STOP THIS WAR

US Forces

The war mongering and trigger happy craze of the United States of America has been too expensive for the entire world.

That crude oil is selling for around US$100 per barrel is the result of the adventures of the US and its surrogate Israel in the Middle East in the 1970s.

Today, the people of Asia are continuing to pay the price for US aggression in Vietnam and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Palestine also is paying a huge price for the adventures of the United States of America and Israel in the Middle East the Persian Gulf.

In Africa the United States of America and its allies have virtually reduced the prosperous State of Libya to rubble and they are seriously meddling in Mali, The Central African Republic Equatorial Guinea and Sudan.

Even in Europe the masses are increasingly growing worried about the US secret services and their intrusion into their private affairs.

What is shocking is that in spite of the suffering the US has already imposed on peoples of the world, it is busily planning to launch a senseless war on Syria..

In our view, there can be no justification for any aggression against the Syrian people and it is the responsibility of all peace loving people of the world to resist the attempt to wage war on Syria.

What the Syrian people need is peace and not more bombs.

Let’s act together to stop this useless and senseless war.

The Broader Stakes of Syrian Crisis

By Ray McGovern

Amid the increased likelihood that President Barack Obama will cave in to pressure from foreign policy hawks to “Libya-ize” Syria and to accord Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the same treatment meted out to Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi, the main question is WHY? Obviously, there is concern about the human rights catastrophe in Syria, but is the main target Syria’s main ally, Iran, as many suspect?

Surely, the objective has got to be more than simply giving Secretary of State John Kerry a chance to brag, in the manner of his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, regarding Gaddafi, “We came, we saw, he died.” And, there is little expectation – however many Cruise missiles the United States fires at Syrian targets in a fury over disputed claims about chemical weapons – that lives are likely to be saved.

So, what are Iran’s new leaders likely to see as the real driving force behind Obama’s felt need to acquiesce, again, in a march of folly? And why does it matter?

Iran’s leaders need not be paranoid to see themselves as a principal target of external meddling in Syria. While there seem to be as many interests being pursued – as there are rag-tag groups pursuing them – Tehran is not likely to see the common interests of Israel and the U.S. as very complicated. Both appear determined to exploit the chaotic duel among the thugs in Syria as an opportunity to deal a blow to Hezbollah and Hamas in Israel’s near-frontier and to isolate Iran still further, and perhaps even advance Israel’s ultimate aim of “regime change” in Tehran.

In the nearer term, are the neocons in Washington revving up to nip in the bud any unwelcome olive branches from the Iran’s new leaders as new talks on nuclear matters loom on the horizon?

The Not-So-Clean Break

“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a policy document prepared in 1996 for Benjamin Netanyahu by a study group led by American neocons, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, laid out a new approach to solving Israel’s principal security challenges. Essentially, the point was to shatter the frustrating cycle of negotiations with the Palestinians and instead force regime change on hostile states in the region, thus isolating Israel’s close-in adversaries.

Among the plan’s features was “the containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting their possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’” The following “Clean-Break” paragraph is, no doubt, part of the discussion in Iran’s leadership councils:

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]

Against this background, what is Iran likely to think of the two-year old mantra of Hillary Clinton, repeated by Obama that “Assad Must Go?” Or what to think of Obama’s gratuitous pledge a half year later, on Super Bowl Sunday 2012, that the U.S. will “work in lockstep” with Israel regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Assuming they checked Webster’s, Iran’s leaders have taken note that one primary definition offered for “in lockstep” is: “in perfect, rigid, often mindless conformity or unison.”

In that pre-game interview, Obama also made the bizarre charge that the Iranians must declare, “We will pursue peaceful nuclear power; we will not pursue a nuclear weapon.” In actuality, Iran has been saying precisely that for years.

Still more odd, Obama insisted, “Iran has to stand down on its nuclear weapons program.” The Israelis could hardly have expected the President to regurgitate their claims about Iran working on a nuclear weapon, but that is what he did – despite the fact that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had said on TV just four weeks before that Iran was NOT doing so.

Of course, Panetta was simply reiterating the consensus conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that declared in 2007 that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and that it did not appear that such work had resumed.

And even if you don’t want to believe the U.S. intelligence community and Panetta, there was the acknowledgement by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Israeli intelligence had reached the same judgment. Barak gave an interview on Jan. 18, 2002, the day before JCS Chairman Martin Dempsey arrived for talks in Israel:

“Question: Is it Israel’s judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: … confusion stems from the fact that people ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now … in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case. …

Question: How long will it take from the moment Iran decides to turn it into effective weapons until it has nuclear warheads?

Barak: I don’t know; one has to estimate. … Some say a year, others say 18 months. It doesn’t really matter. To do that, Iran would have to announce it is leaving the [UN International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection regime and stop responding to IAEA’s criticism, etc.

Why haven’t they [the Iranians] done that? Because they realize that … when it became clear to everyone that Iran was trying to acquire nuclear weapons, this would constitute definite proof that time is actually running out. This could generate either harsher sanctions or other action against them. They do not want that.”

So, for those of you just now joining us, Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon ten years ago. That is the unanimous judgment expressed by all U.S. intelligence agencies “with high confidence” in 2007, and has been revalidated every year since. Thus, Israel’s aim can be seen as “regime change” in Tehran, not the halting of a nuclear weapons program that stopped ten years ago. (It should be noted, too, that Israel possesses a sophisticated and undeclared nuclear arsenal that President Obama and other U.S. leaders have politely refused to acknowledge publicly.)

No one knows all this better than the Iranians themselves. But, for Israel, Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani poses a more subtle threat than the easier-to-demonize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The more moderate and polished Rouhani – IF he can calm those Iranians who consider Washington a Siamese twin to Tel Aviv – may be able to enter renewed talks on the nuclear issue with concessions that the West would find difficult to refuse.

This would rattle the Israelis and the neocons in Washington who must be pining for the days when Ahmadinejad made it easier to mask the very real concessions made while he was president. Israeli and neocon hardliners have amply demonstrated that – despite their public face – they have little concern over Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program. Quite simply, they would like to get the U.S. to do to Iran what it did to Iraq. Period.

Israel Riding High Again

Dealing with more moderate leaders in Iran remains one of Israel’s major headaches, even as Israel has ridden a string of geopolitical successes over the past several weeks. First and foremost, the Israelis were able to persuade Washington to represent the military coup d’état in Cairo as something other than a military coup, which enabled U.S. military and other aid to keep flowing to the Israel-friendly Egyptian military.

After shielding this blood-stained Egyptian military from geopolitical pressure, Israel was rewarded by the generals’ decision to choke off Gaza’s lifeline to the outside world via Egypt and thus further punish the Gazans for having the temerity to elect the more militant Hamas as their leadership.

With the Palestinians reeling – as their international backers face internal and external pressures — Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has found it timely to return to the bargaining table to discuss what undesirable land might be left for the Palestinians to live on as Netanyahu’s government continues to approve expansions of Jewish settlements on the more appealing patches of Palestinian territory.

The Israeli position vis a vis its Muslim adversaries is also improved by the spreading of sectarian conflicts pitting Sunni vs. Shiite, a rift that was turned into a chasm – and made much bloodier – by the neocon-inspired U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Now, similar divisions are shattering Syria in a chaotic civil war with the growing likelihood that the Obama administration will soon weigh in militarily against the Alawite-dominated regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is being challenged by a Sunni-led rebellion. Alawites stem from the Shiite branch of Islam and Assad is allied with Shiite-ruled Iran.

The more the Sunni and Shiite are fighting each other – and thus expending their resources on internecine warfare – the better for Israel, at least in the view of neocon hardliners like those who crafted Netanyahu’s “clean-break” strategy in the 1990s. That strategy would see the snuffing out of the Syrian regime as a signature accomplishment.

Hardliners on Both Sides

As these regional pressures build, Westerners tend to forget that there is a hard-line equivalent in Tehran with whom Rouhani has to deal. The hardliners in Tehran believe, with ample justification, that many American officials have the virus that George Washington so pointedly warned against; i.e., a “passionate-attachment” to a country with priorities and interests that may differ from one’s own country – in this case, Israel.

The Iranian hawks do not trust the U.S. especially on the nuclear issue, and developments over recent years – including statements like President Obama’s cited above – feed that distrust. So, President Rouhani faces tough sledding should he wish to offer the kinds of concessions Iran made in the fall of 2009 and spring of 2010, when Ahmadinejad’s government offered to export much of its low-enriched uranium.

That promising beginning was sabotaged in October 2009 when, after Iran had agreed in principle to a deal involving the shipping of two-thirds to three-quarters of it low-enriched uranium out of country, a terrorist attack killed five generals of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, just before the talk to flesh out that deal. A similar deal was worked out with the help of Turkey and Brazil in early 2010 (with the written encouragement of President Obama) only to fall victim to Secretary of State Clinton and other hawks who preferred the route of sanctions.

As if the prospect of U.S. military involvement regarding Syria was not delicate enough, the hardliners in Tehran are bound to make hay out of two major stories recently playing in the U.S. media.

The first is a detailed account of precisely how the CIA and British Intelligence succeeded in 1953 in removing Iran’s first democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installing the Shah with his secret police. A detailed account was released responding to a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive. Much had been already known about the coup, but the play-by-play is riveting and, presumably, highly offensive to Iranians.

The second exposé came in a detailed report published by Foreign Policy Magazine on Monday entitled: “CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran.” This account, replete with declassified CIA and other documents, will likewise be a highly painful reminder of the troubled past and great grist for those Iranians bent on exposing U.S. treachery.

In sum, the Foreign Policy report by Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid provides a wealth of detail on how Washington was aware that the Iraqis were using mustard and Sarin nerve gas in their war with Iran in the 1980s, and nonetheless enabled the Iraqis to use it to maximum effect by providing all manner of intelligence, including up-to-date information from satellites.

The nerve gas, in particular, was effective in thwarting the last major Iranian offensives and left thousands dead. The impression given by the documents is that toward the end of the war, Iran had the upper hand and may have ultimately prevailed were it not for Washington’s precise intelligence support for Iraq and blind eye to the first major use of chemical warfare since it was banned after World War I.

A CIA memo dated Nov. 4, 1983, is titled “Iran’s Likely Reaction to Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons” included this paragraph: “Iran is unlikely to be deterred from pursuing the war because of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. … Iran will be forced to adjust its military tactics and acquire additional protective gear but it will continue to launch attacks on Iraq. We have no evidence that Iran has lethal chemical agents or that it is making an effort to acquire any.”

These will be very painful reminders of the tragic history of Iranian-American relations and seem bound to make negotiations even more difficult.

10 chemical attacks US tends to ignore

 By Wesley Messamore

Washington doesn't merely lack the legal authority for a military intervention in Syria. It lacks the moral authority. We're talking about a government with a history of using chemical weapons against innocent people far more prolific and deadly than the mere accusations Assad faces from a trigger-happy Western military-industrial complex, bent on stifling further investigation before striking.

Here is a list of 10 chemical weapons attacks carried out by the U.S. government or its allies against civilians. 

1. The U.S. Military Dumped 20 Million Gallons of Chemicals on Vietnam from 1962 - 1971 

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military sprayed 20 million gallons of chemicals, including the very toxic Agent Orange, on the forests and farmlands of Vietnam and neighboring countries, deliberately destroying food supplies, shattering the jungle ecology, and ravaging the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Vietnam estimates that as a result of the decade-long chemical attack, 400,000 people were killed or maimed, 500,000 babies have been born with birth defects, and 2 million have suffered from cancer or other illnesses. In 2012, the Red Cross estimated that one million people in Vietnam have disabilities or health problems related to Agent Orange.

2. Israel Attacked Palestinian Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2008 - 2009 
White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary chemical weapon that melts human flesh right down to the bone. 

In 2009, multiple human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and International Red Cross reported that the Israeli government was attacking civilians in their own country with chemical weapons. An Amnesty International team claimed to find "indisputable evidence of the widespread use of white phosphorus" as a weapon in densely-populated civilian areas. The Israeli military denied the allegations at first, but eventually admitted they were true. 

After the string of allegations by these NGOs, the Israeli military even hit a UN headquarters(!) in Gaza with a chemical attack. How do you think all this evidence compares to the case against Syria? Why didn't Obama try to bomb Israel? 

3. Washington Attacked Iraqi Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2004

In 2004, journalists embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq began reporting the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah against Iraqi insurgents. First the military lied and said that it was only using white phosphorus to create smokescreens or illuminate targets. Then it admitted to using the volatile chemical as an incendiary weapon. At the time, Italian television broadcaster RAI aired a documentary entitled, "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre," including grim video footage and photographs, as well as eyewitness interviews with Fallujah residents and U.S. soldiers revealing how the U.S. government indiscriminately rained white chemical fire down on the Iraqi city and melted women and children to death. 

4. The CIA Helped Saddam Hussein Massacre Iranians and Kurds with Chemical Weapons in 1988
CIA records now prove that Washington knew Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons (including sarin, nerve gas, and mustard gas) in the Iran-Iraq War, yet continued to pour intelligence into the hands of the Iraqi military, informing Hussein of Iranian troop movements while knowing that he would be using the information to launch chemical attacks. At one point in early 1988, Washington warned Hussein of an Iranian troop movement that would have ended the war in a decisive defeat for the Iraqi government. By March an emboldened Hussein with new friends in Washington struck a Kurdish village occupied by Iranian troops with multiple chemical agents, killing as many as 5,000 people and injuring as many as 10,000 more, most of them civilians. Thousands more died in the following years from complications, diseases, and birth defects. 

5. The Army Tested Chemicals on Residents of Poor, Black St. Louis Neighborhoods in The 1950s 

In the early 1950s, the Army set up motorized blowers on top of residential high-rises in low-income, mostly black St. Louis neighborhoods, including areas where as much as 70% of the residents were children under 12. The government told residents that it was experimenting with a smokescreen to protect the city from Russian attacks, but it was actually pumping the air full of hundreds of pounds of finely powdered zinc cadmium sulfide. The government admits that there was a second ingredient in the chemical powder, but whether or not that ingredient was radioactive remains classified. Of course it does. Since the tests, an alarming number of the area's residents have developed cancer. In 1955, Doris Spates was born in one of the buildings the Army used to fill the air with chemicals from 1953 - 1954. Her father died inexplicably that same year, she has seen four siblings die from cancer, and Doris herself is a survivor of cervical cancer. 

6. Police Fired Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in 2011 

The savage violence of the police against Occupy protesters in 2011 was well documented, and included the use of tear gas and other chemical irritants. Tear gas is prohibited for use against enemy soldiers in battle by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Can't police give civilian protesters in Oakland, California the same courtesy and protection that international law requires for enemy soldiers on a battlefield? 

7. The FBI Attacked Men, Women, and Children With Tear Gas in Waco in 1993 

At the infamous Waco siege of a peaceful community of Seventh Day Adventists, the FBI pumped tear gas into buildings knowing that women, children, and babies were inside. The tear gas was highly flammable and ignited, engulfing the buildings in flames and killing 49 men and women, and 27 children, including babies and toddlers. Remember, attacking an armed enemy soldier on a battlefield with tear gas is a war crime. What kind of crime is attacking a baby with tear gas? 

8. The U.S. Military Littered Iraq with Toxic Depleted Uranium in 2003 

In Iraq, the U.S. military has littered the environment with thousands of tons of munitions made from depleted uranium, a toxic and radioactive nuclear waste product. As a result, more than half of babies born in Fallujah from 2007 - 2010 were born with birth defects. Some of these defects have never been seen before outside of textbooks with photos of babies born near nuclear tests in the Pacific. Cancer and infant mortality have also seen a dramatic rise in Iraq. According to Christopher Busby, the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, "These are weapons which have absolutely destroyed the genetic integrity of the population of Iraq." After authoring two of four reports published in 2012 on the health crisis in Iraq, Busby described Fallujah as having, "the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied." 

9. The U.S. Military Killed Hundreds of Thousands of Japanese Civilians with Napalm from 1944 - 1945 

Napalm is a sticky and highly flammable gel which has been used as a weapon of terror by the U.S. military. In 1980, the UN declared the use of napalm on swaths of civilian population a war crime. That's exactly what the U.S. military did in World War II, dropping enough napalm in one bombing raid on Tokyo to burn 100,000 people to death, injure a million more, and leave a million without homes in the single deadliest air raid of World War II. 

10. The U.S. Government Dropped Nuclear Bombs on Two Japanese Cities in 1945 

Although nuclear bombs may not be considered chemical weapons, I believe we can agree they belong to the same category. They certainly disperse an awful lot of deadly radioactive chemicals. They are every bit as horrifying as chemical weapons if not more, and by their very nature, suitable for only one purpose: wiping out an entire city full of civilians. It seems odd that the only regime to ever use one of these weapons of terror on other human beings has busied itself with the pretense of keeping the world safe from dangerous weapons in the hands of dangerous governments.
Originally posted at www.policymic.com 

Syria: Right to protect or right to bomb?

A victim of Syria rebel attack

By Yuram Abdullah Weiler

 “Our military has positioned assets in the region. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose. ... And I'm prepared to give that order.”

- US President Barack Obama. 

The responsibility to protect (R2P) is a principle of international law established by the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit, where government leaders unanimously agreed that “each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” 

If a state fails to protect its own citizens from such horrors, R2P implies a collective responsibility of humanitarian intervention upon other agencies. However, the United States, in furtherance of its global agenda, has usurped this principle to justify unilateral military action, which effectively transforms R2P into what one might call R2B, the right to bomb. And this is exactly what is happening in the case of Syria. 

US President Barack Obama is ready to bomb Syria over an alleged chemical attack, but not with the goal of regime change, mind you, only to give President al-Assad a slight slap on the wrist with a few dozen cruise missiles delivered by US naval assets already positioned in the Mediterranean. 

“The American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military,” acknowledges the arrogant commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military, yet he feels no need for authorization from the UN or his own congress to carry out what journalist Pepe Escobar has called “Tomahawk diplomacy.”

“I'm confident in the case our government has made without waiting for UN inspectors. I'm comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council,” he declared. “I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization,” he added haughtily. 

Then, after displaying his complete distain for international law, he asked self-contradictorily, “If we won't enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules?” Judging by Obama’s non-reaction to the Egyptian army’s recent coup against the democratically-elected president, one must conclude that American resolve depends heavily on the status of the flouter within the US-imposed international pecking order. 

While the United States continues to accuse the Syrian government of carrying out chemical attacks in suburbs of Damascus, evidence to the contrary appears to be accumulating, with doctors, local residents and rebels reporting that chemical weapons were supplied by Saudi Arabia to al-Qaeda-linked militants. 

Another report implicates Colorado Springs, Colorado-based defense contractor TechWise and the US Department of Defense in planning the chemical operations. Recent revelations of shocking atrocities committed by foreign-backed militants in Syria demonstrate that the cancer of terrorism is metastasizing, but US Secretary of State John Kerry optimistically insists that these “bad guys” only constitute 15 or 20 percent of the “oppositionists.” 

All of this is happening against a bloody backdrop of ever-expanding, externally-fueled conflict raging since March 2011, which has resulted in over 100,000 lives lost and nearly 7 million displaced: almost 5 million within Syria and over 2 million outside. 

Clearly, the crisis in Syria begs for humanitarian intervention, but one must ask how would a cruise missile attack by the US have an ameliorating effect? It would seem obvious that such action would only aggravate an already grave situation.

While Obama himself conceded that “Syria’s conflict has no military solution,” and that “we reaffirm our commitment to seek a peaceful political settlement,” he is nevertheless determined to launch cruise missile strikes on Syria. This is while he plans “to provide support to address the growing humanitarian needs in Syria and their impact on regional countries,” which his missile assault will surely aggravate. 

Questioning the rationale of bombing Syria, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul remarked, “We are told there is no military solution in Syria, yet we are embarking on a military solution. ... To be sure, there is a tragedy of a horrific nature in Syria, but I am unconvinced that a limited Syrian bombing campaign will achieve its intended goals.” 

Pointing out the rather obvious consequences, the senator added that the attack “may increase instability in the Middle East and may draw Russia and Iran further into this civil war.” 

Louisiana Senator David Vitter concurring with Senator Paul, wrote, “U.S. military action could spark a broader war, and it could potentially entangle us in Syria's protracted civil war where elements of the opposition are even worse than the Assad regime.” 

By demonizing President Bashar al-Assad, the US has attempted to justify its unilateral military intervention under the guise of humanitarian intervention, but most of the world is not buying Washington’s bill of goods this time around. China’s President Xi Jinping, urging against taking military action, said, “A political solution is the only right way out for the Syrian crisis, and a military strike cannot solve the problem from the root.” 

At the G20 Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin unequivocally declared, “The alleged chemical weapons use in Syria is a provocation carried out by the rebels to attract a foreign-led strike.” Out of the major economic powers, only Turkey, Canada, Saudi Arabia and France appear willing to go along with the US warmongering; the rest are firmly opposed to a strike on Syria. 

The US even tried to bribe Russia into withdrawing its support for President al-Assad by having its Saudi client withhold oil to keep market prices above $100 per barrel. However, if Moscow refused to accept the generous offer, which was relayed by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, hints were made by him concerning the possibility of Chechen militant groups threatening security at the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. Russian President Putin turned Bandar down cold, stating emphatically, “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters,” referring to one of the recent atrocities committed by Wahhabi militants. 

One staunch supporter of US military action is, of course, the Zionist regime, which is backing Obama’s limited strike approach to the Syrian situation in hopes that neither the rebel forces nor President al-Assad will prevail. Bluntly explaining Tel Aviv’s Kissinger-like position in the conflict, former Zionist entity consul general Alon Pinkas said, “Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.” 

The Zionist political arm in the US, AIPAC, also has gone into lobbying overdrive, insisting, “The civilized world cannot tolerate the use of these barbaric weapons, particularly against an innocent civilian population including hundreds of children.” To clarify, AIPAC is referring here to the chemical weapons allegedly used in Syria, not the Tomahawk cruise missiles about to be unleashed upon the Syrian civilian population by the US at the behest of its Zionist ally. 

Meanwhile, no sooner had the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution approving a military strike on Syria, when Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama called upon the Pentagon to expand its target list. With four Tomahawk cruise-missile-carrying Arleigh Burke-class destroyers already deployed in the Mediterranean and the USS Nimitz with its nuclear-capable F/A-18E Super Hornets along with three additional missile cruisers on their way from Bahrain, the US commander-in-chief and primary Potomac prevaricator appears to have more in mind than mere humanitarian intervention in Syria. 

“What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price,” Obama asked rhetorically in his address on August 31. Is he not aware that the US has already sent a very loud and clear message that if the dictator is an asset, he can use lethal nerve gas with Washington’s full backing, as recently declassified documents show? With the Reagan administration’s approval and intelligence assistance from the CIA, Saddam used deadly mustard and sarin gas in the 1980s against Iranians and Iraqi Kurds in some of the worst chemical attacks in history. Incidentally, while the Geneva protocol banning chemical warfare was introduced in 1925, the US did not sign it until 50 years later.

Concluding his impassioned plea for action against Syria while reminding any potentially errant nation who calls the shots, the Pennsylvania Avenue potentate averred, “But we are the United States of America, and we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus. Out of the ashes of world war, we built an international order and enforced the rules that gave it meaning.” So we see that a Tomahawk cruise missile strike on Syria is a small but necessary part of enforcing the rules of the US-imposed system of international order that we hope to see rapidly unravel. 

Putin warns against 'illegal' military action in Syria

Russian President Putin

Russia needs convincing proof, not rumors, from UN experts that chemical weapons were used in Syria, said the Russian president in an interview with First Channel and AP. It is up to the UN Security Council to decide on the next course of action, he said.

Speaking to journalists from Russia’s state Channel 1 television and Associated Press, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of decisive statements regarding the supposed use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, which evoked a threat of a US-led strike on Syria. 

“We believe that at the very least we should wait for the results of the UN inspection commission in Syria,”Putin said, adding that so far there is no information about what chemical agent exactly was used in the attack in Damascus’ suburbs and who did it. 

“I’ve already said I find it absolutely ridiculous that [Syrian] government’s armed forces, which today are actually on an offense mission and in some regions have already encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off, that the Syrian army has used prohibited chemical weapons,” Putin said.

“They know all too well that this could become a cause for sanctions and even for a military operation against them. That’s stupid and illogical.” 

“We proceed from the assumption that if anyone has information that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regular army, then such proof must be presented to the UN Security Council and the UN inspectors,”Putin said, stressing that the proof must be “convincing” and not based on “rumors” or any sort of“eavesdropped intelligence data,” conversations etc. 

“Even in the US there are experts who question the reliability of the facts presented by the administration. These experts do not exclude the possibility that the Syrian opposition has conducted a pre-planned provocation in order to give their sponsors a reason for military intervention,” he acknowledged.

Putin says he “does not exclude” that Russia may agree with a military operation if it is proved that the Syrian government is behind the attack, however he emphasized that in accordance with international law a decision of the UN Security Council is needed for that.

“All other reasons and means that excuse using military force against an independent sovereign state are unacceptable and cannot be classified otherwise but as an aggression,” Putin noted. 

“We would be convinced by a detailed investigation and direct evidence of who exactly used chemical weapons and what substances were used. Then we’ll be ready to take decisive and serious action,” said the president.

Answering a question about video records of dead children that allegedly died in the chemical attack in Damascus, Vladimir Putin called the material with dead children “horrible”.

“The questions are what exactly was done and who is to blame. This video does not answer these questions,” Putin said, sharing an opinion that this video is a compilation made by the militants who – even the US acknowledges – have links with Al-Qaeda and are notorious for extreme atrocities.

Putin recommended to pay attention to the fact that in the video with dead children there are no parents, children’s relatives or even medical personnel, while people who do appear in the video remain unidentified. However terrible the picture could be, it cannot be proof of anybody’s guilt, Putin said, and called for investigation of the incident. 

Russia is fulfilling arms contracts with Syria “because we believe that we are working with the legitimate government and we are violating neither international law, nor our obligations,” assured Putin, stressing that the UN had imposed no sanctions on the export of weapons to Syria.

He confirmed that Moscow has a signed contract with Damascus to deliver S-300 air defense missile complexes to Syria. The S-300 system is kind of outdated, said Putin, “though they might be a little better than Patriot missiles.”

Russia already has deployed S-400 and forthcoming S-500 systems, “[and] these are all certainly very efficient weapons,” Putin noted.

“We have a contract to supply S300 missiles, and we’ve already supplied some parts, but not all of it, because we decided to suspend the supplies for a while. But if we see international law being violated, we will reconsider our future actions, including supplies of such sensitive weapons to certain regions of the world,” he promised. 

We are all al-Qaeda now, if Obama says so?

Osama Bin Laden, Alqaeda leader

By Jim W. Dean

 “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. He rots the soul of a nation - he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city - he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.” - Cicero, 42 BC.

The political earth is shifting under our feet here in the US. There is talk now of something that most felt would be a down the road event... that America may be reaching a ‘tipping point’. I define that to mean a much larger number coming to understand that our present form of government has failed us, including the balance of powers doctrine which the Founding Fathers carefully built into our system. 

They did not have a crystal ball, and could not see that outside forces could combine with disloyal, greedy and even treasonous rogue elements inside multiple branches of the our government to literally co-opt the country into being a tool for these outside forces. 

The recent case in Syria of the highly suspicious chemical attack (I am being kind here) has generated the lowest support numbers for American military action that anyone here can remember. But if that was not bad enough the Obama administration made another mistake. 

Their official position was, “We have the power to do it, so it does not matter what the people think.” That was a very dumb move on their part and I think they will look back on it so. 

A two-sided coin seems to be in play here. On June 21st Obama sent a War Powers justification notice to Congress regarding the 700 troops and the missile batteries being sent to Jordan. On June 27th he effectively nullified the War Powers Act by saying he was not going to use it anymore as American constitutional foundations were being undermined by using the act for continual war without Congressional consent. 

A week ago Obama said he would seek UN approval for a Syrian strike, and absent that only a sizable international coalition would make an attack diplomatically justifiable, but said getting that done would be ‘problematic’. Then days later he flips again saying that he has the authority to punish the use of WMD (but not when we, the Israelis or our allies use it). After the US has supported the killing of 100,000 Syrians, countless wounded and 8 million homeless in its disastrous regime-change ploy, we accuse Syria of a horrible crime. 

And now, until he flips again, Obama is saying he wants Congress to have a debate and a vote, but still insists he has the power to launch an attack anyway. Are you getting a bit confused? This all looks like a superpower in panic mode. But why? 

The White House public policy advisers must have rocks in their heads thinking that Americans can’t remember all the juiced up Intel reporting that took us into series of disastrous wars that significantly endangered our national security, and still is. One really has to look back at it all and ask if that was not really their objective. 

Dear Obama policy wonks and CIA people, we remember what a hoax our secret agent ‘Curve Ball’ was, and we don’t believe he scammed you. We think you let yourself be scammed by him as part of your own scam. 

We remember the yellow cake hustle, the sacrificing of Colin Powell, and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld playing used car salesman on CNN while he showed made in Hollywood underground cities that Al-Qaeda had in Afghanistan. Yes... it was all bogus, and we remember. 

People do not think that it was misinformation, but fraudulent evidence use to fool the public, to herd us like lemmings to the sea. Rumsfeld is despised in the military and Intelligence community now, along with Bush and Cheney and the rest of the NeoCon traitors. 

We remember Wolfowitz testifying how two years of Iraqi oil production would cover the entire cost of the Iraq war. I could go on and on but we all know now it was just one long record of failure after failure, except for all the contractor money that was made by all those who thought a multi-decade War on Terror was just wonderful. 

But this week we saw two significant segments of American society begin to awaken from their long slumber, the silent majority and American veterans and their families. Among the roughly 10% of Americans polled who supported an attack on Syria were all the pro-Israel American Jews, and the hard core Christian Zionists. What was missed is that most of the CZ’s seemed to be absent from the pro-military strike numbers. Even their leadership seemed to be keeping their heads down. 

The rank and file military folks, they know they have been misused in the past and are a little more savvy about spotting another bogus national security threat being used as a cover for something else. 

They sense the justification for a Syria attack as part of America’s post Soviet collapse continuation of commercial wars to secure and protect markets for multinational corporations, thus reducing the American people to plantation livestock and military cannon fodder. 

They are seeing an insider government rogue element intermarriage with these supra-multinational corporations, including the banksters, as the most dangerous national threat that America has been facing. They are of course 100% right. 

When Obama used Vietnam anti-war veteran John Kerry to trot out that pitiful excuse for evidence that Syria would pull a chemical weapons attack in areas where their ground forces had been succeeding, he shot himself in the foot. Absent was any mention of motivation, or the already known Intel of the rebels having chemical weapons and having used them. 

Obama has now aligned himself with the depredations of the Bush II regime. His administration is now being viewed as a national security threat in itself. Obama, the Brits and the French have all been quiet on the major terrorism operations being run out of Saudi Arabia by Prince Bandar. They have murdered more people in Syria than were lost in New York City on 911. Syria has been getting the ‘911 treatment’ once a month, compliments of the protector of the free world. 

Those who conspired to bring this about are guilty of crimes against humanity under international law. The charge is simply conspiracy to commit terrorism, and taking direct action to effect such. This is like... a really really big crime. The last time I looked, diplomatic immunity did not protect you from that. 

The world knows now that the ‘Iran has nuclear weapons’ scare was all hype, created to build support for a hope for strike against Iran. The economic consequences of that misadventure would have tanked the world economy. What people, what nation would want to risk such a financial catastrophe when we have learned that the world financial system is a house of cards, constructed as such to benefit the few at the expense of the many? 

The only entities who would be from such a disaster would be those who could profit from it. Why do some multinational corporations have intelligence capabilities that surpass many countries? Why does one of the major Internet companies have a paramilitary division, getting secret government contracts, including running assassination teams, unbeknownst to their shareholders? Do you think they are doing this for some public interest, or perhaps their own? 

We must do more than just stop this contrived attack on Syria. We must break the machine the planned and pushed for it. We have to dig down to the bedrock and pull our home grown deeply embedded national security threats out by the roots. We must do this to defend ourselves. They have already killed us, on 911, and gotten away with it. That makes them extremely dangerous. 

The phony war machine crowd will be cranking up their Congressional lobbyists this next week. The American public will need to put the fear into their Congressmen like they have never seen before. And we have to up the stakes for this fight. We have to start dialing back on where a penetration into the White House could then trigger a phony war based on phony Intel. And we have to clean out Israeli espionage in Congress as it is a constant knife to the throat of our country. 

And we might want to put the Jim Dean trump card down on the table... no more internal investigations, period, as they are not worth spit. It makes no difference if they are military, Justice Dept, White House, FBI, CIA, or NSA. They can all be rigged via high level political obstruction of justice. Yes, we have knowledge of many FBI Israeli espionage investigations being stopped due to one call from the White House, which is nothing more than high treason. 

We need a fourth branch of government whose sole job is to ride herd and root out corruption and treason in government, all branches of it. And such a fourth branch has to be answerable only to the people, where no political entity has veto power. 

Only then we will be able to go down to the bedrock, and disinfect our house, and only then will we ever have any national security in any sense of the word. The only good thing that can come out of all this Iran/Syrian phone threat scam is that we use it as a launching pad to restart America all over again. 

Our Intel files hold almost everything needed to prosecute the massive criminal empire that is protected by the highest political powers, because they are partners. They have all the bank transactions, all the emails, phone calls... and data mining can deliver them to the prosecutors offices on a conveyor belt. 

We must make a pledge to each other that Syria is the last time we are going to let them pull this crap on us again. Large numbers of people in our government know who all the real bad guys are, but they aren’t telling. They are afraid. 

We are going to have to figure out how to bring them over to our side or they will continue to make us all al-Qaeda funders and affiliates. God help us all... to save us from these barbarians in suits. 

US diabolical design for Syria

US sponsored terrorists in Syria

By Dr. Ismail Salami

Politically entrenched in a self-made predicament, US President Barack Obama is going through tough times these days regarding Syria.

Those whom he thought would unconditionally support him in launching an invasion of Syria and ridding the West of Bashar al-Assad and installing a West-friendly puppet in the country have turned their backs on him. The President has now no choice but to wait for the formal report the UN would release on Monday to expose the real culprit behind the use of chemical weapons in Syria which reportedly killed 1,500 people, among them, women and children. 

But does it really matter what the UN report would be? 

Obama has already said that beyond a reasonable doubt, Assad is to blame for the chemical massacre and any claim to the contrary would be bizarrely detrimental to the interests of Washington. 

Besides, war-thirsty Obama may have to wait until September 9 when the Congress recess is over. But what of that? He has already said he does not need anyone else's permission though he'll go to Congress for approval before launching a strike against Syria. 

"While I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger ... and our actions will be even more effective" if the strike is authorized by Congress,’ Obama said Saturday in a televised address from the Rose Garden.

Whilst the Western media are brandishing the blade of blame at the Syrian government, other independent sources claim the rebels are to blame as they improperly used the chemical weapons provided to them via Saudi intelligence boss and mastermind of political mayhem in the region Bandar bin Sultan AKA Bandar Bush. 

According to a recent report published by Mint Press News, the rebels and local residents in Syrian Ghouta claim that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan is behind providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaeda-affiliated group. 

Certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta, says, “My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry.” 

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside a weapons tunnel provided by a Saudi militant known as Abu Ayesha. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.” Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. 

“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.” 

In consideration of the fact that the government of Assad could possibly reap no benefits in using chemical weapons on its own civilians, it would be a rather fair judgment to believe that the Takfiris fighting against the government of Assad and who have a long history of brutalities from beheading the Syrians to eating their innards would be held accountable for the chemical attacks. Former US congressman Ron Paul also believes that a chemical attack in Syria was a “false flag” likely carried out by the US-backed militant groups. 

“We are not really positive who set off the gas,” Paul, a long-time Republican representative from Texas, said during a Fox News interview filmed Wednesday. 

“The group that is most likely to benefit from that is al-Qaeda. They ignite some gas, some people die and blame it on Assad,” he noted.

A recent US report called ‘Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013’ sheds no new light on the chemical attacks in Syria; rather, it is to be considered but a flagrant declaration of war against the sovereignty of Syria. 

In this grotesquely engineered report, the United States Government “assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting. Our classified assessments have been shared with the US Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence but what follows is an unclassified summary of the US Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place.” 

Interestingly, most of US reports are based on the reports of intelligence bodies rather than actual facts and that’s exactly where the problem arises. And this one is no exception. All wars fought by Washington in the name of democracy and fighting terrorism have been waged on the strength of the reports released by American spy apparatus. 

At any rate, this entire claim stands in need of reasonability and is far removed from the realities on the ground. 

In a similar strain, Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said during an address to the students of the Moscow State University of International Relations on Monday, said, “What our American, British and French partners have shown us before - as well as now - does not convince us at all. There are no supporting facts. There is only repetitive talk in the vein of ‘we know for sure.’ And when we ask for further clarification, we receive the following response: ‘You are aware that this is classified information, therefore we cannot show it to you.’ So there are still no facts.” 

Ironically, the US report says, “We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack.” How can the report question the capability of the ‘opposition’ while they are well-provided, well-funded and well-financed thanks to the generosity of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the West? 

Though confronted by critics of war, Obama does not seem willing to stand back and discount this potential casus belli to start a war to the full satisfaction of Tel Aviv. 

Be that as it may, the US is beefing up its military presence and preparing for an invasion of Syria. On Friday, the USS San Antonio, an amphibious US warship with hundreds of US Marines on board, joined five US destroyers armed with cruise missiles in the eastern Mediterranean. According to Reuters, the sixth warship has received orders to remain in the eastern Mediterranean after it passed through the Suez Canal on Thursday from the Red Sea. 

In the final analysis, one can say that nothing may stop Washington from embarking on another military expedition in the Middle East in order to expand its sway in the region on the one hand and to curtail the political muscle of its archenemy Iran on the other. However, the situation has changed politically and barely does anyone buy the fabricated narrative the West presents to the world regarding Syria. 

Yet, in all this murky diabolical design is some degree of pleasant optimism: Washington no longer enjoys the support of other Western countries in its military adventurism. It should act solo. 

The US is desperately alone now. 

After Iraq, US plans to save Syria!

 

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein

By Anthony Mathew Jacob

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Mathew 7: 3-5, Bible).

Well, the peace loving US plans to attack Syria, ostensibly to save the Syrians! The US it seems is very concerned about the use of deadly gases and according to Washington, President Bashar al-Assad has been responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians at the hands of the armed forces. 

The US regimes have a legacy of saving the whole world through their humanitarian efforts; they did that in Korea, China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Lebanon, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Libya and Iraq. 

Their humanitarian efforts (through drones) continue till date in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Nobel laureate President of the US now wants to save the innocent people in Syria just as his predecessor George W. Bush saved the Iraqis and the whole world from the Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam supposedly possessed.

Why Syria? 

Syria has suffered brutal violence since 2011, more than 100,000 people have lost their lives and a million more are struggling with widespread violence. The economy, homes, family and lives of millions of Syrian are at stake. Since 2011, Western powers and Israel with the help of their regional allies namely Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are funding and training the militants operating inside Syria. 

The Western media has tried to portray this as a fight between the civilians and the Assad regime, but evidence suggests that the ongoing violence is unleashed by al-Qaeda and its affiliate organizations along with the so called Syrian opposition. 

According to intelligence reports terrorists from around 30 countries are fighting to topple the current Syrian regime. 

The main reason behind targeting Syria is its opposition to the American domination in the Middle East and Israeli occupation of Palestine. Damascus has openly voiced its opposition to the Israeli oppression in Palestine and called for an end to it. 

A careful observation of the events unfolding since the past few months will help join the puzzle, Iran is under sanctions on fabricated charges of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, Iraq is facing a deadly sectarian violence, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been declared a terrorist organization and Syria is facing both internal and external threats. 

On the other hand, nations like Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey who are slaughtering human rights and butchering freedom of speech are supported by the US, Israel and other western powers. Thanks to American foreign policy the real dictators in the Middle East now want to save the Syrians from dictatorship. 

Obama and the war rhetoric 

The most generous and peace loving man on earth, wants to bring peace to Syria. Barack Obama, yes the very president who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2009 is lobbying for intervention in Syria. Ironically, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him for his "extraordinary efforts" to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee it seems announced the award citing Obama's promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and a "new climate" in international relations fostered by Obama, especially in reaching out to the Muslim world. God bless the Nobel committee and the Nobel laureate. 

Since the last few days, the US threats of military intervention in Syria went crescendo after the deadly gas attack on Damascus suburbs killed around 400 people. The US, Israel and other western powers have claimed that the gas attack was used by the Syrian regime while the Syrian regime and human rights activists around the world have blamed it on the militants operating in Syria and the western backed Syrian opposition. 

Washington claims to possess all the necessary evidence to prove that the Damascus regime used Sarin gas on the attack on 21 Aug. Both, the US President and Secretary of State are vigorously lobbying for Syria strikes. However there are a lot of discrepancies in their so called ‘classified intelligence.’ 

Firstly, the number of casualties given by Kerry was 1,429 while the British assessment put the figures at 350 on the other hand a Syrian opposition source namely Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the figures at 502. Finally Obama rounded off the figure at 1,000. 

Gas attack 

While the US is drumming around with the gas attack story, many experts have questioned the veracity of the sources they claim to have collected data and the samples they claim to have collected. Meanwhile, Russia has openly rejected US "evidence" on Syrian regime’s involvement on 21 Aug gas attack. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said: "While the use of chemical weapons in Syria must be investigated, Western powers were jumping to accuse President Bashar Assad's regime without proof and out of personal dislike for the Syrian leader. [The] West is unable to present evidence of the involvement of the Syrian authorities in chemical attacks, but states that 'red line' in situation has been passed." 

Despite all the western hype of gas attack by Assad, the Syrian opposition forces have admitted to have carried out the gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus and the western media has deliberately ignored this important news.

“From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,……The father of a rebel who was killed in what's now being called an accident by many in Ghouta and Damascus said: "My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim. The father said at least 12 rebels including his son were killed by the chemical weapons." 

Even the US intelligence community has denied having concrete evidence to pin Assad to the gas attack. An intelligence source speaking to The Associated Press said that the evidence against Assad is "not a slam dunk" while the New York Timesreported on 29 August that the US officials have no "smoking gun" evidence to nail Assad to the chemical attacks. 

The US evidence that Assad carried out the gas attack is just like the evidence they presented on Saddam possessing the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). A decade has gone by but the so called WMD's were never discovered. Today the Iraqi nation lies shattered and destroyed as a result of greed, propaganda and lies… the same story, same greed, lies and propaganda is being repeated in Syria…The US just refuses to learn from its past mistakes in the Middle East and the world. 

Not just the US, even its allies in the Middle East are happily continuing on their march towards tyranny, oppression and bloodshed. It's time that they realized the consequences of what they are doing and planning to do, for as Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) says: "Whoever does evil, will suffer its recompense in this very world."