Topher Morrison
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 Post revealed 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:
