This is AMTV News,
I’m your host Topher Morrison.
Today is Finally Friday 13th of July, 2012. Our final production video is located at the bottom of this post. Enjoy...
Along with a fleet of SeaFox drone submersibles the aircraft
carrier USS John C Stennis will join the Eisenhower, Lincoln and Enterprise in
the Persian Gulf. It’s an
unexpected show of extraordinary force and comes on the heels of a 12,000
troop, 19 nation, massive military drill imitating a Middle East invasion. US raises…Iran your bet.
No its not a Mexican dish – it just might be the next vice
president of the United States.
They’ve all been floated Pawlenty, Huntsman, Christie, Haley, Jindal,
Portman, Ryan and Rubio, but this looks to be their ’54 special reserve select. Eager to erase a polarizing Palin this
liberal kryptonite – black, female, experienced and academic – brings back the
fervor and favorability of Herman Cain with none of the baggage.
This is what the drug war has brought us – the prison
industrial complex. Over a
30-year-period, from 1980 to 2010, the US incarceration rate has quadrupled
from over half a million to over 2.2 million and leads the world in per capita
incarceration 743 persons per 100,000, ahead of Rwanda and Russia. 1 in 9 state
employees work in corrections to the tune of over $30,600 per inmate roughly
more than what 1/3 of Americans make a year.
Can’t we all just get along. After 11 years, $546 billion and over 3,000 dead soldiers in
our adventure in the Graveyard of Empires President Karzai welcomes
reconciliation with Mullah Omar supreme leader of the Taliban. This is what nation building looks like
– a dog chasing its tail.
Still in shock after we learned the S&P 500 is 50%
larger only because of the Federal Reserve’s printing press the M2 – the total
amount of money available in the economy – is just 8 and a half billion dollars
shy of 14 digits for the first time in history. Gone is the housing bubble and our confidence, going are our
municipalities; coming is a world wide economic train wreck. Ground Zero is America’s Private
Central Bank and everyone with a dollar to their name.
“JoePa” over 61 years effectively became a one-man cult
raising over a billion dollars for Penn State during his tenure. The institution as a result morphed
into a “roque civilization with its own structure, authority, and ethical assumptions.” From the janitors to the upper echelons
of PSU depravity rained for over a decade as Jerry Sandusky ensconced within
the pantheon of litany lions roamed wild freely sating himself one young boy
after another. Football - a base
American pastime – was given precedence over innocence. Because of it – the NCAA “death
penalty” should be merely the first step along the long road of repentance.
Catch my latest choice headlines on AMTV News Monday – Friday at AMTV
Media and catch our in depth commentary and analysis of stories like these at
GreeneWave.com part of the AMTV network.
Bashar al-Assad looks like he has a new pitbull. Protecting its last ally in the Middle
East, but most importantly its access to the Mediterranean Russia is sending a
flotilla of 11 Russian warships, capable of c arrying hundreds of marines to
dock in the ancient port of Tartus.
It is a clear message to the region and the US backing rebel forces in
Syria. Washington is predictably
mum, but with poker faces aplenty is it call or check?
Next…
Obama EO Grants
Authority to Seize Private Communication Facilities
Obama has done what the people’s congress could not last
year because of public protest. His
order grants new powers to the Department of Homeland Security, most
importantly, the power to seize private facilities when necessary, effectively
shutting down or limiting civilian communications. Reasoning Washington needs “at all times and under all
circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions.”
Seems like a one-way street.
In the latest from the people who found God in a subatomic
particle, the Higgs Boson, comes a new experiment called ATLAS. The megaminds at CERN using their Large
Hydron Collider believe they can view three more dimensions beyond what humans
can perceive. Major surpises are
yet on the horizon and possibly even more questions.
On the heels of news that every state with a Republican
governor saw reductions in unemployment, Texas is lauded as the best state in
America to do business in.
Receiving high marks in CNBC’s grading rubric for infrastructure, tech
and innovation, the third lowest cost of living, access to capital all while
recovering from a severe economic slump last year. Get er done!
This is getting
ridiculous…
Pentagon Considers
Awarding Medals to Drone Pilots
The military’s gamers, sorry… drone pilots might wear flight
suits to work, but they don’t need them.
Spying on weddings, sorry… children…err enemy combatants thousands of
miles away from harm sipping on Monster is hardly valorous so why is the
Pentagon glorifying ridding a joystick?
Want to award our fearless flyers?
How about a new Nintendo Wii and call it a day?
That’s right the Arab Spring may have just been a plan to
install a pyramid scheme that is to say – destroy the Great Pyramids of
Giza. Recent islamist electoral
victories throughout the region have spurred the less than reasonable to
accomplish what Amr bin al-As, Egypt’s Muslim conqueror, could not in 640
AD. This week alone 16 ancient
mausoleums were ransacked in Mali, viral video showed the Taliban stoning women
again and who doesn’t remember the 1,500-year-old Buddah they razed in 2001? Time to guard the wonders of the world.
Catch my latest choice headlines on AMTV News Monday – Friday at AMTV
Media and catch our in depth commentary and analysis of stories like these at
GreeneWave.com part of the AMTV network.
Meet the latest bright idea to walk out of New York, the
UN’s “Small Arms Treaty.” Flanked
by humanitarian rhetoric this internationalist effort is aimed at one thing,
ensure the monopoly of violence stays with the governments of the world –
hardly a demographic with a respectable human rights record.
The Obama administration has thrown its full support behind
the treaty and therefore to subordinate the Constitution’s 2nd
Amendment guarantee and with it the police powers of the sovereign s tates: The treaty is said to impose:
-tougher licensing laws
-confiscation and destruction of weapons deemed
in violation
-elimination of semi-automatics referred to prejudicially
as “assault weapons”
All this backed by the same administration that signed off
on the biggest weapons deal in the history of the planet to that bastion of
civil rights – Saudi Arabia. July
27th is the deadline for the treaty, any surprise it’s right before
Congress’ August recess?
For months the chatter about London has been of terror
plots. To be sure, the Olympic
grounds will be protected by the largest peacetime security operation ever seen in Britain. The heightened attention has nabbed a 24-year-old ex
con rumored to have fought with Somali Al Qaeda affiliate al-Shahaab last week ending
a flurry of 14 terror-related arrests across Britain – all based purely on
suspicion. In a nation fearing
extremists around every corner, even within it own police ranks and boasting a
camera on every lamppost expect more arrests as the opening ceremonies approach
and due process is eroded.
“Naval forces conducted an operational live fire excersise
on Saturday.” Launching missiles
from sea and coast, helicopters and missile boats the Syrian government
displayed its ability to repel foreign aggression.
Western nations have been beckoned to intervene on behalf of
opposition forces who claim over 14,000 deaths since the start of the uprising,
but Syria’s powerful network of allegiances stretches from Tehran to Beijing
impeding political efforts at subduing Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime and
western efforts to overthrow it.
Foreign intelligence services, however, are supporting a shadowy network
of insurgents steadily encroaching on Damascus threatening further escalation of
violence as pro-Assad forces scramble to survive.
China's consumer and producer prices eased more than
expected in June, inflation data on Monday showed, signaling falling demand for
goods from the world's second-biggest economy. The economy overall is seeing its slowest full year of
growth since 2002 – albeit at a 9.2 percent clip. Falling prices indicate not just declining input prices, but
declining demand from foreign customers reflecting a weakening global economy.
Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been linked to
infertility, weight gain, organ dysfunction and the desctruction of the
environment. Nearly 20 states are
considering “Right to Know” legislation, forcing producers to label food
containing GMOs and prohibiting false representation as “natural” or “naturally
made” from appearing on such products. Monsanto and Dow ally StopCostlyFoodLabeling.com
launched a campaign claiming malicious costs and warning of a legion of trial
lawyers taking advantage of the system. Both claims are handily debunked, Americans have the right to
know what they’re eating.
Catch our in depth commentary and
analysis of stories like these at GreeneWave.com and PurpleSerf.com part of the AMTV network.
After over two decades of being in Western crosshairs Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad declared to his new
cabinet “We live in a real state of war from all angles.” He couldn’t be more right as virtually
the entire
northern hemisphere in one way or another converges on this ancient plot of
land in the eastern Mediterranean.
No doubt due to the Turkish warplane shot down last week Tukey has
moved from passive facilitator of the foreign insurrection in Syria to
active aggressor and is mobilizing its military for war. On Tuesday the
Times of Israel reported:
"Large numbers of Turkish troops — including at least 15
long-range artillery pieces and tanks – moved to the Syrian frontier
from the eastern city of Diyarbakir. A video published by the Turkish
Cihan News Agency showed Turkish tanks being transported by carrier
trucks toward the frontier."
While the circumstances surrounding the downed fighter are hotly
contested we must remember that truth is the first casualty of war. Who
did what and when is irrelevant. To risk the peace of the entire
region over one fighter jet shows the motives for war rest with NATO and
its front line ally Turkey as they are obviously not in the interests
of Syria or the embattled administration of al-Assad.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that
the “rules of engagement have changed” since the shoot-down and in caustic
eloquence declared “As awe-inspiring as Turkey’s friendship is, Turkey’s wrath
is equally awe-inspiring.” Erdogan
alludes to a friendship with Syria, however, it would be quite disingenuous to
claim that friendship ended only after last week’s incident.
Erdogan admonished Syrian authorities: “"Every military
element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border and representing a security
risk and danger will be assessed as a military threat and will be treated as a
military target." This is
quite ironic since for over a year the Syrian National Council (SNC) and Free
Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, peppered
with foreign back terrorists, have been using the safety of the Turkish
border to coordinate and launch sorties into against the Assad regime.
This was of course the plan all along. Considering Tukey’s problem with the PKK and their
own brutal crack down on Kurdish separatist “terrorists” they could not
very well attack Syria for justly attempting to restore order. As any fight begins with knocking the
chip off the others shoulder Turkey has in effect placed it forcefully upon
Syria. How is that for friendship? But why have they turned their back?
Two reasons come to mind. The first is the US government and the rest of NATO has a long standing commitment
to use the lowest cost means for its designs in the Middle East, which
is to say, they prefer staying out of the fight choosing to directly
fund and train terrorists or coordinate its Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) proxy states to do so. Turkey, after reviewing the deep bench of
NATO backed secessionist militias including Al Qaeda affiliate Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) currently consulting the FSA, Iranian MEK
trained in the Nevada desert, and among others their PKK antagonists
with whom they've been fighting since the 80s, Ankara is more than
willing to lend a helping hand to avoid any “uprisings” of their own.
The second (probably the
most compelling) motive among the Turkish elite to aid the West is to become
part of the neoliberal “New Middle East,” in other words, to be a good soldier
in the New World Order. Similar to
jumping in a prospective gangster or taking a “young blood” out for his first
drive by Syria is going to oust for the Anglo-European Empire their first
Middle East dictator. Rather than pursuing
economic prospects with the BRICS as priority the new and improved
US-Turkish relations may bring forward the carrot of an otherwise nonexistent
US-Tukey free trade zone paved in the blood of one Syrian tyrant.
The immediate feeling from new more brazen attacks on Assad's elite guards
only miles away from the center of Damascus shows an increasingly
emboldened rebellion and foreign insurgency. Save a decisive effort on
the part of Russia, China and or Iran Syria will increasingly bear all
the hallmarks of Libya. Assad's days appear numbered. Whether Libya's
dystopian post-revolution will resemble Syria's is almost assured.
The New York Times on Thursday came out with the shocking headline - that is if you weren't paying attention: “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition."
However, rather than attempt to detail the larger context of the Syrian crisis
it is obvious the author Eric Schmidt and this kingpin of the mainstream media (MSM) have merely
moved on to the next chapter in Syrian propaganda in light of an
increasingly astute alternative media and informed public.
When the uprising began in Janurary of 2011
during the larger Arab Spring (Arab Nightmare, whatever you’d like to
call it) the media painted the Syrian uprising suffuse in glowing terms
of fledgling democracy – the demonstrators could do no wrong and why
would they?
The dark underbelly of the uprising, left untouched
and out of regular reports by MSM journalists for over a year, is its connections with
the larger geopolitical machinations of Washington and nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. Slowly, reality set in as the actors once called “demonstrators,” changed
to “protestors,” then to “activists,” then “opposition,” and “rebels”
until now, peppering the rebels, it is finally being acknowledged that there is a sordid mixture of foreign back terrorists hailing from all over the region.
The Cold War II Panorama
Syria is just one piece of America’s greater hegemonic mosaic
planned by realist and neoconservative cliques since the fall of the Soviet Union. It encompasses the whole of what has been envisioned as the "New Middle East," the Pacific and the rest of the world.
Syria is witnessing first hand the clash of a newly realigned
international political system between the NATO alliance and its
ostensible counter balance - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO). The SCO, most importantly its prominent members China and
Russia, is a mutual security organization and as an economic bloc of
major eastern powers it is of great import. Its emerging prominence is
what Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, in the
ensuing years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, referred to as
the “rise of the next superpower” and what the neoliberal agenda has been preparing for over two decades since.
As early as 1991 Syria was slated for regime change. In 2002, then US undersecretary of State, John Bolton added Syria to the growing “Axis of Evil.” In 2005 the Washington Postrevealed that
millions of dollars were funneled through various State Department
proxies to Syrian political opposition groups and other endeavors
including an anti-regime satellite channel, Barada TV, based in England.
The US government has also taken an active role in training activists
and developing new technologies to help protect them against
prosecution by authoritarian governments. In an April 2011 the French
news agency AFP reported that the US government for two years budgeted $50 million dollars
to train 5,000 activists from various parts of the world including
Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. When these democracy cells were sent
home they spread and created, what a State Department official referred
to as, “ripples,” which reverberated throughout the region during the
Arab Spring.
While this type of social intervention is an example of freedom of
association we must remember we are not speaking of private individuals,
but the fate of nations. This subversive strategy may be disagreeable
to many taxpayers, it may not, and how this type of social engineering
is justified under the Constitution is, if anything, unclear,
unfortunately it’s also irrelevant to a certain extent because it is
only one part of the larger geostrategic stratagem.
These relatively innocuous covert actions merely lay a foundation of
leverage against a target government. The subsequent acts are promoted
by a complicit, gullible and negligent media enamored with the idea of
democratic struggle regardless of where it may lead. It is finally
brought to a crescendo in the eyes of the international community and
eventually acted upon by multilateral military intervention. Call it
humanitarian intervention or as CNN last Thursday attempted to inject no less than five times – securing weapons of mass destruction.
Imagine for instance the Chinese handpicking the brightest and most
charismatic activists among US society during Occupy Wall Street or the
Tea Party Movement then training, funding and equipping them for
political sabotage. It would make the Citizens United case pale in comparison.
Regardless of the merit, foreign political influence (to be
distinguished from cultural, business, etc.) of any kind especially to
this degree creates massive distrust and unrest and therefore
opportunity for intervention and bloodshed with no guarantee a liberal
democracy will replace autocratic rule.
Lack of Context
Eric Schmitt while detailing much of the dubious actions on the part
of US intelligence and the Obama administration narrows the scope of the
Syrian civil war within the known paradigm. Without question the goal
of “regime change” is advanced. Schmidt reports for the New York Times:
“The weapons [being supplied to Syrian rebel groups]
including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and
some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish
border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.
The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks,
in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al
Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The
Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels,
but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.”
If Libya is any indication of how the US government refuses to help
“fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups” Syria is in
big trouble. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ranked #28 on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations was the beneficiary of the NATO led no fly zone that aided opposition groups – of which LIFG (an Al Qaeda affiliate as of 2007) made up a significant part – in their deposal of dictator Muammar Ghaddafi.
Leaders of Al Qaeda affiliate LIFG have been helping the Syrian National Council and its Free Syrian Army in repeated reports since at least late last year. The US government has since the Carter administration had a dubious history of creating, funding and training known terrorist organizations. In the region the US governement was reported to have trained the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) in the deserts of Nevada.
Schmidt's article continues:
"With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the
Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned
to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr.
Assad from power."
"Diplomacy" is evidently a catch all term, which occupies the space outside of direct
military action. When Joe Sixpack thinks of diplomacy ambassadors,
summits and negotiations come to mind. The problem is the US has had no official
diplomatic relations with Syria since 2005, and according to the
administration diplomacy, as most would understand it, will only occur after regime change.
Schmidt additionally neglects to mention Iran and China are also
attempting to thwart a possible invasion and are supporting the Assad
regime in kind, fearing a war would undoubtedly destabilize the region
and allow western interests to set up shop for the inevitable
confrontation with Iran. Syria, in other words, is the Path to Persia. Continuing:
"By helping to vet rebel groups, American intelligence
operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing
opposition network inside of Syria and to establish new ties. “C.I.A.
officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit
people,” said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by
American counterparts."
Indeed this is the endgame, “to establish new ties.” By doing so
western powers can more easily back the right horse during a bid for
leadership and therefore have a great influence on the decision making
in any subsequent administrations. Additional support like “providing
satellite imagery and other detailed intelligence on Syrian troop
locations and movements” or setting “up a rudimentary intelligence
service” all serve this purpose and future designs in the Middle East.
And finally:
"The struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify
significantly in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to
both the Syrian government and opposition fighters."
The “allies,” a term which is supposed to bring us back to WWII, and
the new “axis” of China, Russia and Iran are playing Syria like a game
of Rock’em Sock’em Robots. The thing is the Syrian people and their
nation aren’t a toy and western citizens should refrain from using them
as such in some vain attempt at reliving the democratic revolutions of
our own past.
Global Research’s Professor Michael Chudovksy gives a comprehensive breakdown of Syria. More importantly that the "protests" was in fact an armed insurrection from the beginning:
Iran, Syria, Russia and China are planning the “biggest-ever wargames in the Middle East,” according to an unconfirmed report on the semi-official Iranian news site Fars News.
A Syrian official denied the claims, however, China and Russia have
come to the aid of both countries in recent months at the UN Security
Council, vetoing military intervention in Syria and expanded sanctions
on Iran.
According to the report this new axis, as it were, are preparing
90,000 troops, 400 aircraft and 1,000 tanks for the massive joint
maneuvers, which are to take place along the Syrian coast within a
month.
It has been recently reported that Russian armament sales will continue unabated to Syria including shipment of refurbished Cold War era attack helicopters.
The shipment has been reported to have turned back off the Scotland
coast after losing its insurance due to the controversial nature of its
mission, however, its transponder has since been turned off and
verification cannot be achieved. It is possible the armaments are still
on their way to Syria.
Russia’s tacit support of the Bashar al Assad regime has the US State
Department dismayed, however, in light of covert training, funding and
harboring militant opposition elements in Turkey, a NATO member, the
western nations are hardly blameless in the intervention. It has been
reported that presumably US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey have Special Operations Forces in Syria
since at least December of 2011 training opposition forces and
providing reconnaissance. Outfinanced and outgunned and fearing another
Libyan style multilateral qu d’etatIranian Quds Force and Russian SOF have also been reported providing similar assistance to the Syrian military.
Russian interests in the region center around the deep sea ports of
Tartus and Latakia. In 2007 Russia endeavored to reestablish a
permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean for the first time since
the Cold War. Needless to say the prospect alarmed many in Washington
and Tel Aviv. China has a similar and potentially sticky port access issue
in Gwadar, Pakistan in a region where NATO and US forces are waging a
full-blown drone war and are covertly, as in Syria, aiding opposition
forces. It has been speculated that this Balochistan region could change Sino-US strategic equations significantly. An effort in Congress to drive a wedge between the region and the Pakistani government in Islamabad was shelved in February – at least for now.
The Fars News report of war games states that Russian “atomic
submarines and warships, aircraft carriers and mine-clearing destroyers
as well as Iranian battleships and submarines will also arrive in
Syria” and that Egypt has agreed to let 12 Chinese warships cross the
Suez Canal for the exercises. Considering US designs to deny Chinese
naval freedom out of Pakistani ports and therefore projection into the
Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf China has a vested interest in aiding
Russia and its claims to access the Mediterranean.
Syria meanwhile faces international pressure, predominantly from the
West’s NATO member nations, to end a 15-month crackdown on local rebels
trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. But this is of course
more than about “rebels.” The small wars of the last decade are mere
peons on the grand chessboard, however, it looks as though larger pieces
are being moved into place.
You may even wish to delve further into America's Pacific Century: Containing China and indulge in an informative analysis of US hegemonic machinations in a new video from Nile Bowie and Global Research TV.
When it comes to the
growth of domestic government it may be arguable that administrations of
either Democrat or Republicans pursue different agendas, albeit usually
revolving around the prevailing social issues of the day. When it
comes to foreign affairs, however, there is a seamless continuity of
agenda aimed at maintaining and growing – American hegemony.
In
foreign affairs at-large this American influence leads an Anglo-European
coalition through its military arm – NATO. It should be clear,
however, that when NATO acts it is invariably at the behest of U.S.
interests as it “contributes between one-fifth and one-quarter of NATO’s
budget. In FY2010 that contribution totaled $117.8 million…But that
factors only direct payments, not deployments of personnel,” reportedCBS News
last year. U.S. equity in NATO has been concentrated even more as
European member nations’ contributions shrank by $45 billion over the
past two years due to fiscal turmoil.
Nevertheless, NATO and its 28 member countries
flexed their collective muscle last month during their summit in
Chicago. NATO announced its first step toward implementation of a ballistic missile shield,
to be deployed in four phases by about 2020, sending clear signals to
those not in the Club – namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea –
that amid growing security threats NATO is ready to counter any
potential aggressor. According to a statement released by NATO leaders:
"We
have declared an interim ballistic missile defence capability as an
initial step to establish NATO’s missile defence system, which will
protect all NATO European territories, populations and forces against
the increasing threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic
missiles…”
Given the current threat of asymmetrical
warfare from non-state actors it seems as though conventional
confrontations may not be a thing of the past.
This is a layout of just some of the players involved in the
Sino-Russian
containment zone NATO and the U.S. are attempting to
install.
The real containment sphere, as it were, is 4-dimensional
incorporating
land, sea, air, space, and the internet.
Western Flank, Europe
The U.S. and NATO now
have bases and/or military operations in former Soviet spheres of
influence: Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia are
among those little known. Moscow, understandably rejects the idea that
the NATO missile shield in this area is merely for Iran. Russia offered
to operate the missile shield jointly with NATO, but was dismissed by
the alliance revealing the ruse for what it is. NATO’s secretary
general Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Russian “concerns groundless.”
Before NATO leaders met last month Russia threatened to strike the NATO missile shield
should progress continue. Despite the threats, NATO’s deputy secretary
general, Alexander Vershbow, told the conference last month the shield
is "not and will not be directed against Russia" and that Russia's
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) are "too fast and too
sophisticated" for the planned system to intercept. If this is true,
NATO countries will be even more vulnerable as Russia recently tested a new ICBM, which according to the Russian military improves its ability to overcome current or future missile defense systems.
Western Flank, The Middle East
It
has been the plan since 1991, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union,
to have the U.S. infiltrate – diplomatically or otherwise – its former
client states right up to the Russian motherland. The plan, referred to
more appropriately as a “foreign policy coup,” was revealed by Gen.
Wesley Clark to an audience in California in 2007. He claims Paul
Wolfowitz, then undersecretary of defense, told him that the U.S. has
5-10 years to "clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran,
Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us."
In 2001, the timetable was given an extension after the attacks of
9/11. While visiting the Pentagon, a classified strategy was revealed
to Gen. Clark that the U.S. planed to dismantle and replace the
governments of seven nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan, and Iran. Other than Iran of course, five of the seven
governments have already been deposed.
Somalia remains in the
throws; corrupt, occupied by a coalition of African armies, fending off
fundamentalist factions and offering little more than 21st century pirates. Lebanon was coaxed into uprising in 2006 through a sophisticated “color revolution”
strategy piloted successfully by the likes of the U.S. government
funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a sort of social CIA.
And
Syria as we have documented in detail is in the midst of a dangerous
foreign backed insurgency focused on delegitimizing the Syrian
government in the eyes of the rest of the world. Should Syria fall,
Russia will lose its only direct ports of access to the Mediterranean –
Tartus and Latakia. As late as 2007 it was revealed
the Russians were to re-establish a permanent naval presence in the
Mediterranean through access to these new ports. Needless to say, this
alarmed many in Washington and Tel Aviv.
A brief by Stratfor.com, a private U.S. intelligence firm, offered this analysis:
“A
Russian naval presence off the Syrian coast could allow Syrian
president Bashar al-Assad's regime to better inoculate itself against a
potential attack by the US or Israel ... The Russians would be offering
an attractive insurance policy."
Recognizing western
efforts to deny Russia this access reveals that the Syrian “civil war”
is really a microcosm – or if its allowed to succeed, a prelude – of
World War III. There are no less than seven countries involved in the
hostilities in one way or the other and because of it Russia has
recently buttressed the Assad government and Russian strategic interests
with new attack helicopters, weapons and advisors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Pentagon, least to say, have not welcomed the move.
Western Flank, Central Eurasia
The
U.S. and NATO now have bases and/or military operations Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan among other Central Asian states including Georgia
where U.S. forces are training their military. While all these young,
recently emancipated countries, are ostensibly democratic there has been
evidence of rampant corruption, rigged elections and ethnic strife as
can be expected from a region carved up quite arbitrarily.
The
U.S. has nonetheless embraced whatever system these post-Communist
orphans have come up with as long as they didn’t run back to a resurgent
Russian Empire. Afghanistan might also be included as one of these
former Soviet states, but of course only for a brief period as the USSR
was rebuffed and sent packing after its botched invasion during the
1980s.
The U.S. and NATO have been in Afghanistan for over ten
years now. Detractors scratch their heads and wonder why the U.S. would
be sucked into another Vietnam, mired in scandal and setbacks. Some call it a quagmire, however, a sober assessment might conclude we were never intended to leave.
Afghanistan, amidst this vast containment strategy is an ideal
outpost. It sits atop trillions of dollars of mineral reserves, a
crossroads for oil essential oil pipelines and offers a perfect peak
into Russia and China.
Since NATO hasn’t been the best houseguest,
killing hundreds of civilians and military personnel in the most
aggressive drone war to date, Pakistan is no longer willing to serve as a
NATO supply conduit. NATO and the U.S. military will now use a
“reverse transit” through three former Soviet satellites (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan)
to ship military equipment out of Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan
altogether. The move is purportedly six times more expensive. Whether
this is a bonafide exit route or merely a way of creating better
partnerships closer to Russia remains to be seen.
What is clear is
that Pakistan serves a similar role to China as Syria serves Russia –
naval access. While many are talking about Syria few are talking about
the fact the Pentagon admits the U.S. is at war in Pakistan. While the cover story is of course the favored fiction – Al-Qaeda reigns in Pakistan – groups, which are funded by staunch pro U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and UAE, the ultimate goal is denial of access as much as it is in Syria.
The Wall Street Journalreported last year
that the Port of Gwadar, in coastal Balochistan region of Pakistan, is
scheduled to be the latest in China’s “’String of Pearls’ wherein China
has also funded construction or upgrades of ports in Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and Myanmar,” a stratagem aimed at strengthening economic
ties, securing access to crucial resources and projecting force into the
Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf and the African Continent.
As the U.S.
exits (at least publicly) its relationship with Pakistan, China is
taking over. In addition to the Port of Gwadar China sees the
Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmentistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India
(TAPI) pipeline as vital to its economic health. To this end China has
delivery of 50 JF-17 fighter jets, a unspecified number of 4,400 ton
frigates, submariner training and possibly China’s more advanced FC-20,
also known as the J10, but details are thin. In the final analysis
Balochistan has been and will continue to be the victim (like Syria) of subversion, destabilization and political sabotage,
"a nexus," writes Eric Draitser at Stop Imperialism, "the point at
which diametrically opposing strategic interests converge." These are
the typical tools of the realist school of geopolitics.
Part II will cover the South China Sea, the South Pacific and India, the Asian linchpin.
The massacre in Srebrenica was the last best piece of
propaganda of the 20th century. Syria’s Houla massacre, if swallowed
whole, will produce the same deceit.
In 1995, after the Dayton Peace Accords were signed in Ohio,
purportedly 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were massacred during a
summer in Srebrenica. It was referred to as the worst mass murder since
World War II and the blame was quickly laid at the feet of the usual
suspects – Serbian forces. The result was NATO’s aerial bombardment and
the invasion of 60,000 troops under United Nations command.
The Bosnian invasion was predicated on the idea that Srebrenica was a
result of “ethnic cleansing” the endgame of course to stymie if not
eradicate the Bosniak bloodline. The only problem was women and
children were evidently put on buses and allowed to flee. When the
graves were exhumed and the bodies examined mostly men of fighting age
were found. It took over a decade for the Hague to exonerate Serbia in
the action and place it squarely on a Croat, but by 2007 the damage was
irreparable in more ways than one. So goes the fog of war and
propaganda.
Syria over the Memorial Day weekend suffered a microcosm of that
massacre when 108 civilians (32 children under 10-years-old) in Hula,
outside Homs, were summarily dispatched without mercy. Initial reports
suspected the Syrian army, if not, the Alawite Shabiha militia, loyal to
the Assad regime. A Syrian investigation, however, found the culprits
to be an 800-man death squad.
Thus far the trial of the Houla Massacre has taken place in the court
of public opinion, which has been severely biased in favor of the
opposition since the beginning of the Arab Spring, imbued with
democratic legitimacy. In reality the Free Syrian Army (FSA) based
from behind NATO lines in Turkey and under the direction of the Syrian
National Council (SNC) is supplemented by a dubious international
coalition of Islamic fundamentalists from all over the Middle East.
Rather than merely appealing for democratic reforms this sordid sum
has created an environment of rampant sectarian violence not scene since
Iraq in 2007. Unfortunately like in Afghanistan and Iraq the grand
irony is that the West’s “crusade” as it is often referred to has
actually displaced hundreds of thousands of Christians. According to French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos:
“…the picture for us is utter desolation: the church of
Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still
occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the
fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without
taking anything. The area of Hamidieh is still shelter to armed groups
independent of each other, heavily armed and bankrolled by Qatar and
Saudi Arabia. All Christians (138,000) have fled to Damascus and
Lebanon, while others took refuge in the surrounding countryside.”
Continuing…
“the enemies of Syria have enlisted some of the Muslim
Brotherhood in order to destroy the brotherly relations that
traditionally existed between Muslims and Christians: Yet, to date,they
are not able to: they have provoked a contrary reaction and the two
communities are more united than before. The Syrian soldiers in fact,
continue to face foreign fighters, mercenaries Libyans, Lebanese
militants from the Gulf, Afghans, Turks”
This heartfelt testimony reflects what we have known for the better
part of a year, that the “protestors” and “activists” in Syria are very
much part of a larger proxy war which pulls support from a vast cross
section of the NATO-Sunni alliance. Funding of groups like the Muslim
Brotherhood has been in the pipeline since at least 2007 when it was reported in the New Yorker
that Israel and the US were funneling support through Saudi Arabia so
as not to compromise the “credibility” of the ostensibly “Islamic”
movement. A similar tactic was utilized through Pakistan in creation of
Al’ Qaeda in 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (we all
know how that worked out). As members of the Muslim Brotherhood are now
honored guests at the White House, one must wonder if “credibility” is any longer an issue.
To continue with the Srebrenica analogy, while there has been no
peace accord as there was in Bosnia former UN secretary general, Kofi
Annan, has been attempting to monitor a ceasefire (part of his six point
plan) as he did in Rwanda and Bosnia, which has by all accounts
demonstrably failed as it did twice before. To be sure, as the Washington Post’s distorted, but still revealing op-ed detailed, wherever Kofi goes killings follow.
The common narrative parroted throughout the MSM (here and here)
is that these UN monitors are naively providing “cover” for the Assad
regime’s reprisals and add credibility to the Syrian government under
the idea that diplomatic solutions are being ardently pursued. Given
what we know about the composition of the insurgency, however, it is
much more likely the opposite is true. UN monitors legitimize the
conflict itself as a wholly indigenous uprising that requires diplomacy
and time rather than expose it for what it is – a foreign invasion aimed
at dismantling a key ally of Iran and Russia.
Srebrenica “claimed 8,000 lives”, however, it later turned out those
numbers were grossly exaggerated (more like 700) and the motive – ethnic
cleansing – proved tenuous at best. In reality it was another horror
of war propagandized as the international version of a hate crime – a
crime against humanity – ostensibly far worse and deserving of
invasion. In Houla, while the scene has changed the goal is very much
the same: demonize a vulnerable target government, intervene with force and with overwhelming humanitarian legitimacy post-haste.
The massacre, however, retains all the hallmarks
of a shake and bake propaganda piece: the group was nearly 1/3
children, the fatalities purportedly as a result of “tank shells” and
while many victims were in fact “mutilated and killed by knives.”
Indeed, the footage was “released by the rebels” for Western
consumption, that much is undeniable. Thing is, the Syrian army
doesn’t enjoy a monopoly on that type of ordinance since the FSA has
been reported to have captured Syrian army tanks as well as receiving even more tanks from defectors.
What was true in Srebrenica (see the Srebrenica fact sheet) is most likely true in Houla, both parties are were responsible
for the death and destruction rather than one fail swoop of merciless
destruction at the hands of an all-powerful Assad hell bent on crushing
the moral of his people and their wishes for democracy.
Tempered with the aforementioned facts, the understandable and
demonstrable desire of the media to sensationalize the events,
geopolitical interests and the thin evidence (lies of satellite photos showing pro Assad forces “at the time of the attack” were in fact a day old, testimony of defected “air force officer” with “super human” hearing and sight,
and testimony from a child in shock and impressionable) an objective
analysis may come forth. Until that time beware the sirens call.
What is Qud’s Force Doing in Syria, Re-balancing or Massacring?
It has been reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Ismail
Qa’ani, second-in-command of Iranian Special Forces – Quds Force – has
been training Assad’s soldiers since before the Syrian uprising. This
from the International Business Times:
“The Quds, named for the Farsi word for Jerusalem, are
Iran’s special forces unit — in American equivalents, a mix between
black-ops and the CIA. As the Revolutionary Guard’s external force, the
Quds support and facilitate Islamic movements in other nations on
Teheran’s behalf, movements that allegedly include terrorist
organizations.”
OMG, so like terrorist organizations like NATO backed Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group (LIFG) or Nevada trained MEK both listed on the US State
Department’s “Don’t Feed the Terrorists” list, those types of
terrorists? Looks like two can play at this game.
The state department attempted to connect the dots for us in the wake
of the Houla massacre neglecting to brief us on the opposition’s
questionable allegiances and design. Its spokesperson, according to IBT:
"Victoria Nuland said that the Shabiha militia, accused of
carrying out the Houla massacre, has been modeled after Iran’s
paramilitary Basij force, suggesting that the Iranian military could
have trained the Syrian civilian soldiers."
This could be true, but it doesn’t explain the inconsistencies and
gaps in the favored fiction of Houla, rather it supplies a red hearing.
In reality the official narrative is fraying. The IEDs, reports of
wahabbists, displaced Christians and clandestine support are piling upon
a delicate ruse. The idea that the opposition’s “demonstrators” and
“activists” are a homogenous, indigenous and innocuous bunch of freedom
loving non-state actors has been so undermined that Sec. of State
Hillary Clinton revealed the true mastermind behind the Houla massacre
claiming in Copenhagen that Quds “are coaching the Syrian military …
helping them set up these sectarian militias.” She effectively, in one line, used up her lifetime supply of irony.
It is evident, according to defectors, the Quds Force was needed
because Syria’s Army wasn’t up to task in crucial engagements with the
foreign backed FSA and its fundamentalist friends. Hm, odd. In the
end, the Syrian government (backed by Iran, Russia and China) faces a
foreign backed insurgency (under the aegis of Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Libya, Turkey, NATO). We are in effect seeing World War III in a
fishbowl, perhaps a peak into the future and its only going to get
uglier from here.
