper”
Don’t remember who said that.
Hey man, got any good weed?
Daniel mentions ISIS fighters making perfect targets while crossing miles of open desert in 2015. That brings to mind how months earlier we began to be shown long convoys of beige Toyota trucks full of ISIS fighters entering one town or another. I remember wondering at the time why a few A-10s were not dispatched to strafe these sitting-duck convoys. Were we holding back on purpose?
#IamSyrian
We are all syrians now ………
Two years ago, “Majd” wrote these words on a Facebook posting:
“I am Syrian… living in Syria in the middle of everything. We have seen horrors. It was never a revolution nor a civil war. The terrorists are sent by your [governments]. They are al Qaeda, Jabhat al Nusra, Wahhabi Salafists, Talibans, and the like extremists sent by the West and the Saudis and Qatar and Turkey. Your Obama and whoever is behind him or above him are supporting al Qaeda and leading a proxy war on my country. We thought you are against al Qaeda and now you support them. The majority here loves Assad. He has never committed a crime against his own people… . The chemical attack was staged by the terrorists helped by USA and UK etc.. everyone knows that here. American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country. Every massacre has committed by them. We were all happy in Syria; we have free school and university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF- controlled bank, no state owned central bank which gives 11% interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank. Life before the crisis was so beautiful here. Now it is hard and horrific in some regions. I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my country who has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda . These animals slit throats and behead for pleasure… they behead babies and rape young kids. They are satanic. Our military by the [help of] millions of civilian militias are winning the battle against al Qaeda..but now the U.S. want to bomb the shit out of us so the al Qaeda can get the upper hand . Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government. Impeach that bankster puppet ape you have as president… support Ron Paul or Rand or anyone the like who are true American patriots. but be sure of one thing: if they attack and I think they will … it will be hell. Be sure that it be world war and many many will die. Syria can and will defend itself and will sink many U.S. ships. Iran will go to war; Russia and China eventually if it escalates… and all this what for? For the elites who created al Qaeda through the U.S. government and use it to conduct proxy wars and destabilize countries who do not go along with their new world order agenda ?!! American people…you gotta regain control of your once admirable country. Now everyone hates you for the death you bring almost everywhere. Ask the Iraqis…the Afghans…the Pakistanis…the Palestinians…the Syrians…the Macedonians and Serbs…the Libyans…the Somalis…the Yemenis ….all the ones you kill with drones everyday. Stop your wars. Enough wars. Use diplomacy..dialogue…help..not force.”
Consistent testimonies from Syrians, as well as well-documented, open-source Western sources, and historical memory, all serve to reinforce the accuracy of the aforementioned testimony.
Syrians are living the horror brought to them by the criminal West. They can not afford the complacency of shrugging their shoulders in indecision, not when their lives and their ancient civilization is being threatened by Western-paid terrorist mercenaries of the worst kind.
“Our” proxies, slit throats, chop heads, and take no prisoners as we waffle in indecision, ignore empirical evidence, and take the comfortable easy road of believing the labyrinth of lies promulgated by Western media messaging.
The veil of comfortable confusion, nested in an unconscious belief that our government knows best or that it is patriotic to believe the lies and fabrications implicit in the hollow words of politicians (who no longer represent us) and the false pronouncements of Imperial messengers, is concealing an overseas holocaust.
Western societies are rotting from the inside out because of these lies and this barbarity. We are protecting a criminal cabal of corporate globalists who do not serve our interests and never will.
Our democracies, which we should be protecting, have long disappeared – except in the hollow words of newspaper stenographers. Instead we are supporting transnational corporate elites and their delusional projects.
Poverty and disemployment are all soaring beneath the fakery of government pronouncements, as the public domain evaporates beneath words like “efficiency” or the “economy” — all false covers that serve to enrich elites and destroy us. Internal imperialism at home is a faded replica of the foreign imperialism abroad.
As countries are destroyed, and its peoples are slaughtered — think Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and others — by abhorrent Western proxies — public institutions are contaminated, and ultimately replaced by parasitical “privatized” facsimiles. Public banking is looted and destroyed in favour of transnational banksterism, World Bank funding, and IMF usury. Food security is destroyed and replaced by biotech tentacles and engineered dependencies on cash crops and unhealthy food. Currencies are destroyed, sanctions are imposed, and the unknown, unseen hand of totalitarian control imposes itself, amidst the cloud of diversions and confusions, aided by comprador regimes, oligarch interests, and shrugging domestic populations.
Syria refuses to submit. That is why the West is taught to hate her, and the rest of the world learns to love and respect her.
Yet, Syria’s struggles are our struggles. Syria represents international law, stability, and integrity: the same values that western peoples overtly cherish but stubbornly reject, as our countries wilt beneath suffocating veils of lies and delusions.
I support Syria, because I respect what remains of international law.
I support Syria because I reject Wahhabism, Sharia law, and terrorism.
I support Syria because I reject the undemocratic, transnational oligarchies that are subverting our once flourishing, now dead, democracies.
I reject the lies of our propagandizing media, the hollow words of our politicians, and the fake “humanitarian” messaging that demonizes non-belligerent countries and their populations.
In the name of justice, humanity, and the rule of law, I support the elected government of Syria led by its President, Bashar al-Assad. Syria, an ancient cradle of civilization, is leading the way towards a better future for all of us.
All we have to do is open our eye
Beautiful! Your comment is a sincere and well-justified enhancement to Lazare’s statement of fact. They go together. They should be required reading for all Western policy-makers.
Some of us Americans know the truth of what you speak, and are doing our best. We love our country but are ashamed of what our government is doing. Stay strong.
Holding back? Hell, we paid for the trucks! There’s that famous quote about war being God’s way of teaching Americans about geography. PLEASE, anyone who wants to understand, please look at a map. The ONLY way in or out of these terrorist enclaves is across borders which belong to our ALLIES. These terrorists are American owned and operated proxy mercenaries. They could have been wiped out in 2012 by simply cutting their Turkish supply lines across the Jarablis Corridor. As Tony Cartalucci points out, the difficulty our government has is not explaining the truth, but continuing to try and hide it. Every terrorist incident is hyped up for all it’s worth – for the purpose of convincing the public that that the “war on terror” is real. It isn’t. We are using these medieval butchers as a strategic asset, even if they occaisionally bite the hand that feeds them. That’s the revelation Lt. General Michael Flynn exposed when he said, “It was a conscious decision.” But Americans still don’t get it.
American owned and operated to be sure…as you state, groups of mercenaries were allowed to flouriish, aided and abetted as strategic assets. It’s really dirty and it’s really wrong. But after Fallujah, is anyone still surprised?
Of course, they are our terrorists, Trump said it best, Syria, Iran, and Russia are fighting these terrorists, we are just providing air cover for the head-choppers, Trump, good, bad or ugly will expose Hillary’s masters, that is the reason they are doing everything possible to derail him, Trump has not killed a single fly in his life , Killary Rotten Clinton has killed thousands including Americans, wake America and smell the coffee
Bart… yes ,I wondered about that also. With all the satellites and drones we have, how can this have possibly happened. It seems obvious…the US neocons wanted to let ISIS take as much ground as possible. Months later …the Iraq[‘s having regrouped and counterattacking ISIS had reported several instances of seeing helicopters dropping supplies in ISIS held territory. What a wonderful Govt. we have….rife with Neocons and warmongers.
Naaaaahh, Bart, of course not!
While Hillary Clinton acts as though she cares about all of us, here’s a look at her real, not-ready-for-primetime character:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2016/04/hillary-clinton-children-and-law.html
One of Ms. Clinton’s personality traits tells her that she must “win at any cost” no matter how it impacts the lives of others.
Your lack of understanding or more likely lack of knowledge of what a criminal defense attorney is sworn to do is caused by, what? Your bias? Total ignorance? Total lack of curiosity? However you come by it, honestly or dishonestly, your ignorance is complete.
Defense attorneys do indeed have the job of rolling around in the mud with the worst of humanity. It can be an ugly job
When one of them laughs about keeping a rapist – one they believed to be guilty – out of prison, that’s a step too far.
Hillary begged to get that case so she could impress her superiors as to what an evil, lying, conniving, overambitious little POS she is. Typical lawyer.
Excellent Summation on what is happening. I believe we have powerful war criminals in positions of power. Yet:
“Despite all the evidence that wars were planned on Iraq, Libya, Syria and other countries, the war criminals are still free. There are numerous sources available on these planned crimes against humanity.” See more at link below:
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/10/why-are-war-criminals-still-free.html
It’s unfortunate that the author feels he must preface his comments about regime change with the seeming obligatory labeling of Gadaffi as “a grotesque goon,” and even worse comparing President Assad to the mafia. Neither charge is accurate, In fact.Syria was by far the most progressive nation in the Arab world and a model of religious harmony still unparalleled in the region before the war began in 2011 It is sufficient to say that both nations, along with other secular nationalist regimes in the Nassar tradition, were targeted long ago by the neo-cons of the New American Century simply because of their friendly relationship with the Soviets, now with Russia, or their insistence in remaining neutral during the cold war..
No matter what anyone says Trump won that debate, and it came as a total surprise considering he once again was losing republican support for his adolescent banter at 59, which was caught on tape and released just prior to it. Actually I got much more upset when I read on this site that the Washington Post published a piece on Carl Gershman’s desire to overthrow Putin, whose ideas could push our world into oblivion. Of course mainstream media supports this kind of talk and never confronts it, but dirty talk makes their heads spin. And I’m not even a Trump supporter, but I’m absolutely not a Clinton supporter either, nor do I support the punditocracy that operates solely in the interest of corporate America and the politicians who push their agenda which is what this presidential election cycle has been all about, and in plain sight.
I consider the “debates” to be nothing but staged programs and haven’t watched them. Hence, I can’t comment on winner or loser.
But, I agree with ANNIE on the rest of her thought.
Above is a response to previous article.
Great article, and speak the truth about that horrible witch. I always thought the Clintons were the most amoral murderous family in Washington’s history.
Dar, your knowledge of American history is either nonexistent, stupidly incomplete, or just ordinarily ignorant.
So the Clinton’s are the good guys??
Your right Truth, there’s a lot of ignorance in most comments. The Clintons are a big part of the problem but nowhere the worse. It diverts attention from problem.
Why did you feel compelled to chide Dar in such an uncalled-for way? Dar is absolutely correct in that evaluation of the evil Clinton family. They are satanic, self-centered, murderous creatures who should be arrested, tried, and hung in a public place over every NWO, Zionist television channel. Anyone who feels any differently should hang along with them.