₦airaland Forum

[size=24pt]Nick Turse: The Pivot to Africa[/size]

September 6, 2013

On the startling size, scope, and growth of U.S. military operations on the African continent.

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Image from Flickr via United States Marine Corps Official Page

By Nick Turse
By arrangement with TomDispatch

They’re involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the U.S. military is at work. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network, all undeniable evidence of expansion—except at U.S. Africa Command.

To hear AFRICOM tell it, U.S. military involvement on the continent ranges from the miniscule to the microscopic. The command is adamant that it has only a single “military base” in all of Africa: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. The head of the command insists that the U.S. military maintains a “small footprint” on the continent. AFRICOM’s chief spokesman has consistently minimized the scope of its operations and the number of facilities it maintains or shares with host nations, asserting that only “a small presence of personnel who conduct short-duration engagements” are operating from “several locations” on the continent at any given time.

Each mission, as AFRICOM insists, may be relatively limited and each footprint might be “small” on its own, but taken as a whole, U.S. military operations are sweeping and expansive.

With the war in Iraq over and the conflict in Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. military is deploying its forces far beyond declared combat zones. In recent years, for example, Washington has very publicly proclaimed a “pivot to Asia,” a “rebalancing” of its military resources eastward, without actually carrying out wholesale policy changes. Elsewhere, however, from the Middle East to South America, the Pentagon is increasingly engaged in shadowy operations whose details emerge piecemeal and are rarely examined in a comprehensive way. Nowhere is this truer than in Africa. To the media and the American people, officials insist the U.S. military is engaged in small-scale, innocuous operations there. Out of public earshot, officers running America’s secret wars say: “Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today.”

The proof is in the details—a seemingly ceaseless string of projects, operations, and engagements. Each mission, as AFRICOM insists, may be relatively limited and each footprint might be “small” on its own, but taken as a whole, U.S. military operations are sweeping and expansive. Evidence of an American pivot to Africa is almost everywhere on the continent. Few, however, have paid much notice.

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The U.S. Military’s Pivot to Africa, 2012-2013 (key below article) ©2013 TomDispatch ©Google

If the proverbial picture is worth a thousand words, then what’s a map worth? Take, for instance, the one created by TomDispatch that documents U.S. military outposts, construction, security cooperation, and deployments in Africa. It looks like a field of mushrooms after a monsoon. U.S. Africa Command recognizes 54 countries on the continent, but refuses to say in which ones (or even in how many) it now conducts operations. An investigation by TomDispatch has found recent U.S. military involvement with no fewer than 49 African nations.

In some, the U.S. maintains bases, even if under other names. In others, it trains local partners and proxies to battle militants ranging from Somalia’s al-Shabab and Nigeria’s Boko Haram to members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Elsewhere, it is building facilities for its allies or infrastructure for locals. Many African nations are home to multiple U.S. military projects. Despite what AFRICOM officials say, a careful reading of internal briefings, contracts, and other official documents, as well as open source information, including the command’s own press releases and news items, reveals that military operations in Africa are already vast and will be expanding for the foreseeable future.

A Base by Any Other Name…

What does the U.S. military footprint in Africa look like? Colonel Tom Davis, AFRICOM’s Director of Public Affairs, is unequivocal: “Other than our base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, we do not have military bases in Africa, nor do we have plans to establish any.” He admits only that the U.S. has “temporary facilities elsewhere… that support much smaller numbers of personnel, usually for a specific activity.”

AFRICOM’s chief of media engagement Benjamin Benson echoes this, telling me that it’s almost impossible to offer a list of forward operating bases. “Places that [U.S. forces] might be, the range of possible locations can get really big, but can provide a really skewed image of where we are… versus other places where we have ongoing operations. So, in terms of providing a number, I’d be at a loss of how to quantify this.”

A briefing prepared last year by Captain Rick Cook, the chief of AFRICOM’s Engineering Division, tells a different story, making reference to forward operating sites or FOSes (long-term locations), cooperative security locations or CSLs (which troops periodically rotate in and out of), and contingency locations or CLs (which are used only during ongoing operations). A separate briefing prepared last year by Lieutenant Colonel David Knellinger references seven cooperative security locations across Africa whose whereabouts are classified. A third briefing, produced in July of 2012 by U.S. Army Africa, identifies one of the CSL sites as Entebbe, Uganda, a location from which U.S. contractors have flown secret surveillance missions using innocuous-looking, white Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplanes, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

Recently, the New York Times noted that what began as the deployment of one Predator drone to Niger had expanded to encompass daily flights by one of two larger, more advanced Reaper remotely piloted aircraft

The 2012 U.S. Army Africa briefing materials obtained by TomDispatch reference plans to build six new gates to the Entebbe compound, 11 new “containerized housing units,” new guard stations, new perimeter and security fencing, enhanced security lighting and new concrete access ramps, among other improvements. Satellite photos indicate that many, if not all, of these upgrades have, indeed, taken place.


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Entebbe Cooperative Security Location, Entebbe, Uganda, in 2009 and 2013 ©2013 Google ©2013 Digital Globe

A 2009 image (above left) shows a barebones compound of dirt and grass tucked away on a Ugandan air base with just a few aircraft surrounding it. A satellite photo of the compound from earlier this year (above right) shows a strikingly more built-up camp surrounded by a swarm of helicopters and white airplanes.

Initially, AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson refused to comment on the construction or the number of aircraft, insisting that the command had no “public information” about it. Confronted with the 2013 satellite photo, Benson reviewed it and offered a reply that neither confirmed nor denied that the site was a U.S. facility, but cautioned me about using “uncorroborated data.” (Benson failed to respond to my request to corroborate the data through a site visit.) “I have no way of knowing where the photo was taken and how it was modified,” he told me. “Assuming the location is Entebbe, as you suggest, I would again argue that the aircraft could belong to anyone… It would be irresponsible of me to speculate on the missions, roles, or ownership of these aircraft.” He went on to suggest, however, that the aircraft might belong to the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) which does have a presence at the Entebbe air base. A request for comment from MONUSCO went unanswered before this article went to press.

This buildup may only be the beginning for Entebbe CSL. Recent contracting documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that AFRICOM is considering an additional surge of air assets there—specifically hiring a private contractor to provide further “dedicated fixed-wing airlift services for movement of Department of Defense (DoD) personnel and cargo in the Central African Region.” This mercenary air force would keep as many as three planes in the air at the same time on any given day, logging a total of about 70 to 100 hours per week. If the military goes ahead with these plans, the aircraft would ferry troops, weapons, and other material within Uganda and to the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.

Another key, if little noticed, U.S. outpost in Africa is located in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. An airbase there serves as the home of a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, as well as the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative. According to military documents, that “initiative” supports “high-risk activities” carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rawlinson, a spokesman for Special Operations Command Africa, told me that it provides “emergency casualty evacuation support to small team engagements with partner nations throughout the Sahel,” although official documents note that such actions have historically accounted for only 10% of its monthly flight hours.

While Rawlinson demurred from discussing the scope of the program, citing operational security concerns, military documents again indicate that, whatever its goals, it is expanding rapidly. Between March and December 2012, for example, the initiative flew 233 sorties. In the first three months of this year, it carried out 193.

In July, Berry Aviation, a Texas-based longtime Pentagon contractor, was awarded a nearly $50 million contract to provide aircraft and personnel for “Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing services.” Under the terms of the deal, Berry will “perform casualty evacuation, personnel airlift, cargo airlift, as well as personnel and cargo aerial delivery services throughout the Trans-Sahara of Africa,” according to a statement from the company. Contracting documents indicate that Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia are the “most likely locations for missions.”

A Big Base Gets Bigger

While that sum is sizeable, it’s surpassed by spending on the lone official U.S. base on the African continent, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. That former French Foreign Legion post has been on a decade-long growth spurt.

In 2002, the U.S. dispatched personnel to Africa as part of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). The next year, CJTF-HOA took up residence at Camp Lemonnier, where it resides to this day. In 2005, the U.S. struck a five-year land-use agreement with the Djiboutian government and exercised the first of two five-year renewal options in late 2010. In 2006, the U.S. signed a separate agreement to expand the camp’s boundaries to 500 acres.

According to AFRICOM’s Benson, between 2009 and 2012, $390 million was spent on construction at Camp Lemonnier. In recent years, the outpost was transformed by the addition of an electric power plant, enhanced water storage and treatment facilities, a dining hall, more facilities for Special Operations Command, and the expansion of aircraft taxiways and parking aprons.

A briefing prepared earlier this year by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command lists a plethora of projects currently underway or poised to begin, including an aircraft maintenance hangar, a telecommunications facility, a fire station, additional security fencing, an ammunition supply facility, interior paved roads, a general purpose warehouse, maintenance shelters for aircraft, an aircraft logistics apron, taxiway enhancements, expeditionary lodging, a combat aircraft loading apron, and a taxiway extension on the east side of the airfield.

Navy documents detail the price tag of this year’s proposed projects, including $7.5 million to be spent on containerized living units and workspaces, $22 million for cold storage and the expansion of dining facilities, $27 million for a fitness center, $43 million for a joint headquarters facility, and a whopping $220 million for a Special Operations Compound, also referred to as “Task Force Compound.”

According to a 2012 briefing by Lieutenant Colonel David Knellinger, the Special Operations Compound will eventually include at least eighteen new facilities, including a two-story joint operations center, a two-story tactical operations center, two five-story barracks, a large motor pool facility, a supply warehouse, and an aircraft hangar with an adjacent air operations center.

A document produced earlier this year by Lieutenant Troy Gilbert, an infrastructure planner with AFRICOM’s engineer division, lists almost $400 million in “emergency” military construction at Camp Lemonnier, including work on the special operations compound and more than $150 million for a new combat aircraft loading area. Navy documents, for their part, estimate that construction at Camp Lemonnier will continue at $70 million to $100 million annually, with future projects to include a $20 million wastewater treatment plant, a $40 million medical and dental center, and more than $150 million in troop housing.

Rules of Engagement

In addition, the U.S. military has been supporting construction all over Africa for its allies. A report by Hugh Denny of the Army Corps of Engineers issued earlier this year references seventy-nine such projects in thirty-three countries between 2011 and 2013, including Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, The Gambia, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. The reported price-tag: $48 million.

Senegal has, for example, received a $1.2 million “peacekeeping operations training center” under the auspices of the U.S. Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program. ACOTA has also supported training center projects in Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda.

The U.S. is planning to finance the construction of barracks and other facilities for Ghana’s armed forces. AFRICOM’s Benson also confirmed to TomDispatch that the Army Corps of Engineers has plans to “equip and refurbish five military border security posts in Djibouti along the Somalia/Somaliland border.” In Kenya, U.S. Special Operations Forces have “played a crucial role in infrastructure investments for the Kenyan Special Operations Regiment and especially in the establishment of the Kenyan Ranger school,” according to Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Beaurpere of the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group.

AFRICOM’s “humanitarian assistance” program is also expansive. A 2013 Navy briefing lists $7.1 million in humanitarian construction projects—like schools, orphanages, and medical facilities—in nineteen countries from Comoros and Guinea-Bissau to Rwanda. Hugh Denny’s report also lists nine Army Corps of Engineers “security assistance” efforts, valued at more than $12 million, carried out during 2012 and 2013, as well as fifteen additional “security cooperation” projects worth more than $22 million in countries across Africa.

A Deluge of Deployments

In addition to creating or maintaining bases and engaging in military construction across the continent, the U.S. is involved in near constant training and advisory missions. According to AFRICOM’s Colonel Tom Davis, the command is slated to carry out fourteen major bilateral and multilateral exercises by the end of this year. These include Saharan Express 2013, which brought together forces from Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, among other nations, for maritime security training; Obangame Express 2013, a counter-piracy exercise involving the armed forces of many nations, including Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Togo; and Africa Endeavor 2013, in which the militaries of Djibouti, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Zambia, and 34 other African nations took part.

Counting countries in which it has bases or outposts or has done construction, and those with which it has conducted military exercises, advisory assignments, security cooperation, or training missions, the U.S. military is involved with more than 90% of Africa’s fifty-four nations.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Davis told TomDispatch, “We also conduct some type of military training or military-to-military engagement or activity with nearly every country on the African continent.” A cursory look at just some of U.S. missions this spring drives home the true extent of the growing U.S. engagement in Africa.

In January, for instance, the U.S. Air Force began transporting French troops to Mali to counter Islamist forces there. At a facility in Nairobi, Kenya, AFRICOM provided military intelligence training to junior officers from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and South Sudan. In January and February, Special Operations Forces personnel conducted a joint exercise code-named Silent Warrior with Cameroonian soldiers. February saw South African troops travel all the way to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to take part in Cobra Gold 2013, a multinational training exercise cosponsored by the U.S. military.

In March, Navy personnel worked with members of Cape Verde’s armed forces, while Kentucky National Guard troops spent a week advising soldiers from the Comoros Islands. That same month, members of Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Africa deployed to the Singo Peace Support Training Center in Uganda to work with Ugandan soldiers prior to their assignment to the African Union Mission in Somalia. Over the course of the spring, members of the task force would also mentor local troops in Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Burkina Faso, the Seychelles, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Liberia.

In April, members of the task force also began training Senegalese commandos at Bel-Air military base in Dakar, while Navy personnel deployed to Mozambique to school civilians in demining techniques. Meanwhile, Marines traveled to Morocco to conduct a training exercise code-named African Lion 13 with that country’s military. In May, Army troops were sent to Lomé, Togo, to work with members of the Togolese Defense Force, as well as to Senga Bay, Malawi, to instruct soldiers there.

That same month, Navy personnel conducted a joint exercise in the Mediterranean Sea with their Egyptian counterparts. In June, personnel from the Kentucky National Guard deployed to Djibouti to advise members of that country’s military on border security methods, while Seabees teamed up with the Tanzanian People’s Defense Force to build maritime security infrastructure. That same month, the Air Force airlifted Liberian troops to Bamako, Mali, to conduct a six-month peacekeeping operation.

Limited or Limitless?

Counting countries in which it has bases or outposts or has done construction, and those with which it has conducted military exercises, advisory assignments, security cooperation, or training missions, the U.S. military, according to TomDispatch’s analysis, is involved with more than 90% of Africa’s fifty-four nations. While AFRICOM commander David Rodriguez maintains that the U.S. has only a “small footprint” on the continent, following those small footprints across the continent can be a breathtaking task.

It’s not hard to imagine why the U.S. military wants to maintain that “small footprint” fiction. On occasion, military commanders couldn’t have been clearer on the subject. “A direct and overt presence of U.S. forces on the African continent can cause consternation… with our own partners who take great pride in their post-colonial abilities to independently secure themselves,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Beaurpere earlier this year in the military trade publication Special Warfare. Special Operations Forces, he added, “must train to operate discreetly within these constraints and the cultural norms of the host nation.”

On a visit to the Pentagon earlier this summer, AFRICOM’s Rodriguez echoed the same point in candid comments to Voice of America: “The history of the African nations, the colonialism, all those things are what point to the reasons why we should… just use a small footprint.”

And yet, however useful that imagery may be to the Pentagon, the U.S. military no longer has a small footprint in Africa. Even the repeated claims that U.S. troops conduct only short-term. intermittent missions there has been officially contradicted. This July, at a change of command ceremony for Naval Special Warfare Unit 10, a spokesman noted the creation and implementation of “a five-year engagement strategy that encompassed the transition from episodic training events to regionally-focused and persistent engagements in five Special Operations Command Africa priority countries.”

In a question-and-answer piece in Special Warfare earlier this year, Colonel John Deedrick, the commander of the 10th Special Forces Group, sounded off about his unit’s area of responsibility. “We are widely employed throughout the continent,” he said. “These are not episodic activities. We are there 365-days-a-year to share the burden, assist in shaping the environment, and exploit opportunities.”

Exploitation and “persistent engagement” are exactly what critics of U.S. military involvement in Africa have long feared, while blowback and the unforeseen consequences of U.S. military action on the continent have already contributed to catastrophic destabilization.

Despite some candid admissions by officers involved in shadowy operations, however, AFRICOM continues to insist that troop deployments are highly circumscribed. The command will not, however, allow independent observers to make their own assessments. Benson said AFRICOM does not “have a media visit program to regularly host journalists there.”

My own requests to report on U.S. operations on the continent were, in fact, rejected in short order. “We will not make an exception in this case,” Benson wrote in a recent email and followed up by emphasizing that U.S. forces are deployed in Africa only “on a limited and temporary basis.” TomDispatch’s own analysis — and a mere glance at the map of recent missions—indicates that there are, in fact, very few limits on where the U.S. military operates in Africa.

While Washington talks openly about rebalancing its military assets to Asia, a pivot to Africa is quietly and unmistakably underway. With the ever-present possibility of blowback from shadowy operations on the continent, the odds are that the results of that pivot will become increasingly evident, whether or not Americans recognize them as such. Behind closed doors, the military says: “Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today.” It remains to be seen just when they’ll say the same to the American people.

Key to the Map of the U.S. Military’s Pivot to Africa, 2012-2013
Green markers: U.S. military training, advising, or tactical deployments during 2013
Yellow markers: U.S. military training, advising, or tactical deployments during 2012
Purple marker: U.S. “security cooperation”
Red markers: Army National Guard partnerships
Blue markers: U.S. bases, forward operating sites (FOSes), contingency security locations (CSLs), contingency locations (CLs), airports with fueling agreements, and various shared facilities
Green push pins: U.S. military training/advising of indigenous troops carried out in a third country during 2013
Yellow push pins: U.S. military training/advising of indigenous troops carried out in a third country during 2012

Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch and a fellow at the Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here. His website is NickTurse.com.

Special Ops in Africa

Ouagadougou is just one site for expanding U.S. air operations in Africa. Last year, the 435th Military Construction Flight (MCF)—a rapid-response mobile construction team—revitalized an airfield in South Sudan for Special Operations Command Africa, according to the unit’s commander, Air Force lieutenant Alexander Graboski. Before that, the team also “installed a runway lighting system to enable twenty-four-hour operations” at the outpost. Graboski states that the Air Force’s 435th MCF “has been called upon many times by Special Operations Command Africa to send small teams to perform work in austere locations.” This trend looks as if it will continue. According to a briefing prepared earlier this year by Hugh Denny of the Army Corps of Engineers, plans have been drawn up for Special Operations Command Africa “operations support” facilities to be situated in “multiple locations.”

AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson refused to answer questions about SOCAFRICA facilities, and would not comment on the locations of missions by an elite, quick-response force known as Naval Special Warfare Unit 10 (NSWU 10). But according to Captain Robert Smith, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two, NSWU 10 has been engaged “with strategic countries such as Uganda, Somalia, [and] Nigeria.”

Captain J. Dane Thorleifson, NSWU 10’s outgoing commander, recently mentioned deployments in six “austere locations” in Africa and “every other month contingency operations—Libya, Tunisia, [and] POTUS,” evidently a reference to President Obama’s three-nation trip to Africa in July. Thorleifson, who led the unit from July 2011 to July 2013, also said NSWU 10 had been involved in training “proxy” forces, specifically “building critical host nation security capacity; enabling, advising, and assisting our African CT [counterterror] partner forces so they can swiftly counter and destroy al-Shabab, AQIM [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], and Boko Haram.”

Nzara in South Sudan is one of a string of shadowy forward operating posts on the continent where U.S. Special Operations Forces have been stationed in recent years. Other sites include Obo and Djema in the Central Africa Republic and Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Beaurpere, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, “advisory assistance at forward outposts was directly responsible for the establishment of combined operations fusion centers where military commanders, local security officials, and a host of international and non-governmental organizations could share information about regional insurgent activity and coordinate military activities with civil authorities.”

Drone bases are also expanding. In February, the U.S. announced the establishment of a new drone facility in Niger. Later in the spring, AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson confirmed to TomDispatch that U.S. air operations conducted from Base Aerienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital, were providing “support for intelligence collection with French forces conducting operations in Mali and with other partners in the region.” More recently, the New York Times noted that what began as the deployment of one Predator drone to Niger had expanded to encompass daily flights by one of two larger, more advanced Reaper remotely piloted aircraft, supported by 120 Air Force personnel. Additionally, the U.S. has flown drones out of the Seychelles Islands and Ethiopia’s Arba Minch Airport.

All told, the U.S. military now has twenty-nine agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers.

When it comes to expanding U.S. outposts in Africa, the Navy has also been active. It maintains a forward operating location—manned mostly by Seabees, Civil Affairs personnel, and force-protection troops—known as Camp Gilbert in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Since 2004, U.S. troops have been stationed at a Kenyan naval base known as Camp Simba at Manda Bay. AFRICOM’s Benson portrayed operations there as relatively minor, typified by “short-term training and engagement activities.” The 60 or so “core” troops stationed there, he said, are also primarily Civil Affairs, Seabees, and security personnel who take part in “military-to-military engagements with Kenyan forces and humanitarian initiatives.”

An AFRICOM briefing earlier this year suggested, however, that the base is destined to be more than a backwater post. It called attention to improvements in water and power infrastructure and an extension of the runway at the airfield, as well as greater “surge capacity” for bringing in forces in the future. A second briefing, prepared by the Navy and obtained by TomDispatch, details nine key infrastructure upgrades that are on the drawing board, underway, or completed.

In addition to extending and improving that runway, they include providing more potable water storage, latrines, and lodgings to accommodate a future “surge” of troops, doubling the capacity of washer and dryer units, upgrading dining facilities, improving roadways and boat ramps, providing fuel storage, and installing a new generator to handle additional demands for power. In a March article in the National Journal, James Kitfield, who visited the base, shed additional light on expansion there. “Navy Seabee engineers,” he wrote, “…have been working round-the-clock shifts for months to finish a runway extension before the rainy season arrives. Once completed, it will allow larger aircraft like C-130s to land and supply Americans or African Union troops.”

AFRICOM’s Benson tells TomDispatch that the U.S. military also makes use of six buildings located on Kenyan military bases at the airport and seaport of Mombasa. In addition, he verified that it has used Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Senegal for refueling stops as well as the “transportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities” such as training missions. He confirmed a similar deal for the use of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia.

While Benson refused additional comment, official documents indicate that the U.S. has similar agreements for the use of Nsimalen Airport and Douala International Airport in Cameroon, Amílcar Cabral International Airport and Praia International Airport in Cape Verde, N’Djamena International Airport in Chad, Cairo International Airport in Egypt, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Moi International Airport in Kenya, Kotoka International Airport in Ghana, ‎ Marrakech-Menara Airport in Morocco, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Nigeria, Seychelles International Airport in the Seychelles, Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in Botswana, Bamako-Senou International Airport in Mali, and Tunis-Carthage International Airport in Tunisia. All told, according to Sam Cooks, a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics Agency, the U.S. military now has twenty-nine agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers.

In addition, U.S. Africa Command has built a sophisticated logistics system, officially known as the AFRICOM Surface Distribution Network, but colloquially referred to as the “new spice route.” It connects posts in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya, Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda, Dire Dawa in Ethiopia, as well as crucial port facilities used by the Navy’s CTF-53 (“Commander, Task Force, Five Three”) in Djibouti, which are collectively referred to as “the port of Djibouti” by the military. Other key ports on the continent, according to Lieutenant Colonel Wade Lawrence of U.S. Transportation Command, include Ghana’s Tema and Senegal’s Dakar.

The U.S. maintains ten marine gas and oil bunker locations in eight African nations, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson refuses to name the countries, but recent military contracting documents list key fuel bunker locations in Douala, Cameroon; Mindelo, Cape Verde; Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire; Port Gentil, Gabon; Sekondi, Ghana; Mombasa, Kenya; Port Luis, Mauritius; Walvis Bay, Namibia; Lagos, Nigeria; Port Victoria, Seychelles; Durban, South Africa; and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

The U.S. also continues to maintain a long-time Naval Medical Research Unit, known as NAMRU-3, in Cairo, Egypt. Another little-noticed medical investigation component, the U.S. Army Research Unit – Kenya, operates from facilities in Kisumu and Kericho.

(In and) Out of Africa

When considering the scope and rapid expansion of U.S. military activities in Africa, it’s important to keep in mind that certain key “African” bases are actually located off the continent. Keeping a semblance of a “light footprint” there, AFRICOM’s headquarters is located at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart-Moehringen, Germany. In June, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the base in Stuttgart and the U.S. Air Force’s Air Operations Center in Ramstein were both integral to drone operations in Africa.

In addition to creating or maintaining bases and engaging in military construction across the continent, the U.S. is involved in near constant training and advisory missions.

Key logistics support hubs for AFRICOM are located in Rota, Spain; Aruba in the Lesser Antilles; and Souda Bay, Greece, as well as at Ramstein. The command also maintains a forward operating site on Britain’s Ascension Island, located about 1,000 miles off the coast of Africa in the South Atlantic, but refused requests for further information about its role in operations.

Another important logistics facility is located in Sigonella on the island of Sicily. Italy, it turns out, is an especially crucial component of U.S. operations in Africa. Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Africa, which provides teams of Marines and sailors for “small-footprint theater security cooperation engagements” across the continent, is based at Naval Air Station Sigonella. It has, according to AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson, recently deployed personnel to Botswana, Liberia, Djibouti, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Tunisia, and Senegal.

In the future, U.S. Army Africa will be based at Caserma Del Din in northern Italy, adjacent to the recently completed home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. A 2012 U.S. Army Africa briefing indicates that construction projects at the Caserma Del Din base will continue through 2018. The reported price-tag for the entire complex: $310 million.

gboss4sure: The USA should back off Syria. if you are supporting the US in their illegal jobs, do remember that today is Syria, tomorrow it might be Nigeria.

It is apt that you should say that gboss4sure. Read this article.. I wonder what all these military expansion is all for. Keeping the Chinese in check perhaps??

[size=24pt]Nick Turse: The Pivot to Africa[/size]

September 6, 2013

On the startling size, scope, and growth of U.S. military operations on the African continent.

https://www.guernicamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/8363651345_53cec1abef.jpg

Image from Flickr via United States Marine Corps Official Page

By Nick Turse
By arrangement with TomDispatch

They’re involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the U.S. military is at work. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network, all undeniable evidence of expansion—except at U.S. Africa Command.

To hear AFRICOM tell it, U.S. military involvement on the continent ranges from the miniscule to the microscopic. The command is adamant that it has only a single “military base” in all of Africa: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. The head of the command insists that the U.S. military maintains a “small footprint” on the continent. AFRICOM’s chief spokesman has consistently minimized the scope of its operations and the number of facilities it maintains or shares with host nations, asserting that only “a small presence of personnel who conduct short-duration engagements” are operating from “several locations” on the continent at any given time.

Each mission, as AFRICOM insists, may be relatively limited and each footprint might be “small” on its own, but taken as a whole, U.S. military operations are sweeping and expansive.

With the war in Iraq over and the conflict in Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. military is deploying its forces far beyond declared combat zones. In recent years, for example, Washington has very publicly proclaimed a “pivot to Asia,” a “rebalancing” of its military resources eastward, without actually carrying out wholesale policy changes. Elsewhere, however, from the Middle East to South America, the Pentagon is increasingly engaged in shadowy operations whose details emerge piecemeal and are rarely examined in a comprehensive way. Nowhere is this truer than in Africa. To the media and the American people, officials insist the U.S. military is engaged in small-scale, innocuous operations there. Out of public earshot, officers running America’s secret wars say: “Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today.”

The proof is in the details—a seemingly ceaseless string of projects, operations, and engagements. Each mission, as AFRICOM insists, may be relatively limited and each footprint might be “small” on its own, but taken as a whole, U.S. military operations are sweeping and expansive. Evidence of an American pivot to Africa is almost everywhere on the continent. Few, however, have paid much notice.

https://www.guernicamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tomdispatchmap2013.jpg
The U.S. Military’s Pivot to Africa, 2012-2013 (key below article) ©2013 TomDispatch ©Google

If the proverbial picture is worth a thousand words, then what’s a map worth? Take, for instance, the one created by TomDispatch that documents U.S. military outposts, construction, security cooperation, and deployments in Africa. It looks like a field of mushrooms after a monsoon. U.S. Africa Command recognizes 54 countries on the continent, but refuses to say in which ones (or even in how many) it now conducts operations. An investigation by TomDispatch has found recent U.S. military involvement with no fewer than 49 African nations.

In some, the U.S. maintains bases, even if under other names. In others, it trains local partners and proxies to battle militants ranging from Somalia’s al-Shabab and Nigeria’s Boko Haram to members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Elsewhere, it is building facilities for its allies or infrastructure for locals. Many African nations are home to multiple U.S. military projects. Despite what AFRICOM officials say, a careful reading of internal briefings, contracts, and other official documents, as well as open source information, including the command’s own press releases and news items, reveals that military operations in Africa are already vast and will be expanding for the foreseeable future.

A Base by Any Other Name…

What does the U.S. military footprint in Africa look like? Colonel Tom Davis, AFRICOM’s Director of Public Affairs, is unequivocal: “Other than our base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, we do not have military bases in Africa, nor do we have plans to establish any.” He admits only that the U.S. has “temporary facilities elsewhere… that support much smaller numbers of personnel, usually for a specific activity.”

AFRICOM’s chief of media engagement Benjamin Benson echoes this, telling me that it’s almost impossible to offer a list of forward operating bases. “Places that [U.S. forces] might be, the range of possible locations can get really big, but can provide a really skewed image of where we are… versus other places where we have ongoing operations. So, in terms of providing a number, I’d be at a loss of how to quantify this.”

A briefing prepared last year by Captain Rick Cook, the chief of AFRICOM’s Engineering Division, tells a different story, making reference to forward operating sites or FOSes (long-term locations), cooperative security locations or CSLs (which troops periodically rotate in and out of), and contingency locations or CLs (which are used only during ongoing operations). A separate briefing prepared last year by Lieutenant Colonel David Knellinger references seven cooperative security locations across Africa whose whereabouts are classified. A third briefing, produced in July of 2012 by U.S. Army Africa, identifies one of the CSL sites as Entebbe, Uganda, a location from which U.S. contractors have flown secret surveillance missions using innocuous-looking, white Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplanes, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

Recently, the New York Times noted that what began as the deployment of one Predator drone to Niger had expanded to encompass daily flights by one of two larger, more advanced Reaper remotely piloted aircraft

The 2012 U.S. Army Africa briefing materials obtained by TomDispatch reference plans to build six new gates to the Entebbe compound, 11 new “containerized housing units,” new guard stations, new perimeter and security fencing, enhanced security lighting and new concrete access ramps, among other improvements. Satellite photos indicate that many, if not all, of these upgrades have, indeed, taken place.


https://www.guernicamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/entebbe2013.jpg

Entebbe Cooperative Security Location, Entebbe, Uganda, in 2009 and 2013 ©2013 Google ©2013 Digital Globe

A 2009 image (above left) shows a barebones compound of dirt and grass tucked away on a Ugandan air base with just a few aircraft surrounding it. A satellite photo of the compound from earlier this year (above right) shows a strikingly more built-up camp surrounded by a swarm of helicopters and white airplanes.

Initially, AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson refused to comment on the construction or the number of aircraft, insisting that the command had no “public information” about it. Confronted with the 2013 satellite photo, Benson reviewed it and offered a reply that neither confirmed nor denied that the site was a U.S. facility, but cautioned me about using “uncorroborated data.” (Benson failed to respond to my request to corroborate the data through a site visit.) “I have no way of knowing where the photo was taken and how it was modified,” he told me. “Assuming the location is Entebbe, as you suggest, I would again argue that the aircraft could belong to anyone… It would be irresponsible of me to speculate on the missions, roles, or ownership of these aircraft.” He went on to suggest, however, that the aircraft might belong to the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) which does have a presence at the Entebbe air base. A request for comment from MONUSCO went unanswered before this article went to press.

This buildup may only be the beginning for Entebbe CSL. Recent contracting documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that AFRICOM is considering an additional surge of air assets there—specifically hiring a private contractor to provide further “dedicated fixed-wing airlift services for movement of Department of Defense (DoD) personnel and cargo in the Central African Region.” This mercenary air force would keep as many as three planes in the air at the same time on any given day, logging a total of about 70 to 100 hours per week. If the military goes ahead with these plans, the aircraft would ferry troops, weapons, and other material within Uganda and to the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.

Another key, if little noticed, U.S. outpost in Africa is located in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. An airbase there serves as the home of a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, as well as the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative. According to military documents, that “initiative” supports “high-risk activities” carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rawlinson, a spokesman for Special Operations Command Africa, told me that it provides “emergency casualty evacuation support to small team engagements with partner nations throughout the Sahel,” although official documents note that such actions have historically accounted for only 10% of its monthly flight hours.

While Rawlinson demurred from discussing the scope of the program, citing operational security concerns, military documents again indicate that, whatever its goals, it is expanding rapidly. Between March and December 2012, for example, the initiative flew 233 sorties. In the first three months of this year, it carried out 193.

In July, Berry Aviation, a Texas-based longtime Pentagon contractor, was awarded a nearly $50 million contract to provide aircraft and personnel for “Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing services.” Under the terms of the deal, Berry will “perform casualty evacuation, personnel airlift, cargo airlift, as well as personnel and cargo aerial delivery services throughout the Trans-Sahara of Africa,” according to a statement from the company. Contracting documents indicate that Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia are the “most likely locations for missions.”

Brimmie: No Way!! Me Been Working Hard To Marry One Of Dose Two Chicks!!

Lol!! Who doesn't?

U want a summary right?

This is what is really happening in Syria....Open your eyes people!!!



SYRIA 101

A Timeline of Events....

Note that I have had a two year head start so the info on here may be too much in too little time for you to digest but is' is critical that you are informed and that you see beyond the West's propaganda, greed and hegemony. Try to click on the hyper-linked phrases and words to directed to other pages that provide further insight.

Part 1: The Hatching of the Plot to Destabilize Syria and Some Other Middle Eastern Countries

As far back as 2007, award winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article "The Re-direction" had reported what laid in wait for Syria. All you see is as a result of collusion between the United States, Israel, Saudi, Qatar and Turkey. These rebels are foreign backed jihadists shipped and flown in en-masse from Libya and other Arab countries via Turkey and surrounding countries by the United States, trained in Turkey and Jordan by the United States, supported logistically and intelligence wise by the Israelis and Turks and heavily funded by the autocratic Saudi regime.

This is not about the much used excuse of "establishing democracy" or protecting the Syrian people or coming to their aid in the form of a "humanitarian" exercise . This is about the lust for power and resources, about hegemony and dominance,about control and keeping at bay the aspirations of countries that stand up to the Americans and Israelis....It is about what has ultimately been behind all conflicts and turmoil : GREED... Take note of the name Bandar Ibn Sultan (Bandar Bush) cos there will be more on him later....

Lengthy but absolutely worth the read.... Enjoy!!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all


Part 2: The Jihadists Begin Flooding Into Syria

http://landdestroyer..com/2012/08/libyan-terrorists-are-invading-syria.html

The Americans themselves started and fueled this crisis. Search for General Wesley Clark 7 countries video (back in 2007). Search for Seymour Hersh's The Re-Direction article in the New Yorker (also in 2007) They have been secretly supplying these foreign jihadis with arms and training them for several months now. This is well documented and has been reported even in several western media. The Saudis have been funding the effort also. The only reason things have escalated and the US is now intervening under the pretext of "humanitarian concerns" is because the campaign of these "rebels" is faltering. In recent months the government forces have been scoring victories over the so called rebels. Remember Al-Qusayr? The Saudi intelligence chief in a last ditch effort to get the Russians to drop their support of the Assad government offered a piece of the cake after the "regime" is toppled. He also offered to buy Russian arms and has been widely rumored, promised that Chechen terrorists in the Russian Caucasus will not attack the winter Olympics in Sochi if only the Russians drop their support of Assad! (See the telegraph: Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria and RT's Saudi Arabia dangles lucrative arms deal in front of Russia in exchange for dropping Assad ) See also how the language has gradually shifted from "punishing the regime" or "degrading their capabilities" to "securing chemical stockpiles" should the government fall...It is just so sad and troubling the lengths that the Israelis and Americans would go to subvert and destabilize sovereign countries just for their selfish interests, hegemony and control..The same Al-Qaeda the US is claiming to be fighting a war on terrorism against are the recipients of arms, logistically assistance and funds from the Saudis, Qataris and Americans. What a charade! What wickedness! What deceit! What evil! Just watch out: As soon as Syria is out of the way, Iran is next... The Saudis would have assured themselves of Sunni dominance and influence and the continued existence of the House of Saud. The oil would also flow unopposed through a splintered Syria all the way to the European market. The Israels would rest in the knowledge that all potential challengers to their illegal - and expanding- occupation would be splintered nations weakened by internal and secular strife and would be powerless to act against them.

Now, the United States acting like the bully and rogue country that it truly is, is reversing the right to attack another sovereign; country that hasn't threatened it based on sketchy and unconfirmed evidence. So-called evidence that it has blatantly refused to present to the world to see. Acting with total disregard for the United Nations or international law, only invoking these laws when it suits them. A country that has subverted or attempted to subvert legitimate, democratic governments - or otherwise- more than all other countries combined (School of the Americas, Operation Condor, 1953 Iranian Coup D'etat, Iran-Contra Affair, Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1954 Guatamela Coup, 2002 Venezuelan Coup D'tat, etc). A country that has assassinated several presidents and leaders way more than other countries combined of which some operations would never be known (President of Ecuador Aguilera in 1981, president Omar Torrijos of Panama also in 1981, etc). A country that invades and destroys countries based on false, discredited and fabricated evidence as witnessed in Iraq (the independent: Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all: Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion), Vietnam (Gulf Of Tonkin Incident, etc). A country that parades itself a bastion of freedom and democracy and a protector of human rights but abuses human rights and commits war crimes more than any other and supports despotic, brutal governments and sponsors terrorism when needed as long as its interests are protected (Luis_Posada_Carriles, U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals, Fulgencio_Batista, Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment, Agent_Orange, Fallujah- White Phosphorus and Depleted Unranium, Guatemala_syphilis_experiment,Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan, My_Lai_Massacre, Abu Ghraib, delisting the MEK, etc)


People really need to get off the toxic propaganda peddled by the mainstream media and source their news from other sites such as landddestroyer., the corbett report, consortiumnews, storyleak, counterpunch, rt, infowars. tomdispatch, etc. That is the only way you gonna have a balanced and complete view of any issue. CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera(Qatari) are all propaganda tools pushing the agenda of their respective goverment.

WAKE UP!!

The Americans themselves started and fueled this crisis. Search for General Wesley Clark 7 countries video (back in 2007). Search for Seymour Hersh's The Re-Direction article in the New Yorker (also in 2007) They have been secretly supplying these foreign jihadis with arms and training them for several months now. This is well documented and has been reported even in several western media. The Saudis have been funding the effort also. The only reason things have escalated and the US is now intervening under the pretext of "humanitarian concerns" is because the campaign of these "rebels" is faltering. In recent months the government forces have been scoring victories over the so called rebels. Remember Al-Qusayr? The Saudi intelligence chief in a last ditch effort to get the Russians to drop their support of the Assad government offered a piece of the cake after the "regime" is toppled. He also offered to buy Russian arms and has been widely rumored, promised that Chechen terrorists in the Russian Caucasus will not attack the winter Olympics in Sochi if only the Russians drop their support of Assad! (See the telegraph: Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria and RT's Saudi Arabia dangles lucrative arms deal in front of Russia in exchange for dropping Assad ) See also how the language has gradually shifted from "punishing the regime" or "degrading their capabilities" to "securing chemical stockpiles" should the government fall...It is just so sad and troubling the lengths that the Israelis and Americans would go to subvert and destabilize sovereign countries just for their selfish interests, hegemony and control..The same Al-Qaeda the US is claiming to be fighting a war on terrorism against are the recipients of arms, logistically assistance and funds from the Saudis, Qataris and Americans. What a charade! What wickedness! What deceit! What evil! Just watch out: As soon as Syria is out of the way, Iran is next... The Saudis would have assured themselves of Sunni dominance and influence and the continued existence of the House of Saud. The oil would also flow unopposed through a splintered Syria all the way to the European market. The Israels would rest in the knowledge that all potential challengers to their illegal - and expanding- occupation would be splintered nations weakened by internal and secular strife and would be powerless to act against them.

Now, the United States acting like the bully and rogue country that it truly is, is reversing the right to attack another sovereign; country that hasn't threatened it based on sketchy and unconfirmed evidence. So-called evidence that it has blatantly refused to present to the world to see. Acting with total disregard for the United Nations or international law, only invoking these laws when it suits them. A country that has subverted or attempted to subvert legitimate, democratic governments - or otherwise- more than all other countries combined (School of the Americas, Operation Condor, 1953 Iranian Coup D'etat, Iran-Contra Affair, Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1954 Guatamela Coup, 2002 Venezuelan Coup D'tat, etc). A country that has assassinated several presidents and leaders way more than other countries combined of which some operations would never be known (President of Ecuador Aguilera in 1981, president Omar Torrijos of Panama also in 1981, etc). A country that invades and destroys countries based on false, discredited and fabricated evidence as witnessed in Iraq (the independent: Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all: Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion), Vietnam (Gulf Of Tonkin Incident, etc). A country that parades itself a bastion of freedom and democracy and a protector of human rights but abuses human rights and commits war crimes more than any other and supports despotic, brutal governments and sponsors terrorism when needed as long as its interests are protected (Luis_Posada_Carriles, U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals, Fulgencio_Batista, Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment, Agent_Orange, Fallujah- White Phosphorus and Depleted Unranium, Guatemala_syphilis_experiment,Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan, My_Lai_Massacre, Abu Ghraib, delisting the MEK, etc)


People really need to get off the toxic propaganda peddled by the mainstream media and source their news from other sites such as landddestroyer., the corbett report, consortiumnews, storyleak, counterpunch, rt, infowars. tomdispatch, etc. That is the only way you gonna have a balanced and complete view of any issue. CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera(Qatari) are all propaganda tools pushing the agenda of their respective goverment.

WAKE UP!!

uzoexcel: Iam going to speak objectively here...I have an issue with America always been on the forefront of liberalision of coUntries with conflicts as i feel they sometimes have dubious agendas but usually one cant blame them IMO...For all the US wrongdoings, i would rather have them as the world police/superpower than china/russia as they seem to have better conscience than the aforementioned countries.he syria war has been going on for ages but not one of the so-called world powers/anti american countries stepped in to resolve the conflict... The Arab league of nations middle eastern countries which should have stepped up and resolved this issue were just barking toothlessly..Not one of the middle eastern countries did anything while thousands of syrian's were killed....And if i was Obama, i would call out China!!lemme explain...china wants to be a superpower but in crises like this they are no where to be found or are always hiding behind the back of russia..The chinese are conscienceless and would never do anything to help...So it looks quite hypocritical when America wanna steps in 3 years after the conflict began and everyone is suddenly shouting 'anti-american' protests.Where were all these countries since

Common Uzoexcel! The Americans themselves started and fueled this crisis. Search for General Wesley Clark 7 countries video (back in 2007). Search for Seymour Hersh's The Re-Direction article in the New Yorker (also in 2007) They have been secretly supplying these foreign jihadis with arms and training them for several months now. This is well documented and has been reported even in several western media. The Saudis have been funding the effort also. The only reason things have escalated and the US is now intervening under the pretext of "humanitarian concerns" is because the campaign of these "rebels" is faltering. In recent months the government forces have been scoring victories over the so called rebels. Remember Al-Qusayr? The Saudi intelligence chief in a last ditch effort to get the Russians to drop their support of the Assad government offered a piece of the cake after the "regime" is toppled. He also offered to buy Russian arms and has been widely rumored, promised that Chechen terrorists in the Russian Caucasus will not attack the winter Olympics in Sochi if only the Russians drop their support of Assad! (See the telegraph: Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria and RT's Saudi Arabia dangles lucrative arms deal in front of Russia in exchange for dropping Assad ) See also how the language has gradually shifted from "punishing the regime" or "degrading their capabilities" to "securing chemical stockpiles" should the government fall...It is just so sad and troubling the lengths that the Israelis and Americans would go to subvert and destabilize sovereign countries just for their selfish interests, hegemony and control..The same Al-Qaeda the US is claiming to be fighting a war on terrorism against are the recipients of arms, logistically assistance and funds from the Saudis, Qataris and Americans. What a charade! What wickedness! What deceit! What evil! Just watch out: As soon as Syria is out of the way, Iran is next... The Saudis would have assured themselves of Sunni dominance and influence and the continued existence of the House of Saud. The oil would also flow unopposed through a splintered Syria all the way to the European market. The Israels would rest in the knowledge that all potential challengers to their illegal - and expanding- occupation would be splintered nations weakened by internal and secular strife and would be powerless to act against them.

Now, the United States acting like the bully and rogue country that it truly is, is reversing the right to attack another sovereign; country that hasn't threatened it based on sketchy and unconfirmed evidence. So-called evidence that it has blatantly refused to present to the world to see. Acting with total disregard for the United Nations or international law, only invoking these laws when it suits them. A country that has subverted or attempted to subvert legitimate, democratic governments - or otherwise- more than all other countries combined (School of the Americas, Operation Condor, 1953 Iranian Coup D'etat, Iran-Contra Affair, Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1954 Guatamela Coup, 2002 Venezuelan Coup D'tat, etc). A country that has assassinated several presidents and leaders way more than other countries combined of which some operations would never be known (President of Ecuador Aguilera in 1981, president Omar Torrijos of Panama also in 1981, etc). A country that invades and destroys countries based on false, discredited and fabricated evidence as witnessed in Iraq (the independent: Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all: Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion), Vietnam (Gulf Of Tonkin Incident, etc). A country that parades itself a bastion of freedom and democracy and a protector of human rights but abuses human rights and commits war crimes more than any other and supports despotic, brutal governments and sponsors terrorism when needed as long as its interests are protected (Luis_Posada_Carriles, U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals, Fulgencio_Batista, Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment, Agent_Orange, Fallujah- White Phosphorus and Depleted Unranium, Guatemala_syphilis_experiment,Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan, My_Lai_Massacre, Abu Ghraib, delisting the MEK, etc)


People really need to get off the toxic propaganda peddled by the mainstream media and source their news from other sites such as landddestroyer., the corbett report, consortiumnews, storyleak, counterpunch, rt, infowars. tomdispatch, etc. That is the only way you gonna have a balanced and complete view of any issue. CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera(Qatari) are all propaganda tools pushing the agenda of their respective goverment.

WAKE UP!!

General Wesley Clark 7 countries video
[url]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

This isn't fiction. The US along with Israel and the gulf states had planned "regime" change along time ago. It's all documented.

3 Sep 2013

[size=24pt]Bandar Bush and the Syrian Subversion[/size]
http://www.corbettreport.com/mp4/bfp20130903preview.mp4

Posted by Corbett



by James Corbett
[url]BoilingFrogsPost.com[/url]
September 3, 2013

As the US inches closer to military intervention in Syria, many in the West are only now bothering to familiarize themselves with the Syrian conflict. Although sometimes referred to as a ‘civil war’ or an ‘armed uprising,’ the conflict has to be seen as part of a broader struggle between competing power blocs for regional dominance.

The struggle can largely be seen as one taking place between the US, Israel, and their regional allies on one side, and Iran and its allies on the other. Although fundamentally a geopolitical contest, the power blocs roughly map a Sunni/Shia divide in the Muslim world that can be played on to stir up religious frenzy in the population and motivate cadres of fighters willing to fight and die for the cause. In this context, the destabilization of Syria can be seen as a threat to one of Iran’s closest allies and the prospect of a Sunni majority government of the country threatens to drive a wedge in the so-called Shia land bridge that physically connects the Iranian power bloc.

Each member of these power blocs have their own motivations in the overall struggle for regional dominance. Turkey and Qatar are looking to increase their regional clout and secure their positions in the energy corridors that are vital to their economic futures. The Israelis are interested in keeping the Muslim world divided along sectarian lines in order to keep them from attacking Israel. The Saudis fear the uprising of their own Shiite population and the possibility of the overthrow of the House of Saud. But whatever the reason, each of the players has the incentive to fund, arm and train the jihadis who are now waging war on Assad’s government.

When seen in this light, one of the key characterizations of the media portrayal of the Syrian war is exposed for the lie that it is. Rather than ‘rebels’ who are part of some spontaneous internal uprising, the combatants in this insurrection are in fact, foreign-armed, foreign-supplied, and in many cases simply foreign Salafi jihadis, the very same groups that would be called “terrorists” if they were operating in a country friendly to Western interests. And of the states that are arming and supplying the jihadis, perhaps the most important at this stage of the conflict is Saudi Arabia, whose efforts are being coordinated by perhaps one of the most enigmatic figures operating on the grand chessboard today: Prince Bandar bin Sultan, better known as Bandar Bush.

It has long been acknowledged that the Saudis have been one of the key players funding, arming, training and smuggling terrorists into Syria during the conflict. A February 2012 report from the BBC alleged that Saudi Arabia was one of the key states bankrolling the Syrian jihadis. An October 2012 follow-up confirmed Saudi weapons were being used by the so-called rebels. In February of this year, the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, Fahad bin Abdul Mohsen al-Zaid, admitted that Saudis were involved in arming and training terrorist groups in Syria.

But the Saudi connection to the fighting in Syria took on a new dimension in the wake of last month’s chemical attack on Ghouta. The Saudis are now being blamed for supplying the chemical weapons that the rebels used in the attack. In one key report, veteran AP correspondent Dale Gavlak and on-the-ground reporter Yahyah Ababneh interviewed rebels in Ghouta who alleged that the weapons had been supplied by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi intelligence chief. According to these reports, only the Saudis and the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists knew what the weapons were, and other fighters were tricked into handling and storing them in preparation for the attack. In one incident, 12 rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store the weapons, some described as having a “tube-like structure” and others characterized as looking like a “huge gas bottle.”

Yesterday I talked to Sharmine Narwani, a geopolitical analyst and commentator at Al-Akhbar English, about Prince Bandar’s background, his disappearance from Saudi politics in 2008 and his sudden reappearance on the scene in Syria.

Perhaps the most remarkable part of all of this are the multiple sources now pointing to Bandar specifically as the one who supplied the jihadis in Syria with the chemical weapons that were used in the recent attack on Ghouta. This aspect of the story ties in with Bandar’s meeting with Russian President Putin in Moscow in July.

Late last week I discussed the details of this meeting with Asia Times Online roving correspondent Pepe Escobar.

These reports, emerging now from multiple sources, are explosive, and any serious investigation into the events in Syria last month would include a thorough examination of Prince Bandar’s role in them. Of course, there is no serious investigation taking place and the Obama administration has already announced that Assad’s guilt for the chemical weapons attacks has been determined even before the UN inspectors finished their investigation, let alone filed their report.

For those who receive their information from the American corporate media, what ultimately happens in Syria will play itself out like a Hollywood movie, full of drama and easy-to-digest plots for the attention-deprived audience, but bearing little resemblance to the multifaceted reality of the situation. Meanwhile, those who are interested in the Prince Bandar story and the behind-the-scenes machinations that threatens to draw Russia into military confrontation with Saudi Arabia and its allies will have to keep their eyes on foreign media and alternative sites like BoilingFrogsPost.com.

Mod, I am always getting shut out by the SPAM bot and I am not spamming. I usually post articles that have got hyperlinks in them and I always use the URL and IMG codes to avoid been shut out yet it always happens. I have posted articles in the past that even had a lot of hyperlinks (some improperly coded) and that were quite lenghtly but it seems I can't do so anymore. Please help

8: What Is Current Law on the Use of Chemical Weapons?

Use, production and storage of such weapons was again banned in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (to which Syria it not a party). But nearly all the signatories to that convention reserved the right legally to use such weapons if the weapons had been used against them (i.e. no first strike).

The Convention, unfortunately, contains no provision banning the use of weapons, as Saddam certainly did and as Assad is accused of doing, in civil war. My understanding of the current law, as set out in the 1993 Convention, is that the United States and the other NATO members are legally entitled to take military action only when we – not their citizens — are actually threatened by overt military attack with chemical weapons.

9: Pro and Con on Attack

Putting the legal issue aside, there is precedent for military action over chemical weapons. A part of the rationale for the 2003 U.S. attack on Iraq was the charge that Iraq had or was developing weapons of mass destruction including poison gas which it planned to use against us. This was the essence of Secretary of State Collin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003.

Powell then realized that there was no evidence to back up his charge (and it was later shown to be false), but that did not stop or even delay the attack. The determination to attack had already been made, regardless of evidence. An attack was undoubtedly then generally approved by the American public and its elected representatives. They, and our NATO allies, concluded on the basis of what the second Bush administration told them that there was a threat and, therefore, that action was not only necessary for defense but also legal. It is the memory of this grave misleading of the public that haunts at least some government officials and elected representatives today.

Memory of the Iraqi deception and the subsequent disaster is apparently responsible for the Parliamentary rejection last week of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s announced plan to take military action against the Syrian government.

“The vote was also a set back for Mr. Obama, who, having given up hope of getting United Nations Security Council authorization for the strike, is struggling to assemble a coalition of allies against Syria. … But administration officials made clear that eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike.” (“Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No,” The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2013)

The New York Times editorial board essentially joined with the British Parliament in arguing that “Despite the pumped-up threats and quickening military preparations, President Obama has yet to make a convincing legal or strategic case for military action against Syria.” (Editorial of Aug. 28, 2013)

As he often so eloquently does, President Obama said on Aug. 23, “what I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of, what is in our long-term national interests? … Sometimes what we’ve seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.”

However, his actions, as unfortunately also is typical of him, do not seem to mesh with his words.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Secretary General Ban urged the European heads of state and President Obama to “Give peace a chance…give diplomacy a chance.” There also has been a steady outpouring of informed non-governmental opposition to an attack, even from members of Prime Minister Cameron’s Conservative party.

Sir Andrew Green, the former British ambassador called it “poor foolishness. … It beggars belief that we appear to be considering an armed attack on Syria with no clear purpose and no achievable objective.” [See “Blundering into war in Syria would be pure foolishness,” The English Conservative Party daily, Conservative Home, Aug. 26, 2013.] The opposition Labour Party objected even more strongly to the adventure.

The Russian government was outspoken, too, in opposition. Many Western commentators regarded their opposition as a sort of echo of the Cold War, but the Russians were acutely aware of the danger that their own large (16 percent of their population) and growing Muslim population might be affected by the “forces of extremism in country after country in the Middle East by [the U.S.] forcing or advocating a change in leadership – from Iraq to Libya, Egypt to Syria.” [Steven Lee Myers, “Putin stays quiet as his aides assail the West,” International Herald Tribune, Aug. 29, 2013]

President Obama believed that the Russians would veto the resolution the British had submitted to the Security Council before the English Parliament voted down the Prime Minister’s plan to intervene.

10): What is the role of the United Nations?

Perhaps the most important role of the United Nations has not been in the highly publicized meetings and decisions of the Security Council, but in its specialized agencies, particularly the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in the attempt to mobilized food aid and the High Commission for Refugees (HCR) in attempting to ameliorate the conditions of the millions of people displaced by the fighting. They have had little to work with.

But it is the UN in its more peace-seeking role that is now in the forefront. Weapons experts from the UN are conducting the investigation of the sites where the victims were killed. There has been, as I mentioned above, an effort to end their work after their initial visit, but the UN Secretary General insisted that they continue for at least two more days.

The British, French and American governments have attempted also to limit the role of the UN to give them more latitude for whatever action they wish to take. Indeed, the U.S. State Department spokesman was quoted as saying that whatever the inspectors reported would make no difference to the decisions of the Western powers. Of course, the Western powers are concerned that whatever proposed action might be laid before the UN Security Council would be vetoed by Russia and perhaps also by China.

11: What is Likely to Happen Now

While President Obama has spoken of caution and taking time to form a coalition, the gossip around the White House (The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 26 and later accounts cited above) suggests that he is moving toward a cruise missile strike to “deter and degrade” the Syrian government even if this has to be a unilateral U.S. action. [See Paul Lewis and Spencer Ackerman, “White House forced to consider unilateral strikes against Assad after British PM unexpectedly loses key motion on intervention,” The Guardian, Aug. 30, 2013.]

The U.S. Navy has moved five cruise-missile-armed destroyers into the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast. Before President Obama agreed on Saturday to seek congressional approval for a military strike against Syria, it appeared that the launching of the missiles was imminent. [See Mark Lander et al, “Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No,” The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2013] Congress is expected to vote on a use-of-force resolution shortly after returning to session on Sept. 9.

12: What Would Be the Probable Consequences of an Attack?

Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who was head of the Central Command when missiles were launched against Iraqi and Afghan targets warned that “The one thing we should learn is that you can’t get a little bit pregnant.” [See Ernesto Londoño and Ed O’Keefe, “imminent U.S. strike on Syria could draw nation into civil war,” The Washington Post, Aug. 28, 2013]

Taking that first step would almost surely lead to other steps that in due course would put American troops on the ground in Syria as a similar process did in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Stopping at the first step would be almost impossible as it was in those campaigns. As the former American ambassador to Syria commented, “A couple of cruise missiles are not going to change their way of thinking.”

And, Zinni put it in more pointed terms, “You’ll knee-jerk into the first option, blowing something up, without thinking through what this could lead to.”

Why is this? It is called “mission creep.” When a powerful government takes a step in any direction, the step is almost certain to have long-term consequences. But leaders seldom consider the eventual consequences. What happens? Inevitably, having taken step “A” narrows the options, especially if the other side refuses to capitulate or retaliates. At that point, step “B” often seems the logical thing to do whereas some other, quite different sort of action on a different path, seems inappropriate in the context that step “A” has created.

At the same time, in our highly visual age with the forces of television coming to bear, governments, particularly in societies where public opinion or representation exist, come under pressure to do something as President Obama said in the remarks I have just quoted.

Where lobbies represent sectors of the economy and society with vested interests, the pressure to do something become immense. We have often seen this in American history. One political party stands ready to blame the other for failure to act. And fear of that blame is often persuasive.

Thus, step “C” takes on a life of its own quite apart from what is suggested by a calm analysis of national interest, law or other considerations. And with increasing speed further steps are apt to become almost inevitable and even automatic. If you apply this model to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, you can see how modest first steps led to eventual massive involvement.

During this time, it is likely that the victims of the attacks or their allies would attempt to strike back. Many observers believe that the Syrian government would be prepared to “absorb” a modest level of attack that stopped after a short period. However, if the attacks were massive and continued, it might be impossible for that government or its close allies, the Iranian and Iraqi governments and the Hizbulllah partisans in Lebanon, to keep quiet.

Thus, both American installations, of which there are scores within missile or aircraft range, might be hit. Israel also might be targeted and if it were, it would surely respond. So the consequences of a spreading, destabilizing war throughout the Middle East and perhaps into South Asia (where Pakistan is furious over American drone attacks) would be a clear and present danger.

Even if this scenario would not play out, it would be almost certain that affected groups or their allies would seek to carry the war back to America in the form of terrorist attacks.

13: So what could we possibly gain from an attack on Syria?

Even if he wanted to, could Assad meet President Obama’s demand that he stop the killing and step down? He could, of course, abdicate, but this would probably not stop the war both because his likely successor would be someone in the inner circle of his regime and because the rebels form no cohesive group. The likely result would be something like what happened after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, a vicious civil war among competing factions.

No one, of course, can know what would happen next in Syria. My hunch is that Syria, like Afghanistan, would be torn apart not only into large chunks such as the Kurds in the northeast but even neighborhood by neighborhood as in the Iraqi cities. Sunnis would take revenge on Alawis and Christians who would be fighting for their lives. More millions would be driven out of their homes. Food would be desperately short, and disease probably rampant.

If we are worried about a haven for terrorists or drug traffickers, Syria would be hard to beat. And if we are concerned about a sinkhole for American treasure, Syria would compete well with Iraq and Afghanistan. It would probably be difficult or even impossible to avoid “boots on the ground” there. So we are talking about casualties, wounded people, and perhaps wastage of another several trillion dollars which we don’t have to spend and which, if we had, we need to use in our own country for better heath, education, creation of jobs and rebuilding of our infrastructure.

Finally, if the missile attacks do succeed in “degrading” the Syrian government, it may read the signs as indicating that fighting the war is acceptable so long as chemical weapons are not employed. They may regard it as a sort of license to go ahead in this wasting war.

Thus, the action will have accomplished little. As General Zinni points out, America will likely find itself saddled with another long-term, very expensive and perhaps unwinnable war. We need to remind ourselves what Afghanistan did – bankrupting the Soviet Union – and what Iraq cost us — about 4,500 American dead, over 100,000 wounded, many of whom will never recover, and perhaps $6 trillion.

Can we afford to repeat those mistakes?

William R. Polk is a veteran foreign policy consultant, author and professor who taught Middle Eastern studies at Harvard. President John F. Kennedy appointed Polk to the State Department’s Policy Planning Council where he served during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His books include: Violent Politics: Insurgency and Terrorism; Understanding Iraq; Understanding Iran; Personal History: Living in Interesting Times; Distant Thunder: Reflections on the Dangers of Our Times; and Humpty Dumpty: The Fate of Regime Change (forthcoming).

5: Who are the insurgents?

We know little about them, but what we do know is that they are divided into hundreds – some say as many as 1,200 — of small, largely independent groups. And we know that the groups range across the spectrum from those who think of themselves as members of the dispersed, not-centrally-governed but ideologically-driven association we call al-Qaida, through a variety of more conservative Muslims, to gatherings of angry, frightened or dissatisfied young men who are out of work and hungry, to black marketeers who are trading in the tools of war, to what we have learned to call in Afghanistan and elsewhere “warlords.”

Each group marches to its own drumbeat and many are as much opposed to other insurgents as to the government; some are secular while others are jihadists; some are devout while others are opportunists; many are Syrians but several thousand are foreigners from all over the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Recognition of the range of motivations, loyalties and aims is what, allegedly, has caused President Obama to hold back overt lethal-weapons assistance although it did not stop him from having the CIA and contractors covertly arm and train insurgents in Jordan and other places.

The main rebel armed force is known as the Free Syrian Army. It was formed in the summer of 2011 by deserters from the regular army. Similar to other rebel armies (for example the “external” army of the Provisional Algerian Government in its campaign against the French and various “armies” that fought the Russians in Afghanistan) its commanders and logistical cadres are outside of Syria. Its influence over the actual combatants inside of Syria derives from its ability to allocate money and arms and shared objectives; it does not command them.

So far as is known, the combatants are autonomous. Some of these groups have become successful guerrillas and have not only killed several thousand government soldiers and paramilitaries but have seized large parts of the country and disrupted activities or destroyed property in others.

In competition with the Free Syrian Army is an Islamicist group known as Jabhat an-Nusra (roughly “sources of aid”) which is considered to be a terrorist organization by the United States. It is much more active and violent than groups associated with the Free Syrian Army. It is determined to convert Syria totally into an Islamic state under Sharia law. Public statements attributed to some of its leaders threaten a blood bath of Alawis and Christians after it achieves the fall of the Assad regime.

Unlike the Free Syrian Army it is a highly centralized force and its 5,000 to 10,000 guerrillas have been able to engage in large-scale and coordinated operations.

Of uncertain and apparently shifting relations with Jabhat an-Nusra, are groups that seem to be increasing in size who think of themselves as members of al-Qaida. They seem to be playing an increasing role in the underground and vie for influence and power with the Muslim Brotherhood and the dozens of other opposition groups.

Illustrating the complexity of the line-up of rebel forces, Kurdish separatists are seeking to use the war to promote their desire either to unite with other Kurdish groups in Turkey and/or Iraq or to achieve a larger degree of autonomy. (See Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa, “The Civil War Within Syria’s Civil War,” Foreign Policy, Aug. 28, 2013). They are struggling against both the other opposition groups and against the government, and they too would presumably welcome a collapse of the government that would lead to the division of the country into ethnic-religious mini-states.

It seems reasonable to imagine that at least some and perhaps all of these diverse groups must be looking for action (such as a dramatic strike against the regime) that would tip the scale of military capacity. Listening to the world media and to the intelligence agents who circulate among them, they must hope that an ugly and large-scale event caused by or identified with the government might accomplish what they have so far been unable to do.

6: What Is the Context in Which the Attack Took Place?

Syria is and has always been a complex society, composed of clusters of ancient colonies. Generally speaking, throughout history they have lived adjacent to one another rather than mixing in shared locations.

The population before the outbreak of the war was roughly (in rounded numbers) 6 in 10 were Sunni Muslim, 1 in 7 Christian, 1 in 8 Alawi (an ethnic off-shoot of Shia Islam), 1 in 10 Kurdish Muslim, smaller groups of Druze and Ismailis (both off-shoots of Shia Islam) and a scattering of others.

Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance. Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011. Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming. Desperate for water, farmers began to tap aquifers with tens of thousands of new well. But, as they did, the water table quickly dropped to a level below which their pumps could lift it.

In some areas, all agriculture ceased. In others crop failures reached 75 percent. And generally as much as 85 percent of livestock died of thirst or hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Syria’s farmers gave up, abandoned their farms and fled to the cities and towns in search of almost non-existent jobs and severely short food supplies. Outside observers including UN experts estimated that between 2 million and 3 million of Syria’s 10 million rural inhabitants were reduced to “extreme poverty.”

The domestic Syrian refugees immediately found that they had to compete not only with one another for scarce food, water and jobs, but also with the already existing foreign refugee population. Syria already was a refuge for quarter of a million Palestinians and about 100,000 people who had fled the war and occupation of Iraq. Formerly prosperous farmers were lucky to get jobs as hawkers or street sweepers. And in the desperation of the times, hostilities erupted among groups that were competing just to survive.

Survival was the key issue. The senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Syria turned to the USAID program for help. Terming the situation “a perfect storm,” in November 2008 he warned that Syria faced “social destruction.” He noted that the Syrian Minister of Agriculture had “stated publicly that [the] economic and social fallout from the drought was ‘beyond our capacity as a country to deal with.’”

But, his appeal fell on deaf ears: the USAID director commented that “we question whether limited USG resources should be directed toward this appeal at this time.” (reported on Nov. 26, 2008 in cable 08DAMASCUS847_a to Washington and leaked to Wikileaks )

Whether or not this was a wise decision, we now know that the Syrian government made the situation much worse by its next action. Lured by the high price of wheat on the world market, it sold its reserves. In 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it sold 1,500,000 metric tons or twice as much as in the previous year. The next year it had little left to export; in 2008 and for the rest of the drought years it had to import enough wheat to keep its citizens alive.

So tens of thousands of frightened, angry, hungry and impoverished former farmers constituted a “tinder” that was ready to catch fire. The spark was struck on March 15, 2011, when a relatively small group gathered in the town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them. Instead of meeting with the protesters and at least hearing their complaints, the government cracked down on them as subversives.

The Assads, who have ruled the country since 1971, were not known for political openness or popular sensitivity. And their action backfired. Riots broke out all over the country. As they did, the Assads attempted to quell them with military force. They failed to do so and, as outside help – money from the Gulf states and Muslim “freedom fighters” from the rest of the world – poured into the country, the government lost control over 30 percent of the country’s rural areas and perhaps half of its population.

By the spring of 2013, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), upwards of 100,000 people had been killed in the fighting, perhaps 2 million have lost their homes and upwards of 2 million have fled abroad. Additionally, vast amounts of infrastructure, virtually whole cities like Aleppo, have been destroyed.

Despite these tragic losses, the war is now thought to be stalemated: the government cannot be destroyed and the rebels cannot be defeated. The reasons are not only military: they are partly economic — there is little to which the rebels could return; partly political – the government has managed to retain the loyalty of a large part of the majority Muslim community which comprises the bulk of its army and civil service whereas the rebels, as I have mentioned, are fractured into many mutually hostile groups; and partly administrative — by and large the government’s structure has held together and functions satisfactorily whereas the rebels have no single government.

7: What are Chemical Weapons and Who Has Used Them?

When I was a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Council in the Kennedy administration and was “cleared” for all information on weapons of mass destruction, I was given a detailed briefing at Fort Meade on the American poison gas program. I was so revolted by what I learned that I wrote President Kennedy a memorandum arguing that we must absolutely end the program and agree never to use it. Subsequently, the United States is said to have destroyed 90 percent of its chemical weapons.

My feelings aside, use of chemical weapons has been common. As ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, the former head of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and later president of the Woodrow Wilson Center, told me, his experience was that when a weapon was available, the temptation to use it was almost irresistible. History bears him out.

While most people were horror-stricken by the use of gas in World War I, governments continued to use it. In times of severe stress, it became acceptable. As Winston Churchill wrote, use “was simply a question of fashion changing as it does between long and short skirts for women.” Well, perhaps not quite, but having begun to use gas in the World War I, when about 100,000 people were killed by it, use continued.

After the war, the British, strongly urged by Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, used combinations of mustard gas, chlorine and other gases against tribesmen in Iraq in the 1920s. As Churchill said, “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.”

In the same spirit, the Spaniards used gas against the Moroccan Rif Berbers in the late 1920s; the Italians used it against Ethiopians in the 1930s; and the Japanese used it against the Chinese in the 1940s. Churchill again: during the Second World War, he wrote that if the Blitz threatened to work against England, he “may certainly have to ask you [his senior military staff] to support me in using poison gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany…”

More recently in 1962, I was told by the then chief of the CIA’s Middle Eastern covert action office, James Critichfield, that the Egyptians had used lethal concentrations of tear gas in their campaign against royalist guerrillas in Yemen.

America used various chemical agents including white phosphorus in Vietnam (where it was known as “Willie Pete”) and in Fallujah (Iraq) in 2005. We encouraged or at least did not object to the use of chemical agents, although we later blamed him for so doing, by Saddam Hussein. Just revealed documents show that the Reagan administration knew of the Iraqi use in the Iraq-Iran war of the same poison gas (Sarin) as was apparently used a few days ago in Syria and Tabun (also a nerve gas).

According to the U.S. military attaché working with the Iraqi army at the time, the U.S. government either turned a blind eye or approved its use (see the summary of the documents in Shane Harris and Matthew Aid, “Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran,” Foreign Policy, Aug. 26, 2013)

We were horrified when Saddam Hussein used poison gas against the Kurdish villagers of Halabja in 1988 (killing perhaps 4,000 to 5,000 people) but by that time we had dropped our support for the Iraqi government. Finally, Israel is believed to have used poison gas in Lebanon and certainly used white phosphorus in Gaza in 2008.

I cite this history not to justify the use of gas – I agree with Secretary Kerry that use of gas is a “moral obscenity” — but to show that its use is by no means uncommon. It is stockpiled by most states in huge quantities and is constantly being produced in special factories almost everywhere despite having been legally banned since the Geneva Protocol of June 17, 1925.

[size=14pt]Understanding the Syrian Civil War[/size]
September 3, 2013

With President Obama asking Congress to back a military strike to punish Syria for alleged chemical weapons use, the U.S. is lurching toward a new war. Beyond doubts about what happened and whether a U.S. missile attack will help, there is scant public understanding of the Syrian conflict, notes Mideast expert William R. Polk.

By William R. Polk

Probably like you, I have spent many hours this last week trying to put together the scraps of information reported in the media about the horrible attack with chemical weapons on a suburb of Damascus on Aug. 21. Despite the jump to conclusions by reporters, commentators and government officials, I find as of this writing that the events are still unclear.

Worse, the bits and pieces we have been told are often out of context and usually have not been subjected either to verification or logical analysis. So I ask you to join me in thinking them through to try to get a complete picture on what has happened, is now happening and about to happen. I apologize for both the length of this analysis and its detail, but the issue is so important to all of us that it must be approached with care.

A scene of destruction after an aerial bombing in Azaz, Syria, Aug. 16, 2012. (U.S. government photo)

Because, as you will see, this is germane in examining the evidence, I should tell you that during my years as a member of the Policy Planning Council, I was “cleared” for all the information the U.S. Government had on weapons of mass destruction, including poison gas, and for what was then called “Special Intelligence,” that is, telecommunications interception and code breaking.

I will try to put in context 1) what actually happened; 2) what has been reported; 3) who has told us what we think we know; 4) who are the possible culprits and what would be their motivations; 5) who are the insurgents? 6) what is the context in which the attack took place; 7) what are chemical weapons and who has used them; what the law on the use of chemical weapons holds; 9) pro and con on attack; 10) the role of the UN; 11) what is likely to happen now; 12) what would be the probable consequences of an attack and (13) what could we possibly gain from an attack.

https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/syrian-civil-war-azaz-300x164.jpg

1: What Actually Happened

On Wednesday, Aug. 21 canisters of gas opened in several suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus and within a short time approximately a thousand people were dead. That is the only indisputable fact we know (although even here the estimates of the number of victims have varied widely).

2: What Has Been Reported

Drawing primarily on Western government and Israeli sources, the media has reported that canisters of what is believed to be the lethal nerve gas Sarin were delivered by surface-to-surface rockets to a number of locations in territory disputed by the Syrian government and insurgents. The locations were first reported to be to the southwest, about 10 miles from the center of Damascus, and later reported also to be to the east of the city in other suburbs.

3: Who Told Us What We Think We Know

A UN inspection team that visited the site of the massacre on Monday, Aug. 26, almost 5 days after the event. Why was the inspection so late? As a spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pointed out (Gareth Porter in IPS, Aug. 27), the request to the Syrian government to authorize an inspection was not made until Aug. 24 and was granted the next day. In any event, according to the spokesman, the delay was not of fundamental importance because “Sarin can be detected for up to months after its use.”

What was the American government position on inspection? Secretary of State John Kerry initially demanded that the Syrian government make access to the suspected site or sites possible. Then the U.S. government charged that the Syrian government purposefully delayed permission so that such evidence as existed might be “corrupted” or destroyed.

On the basis of this charge, Kerry reversed his position and urged UN Secretary General Ban to stop the inquiry. According to The Wall Street Journal of Aug. 26, Secretary Kerry told Mr. Ban that “the inspection mission was pointless and no longer safe…” To emphasize the American position, according to the same Wall Street Journal report, “Administration officials made clear Mr. Obama would make his decision based on the U.S. assessment and not the findings brought back by the U.N. inspectors.”

IPS’s Gareth Porter concluded after talks with chemical weapons experts and government officials that “The administration’s effort to discredit the investigation recalls the George W. Bush administration’s rejection of the position of U.N. inspectors in 2002 after they found no evidence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the administration’s refusal to give inspectors more time to fully rule out the existence of an active Iraqi WMD program. In both cases, the administration had made up its mind to go to war and wanted no information that could contradict that policy to arise.” Is this a fair assessment?

Why was the first UN inspection so limited? The only publicly known reason is that it came under sniper fire while on the way to the first identified site. Who fired on it or for what reason are, as of this writing, unknown. The area was contested by one or more rebel groups and under only limited or sporadic control by the Syrian government.

Indeed, as photographs published by The New York Times on Aug. 29, show the UN inspectors in one area (Zamaka) guarded by armed men identified as “rebel fighters.” So the sniper could have been almost anyone.

How limited was the first phase of inspection? According to a report in The Guardian (Aug. 26, 2013), the small team of UN Inspectors investigating the poison gas attack in Syria spent only an hour and a half at the site. So far, we have not been given any report by the UN team, but the doctor in charge of the local hospital was apparently surprised by how brief and limited was their investigation.

According to The Guardian reporter, he said, “The committee did not visit any house in the district. We asked the committee to exhume the bodies for checking them. But they refused. They say that there was no need to do that. We had prepared samples for the committee from some bodies and video documentation. There were urine and blood samples as well as clothes. But they refused to take them.

“After an hour and a half, they got an order from the regime to leave ASAP. The security force told the committee if they did not leave now, they could not guarantee their security. They could not visit the main six sites where the chemical rockets had fallen and lots of people were killed.”

Why did the investigators not do a more thorough job? The doctor at the site told the Guardian reporter that the Assad regime warned the investigators that they should leave because it could not guarantee their safety but the newspaper’s headline says that the Syrian government authorities ordered them out. Which is true? Is there another explanation?

And why did the inspection team not have the means to retrieve parts of the delivery equipment, presumably rockets? Were they told by the UN or other authorities not to retrieve them or were they refused permission by the Syrian government? We simply do not know.

To say the least, the inspection was incomplete. The best that the State Department spokesman could say about such evidence as was gathered is that there is “’little doubt’ [Vice President Biden later raised the certainty from the same limited evidence to “no doubt”] that forces loyal to Mr. Assad were responsible for using the chemical weapons.” [“’Little Doubt’ Syria Gassed Opposition,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 26, 2013]

Much was made of the belief that the gas had been delivered by rocket. However, The New York Times reported on Aug. 27, “Evidence from videos and witnesses suggested that the toxic substances in last week’s attack were delivered by improvised tube-launched missiles.” Would the regular army’s chemical warfare command have used “homemade” rockets? That report seemed to point to some faction within the opposition rather than to the government.

Several days into the crisis, we were given a different source of information, from Israel. For many years, Israel is known to have directed a major communications effort against Syria. Its program, known as Unit 8200, is Mossad’s equivalent of NSA. It chose to share what it claimed was a key intercept with outsiders.

First, a former officer told the German news magazine Focus (according to The Guardian, Aug. 28, 2013) that Israel had intercepted a conversation between Syrian officers discussing the attack. The same Information was given to Israeli press (see “American Operation, Israeli Intelligence” in the Aug. 27 Yediot Ahronoth,)

Israel also shared this information with the American government. Three Israeli senior officers were reported to have been sent to Washington to brief National Security Advisor Susan Rice. What was said was picked up by some observers.

Foreign Policy magazine reported (Aug. 28, “Intercepted Calls Prove Syrian Army Used Nerve Gas, U.S. Spies Say”) that “in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Minister of Defense exchanged what Israeli intelligence described as ‘panicked phone calls’ with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answer for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people.”

But, as more information emerged, doubts began to be expressed. As Kimberly Dozier and Matt Apuzzo reported for the Associated Press in an Aug. 29 article entitled, “AP sources: Intelligence on weapons no ‘slam dunk,.’” – according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, the intercept “discussing the strike was among low level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack to an Assad insider or even a senior commander.”

Reminding his readers of the famous saying by the then head of the CIA, George Tenet, in 2002 that the intelligence against Saddam Hussein was a “slam dunk,” when in fact it was completely erroneous, the AP correspondent warned that the Syrian attack of last week “could be tied to al-Qaida-backed rebels later.”

Two things should be borne in mind on these reports: the first is that Israel has had a long-standing goal of the break-up or weakening of Syria which is the last remaining firmly anti-Israeli Arab state. (The rationale behind this policy was laid out by Edward Luttwak in the OpEd section of the Aug. 24, 2013 New York Times). It also explains why Israel actively had sought “regime change” in Iraq.

The second consideration is that Israeli intelligence has also been known to fabricate intercepts as, for example, it did during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. So, unless or until more conclusive evidence is available, the request by Mr. Ban (“U.N. seeks more time for its inspectors,” International Herald Tribune, Aug. 29, 2013) for more time appears to be prudent.

Despite what Messrs Biden and Kerry have said, I believe a court would conclude that the case against the Syrian government was “not proven.”

4: Who Are the Possible Culprits and What Would be Their Motivations?

Since such information as we have is sketchy and questionable, we should seek to understand motives. As a historian, dealing as one always does with incomplete information, I have made it a rule when trying to get at the “truth” in any contentious issue to ask a series of questions among which are who benefits from a given action and what would I have done in a given situation? Look briefly at what we think we now know in light of these questions:

First, who gains by the action. I do not see what Assad could have gained from this gas attack. It is evident that while the area in which it took place is generally held to be “disputed” territory, the government was able to arrange for the UN inspection team to visit it but not, apparently, to guarantee the team’s safety there. If Assad were to initiate an attack, it would be more logical for him to pick a target under the control of the rebels.

Second, to have taken the enormous risk of retaliation or at least loss of support by some of his allies (notably the Russians) by using this horrible weapon, he must have thought of it either as a last-ditch stand or as a knockout blow to the insurgents. Neither appears to have been the case.

Reports in recent weeks suggest that the Syrian government was making significant gains against the rebels. No observer has suggested that its forces were losing. All indications are that the government’s command-and-control system not only remains intact but that it still includes among its senior commanders and private soldiers a high proportion of Sunni Muslims.

Were the regime in decline, it would presumably have purged those whose loyalties were becoming suspect (i.e. the Sunni Muslims) or they would have bolted for cover. Neither has happened.

Moreover, if it decided to make such an attack, I should have thought that it would have aimed at storage facilities, communications links, arms depots or places where commanders congregated. The suburbs of Damascus offered none of these opportunities for a significant, much less a knockout, blow.

Third, as students of guerrilla warfare have learned guerrillas are dispersed but civilians are concentrated. So weapons of mass destruction are more likely to create hostility to the user than harm to the opponent. The chronology of the Syrian civil war shows that the government must be aware of this lesson as it has generally held back its regular troops (which were trained and armed to fight foreign invasion) and fought its opponents with relatively small paramilitary groups backed up by air bombardment.

Thus, a review of the fighting over the last two years suggests that its military commanders would not have seen a massive gas attack either as a “game changer” or an option valuable enough to outweigh the likely costs.

So, what about the enemies of the Assad regime? How might such an attack have been to their advantage?

First, a terrorizing attack might have been thought advantageous because of the effect on people who are either supporting the regime or are passive. There are indications, for example, that large numbers of Palestinian refugees are pouring out of their camps in yet another “displacement.” The number of Syrian refugees is also increasing.

Terror is a powerful weapon and historically and everywhere was often used. Whoever initiated the attack might have thought, like those who initiated the attack on Guernica, the bombing of Rotterdam and the Blitz of London, that the population would be so terrorized that they might give up or at least cower. Then as food shortages and disease spread, the economy would falter. Thus the regime might collapse.

That is speculative, but the second benefit to the rebels of an attack is precisely what has happened: given the propensity to believe everything evil about the Assad regime, daily emphasized by the foreign media, a consensus, at least in America, has been achieved is that it must have been complicit. This consensus should make it possible for outside powers to take action against the regime and join in giving the insurgents money, arms and training.

We know that the conservative Arab states, the United States, other Western powers and perhaps Israel have given assistance to the rebels for the last two years, but the outside aid has not been on a scale sufficient to enable them to defeat the government. They would need much more and probably would also need foreign military intervention as happened in Libya in April 2011 to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.

The rebels must have pondered that situation. We know that foreign military planners have. (See “Military Intervention in Syria” Wikileaks reprinted on Aug. 25, 2013, memorandum of a meeting in the Pentagon in 2011.) Chillingly, the just cited Wikileaks memorandum notes that the assembled military and intelligence officers “don’t believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi.” (See Time, March 17, 2011.)

As in Libya, evidence of an ugly suppression of inhabitants in Syria might justify and lead to foreign military intervention.

Clearly, Assad had much to lose and his enemies had much to gain. That conclusion does not prove who did it, but it should give us pause to find conclusive evidence which we do not now have.

Part 6: The Russians Looking Beyond Short Term Goals, Turn Down the Saudi Offer Which In Turn Triggers A Angry Response From the Saudis Who Promise That the Opposition Would No Longer Attend Peace Talks, Hinted on an Escalation of the Syrian Crisis and Even Going as Far as Threatening to Unleash  Chechen Terrorist on the Russian Winter Olympic Games!!


telegraph
>>>> Excerpts..... [size=14pt]Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria[/size]

[size=14pt]Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria. [/size]

 By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

12:00PM BST 27 Aug 2013

The revelations come amid high tension in the Middle East, with US, British, and French warship poised for missile strikes in Syria. Iran has threatened to retaliate. .....................................


landdestroyer.
>>>> Excerpts.....[size=14pt]Bandar Bush, 'liberator' of Syria[/size]

By Pepe Escobar

https://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr188/cunchor/Bandar_Putin.jpg
August 13, 2013 "Information Clearing House -  Talk about The Comeback Spy. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush (for Dubya he was like family), spectacularly resurfaced after one year in speculation-drenched limbo (was he or was he not dead, following an assassination attempt in July 2012). And he was back in the limelight no less than in a face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Saudi King Abdullah, to quote Bob Dylan, "is not busy being born, he's busy dying". At least he was able to pick up a pen and recently appoint Bandar as head of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate; thus in charge of the joint US-Saudi master plan for Syria.............................................................................

.........Prince Bandar, head of Saudi intelligence, allegedly confronted the Kremlin with a mix of inducements and threats in a bid to break the deadlock over Syria......................................................

This is what is really happening in Syria....Open your eyes people!!!



SYRIA 101

A Timeline of Events....

Note that I have had a two year head start so the info on here may be too much in too little time for you to digest but is' is critical that you are informed and that you see beyond the West's propaganda, greed and hegemony. Try to click on the hyper-linked phrases and words to directed to other pages that provide further insight.

Part 1: The Hatching of the Plot to Destabilize Syria and Some Other Middle Eastern Countries

As far back as 2007, award winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article "The Re-direction" had reported what laid in wait for Syria. All you see is as a result of collusion between the United States, Israel, Saudi, Qatar and Turkey. These rebels are foreign backed jihadists shipped and flown in en-masse from Libya and other Arab countries via Turkey and surrounding countries by the United States, trained in Turkey and Jordan by the United States, supported logistically and intelligence wise by the Israelis and Turks and heavily funded by the autocratic Saudi regime.

This is not about the much used excuse of "establishing democracy" or protecting the Syrian people or coming to their aid in the form of a "humanitarian" exercise . This is about the lust for power and resources, about hegemony and dominance,about control and keeping at bay the aspirations of countries that stand up to the Americans and Israelis....It is about what has ultimately been behind all conflicts and turmoil : GREED... Take note of the name Bandar Ibn Sultan (Bandar Bush) cos there will be more on him later....

Lengthy but absolutely worth the read.... Enjoy!!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all


Part 2: The Jihadists Begin Flooding Into Syria

http://landdestroyer..com/2012/08/libyan-terrorists-are-invading-syria.html

This is what is really happening in Syria....Open your eyes people!!!



SYRIA 101

A Timeline of Events....

Note that I have had a two year head start so the info on here may be too much in too little time for you to digest but is' is critical that you are informed and that you see beyond the West's propaganda, greed and hegemony. Try to click on the hyper-linked phrases and words to directed to other pages that provide further insight.

Part 1: The Hatching of the Plot to Destabilize Syria and Some Other Middle Eastern Countries

As far back as 2007, award winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article "The Re-direction" had reported what laid in wait for Syria. All you see is as a result of collusion between the United States, Israel, Saudi, Qatar and Turkey. These rebels are foreign backed jihadists shipped and flown in en-masse from Libya and other Arab countries via Turkey and surrounding countries by the United States, trained in Turkey and Jordan by the United States, supported logistically and intelligence wise by the Israelis and Turks and heavily funded by the autocratic Saudi regime.

This is not about the much used excuse of "establishing democracy" or protecting the Syrian people or coming to their aid in the form of a "humanitarian" exercise . This is about the lust for power and resources, about hegemony and dominance,about control and keeping at bay the aspirations of countries that stand up to the Americans and Israelis....It is about what has ultimately been behind all conflicts and turmoil : GREED... Take note of the name Bandar Ibn Sultan (Bandar Bush) cos there will be more on him later....

Lengthy but absolutely worth the read.... Enjoy!!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all


Part 2: The Jihadists Begin Flooding Into Syria

http://landdestroyer..com/2012/08/libyan-terrorists-are-invading-syria.html

Just thought to share this. How true...

https://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr188/cunchor/1271913_1012731_295892523887348_1873392645_n_jpgb50d0d6011ee07531ef61146708b79c7.jpg

.....The final part of the article...


Amnesty International also receives funding from Wall Street speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute (annual report page (23) http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/FIN40/006/2011/en/f2099a80-e495-427d-b9bc-b488e5e98976/fin400062011en.pdf as well as the UK Department for International Development (page 8 http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/FIN40/007/2011/en/bda6d734-96ed-4474-a0a2-fae044f8caa1/fin400072011en.pdf), the European Commission and other corporate-funded foundations.

Clearly "humanitarian concerns" are a disingenuous justification for continued meddling in Syria, with all involved notorious fabricators and harboring a staggering array of demonstratively conflicting interests.

With the addition of evidence proving the premeditated use of terrorist elements in the overthrow of sovereign foreign nations in US policy planning, the West's efforts, as well as those of their proxies carrying their agenda out on the ground in Syria, are exposed as illegitimate criminality of vastly unprecedented proportions.

[size=14pt]Syrian Rebels are Foreign-backed Terrorists[/size]


Latest terrorist attack in Damascus illustrates illegitimacy of both Syria's rebels & the UN/NATO backing them.
by Tony Cartalucci

Update: March 19, 2012 - It is now confirmed that Saudi Arabia is shipping arms to foreign fighters and Syrian rebels operating out of Jordan. The Australian reports in their article, "Bombs in Syria as Saudis 'send arms to rebels'," (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/bombs-in-syria-as-saudis-send-arms-to-rebels/story-e6frg6so-1226303233997) that "Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the Free Syrian Army," quoting an Arab diplomat. Of course, as reported below, the "Free Syrian Army" is led not by Syrians, but by NATO-backed Libyan militants from the US State Department-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

It must be noted that Saudi Arabia in turn, receives its weapons and a significant amount of military funding from the United States.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/washington/28weapons.html?pagewanted=all)
....

March 18, 2012 - A twin terrorist bombing in the Syrian capital of Damascus, allegedly targeting government buildings, ripped through a Christian neighborhood killing an estimated 27, mostly civilians. A third bomb exploded, killing only the driver of the car it was placed in, in what was apparently an attempted triple suicide bombing. CBS News reports (1)
(http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57399452/twin-suicide-bombers-kill-27-in-syrian-capital/) that after other similar attacks, U.S. officials suggest Al Qaeda terrorists "may be" amongst the Syrian rebels. However, while the West attempts to portray this as an unexpected development, we shall see that it not only was likely, but in fact the premeditated modus operandi of Western-backed destabilization efforts directed at upturning not only Syria, but the entire Arab World.

Pentagon's Premeditated Arab World Blitzkrieg.

From the beginning the United States has been directly behind the unrest in Syria. In fact, America's involvement in destabilizing Syria began years before the admittedly US-engineered Arab Spring (2)
(http://landdestroyer..com/2011/12/2011-year-of-dupe.html) even unfolded in a premeditated plot to upturn the entire Arab World and reorder it according to their own corporate-financier and hegemonic geopolitical interests.

In a 2007 speech given to the Commonwealth Club of California (3)
(http://fora.tv/2007/10/03/Wesley_Clark_A_Time_to_Lead), US Army General Wesley Clark would state that in 1991, then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz said the US had 5-10 years to clean up the old Soviet "client regimes" before the next super power rose up and challenged western hegemony. Clark claimed that this, along with the aftermath of 9/11 constituted a policy coup where Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other members of the of Project for a New American Century
(http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm) had hijacked US foreign policy to destabilize and turn the nations of the Middle East upside down - much the way they are now.
https://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr188/cunchor/WesleyClark.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8


Clark would go on to say that shortly after September 11, 2001, while at the Pentagon, a document handed down from the Office of the Secretary of Defense indicated plans to attack and destroy the governments of 7 countries; Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Lebanon and Libya.

Clearly the United States has already "attacked and destroyed" Iraq, which in 2003 was invaded and subsequently occupied for nearly a decade at the cost of nearly a million lives including over 4,400 US soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, and trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. Likewise Libya was destabilized and invaded by proxy through a combination of US-led NATO forces and US State Department listed terrorist organizations including the (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (listed #27
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm) lead by Abdul Hakim Belhaj.

Somalia has been the victim of repeated US-backed invasions by Ethiopia
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-07-ethiopia_x.htm (4), Uganda, Kenya http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intensifies-its-proxy-fight-against-al-shabab-in-somalia/2011/11/21/gIQAVLyNtN_story.html(5), and systematic air (6)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7274462.stm and drone campaigns (7)http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15488804 carried out by the recently established US Africa Command (AFRICOM), while neighboring Sudan has been carved into two separate states, isolating the oil-rich south(http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-03/sudan-future-oil-exporting-powerhouse.aspx?storyid=127896 with further intervention pending as public support is built by stunts including the fraudulent Kony 2012 http://landdestroyer..com/2012/03/globalists-pull-plug-on-kony-2012-with.html video and George Clooney's pro-imperial intervention advocacy.


US designs toward Iran serve as a model for Syria.

Iran has likewise been under systematic premeditated attack for years, including brutal sanctions, and the training, arming, and funding of US State Department-listed foreign terror organization (listed #29) http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) to carry out terrorist attacks within Iran, as well as the constant threat of unilateral attack by either Israel or the US, or both - all of which was described in minute detail in 2009 amongst the pages of US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" report
http://landdestroyer..com/2011/02/brookings-which-path-to-persia.html (9).


https://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr188/cunchor/BrookingsWhichPathtoPersia2010Cover.jpg
Which Path to Persia? .pdf
[url]http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/files/rc/papers/2009/06_iran_strategy/06_iran_strategy.pdf[/url]
....

In their report, they openly conspire to use what is an admitted terrorist organization as a "US proxy" (emphasis added):

"Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States, contends that the MEK and the NCRI are allies for regime change in Tehran and also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MEK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.

Despite its defenders’ claims, the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, the group praised the decision to take America hostages and Elaine Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread.

Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations."

- page 117-118 of "Which Path to Persia? [url]http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/files/rc/papers/2009/06_iran_strategy/06_iran_strategy.pdf" Brookings Institution[/url], 2009

It was also revealed in Seymour Hersh's 2008 New Yorker article "Preparing the Battlefield http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh," that not only had MEK been considered for their role as a possible proxy, but that the US had already begun arming and financing them to wage war inside Iran:

"The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

Seymore Hersh in an NPR interview
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92025860, also claims that select MEK members have already received training in the US.

More recently, the British Daily Mail published a stunning admission in their report titled, "Mossad training terrorists to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials claim... but is Israel's real target Obama? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099142/Mossad-training-terrorists-kill-Irans-nuclear-scientists-U-S-officials-claim--Israels-real-target-Obama.html" by "US officials" that Israel is currently funding, training, arming, and working directly with MEK. The Daily Mail article states, "U.S. officials confirmed today that Israel has been funding and training Iranian dissidents to assassinate nuclear scientists involved in Iran's nuclear program." The article continues by claiming, "Washington insiders confirmed there is a close relationship between Mossad and MEK."

Quite clearly then, the use of listed terrorist organizations is not an unfortunate or unexpected development in the midst of Western backed regime change operations - they are a central pillar in their planning and execution.

This leaves only Lebanon and Syria - Lebanon having suffered a brutal air assault by Israel (10)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/world/middleeast/14airwar.html who ultimately failed to rout Hezbollah forces in the summer of 2006. Breaking the back of the Iranian-Syrian alliance that allegedly serves as the foundation of Hezbollah's strength would next be targeted.

The overthrow of Syria's government is a premeditated US plot.

A concerted campaign to isolate, destabilize and overthrow the government of Syria began in 2002, a year after Clark was informed of the Pentagon's plan to blitzkrieg through the Middle East. It was then that Secretary of State John Bolton added Syria to the growing "Axis of Evil (11) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1971852.stm." It would be later revealed that Bolton's threats against Syria manifested themselves as covert funding and support for opposition groups inside of Syria spanning both the Bush and Obama administrations.

In an April 2011 CNN article (12) http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-18/world/us.syria.opposition_1_syrian-opposition-civil-society-damascus-declaration/2?_s=PM:WORLD, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated, "We're not working to undermine that [Syrian] government. What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil society support, is to build the kind of democratic institutions, frankly, that we're trying to do in countries around the globe. What's different, I think, in this situation is that the Syrian government perceives this kind of assistance as a threat to its control over the Syrian people."

Toner's remarks came after the Washington Post released cables (13) http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html indicating the US has been funding Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005 and continued until today.

In an April 2011 AFP report
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/us-trains-activists-to-evade-security.html (14), Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, stated that the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments."

The report went on to explain that the US "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there," (emphasis added). Posner would add, "They went back and there's a ripple effect." That ripple effect of course is the "Arab Spring," and in Syria's case, the impetus for the current unrest threatening to unhinge the nation and invite in foreign intervention
http://landdestroyer..com/2011/04/syria-intervention-inevitable.html."

More recently, revelations that Syrian militants are in fact being armed, trained, funded, and even joined on the battlefield by Libya's Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization (listed as #27) (15) http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm only further highlights the necessity of Syria's government under President Assad to attempt to restore order at all costs. The Telegraph would report in November 2011 (16) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8919057/Leading-Libyan-Islamist-met-Free-Syrian-Army-opposition-group.html that LIFG leader, Abdul Belhaj met with senior leaders of the "Free Syrian Army" on the Turkish-Syrian border. It was reported that Belhaj was pledging weapons and money (both of which he receives from NATO) as well as sending LIFG fighters to train and fight alongside Syrian militants.

VoltaireNet.org would confirm (17) http://www.voltairenet.org/Free-Syrian-Army-commanded-by Belhaj and his LIFG's role in not just assisting Syrian militants but in fact leading them in NATO's armed destabilization of Syria.


US-led NATO and the UN are backing terrorists in the midst of military conquest disguised as "humanitarian intervention."


Now, with terrorist bombing campaigns targeting civilians and ripping through Damascus, we see just as it was planned for in Iran, the deployment of terrorist elements and tactics to bolster Western efforts to topple the Syrian government. The corporate media in tandem with Pentagon officials feign ignorance in an attempt to maintain plausible deniability before a public they assume are far too ignorant to have read or comprehended their designs articulated in documents like "Which Path to Persia?"

It is confirmed that the UN's casualty reports are based solely on opposition "activist" accounts and not on any verifiable facts. The UN's November 2011 human rights report http://landdestroyer..com/2011/11/un-report-on-syria-based-on-witness.html was based solely on such accounts, recorded not in Syria or the surrounding region, but rather in Geneva. The report itself was compiled by Karen Koning AbuZayd who is concurrently a member of the Washington D.C. based Middle East Policy Council (18) http://www.mepc.org/about-council/our-leadership/board-directors, along side current and former associates of Exxon, the US military, the CIA, the Saudi Binladin Group, the US-Qatari Business Council (19) http://www.usqbc.org/content.php?id=125 and both former and current members of the US government.


https://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr188/cunchor/USQatarBusinessCouncil_1.jpg
Image: Just some of the corporate members of the US-Qatar Business Council http://www.usqbc.org/content.php?id=125, whose president just so happens to sit on the same board of directors http://www.mepc.org/about-council/our-leadership/board-directors of the Middle East Policy Center as Karen AbuZayd, co-author of the conveniently timed UN Human Rights Council report on Syria.
....

Likewise, other "human right advocates" like Amnesty International are similarly compromised - Amnesty being headed literally by a former US State Department official, Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director (20) http://www.amnestyusa.org/about-us/who-we-are/executive-director-of-amnesty-international-usa. Nossel had just finished a stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State before being appointed as head of Amnesty (21)http://www.voltairenet.org/Hillary-Clinton-aide-at-the-helm. She was also vice-president of strategy and operations for the Wall Street Journal and a media and entertainment consultant at McKinsey & Company (a Council on Foreign Relations "founding" corporate member (22) http://www.cfr.org/about/corporate/roster.html).

CONFIRMED: US Claims Against Syria - There is no Evidence


https://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr188/cunchor/CIAlogo.jpg
August 28, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - The Wall Street Journal has confirmed what many suspected, that the West's so-called "evidence" of the latest alleged "chemical attacks" in Syria, pinned on the Syrian government are fabrications spun up from the West's own dubious intelligence agencies.

The Wall Street Journal reveals that the US is citing claims from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency fed to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a repeat of the fabrications that led up to the Iraq War, the Libyan War, and have been used now for 3 years to justify continued support of extremists operating within and along Syria's borders.

Wall Street Journal's article, "U.S., Allies Prepare to Act as Syria Intelligence Mounts,"
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324906304579039342815115978.htmlstates:)

One crucial piece of the emerging case came from Israeli spy services, which provided the Central Intelligence Agency with intelligence from inside an elite special Syrian unit that oversees Mr. Assad's chemical weapons, Arab diplomats said. The intelligence, which the CIA was able to verify, showed that certain types of chemical weapons were moved in advance to the same Damascus suburbs where the attack allegedly took place a week ago, Arab diplomats said.


Both Mossad and the CIA are clearly compromised in terms of objectivity and legitimacy. Neither exists nor is expected to provide impartial evidence, but rather to facilitate by all means necessary the self-serving agendas, interests, and objectives of their respective governments.

That both Israel and the United States, as far back as 2007 have openly conspired together to overthrow the government of Syria
(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all) through a carefully engineered sectarian bloodbath, discredits entirely their respective intelligence agencies. This is precisely why an impartial, objective third-party investigation has been called for by the international community and agreed upon by the Syrian government - a third-party investigation the US has now urged to be canceled ahead of its planned military strikes.


The Wall Street Journal reports:
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324906304579039342815115978.html)

In an email on Sunday, White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice told U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and other top officials that the U.N. mission was pointless because the chemical weapons evidence already was conclusive, officials said. The U.S. privately urged the U.N. to pull the inspectors out, setting the stage for President Barack Obama to possibly move forward with a military response, officials said.


The US then, not Syria, is attempting a coverup, with fabrications in place from discredited, compromised intelligence sources and the threat of impending military strikes that would endanger the UN inspection team's safety should they fail to end their investigation and withdraw.

The Wall Street Journal also reiterated
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324906304579039342815115978.html) that the US is planning to fully sidestep the UN Security Council and proceed with its partners unilaterally:

...if the U.S. chose to strike, it would do so with allies and without the U.N., in order to sidestep an expected Russian veto.

The US proceeds now with absolute disregard for international law, all but declaring it has no intention of providing credible evidence of its accusations against the Syrian government. It is a rush to war with all the hallmarks of dangerous desperation as the West's proxy forces collapse before the Syrian military. Western military leaders must consider the strategic tenants and historical examples regarding the dangers and folly of haste and imprudence in war - especially war fought to protect special interests and political agendas rather than to defend territory.

The populations of the West must likewise consider what benefits they have garnered from the last decade of military conquest their leaders have indulged in. Crumbling economies gutted to feed the preservation of special interests and the growing domestic security apparatuses to keep these interests safe from both domestic and foreign dissent are problems that will only grow more acute.

Outside of the West, in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran, leaders must consider a future where Western special interests can invade with impunity, without public support, or even the tenuous semblance of justification being necessary.