Guy, do u knw dat, u can nt settle wit ur fwnd? U can only settle wit ur enemy, 2 rongs can neva make a right, diplomacy is best way of solving syria pro.

mubalex50: Guy, do u knw dat, u can nt settle wit ur fwnd? U can only settle wit ur enemy, 2 rongs can neva make a right, diplomacy is best way of solving syria pro.

Where did these crop of writers spring from? I just had a major headache trying to read some meaning to what you wrote up there.

I don't think US is really keen on any military intervention now but they may intensify dissident sponsors increase sanctions.
In the event of US attack, there is absolutely nothing russia and china would do. Russia only said any attack would be catastrophic to the region not would be resisted or retaliated.
Germany, france and this same russia shouted more than this before iraqi invasion and I thought they were going to take action but for wia, dem just gentle.
Even recently, an american whistle blower snowden told of how america was spying on its allies in europe and instead of the europeans to protect him, they didn't clear the plane of a whole bolivian president I think from flying in their airspace so as to search the plane for the snowden guy. The plane landed in austria eventually but even germany that was allegedly spied on by america collaborated with them to try and retrieve the spy.
All these so called super powers are not super. Even though I'm not quick to admit it, only america is the super power now.

Horus:

Warmonger!, the war will spread to all neighbouring countries and more innocent Childrens will dies.

hmm see you.. Even without usa intervention the war is already spreading to neighbour countries I.e lebanon was bomebed some days ago.. Using of Chemical is banned by the International Body, in which Syria has break the law, if nothing happen then that means the Law is Useless, Bokoharams can used it on our People and go free, other terrorist organisation can use it also.. And go free...

deeptesting:

I totally agree with you,I feel the decision for a military intervention by U.S, UK and France is hasty and miscalculated. The UN Security Council is the only body that can authorize a military intervention in the face of any violation of its charter by any party...The U.S intervention will only lead to more civilian casualties and stretch the already over stretched region with refugees and spread of extremist from Arab nations against U.S and Israeli interest....My expectation was to see a more restricted use of weapons and a no fly zone....They have to allow the UN inspectors to conclude their investigation and any military intervention without the vote of the UN Security Council is a violation of the sovereignty of Syria.

yess you are right my bro.. But what really happens is that, U.S thought UN officials has already know the truth but they refused to say it, they were looking for a peaceful way to stop the War.. And in which it will take forever, Because both Assad Regime and the Free soldiers is not ready to bow for each other, in meanwhile one of them must surrender or they should meet each other demands, U.S intervention on Assad regime will work on The free Soldier favour..

So how can we make money from this?

Naija_lastborn: yess you are right my bro.. But what really happens is that, U.S thought UN officials has already know the truth but they refused to say it, they were looking for a peaceful way to stop the War.. And in which it will take forever, Because both Assad Regime and the Free soldiers is not ready to bow for each other, in meanwhile one of them must surrender or they should meet each other demands, U.S intervention on Assad regime will work on The free Soldier favour..

I absolutely I agree with you but I have refused to support U.S military intervention because of the past experiences we have had in Libya, Tunisia and now Egypt....The U.S should explore the U.S of sanctions and no fly zone and other measures that will gradually cripple the military power and economy of the Syrian nation rather than a direct military intervention or arming of a terrorist group called rebels or Free Syrian soldiers....Syrians should be allowed to solve their problems, all the crisis in the Middle East today is a conspiracy by the west to destabilize the region in the interest of Isreal. We need peace in the world.

A boiling middle east is good for business for Africa's energy supply to the world. Suez canal will be shut down and all manner of trade will be hampared. The only sad part will be the unnecessary loss of life in the course of this collision by world powers.

US should thread with caution else strikes on Syria based on supposed evidence of WMDs risked repeating the mistake the United States made in Iraq in 2003. And this will be devastating to the economy and intia more chaotic unrest within the region.

Breaking News: Obama backs down, sends Kerry to talk to Russia

http://app.debka.com/p/article/23230/Obama-says-no-decision-yet-on-strike-on-Syria-DEBKA-He-stalls-for-deal-with-Putin-on-softened-strike

At the same time, the White House suddenly appeared Wednesday night to be engaging in maneuvers for buying time and holding up military action against Syria, after the armies of the Middle East and half of Europe were already standing ready after completing massive war preparations.
One such maneuver was a leak from White House sources about a delay in releasing to America and the world the promised evidence of Assad’s culpability in the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. It was postponed because “the report was not yet ready.”

Another were grumbles from the president’s circle that President Obama had found himself jammed in an awkward timeline generated by his foreign travel schedule – he is due to take off next Wednesday, Sept. 4, for Sweden on his way to the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg of Sep. 5-6.
This left the optimal dates for his decision to go through with the attack as Friday night, early Saturday, Aug. 31 or after Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 2.

Although Obama appeared still to be standing by that decision, debkafile’s Washington and Moscow sources disclose he has applied the brakes on the momentum for its implemention to buy time for US Secretary of State John Kerry to wind up secret negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and strike a deal: The US would soften its military action against the Assad regime and his army and reduce it to a token blow, after which the American and Russian presidents would announce the convening of Geneva-2 to hammer out a solution of the Syrian crisis and end the civil war.

Naija_lastborn: what big mistake?? keep calm and watch innocent Childrens blood spilt?? for how long will the war continue?? Somebody must stand up and put End to it. Kudos to Obama and the western Power house....

+1000

Hezron Lorraine: When a Giant wakes up,someone must go into hiding.

Assad always seemed peaceful before the Arab Spring.The devil in him was awakened and now countless of Syrian Citizens are wasted.

Let's watch once more and see who proves again to be the Conquerer of the World.

Yes,Russia is a Chicken.

Assad is the devil we see.

Naija_lastborn: hmm see you.. Even without usa intervention the war is already spreading to neighbour countries I.e lebanon was bomebed some days ago.. Using of Chemical is banned by the International Body, in which Syria has break the law, if nothing happen then that means the Law is Useless, Bokoharams can used it on our People and go free, other terrorist organisation can use it also.. And go free...

If using of chemical is banned by the International Body why do Americans used it in Vietnam?. Who have the largest chemical-weapons stockpile on the planet?. The U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in its war against Iran throughout the 1980s, they supplied him with intelligence about what Iranian targets to hit with the chemical weapons. The U.S. then proceeded to block Iranian attempts to bring a case against Iraq to the United Nations. CONCLUSION: The pot calling the kettle black

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-29/russia-dispatches-sub-cruiser-uk-sends-6-jets-cyprus-china-repeats-dire-consequences


Russian news service Interfax is citing military sources as saying Moscow is dispatching an anti-submarine ship and a cruiser to the Mediterranean. Interfax says the moves are being made due to the "well-known situation" there -- referring to the Syria crisis. But a Russian government news service, Rianovosti, says the reassignments are part of a planned rotation and aren't linked with the situation in Syria.

This comes as the US decided to postpone the pullout of its Nimitz aircraft carrier which is near the Straits of Hormuz currently, and which was supposed to return home. The Navy has ordered the Nimitz, which is in the Indian Ocean, to stay for now.

Finally, keeping things exciting, China reiterated that the West should stay the hell out. SCMP reports:
Chinese state media warned the West against strikes on Syria on Thursday as momentum mounted for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to be punished over an alleged chemical weapons attack.

In an editorial headed “No excuse for strikes”, the state-run China Daily said the US and its Western allies were “acting as judge, jury and executioner”.

“Any military intervention into Syria would have dire consequences for regional security and violate the norms governing international relations,” it said, adding such a move “will only exacerbate the crisis and could have unforeseen and unwelcome consequences”.

Making a comparison with the war in Iraq, it said the international community should not allow “itself to be led by the nose by US intelligence, which after all was responsible for claiming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction”.

The foreign ministry has advised any Chinese citizens in Syria to leave as soon as possible, and recent media reports from China's First Financial Daily have revealed that Chinese entrepreneurs and businessmen working in Syria have begun pulling out of the country.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Syria surnamed Feng told First Financial Daily reporters that major Chinese-funded enterprises remaining in Syria were few, and most would "soon withdaw or reduce staff".

So with the unscheduled early pullout of UN inspectors from Syria on Saturday morning as was reported earlier, we know the who, we know the how, and just may have learned the when.


MOD front page!!

Horus:

If using of chemical is banned by the International Body why do Americans used it in Vietnam?. Who have the largest chemical-weapons stockpile on the planet?. The U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in its war against Iran throughout the 1980s, they supplied him with intelligence about what Iranian targets to hit with the chemical weapons. The U.S. then proceeded to block Iranian attempts to bring a case against Iraq to the United Nations. CONCLUSION: The pot calling the kettle black

QFT!!

[size=14pt]Debunking the "U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013"[/size]

Eric Draitser

StopImperialism.com


The document http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/USGassessmentonSyria08302013.pdf entitled “U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013”, released in tandem with public statements made by Secretary of State John Kerry, is merely summary of a manufactured narrative designed to lead the US into yet another criminal and disastrous war in the Middle East. Having been released prior to even preliminary reports from UN chemical weapons investigators on the ground in Syria, the document is as much a work of fiction as it is fact.

It begins with the conclusion that “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.” Naturally, one would immediately wonder how such a conclusion was reached when even the expert investigators on the ground have yet to conclude their own study. If these experts with years of training in the field of chemical weapons, toxicology, and other related disciplines, have yet to make such a determination, it would seem more than convenient that the US has already reached this conclusion.

Moreover, based on its own admissions as to the sources of this so-called “intelligence”, very serious doubt should be cast on such a dubious government report. The document explains that:

These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open-source reporting…In addition to US intelligence information, there are accounts from international and Syrian medical personnel; videos; witness accounts; thousands of social media reports from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area; journalist accounts; and reports from highly credible non-governmental organizations.


First and foremost, any critical reading of this document must begin with the notions of “human intelligence” and “witness accounts”. Such terminology indicates that the US is simply basing pre-conceived conclusions based on rebel sources and the much touted “activists” who seem to always be the sources quoted in Western media reports. Secondly, it is obvious that US officials have cherry-picked their eyewitness accounts as there are many, from both sides of the conflict, which directly contradict this so-called high-confidence assessment.

As reported http://landdestroyer..com/2013/08/syrians-in-ghouta-claim-saudi-supplied_29.html in the Mint Press News by Associated Press reporter Dale Gavlak, Syrians from the town of Ghouta – the site of the chemical attack – tell a very different story from the one being told by the US government. Residents provide very credible testimony that “certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.” What makes such testimony even more compelling is that it comes from anti-Assad Syrians, many of whom have seen their children die fighting Assad’s forces. One of the Ghouta residents described his conversations with his son, a fighter tasked with carrying the chemical weapons for the Nusra Front jihadi group, who spoke of Saudi-supplied weapons being unloaded and transported. His son later was killed, along with 12 other rebels, inside a tunnel used to store weapons.


Prince Bandar bin Sultan seen here commiserating with his fellow war criminal George W. Bush. Prince Bandar earned himself the nickname "Bandar Bush" because of his close friendship with both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as well. Educated in the US, Bandar has long been understood to be the intermediary between Washington and Riyadh.


It is essential to also dispute the very notion that “social media reports” constitute credible evidence to be used in making a case for war. It is a long-established fact that US and other intelligence agencies are able to manipulate twitter, Facebook and other social media in whatever way they see fit. As the Guardian reported back in 2011:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda…each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history, and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations ‘without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.’


Essentially then, the United States is using social media, a system over which they have control, to justify their pre-fabricated war narrative. Additionally, the idea that videos constitute a shred of evidence is laughable. As any investigator can tell you, videos are easily manipulated and, even if they are untouched, they cannot be used to assess the culprit of a crime. Videos merely show what is visible, not the underlying motives, means, and opportunity – all part of genuine investigation.

Finally, one must feel serious apprehension at the idea of journalist reports as being part of this pastiche called a “high confidence assessment,” for the simple reason that Western coverage of the conflict in Syria is mostly coming from journalists outside the country or those already sympathetic to the rebel cause. Whether they are paid propagandists or simply convenient tools used as mouthpieces of the corporate media, their reports are highly suspect, and certainly should have no role in shaping war-making policy.

It is critical to examine the “intelligence information” referred to in the assessment. It would seem that, according to the document itself, much of the case for war is based on human intelligence. Many news outlets have reported that the entire case against Assad is being based on an intercepted phone call provided to US intelligence by none other than the Israelis. Israel, with its long track record of fabricating intelligence for the purposes of war-making, is not exactly a neutral observer. As one of the principal actors in the region calling for the overthrow of the Assad government, Tel Aviv has a vested interest in ensuring a US intervention in Syria.

The ardently pro-Israel FOX News reported that:

The initial confirmation that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack Aug. 21 came from a tip from the Israeli intelligence service…a special unit of the Israeli Defense Force – an intelligence unit that goes by the number 8200…helped provide the intelligence intercepts that allowed the White House to conclude that the Assad regime was behind the attack.

It would seem rather convenient that one of the primary beneficiaries of a war to topple Assad would be the primary source of the sole piece of evidence purportedly linking Assad to the attack. If this strikes you as at best a flimsy pretext for war, you would be correct.

The assessment also outlines the way in which Washington arrived at its conclusion that Assad carried out the attacks. The document states:

We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely. The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition.

In analyzing the above excerpt, it should be immediately clear to anyone who has been following events in Syria closely, that this conclusion is based on faulty premises and outright lies. First, the idea that it is “highly unlikely” that the chemical attack was carried out by the opposition is an impossible assertion to make given that there is abundant evidence that the “rebels” carried out chemical attacks previously. As the widely circulated video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Iqns5xeoYk showing rebels mounting chemical weapons onto artillery shells demonstrates, not only do they have the capability and delivery system, they have a significant supply of chemicals, certainly enough to have carried out the attack. Moreover, the multiple massacres carried out by Nusra Front and other extremist rebel factions demonstrates that such groups have no compunction whatsoever about killing innocent civilians en masse.

As for the claim that the US has based their conclusions at least in part on “the regime’s preparations for this attack”, this too is a dubious assertion simply because there has been no evidence provided whatsoever to support it. Ostensibly, the United States would like international observers to “take their word for it” that they have such evidence, but the fragile public simply cannot be allowed to see it. More echoes of Bush’s lies before the Iraq War.

And the so-called “post-attack observations” are again suspect because, as I have previously noted, the US has not bothered to wait for the results of the UN chemical weapons investigation. Therefore, these observations could only come from anti-Assad sources on the ground or international observers not present at the site who merely repeat the same information fed to them from those same anti-regime sources.

As if intended as a cruel joke to the reader, the document points out that, despite the claim that this is an irrefutable, evidence-based assessment, it is in fact based on nothing but hearsay and rumor. Buried at the end of the first page is the most important quote of all:

Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation [emphasis added].

So, the US is supposed to make war on a country that has not attacked it or any of its allies based on admittedly unconfirmed evidence? This would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly outrageous and criminal.

The “U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013” is a poorly constructed attempt to justify the politically, militarily, and morally unjustifiable war against Syria. It relies on lies, distortions, and obvious propaganda to create the myth that Assad is the devil incarnate and that the US, with its clear moral high-ground, must take it upon itself to once again wage war for the sake of peace. Nothing could be more dishonest. Nothing could be more disgusting. Nothing could be more American.


Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. He is the founder of StopImperialism.com and a regular contributor to CounterPunch, RT, Global Research, and a number of other news outlets.

NATO Using Al Qaeda Rat Lines to Flood Syria With Foreign Terrorists


2007-2008 US West Point reports reveal Al Qaeda network behind NATO's so-called "freedom fighters." Extremists in Syria were behind Iraq War foreign terrorist influx, not Syrian government.

by Tony Cartalucci

October 25, 2012 - The discredited and now obscure, defected Syrian ambassador Nawaf Fares, had claimed mid-summer of 2012 that the Syrian government had been behind the influx of foreign terrorists that entered Iraq during the later phases of the US-British occupation of Iraq. These terrorists took part in campaigns of sectarian-driven violence that divided and destroyed an already devastated Iraq. Fares spectacularly claimed that he himself was involved in organizing terrorist death squads in a hamhanded attempt to implicate the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

What Fares actually revealed however, was an invisible state within Syria, one composed of Saudi-aligned, sectarian extremism, operating not only independently of the government of President Assad, but in violent opposition to it. This "state-within-a-state" also so happens to be directly affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, the leading forces now fighting in Syria with significant Western-backing against the Syrian government.

The documented details of this invisible terror state were exposed in the extensive academic efforts of the US Army's own West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). Two reports were published between 2007 and 2008 revealing a global network of Al Qaeda affiliated terror organizations, and how they mobilized to send a large influx of foreign fighters into Iraq.


Image: Cover of the US Army's West Point Combating Terrorism Center report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111001074/West-Point-CTC-s-Al-Qa-ida-s-Foreign-Fighters-in-Iraq" The report definitively exposed a regional network used by Al Qaeda to send fighters into Iraq to sow sectarian violence during the US occupation. This exact network can now be seen demonstrably at work with NATO support, overrunning Libya and now Syria. The terrorists in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi that US Ambassador Stevens was arming http://landdestroyer..com/2012/10/dead-us-ambassador-documented-creation.html, is described by the 2007 West Point report as one of the most prolific and notorious Al Qaeda subsidiaries in the world.
....

The first report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111001074/West-Point-CTC-s-Al-Qa-ida-s-Foreign-Fighters-in-Iraq" was extensively cited by historian and geopolitical analyst Dr. Webster Tarpley in March of 2011 [url]http://tarpley.net/2011/03/24/the-cia%E2%80%99s-libya-rebels-the-same-terrorists-who-killed-us-nato-troops-in-iraq/[/url], exposing that NATO-backed "pro-democracy" rebels in Libya were in fact Al Qaeda's Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by the US State Department
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/counter-terrorism/proscribed-terror-groups/proscribed-groups?) as an international terrorist organization.

The West Point report exposed Libya as a global epicenter for Al Qaeda training and recruitment, producing more fighters per capita than even Saudi Arabia, and producing more foreign fighters than any other nation that sent militants to Iraq, except Saudi Arabia itself.


Image: Libya, despite its relatively small population, came in second overall, producing foreign fighters to wage sectarian war in Iraq. Libya exceeded all other nations per capita in producing foreign fighters, including Al Qaeda's primary patrons, Saudi Arabia. These diagrams were produced by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, on pages 8 and 9 of its "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" report.
....

But Libya's foreign fighters weren't drawn equally from across the nation. They predominately emanated from the east (Cyrenaica), precisely where the so-called 2011 "pro-democracy revolution" also began, and where most of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's attention had been focused over the course of at least three decades, fighting militant extremists. The cities of Darnah, Tobruk, and Benghazi in particular fielded the vast majority of foreign fighters sent to Iraq and also served as the very epicenter for the 2011 violent, NATO-backed uprising.


Image: (Left) West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's 2007 report,"Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" indicates that the vast majority of Al Qaeda terrorists arriving in Iraq from Libya, originated from the country's eastern region, and from the cities of Darnah and Benghazi in particular. (Right) A map indicating rebel held territory (red) during Libya's 2011 conflict. The entire region near Benghazi, Darnah, and Tobruk served as the cradle for the so-called revolution. The US government is just now revealing the heavy Al Qaeda presence in the region, but clearly knew about it since at least as early as 2007, and as other reports indicate
http://landdestroyer..com/2011/08/confirmed-libya-war-is-cia-op-30-years.html, decades before even that.
....

Clearly, the US military and the US government were both well aware of the heavy Al Qaeda presence in Cyrenaica since as early as 2007. When violence flared up in 2011, it was clear to many geopolitical analysts that it was the result of Al Qaeda, not "pro-democracy protesters." The US government, its allies, and a complicit Western press, willfully lied to the public, misrepresented its case to the United Nations and intervened in Libya on behalf of international terrorists, overthrowing a sovereign government, and granting an entire nation as a base of operations for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

A similar scenario is now playing out in Syria, where the West, despite acknowledging the existence of Al Qaeda in Benghazi, Libya, is using these militants, and the exact same networks used to send fighters to Iraq, to flood into and overrun Syria. This, after these very same Libyan militants were implicated in an attack that left a US ambassador dead on September 11, 2012.


Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as "foreign invasion."
....


LIFG terrorists are veritably flooding into Syria from Libya. In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, "Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group," would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey," said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. "Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there."

Another Telegraph article, "Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels," would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya's new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.

"There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists
http://www.albawaba.com/news/libyan-fighters-join-free-syrian-army-forces-403268 would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and have been flooding into the country ever since.


Image: (Left) West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's 2007 report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" also indicated which areas in Syria Al Qaeda fighters filtering into Iraq came from. The overwhelming majority of them came from Dayr Al-Zawr in Syria's southeast, Idlib in the north near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border. (Right) A map indicating the epicenters of violence in Syria indicate that the exact same hotbeds for Al Qaeda in 2007, now serve as the epicenters of so-called "pro-democracy fighters."
....

In Syria, the southeastern region near Dayr Al-Zawr on the Iraqi-Syrian border, the northwestern region of Idlib near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border, produced the majority of fighters found crossing over into Iraq, according to the 2007 West Point study.

These regions now serve as the epicenter for a similar Libyan-style uprising, with fighters disingenuously portrayed as "pro-democracy" "freedom fighters." These are also the locations receiving the majority of foreign fighters flowing in from other areas described in the 2007 report, mainly from Saudi Arabia via Jordan, and from Libya, either directly, through Turkey, or through Egypt and/or Jordan.

[img]http://1.bp..com/-tu4Ju5QcChI/UIhlNcg8SKI/AAAAAAAAEpM/09DJnubA2rY/s1600/MiddleEast_SyriaIraqAlQaeda_Diagram.jpg[/img]
Image: The most prominent routes into Syria for foreign fighters is depicted, with the inset graph describing the most widely used routes by foreign fighters on their way to Iraq, as determined by West Point's 2007 Combating Terrorism Center report "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" (page 20). These same networks are now being used, with the addition of a more prominent role for Turkey, to target Syria directly. (Click to enlarge)
....

The 2007 West Point report also describes the routes taken by the fighters entering Iraq. The most prominent routes by far were from Syria itself, the Libya-Egypt-Syria route, the Saudi Arabia-Syria route, and the Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Syria route. These routes are clearly being used yet again, only this time, instead of sowing sectarian violence and destabilization in Iraq, these foreign fighters, with NATO backing, are targeting Syria directly.

Subversion of Syria was Planned by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in 2007.

While many Western think-tank documents, including the joint US-Israeli "Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm" recognized Syria as a threat to corporate-financier hegemony throughout the Middle East and beyond, it wasn't until at least 2007 that a fully articulated plan was developed for actually rolling back or eliminating Syria as a viable, independent nation-state.

The specific use of Al Qaeda-affiliated militant organizations, not just inside Syria, but from across the region was a key component of the plan, revealed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker report titled, "The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism? http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all"

In the report it specifically stated:

"To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

Hersh's report would continue by stating:

"the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

The link between extremist groups and Saudi funding was also mentioned in the report, and reflects evidence presented by the West Point CTC indicating that the majority of fighters and funding behind the sectarian violence in Iraq, came from Saudi Arabia. Hersh's report specifically states:

"...[Saudi Arabia's] Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

Despite the narrative repeated by the Western press, it would appear that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia above all others, constitute the greatest purveyors of state-sponsored terrorism. Furthermore, it would appear that the most feared and notorious international terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, and its various affiliates including the Muslim Brotherhood political front, was in fact not only created by the US and Saudi Arabia in the mountains of Afghanistan in the 1980's, but has since then been perpetuated by the US and Saudi Arabia.

Nations accused of coddling Al Qaeda and sponsoring terrorism, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Qaddafi's Libya, have in fact fought the hardest against these extremist forces but have been consistently sabotaged by Western efforts portraying targeted militants as "pro-democracy protesters" as was done in Libya when Qaddafi's forces were at the gates of Benghazi. Similarly, this is being done in Syria today as the government of President Bashar al-Assad fights fiercely against these verified, documented terrorist networks, habitually referred to by the Western press as "freedom fighters" and "pro-democracy rebels."

The Syrian Government's Role in Supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Western press insists that the Syrian government constitutes a threat to international security. It has been implied on many occasions that the Syrian government has been, or still is supporting Al Qaeda. However, what does the West Point Combating Terrorism Center say about the Syrian government's role regarding the influx of foreign fighters into neighboring Iraq during the West's occupation? Or the history of the Syrian government in relation to militant extremist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Al Qaeda itself?


Image: West Point's second report on Al Qaeda's networks used to funnel foreign fighters into Iraq titled, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111004557/West-Point-CTC-s-Bombers-Bank-Accounts-and-Bleedout-al-Qa-ida-s-Road-In," goes deeper in depth into who was really behind the influx of terrorists, how it was accomplished, and a range of options that might be applied to prevent it from happening. The report gives great insight into just how NATO and the Persian Gulf states are using Al Qaeda to now destabilize Syria.
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In a second report, published in 2008 titled, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," a rare and candid history is given regarding the genesis of Al Qaeda and the history it has had in Syria. It includes a revelation that contradicts the talking-points often repeated across Western media in regards to Syrian President Hafez Assad and his crackdown in the 1980's. The media attempts to imply that President Hafez Assad was merely an autocrat and had brutalized civilians for simply rising up against him. The 2008 CTC report however, states (emphasis added):

During the first half of the 1980s the role of foreign fighters in Afghanistan was negligible and was largely un‐noticed by outside observers. The flow of volunteers from the Arab heartland countries was just a trickle in the early 1980s, though there were more significant links between the mujahidin and Central Asian Muslims—especially Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs. Individuals like the above‐mentioned Abu’l‐Walid were recruited in the early years via ad hoc outreach campaigns initiated from within Afghanistan, but by 1984, the resources being poured into the conflict by other countries—especially Saudi Arabia and the United States—had become much greater, as had the effectiveness and sophistication of the recruitment efforts. Only then did foreign observers begin to remark on the presence of outside volunteers.

The repression of Islamist movements in the Middle East contributed to the acceleration of Arab fighters leaving for Afghanistan. One important process was the Syrian regime of Hafez Assad’s brutal campaign against the Jihadi movement in Syria, led by the “Fighting Vanguard” (al‐Tali’a al‐Muqatila) of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The crackdown initiated an exodus of Vanguard militants to neighboring Arab states. By 1984, large numbers of these men began making their way from exile in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan toward southeastern Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. (page 24, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," (2008)

It appears then that Hafez Assad's "brutality" was aimed at sectarian extremists - fanatics that would later form the foundation of Al Qaeda and serve as a force of violence and destabilization throughout the world, with, as mentioned by the West Point CTC itself, resources poured into them, especially from "Saudi Arabia and the United States."

The 2008 report reiterates the importance of Libya's LIFG in regards to the large numbers of fighters it sent to Iraq and its official merging with Al Qaeda, stating:

Today, the LIFG is an important partner in al‐Qa`ida’s global coalition of Jihadi groups. The late Abu Layth al‐Libi, LIFG’s Emir, reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s importance to Libyan Jihadis in his November 2007 announcement that LIFG had joined al‐Qa`ida, saying:

"It is with the grace of God that we were hoisting the banner of Jihad against this apostate regime under the leadership of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sacrificed the elite of its sons and commanders in combating this regime whose blood was spilled on the mountains of Darnah, the streets of Benghazi, the outskirts of Tripoli, the desert of Sabha, and the sands of the beach." (page 38-39, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," (2008)

The report goes on to describe the manner in which these fighters eventually made it into Iraq, all traveling through Syria. The report reveals that it was "coordinators" working with extremist groups in Syria, opposed to the government, not the government itself that was recruiting and arranging transportation for fighters into Iraq. Throughout the report, measures put in place by the Syrian government in fact attempted to stop the flow of fighters through Syrian territory, but were simply ineffective due to the complicated demographics and economic conditions along border regions. The report states:

Syria can almost certainly do more to disrupt the traffic across the border. However, it is unrealistic to expect the regime to expend more energy, given the economic and internal political importance of the underground cross border trade to Syrian social and political leaders, and the inherent limits of the regime’s ability to enforce a crackdown indefinitely. (page 98, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," (2008)

Nowhere in the document is any evidence provided that the Syrian government actively facilitated Al Qaeda and the movement of extremist fighters through Syrian territory. Any help that might have been lent from the government would have come from characters like Nawaf Fares acting independently, whose loyalty was always questionable at best, and who eventually defected to these very extremist groups when fighters finally shifted their attention from Iraq to Syria in 2011.

It is clear that the Syrian government, for decades, has been fighting against sectarian extremism, militant terrorism, and more specifically the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda itself. What the Western press has attempted to portray as an autocratic regime brutalizing a civilian population simply aspiring for "democracy" and "freedom," is in reality a government desperately trying to protect its sovereignty and the vast majority of its population from the ravaging effects of sectarian extremism, previewed during the Iraq "civil war," and now fully realized within the borders of Syria itself.

It was perhaps the compromises made by Syria to placate a perceived "international consensus" in regards to "freedom" and "democracy" that gave militants the foothold they needed to trigger the violence now unfolding across Syria and beyond its borders. It is hoped that by documenting the evidence provided by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, that this wave of terrorism can be better understood and therefore defeated. It is hoped that people both in the United States and in Syria can see what forces among themselves have contributed to the perpetuation of Al Qaeda and its use as a militant proxy, and purge these organizations
http://landdestroyer..com/2011/03/naming-names-your-real-government.html and their ideology permanently from the body politic.


Image: From West Point's CTC report, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," a map indicates the number of total fighters that served as the statistical basis for the center's analysis. It would appear that there are many other potential nations that may yet suffer the fate of Libya and Syria within this network alone. A success in Syria for the West would validate this model for regime change, and surely be tried elsewhere.
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By reading the tremendous body of work provided by the US Army's West Point Combating Terrorism Center's reports, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" and "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," other nations at risk of potentially falling prey to a similar use of Al Qaeda as a proxy serving Western foreign policy, can begin making preparations and raising awareness regarding the truth behind this geopolitical tool.

What's todays date?

citizenisb: http://app.debka.com/n/article/23228/-Partial-Israeli-reserves-call-up-US-beefs-up-Qatar-air-base-Syria-moves-units-into-sheltered-sites

Barring last-minute hold-ups, debkafile’s military sources report the American operation is scheduled to start Friday night, early Saturday Aug. 30-31.

In the past 24 hours, the US Air Force finished a major buildup at the big US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. B-1B bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets were brought over from other US Mid East air facilities on the Omani island of Masirah and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean

These squadrons were not assigned to the US military strike against Syria, say our military sources, but will stand ready to move in should unforeseen complications in the course of the US missile assault on Syria call for the introduction of extra assets from outside.

Vladimir Putin has dismissed as "nonsense" claims that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons and demanded that the United States provide proof.

The Russian President told journalists that if Barack Obama had evidence Bashar al-Assad's forces had the chemical weapons and launched the attack, Washington should present it to the UN weapons inspectors and the Security Council.

Speaking after the US released its intelligence report, Mr Putin said: "I am convinced that it (the chemical attack) is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to drag other countries into the Syrian conflict, and who want to win the support of powerful members of the international arena, especially the United States."