Syria

University of Sydney suspended professor Dr. Tim Anderson from his position as a senior lecturer after he had worked for this university for more than 20 years because of his criticisms of war propaganda against Syria, Iraq and Palestine. Dr.Tim Anderson is the author of the excellent book, "The Dirty War on Syria". This action by Provost Garton is an infringement on academic freedom and on Dr Anderson's human right and freedom of speech. His offence to the establishment is to inform, educate and organise for the end of wars, in which Australia is complicit.

While the ostensible reason for this extreme and totally illegitimate expulsion is because of Tim’s advocacy for Palestinian equality, it’s hard not to see it as motivated mainly by his advocacy for Syria, and as an attempt to suppress the “pro-Assad” point of view.

Perhaps I’m drawing a long bow, but it also seems no coincidence that this week, after barely a mention of Syria since mid-October, suddenly we heard the tired old story of the Caesar photos and the need to somehow get Assad to trial – or rather to be prosecuted for war crimes, as there is no-one suggesting that he didn’t commit them.
Which just means we need to redouble our efforts in support of both Palestine and Syria, as Israel ramps up its military aggression and propaganda on both fronts.

The current atmosphere in Australia is highly anti-Russian and anti-Syrian, while at the same time absolutely nothing is discussed that would offer any perspective; there is only one setting – Assad brutal dictator killing his own people, and Putin the calculating and misleading leader of a pariah state that “carelessly” poisons people it doesn’t like. If a news story doesn’t fit this pattern it’s either forgotten or adjusted to suit.

Incidentally I find it interesting that the graphic under dispute refers to Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza, rather than the most recent attack, or the six months of target practice on the Gaza border by the IOF. I should also say that the point being made is one I always find the most disingenuous claim of Israel and its allies – that Hamas’ rockets are “indiscriminate” – as if it is that which makes them criminal. By comparison the IDF’s precision strikes that intentionally target and obliterate families, TV stations, water pumping stations, schools and ambulances, are “legitimate responses”.

On the 2nd October 2018, a young woman’s life was brought to a brutal end by a bullet from an ISIS executioner’s hand-gun. Mrs Thoraya Um Ammar was executed on video by the terrorist group more than two months after she and twenty five other women and children were kidnapped from the Sweida countryside, south of Damascus on July 25th 2018. 

[Note: Numbers of kidnap victims do vary. While in Shbeki, I was told 32 were originally kidnapped but that a number of them managed to escape their captors and return to their village]

Civilian martyrs names and photographs displayed at entrance to the village of Shrehi in eastern Sweida countryside. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

The images circulating of this execution are extremely distressing and we will not be sharing them in this article. During my recent visit to Syria, I visited three of the seven villages that came under attack in the eastern countryside of Sweida City on that fateful day in July 2018. The grief and anger was still very raw but civilians spoke to me of the bloodshed that was a result of the meticulously planned ISIS attack, unhindered by the US Coalition forces camped in Al Tanf, 330km to the East. ISIS entered the villages from the east and traversed vast areas of exposed desert to do so, apparently undetected by those who claim to wage war on ISIS inside Syria.

“The roads of Shrehi ran with blood” H Saab told me as we stood next to his family home in Shrehi where four of his relatives were murdered by the marauding ISIS gangs. He pointed to the still visible stains on the road in front of us and on the walls of the house and courtyard.

Road sign to Sweida. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Our journey began in Damascus. We left early in the morning and headed due south before taking the road that brought us to the east of Sweida city and to the villages that form a chain north to south, only about 1km apart. As we entered the province of Sweida, we began to see the elaborate memorials to martyrs killed in Syria’s war against Western-sponsored terrorism. Our guide told us that these beautiful monuments are in honour of the soldiers who have given their lives in defence of their homeland. Many of these impressive structures are placed at the entrance to villages “so their names are remembered for eternity by all those who live because they died“.

We were told that some of these graves also date back to the 1925 ‘Great Syrian Revolt or ‘Great Druze Revolt’ against France. They are wonderful to behold, rising out of the dry desert plains, backdropped by the hills and trees that pepper the landscape stretching out in front of us.

Just one of the many stunning memorials to SAA martyrs from the Sweida region. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

On the drive down to the villlage of Shrehi, our guide H Saab told us that thirty-five members of his family had been killed in the ISIS attack that took place in the early hours of the 25th July 2018. I asked him what he believed to be behind this attack. He told me that he thought it was to reduce SAA pressure on the ISIS terrorists holding out in Yarmouk Basin at this time. Perhaps to give them an escape route to the US base at Al Tanf.

Leaving Shahba City by the East Gate. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

We entered Shahba City dating from Byzantine times and a city modelled on ancient Rome – “temples, triumphal arches, baths, a theatre, and a great wall surrounding the city were all built based on the plan of a typical Roman city”. We exited the ancient city through the remains of the East Gate and continued on to a number of towns and villages, some built during the Ottoman empire. H Saab told me that many of these village have labyrinths of caves that run underground beneath the houses.

At the entrance to Shrehi, one of the villages attacked by ISIS in July, we stopped the car to visit the poster that had been erected with the names of the martyrs killed during the attack. Young men, women, children, murdered by a terrorist group with a history of collusion with the US Coalition against Syria and the Syrian Arab Army. Acclaimed journalist, Elijah J. Magnier wrote at the time:

“ISIS knew it was possible for its convoy to drive under the eyes of a superpower state (the US) without being disturbed.” 

Video footage of entering Shrehi. Watch: 

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We drove up to one of the highest points in the village of Shrehi to meet with the representatives of the village and the survivors of the attack. We entered the traditional “madafa”, the welcoming room in the Saab family home.

Steps leading down to the Madafa in Shrehi where I met with families of the martyrs and survivors of the attack. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Once inside the Madafa the story of the attack was told by Khaled Saleh Saab.

“The terrorists entered the village at 4 am while most of us were still sleeping. We were awoken by the shooting and the cries of ‘Allah Akhbar’. They shot out the lights in the village and there was no moon that night so they worked under the cover of total darkness” 

On the way into Shrehi we had passed a house that had been one of the first to be targeted (see video), the mother, father and son were murdered by ISIS, the daughter was injured but survived. According to Khaled, 53 ISIS terrorists entered the village and all of them were eventually killed by the young men defending their families and their land:

“We defended our land and our homes because this land is mixed with the blood of generations of our people. We will not accept that people without morals or humanity can touch this land. We stay, we will stand and defend this land until we die. Our youth killed these terrorists even though they had very old weapons, very simple weapons. The ISIS fighters had modern, expensive equipment but we still defeated them.” said Khaled.

Khaled told us that the clashes continued from 4 am until 1pm. Between 4 and 5 am the ISIS fighters took advantage of the sleeping civilians and murdered many of them in their sleep before they had time to warn their neighbours.

“The attack was a well planned military operation. ISIS coordinated their attacks in order to paralyse all the villages. They positioned snipers around the villages and along the roads that connect the villages to prevent people moving between villages or coming to the help of neighbouring villages. They came from the south and moved north.” Khaled continued.

In one of the bloodiest massacres of the eight year war in Syria, 270 civilians were martyred during this attack, more than 300 injured.

“Many of our young men, women and children bled to death in the street. Nobody was able to get to them or to transport them to hospital. If they tried they would be sniped.” Khaled told us.

Khaled told us that, in his opinion, many of the ISIS fighters were on drugs, very likely to be Captagon. “We fired many bullets into them, but they kept fighting” he told us and this was confirmed by other family members in the madafa. In January 2017, “at least 137kg of Captagon, dubbed a “jihadist drug” and “the drug of the Syrian conflict,” was seized at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in a first for France, customs officials said, adding that half of the illicit cargo was destined for Saudi Arabia.” Captagon is a psychostimulant that is used as a performance enhancer by the extremist gangs that have invaded Syria since 2011.

“After we killed the ISIS terrorists, we checked their IDs. They were Chechen, Saudi, Iraqi, Palestinian, Egyptian, Somalian. One was wearing a suicide belt, nothing remained of him after he had detonated it.”

In Shrehi alone there were 37 civilians martyred. These included Khaled’s mother, father, brother and cousin who were killed in the home we were talking in.

“These groups, all of them, are supported by the UK, US and Gulf States to target and destroy our peaceful towns. Throughout history Syria has sacrificed martyrs and we are ready to sacrifice our souls for our land despite more than 120 countries attacking us with the terrorist groups as their instrument. They should know we will stand and fight to defend our land and our  people” 

Just one of the countless heroes from Sweida countryside – Khaled’s brother, Iskandar Saab had served in the 102 “Batch” of the Syrian Arab Army which had been decommissioned just two months before the ISIS attack on his home village of Shrehi on the 25th July 2018.

Iskandar came face to face with the crazed ISIS terrorists as he attempted to scale the hill leading up to his family’s house. He was shot in his right leg, his hand and his back. A local graduate of trade and economy and a math teacher, Mr Mahran Radi Saab saved Iskandar and managed to take him to his brother Khaled Saab. After rescuing Iskandar, Mahran was shot and killed by an ISIS sniper.

Despite his life-threatening wounds, Iskandar managed to get into his car and drive 300m under fire from the ISIS snipers who had lined the roads joining the three villages of Rami, Shrehi and Shebki.

“This land, this property belongs to our blood. It belongs to us. We will never allow any super-power to steal our land or to control our lives, our future” Khaled Saab reinforced this message several times during our talk.

Entering the home of Ziad Saab and greeted by his daughter Kinda. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

After the meeting we went to the home of Ziad Saab for breakfast, which in Syria translates into “banquet”.

Ziad’s brother in law lived in one of the houses at the entrance of the village, one of the first to be attacked. As soon as the attack happened, Ziad’s brother in law managed to relay a warning to Ziad who lives with his wife and children deeper inside the village. Ziad took his simple hunting rifle and went to help. As he neared his brother in law’s home, he saw many ISIS terrorists firing randomly and fierce clashes between the ISIS fighters and civilians. It was still dark at this point. Ziad made the decision to return home to protect his own wife and children and to take his family to a safer place.

Then Ziad tried to call his brother in law. An ISIS fighter answered the phone and told Ziad his brother in law was dead, he told Ziad to call an ambulance for his own family members – they would be killed also “there will be no escape”. The ISIS terrorists also attacked the brother in law’s two daughters and their mother – 10 year old Hela and 13 year old Hala.

As we were eating breakfast, a 6 month old baby was brought into the room. Her name is Ghala. Her father was murdered just 100 meters from Ziad’s house, by the ISIS terrorists. Watching Ghala playing in the arms of H Saab, it is painful to comprehend the scale of devastation and loss that these villages have experienced. A recent Facebook post by Syrian, Wissam Sliman puts it into perspective:

“Imagine that this were your village, or your neighborhood! Imagine that one of those were your house! Imagine that the same thing happened to you! Imagine that you lost a family member, or maybe two, or maybe more! Imagine that your mother, sister, daughter or son is still kidnapped and now in the hands of the worst terrorist group ever which is ISIS!

And above all imagine that it didn’t mean anything to half of your brothers and sisters in humanity in this world,just because they are still sleeping, daydreaming and refusing to wake up! What hurts you is that if they did wake up 7 years ago, you would have had many of your beloved ones around you now, but they didn’t, cause they are still refusing to wake up!

A burned out car seemed fused to the earth at the entrance to Shbeki. The car, a Skoda, had once belonged to Bahjat Atallah Saab who tried to rescue Zahi Jadallah Saab and his wife and son, Assem Zahi Saab, a law student. The entire car was targeted when they tried to flee the ISIS attack on Shbeki that began at 4am on 25th July 2018. The car came under attack by the ISIS snipers before being targeted by an RPG which turned the car into a furnace from which the occupants did not escape. Martyr Bahgat Saab was working as an Arabic language teacher.

This house in Shbeki was taken over by ISIS early on and used as a sniper vantage point. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley) 

The horrific ISIS bloodbath continued in Shbeki, in fact it intensified. In this village, 60 civilians were martyred, many of them systematically picked off by ISIS snipers after they occupied one of the outlying homes set high up overlooking the buildings and streets that lay below. The house owner was in Lebanon when he heard news of the attack. He rushed home to find out what had happened to his family, he was shot and killed by the ISIS occupiers.

View from the roof of the house used by ISIS snipers to target civilians below. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Video from the rooftop of the house taken over by ISIS snipers in Shbeki. WATCH: 

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Hazem, a young student in his third year studying research science at Damascus University, received a call at 4.40 am on the 25th July 2018, when he was in Sweida city. He was told that his home town of Shbeki was under attack by ISIS fighters.

Hazem got in a car with five of his friends and tried to drive home, he was being guided by people inside the town who warned him which roads to avoid because ISIS had set up snipers along many of the entry roads into his village. Hazem entered from the south which was longer but safer. At 5.30 am he was still unable to enter because of the battles that were raging between the terrorists and the residents, determined to defend their families and land.

Hazem welcomed us in the traditional Sweida Madafa – the welcome room – of his family home. The sun poured through the glass onto the beautiful marble floor and chairs arranged around the sides of the room to provide a space to talk. Hazem recounted the appalling acts of violence committed by the ISIS terrorists who had entered the towns from the direction of the US base at Al Tanf, to the north-east of Shbeki, Shrehi and Rami..the villages I was able to visit.

Hazem’s testimony was shocking. He told us that his family and other civilians were rounded up and taken to what he called the “bedouin house” at the outskirts of the village overlooking the plains and desert that stretch out towards the east and in the direction of the US military base at Al Tanf.

The Bedouin house on the outskirts of Shbeki overlooking the plains and desert to the East. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

There, the ISIS terrorists took all the men outside and executed them in cold blood. Among them were Hazem’s father, brothers, cousin and neighbour. The ISIS fighters then forced the women and children to come outside to see the bodies of their fathers, sons, husbands before they kidnapped them and headed north east with the kidnap victims, towards Tilal Al Safa.

Hazem confirmed that 60 civilians were martyred in Shbeki, the majority from sniper bullets after ISIS fighters took control of houses placed high above the village which enabled them to assassinate the young men who flocked to defend their families, one by one. Most of these young men did not realise that their hometown was infested by ISIS snipers – just as in the other villages, ISIS had attacked at 4 am under complete darkness and while everyone was sleeping. As in Shrehi, they shot out all the village lights during their approach before entering homes and murdering civilians, including children, while they slept. Hazem told us that a disabled child was beheaded as he lay sleeping in his bed.

Hazem’s mother had been used as a human shield by the ISIS fighters who forced her to walk in front of them to prevent the civilians firing upon them. She was later among the kidnap victims although she and Hazem’s sister in law managed to escape and returned to the village just after midnight. They were terrified that ISIS had taken over the village so they slept in an abandoned house just outside the village. The following evening, they were able to recognise their neighbours and families who had survived and defended their village, preventing total occupation by the terrorist group.

During the march, Hazem’s uncle’s wife had collapsed and had been unable to continue. The first group of ISIS terrorists left her where she lay and refused to leave anyone to take care of her. Later, another team of ISIS fighters followed on behind and executed her on the road. Her body was eventually found, the next day, 6km from the village.

While we were talking with Hazem, a young boy came in to the Madafa and lay on one of the chairs. His name was Ismail, 8 years old. His father was murdered by the ISIS fighters and he was among the kidnap victims. During the move north-east with ISIS, Ismail had managed to mingle with some Bedouin children and escape the ISIS groups, before finally making it back to his village.

Before we left, Hazem wanted to send a message about the remaining 25 kidnap victims, almost entirely women and children:

…
Hazem showed us the road that ISIS took with the kidnap victims.

“They took the women and children who were in the Bedouin house by this road. They gathered the other women at the same end of the town next to the graves. All the women were in one place around 8.30 in the morning but they waited a long time before moving them. They took this road to the north. They took them in the direction of the Tial Al Safa hills which you can see from the Bedouin house. We think they reached the Tilal Al Safa hills after five or six days.”

Direction that ISIS took towards Tilal Al Safa. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

I asked Hazem if he was worried about sleeper cells or further attacks from the ISIS members. He pointed to the closest SAA checkpoint about 30 km to the north east of the village. He told me:

“There are big gaps between the SAA checkpoints, around 5km, so yes, we are worried that they may try to come back. It is not considered safe here after dark at the moment. From 5pm onwards the young men of the villages man the checkpoints in readiness for any possible attacks. We will not allow another massacre.” 

SAA soldiers in Tilal Al Safa to the North East of Sweida where they have been waging a fierce campaign to defeat ISIS. 

The SAA have been making huge inroads in the area of Tilal Al Safa towards defeating the remnants of ISIS that have taken comfort in the shelter provided to them by the proximity of the US base in Al Tanf.

“ISIS benefitted from the US safety parameter around its military base at al-Tanaf, preventing Syrian and Iraqi armies from breaking into this parameter to pursue ISIS when needed. ISIS took advantage of the US measures and used the area to cross for the north where there is the bulk of its forces.” ~ Elijah J Magnier  

Today, 6th October 2018, Syrian Arab News Agency reported:

“Units of the Syrian Arab Army, in cooperation with the allied forces, on Saturday continued to tighten the noose around Daesh (ISIS) terrorists’ remnants in depth of the rocky cliffs surroundings Tilal al-Safa, the last stronghold for terrorists deep in Sweida eastern Badiya (desert). The army continues to advance in the depth of the rocky cliffs, comb the caves and the cav”erns in the recently liberated areas, seizing weapons and munitions left behind by the terrorists, the reporter indicated.”

One of the kidnap victims, Thoraya Um Ammar, has been executed by ISIS, the others await their fate, surely praying that the SAA will be able to reach them and to drive out and destroy their ISIS captors. The unity and resilience of the people of the Sweida countryside is what has enabled them to survive the ISIS attack and its traumatic aftermath.

As I walked away from the stone “Bedouin” house that had been witness to such bloodthirsty brutality and violence, I spotted a flower stubbornly clinging to the wall outside. This is the spirit that has borne Syria through this 8 year war with such dignity and honour. The desire to defend their roots, to live and to love life against all odds.

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Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. Please support Vanessa at her Patreon Account.

READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files

These films would constitute slapstick if their intentions to mislead were not so serious. They are meant to provide the United States with an excuse to drop bombs on Syria. This would be the same old disproven excuse that the US has tried to use already several times. It is amazing how the deep state just cannot come up with good script writers for anything. We have republished the below from https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201809211068240639-syria-idlib-chemical-attack-fabrication/.

Syrian Arab News Agency has posted a footage of an alleged chemical attack fabrication in Syrian city of Idlib. [See their facebook link here: https://www.facebook.com/SyrianArabNewsAgencySana/videos/1798132316875954/.]

A video reportedly depicting a chemical attack fabrication in Syria's Idlib has been circulating Syrian media, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The agency said that the footage depicts "White Helmets" group staging an attack in order to accuse the government forces of chemical weapons use.

In the five-minute video posted by the agency, there are three versions of the same footage with slightly different "scenarios" and the arrangement of people. At the beginning of the video, the alleged "victims of a chemical attack" are lying on the ground, one man is being transferred on a stretcher to an ambulance, and a child is being hosed with water in a pickup van.

However, in the second and third versions of the video, the man no longer lies on a stretcher, but helps the others to hose the child with water.

The initially posted video was removed from YouTube for violation of terms of service shortly after it was published. It was also posted by other users, however.

Read more at https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201809211068240639-syria-idlib-chemical-attack-fabrication/.

The Syrian army discovered a highly-equipped hospital which had been built with the support of the western states and Israel for the terrorists and their family members in Quneitra province.

The Arabic-language service of RT reported on Wednesday that the Syrian police forces entered the town of al-Bariqeh in Quneitra and took control of a hospital with modern equipment and medication.

It added that the hospital is equipped with different types of x-ray systems, an advanced central heating system, well-equipped beds and a surgery section and a vast storage drugs, including new and advanced medications needed for surgical operations.

A medical source said that a large number of Israeli, US and French equipment and drugs have been found in the hospital, saying that some of the medicines and equipment are not at all available to Syrian citizens.

Quneitra province in Southwestern Syria came under government control around two months ago, when terrorists, mostly from the al-Nusra Front, were forced to withdraw to Idlib. Others agreed to the government peace offer, ended the war of insurgency and received government amnesty.

The hospital is one of the last placed that had remained unknown to the government forces ever since they came in control of the province that neighbors the occupied Golan Heights, but it is not the only instance of the US and Israeli support for the terrorists.

In another instance on Tuesday, the Damascus army launched two separate ambush operations against ISIL in Palmyra (Tadmur) region in Eastern Syria, and discovered a large volume of arms, including American weapons.

The army soldiers ambushed a group of ISIL that tried to move from al-Tanf in Southern Homs towards al-Bayarat al-Qarbi in Palmyra to further move towards Raqqa via al-Taweinan and Wadi Abyaz Dam region.

The army men killed two terrorists and capturd two more, forcing the remaining pockets of the terrorist to flee the battlefield.

The army soldiers also seized a large volume of military equipment and six motorcycles.

In the meantime, other units of the army ambushed another group of ISIL terrorists in al-Forou’a region 70 km Southeast of Palmyra, and captured five terrorists.

The army units seized two military vehicles with communication devices on board and a large volume of the US-made machineguns and M16 rifles and several boxes of munitions.

FARS First published on September 19, 2018 at https://en.muraselon.com/2018/09/damascus-terrorists-hospital-israel-us-france-quneitra/

Over 2,600 corpses of civilians killed in the US air raids and victims of the ISIL terrorist group have been found in Raqqa province so far, local sources said.

The sources in Raqqa reported on Wednesday that 9 more bodies of civilians killed in the US-led coalition attacks were found in al-Jamili district in Raqqa city on Tuesday.

Meantime, the Kurdish-language Hawar news quoted an official source in Raqqa civil council team as saying that the corpses of over 2,600 people, mostly women and children, have been unearthed in al-Rashid stadium, the city zoo, al-Qadim great mosque and al-Badou district since the liberation of Raqqa last October who were mostly buried by the ISIL in mass-graves.

The bodies of civilians killed in the US airstrikes and the ISIL assaults are every day discovered in mass-graves and under the ruins of buildings in different parts of Raqqa.

Last Sunday, a sum of 13 bodies of civilians killed in the US-led coalition’s airstrikes on Raqqa city were found.

Raqqa Civil Council Team discovered bodies of four civilians killed in the air raid in al-Tamovin Garden in al-Kahroba neighborhood in Raqqa city.

In the meantime, three more bodies were found in the yard of al-Atiq mosque and six more were unearthed from the debris of ruined buildings in al-Badou neighborhood in Raqqa city.

FARS First published on 20 September 2018 at https://en.muraselon.com/2018/09/bodies-isil-us-raqqa/

US protests that Syria's retaking of Idlib from terrorists risks being the greatest humanitarian crisis of all time permeate the press. Cliched staged footage of 'White Helmets' rushing down dusty streets in Syria, purportedly to warn, direct and save civilians, insults the intellect. You wonder how the news announcers can bear to sit there pretending this is real news. Aren't they afraid of war-crimes prosecution when the dust settles? In fact, Idlib is the last province in Syria and in a region that remains occupied illegally by both the United States and other western forces [1] and terrorists, in a bizarre gothic partnership.

The United States pretends that Idlib is the last province still in 'rebellion' against Syria's President Assad. This is false. Idlib is the last province occupied by US military. What the US calls 'rebels' are takfiri militants and mercenaries who have taken the local population hostage, apparently under US protection. Furthermore, Idlib has become the refuge of takfiri routed from other parts of Syria.

In the other terrorist occupied provinces where takfiri fighters had dug in and taken civilians hostage, like East Aleppo, Gouta and Daraa, the Syrian Government bused civilians to safety and allowed terrorists to leave in buses for Idlib if they chose, or be rehabilitated to serve in the Syrian Arab Army, before they bombed those who were trying to maintain a stronghold. See https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-last-bus-to-idlib-terrorist-safe-haven-in-syria-faces-a-cleaning-out/246956/. Many terrorists took the Idlib option and Idlib is now where the worst die-hard terrorists have gone to ground.

The Idlib terrorists are relying on the protection of the United States, and the US is flooding the world with propaganda as though it might be prepared to fight Syria and Russia to save this hellish toehold they have illegally established in Syria's second most important province. Turkey's President Erdogan, despite his recent posturing against the United States over a failed coup in 2016, has taken a stance which comforts the interests of the US, claiming that Turkey cannot accommodate more refugees if Idlib is bombed. See https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/after-rejecting-turkey-plea-russia-and-iran-back-offensive-in-idlib-20180908-p502l0.html. It is widely thought that Erdogan not only wants to prevent the formation of any Kurdish state, but hopes to establish this area as Turkish, which it was before the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which carved up the Ottoman Empire and created the tensions in the area which have since been fanned by US-European interests, notably NATO. The Kurds have been used as pawns by US-NATO, which was considering using them as its toehold, however this caused conflict with its ally, Turkey, since the separatist Kurds want the same land that Erdogan wants for Turkey.

"The Turkish position is not different from that of the US, apart from the change of language, interests and objectives. Instead of ensuring the security of Israel through the US in the Southwest region, there are Kurdish forces hostile to Turkey which has been striving for decades to curtail, dissolve and prevent Turkish Kurds from separating themselves and establishing their Kurdish state.

Some details of the scene are different. The pro-Turkish national movement and calls to protect Sunnis in the city of Idlib are coming from the Muslim Brotherhood Group which supports every plan of Ankara in Syria even if it comes to cut a piece of its land to become the borderline, similar to what Israel did in Lebanon in 1982." (Source: Syria Sykes Picot in Idlib, http://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/syria-sykes-picot-in-idlib/.)

Syria's strategy against the terrorists.

Syria has crawled out alive from under a monster foreign-backed terrorist intervention, to everyone's amazement. And now she is trying to banish the monster. Not so long ago, people were shaking their heads and wondering how any country could survive the foreign-backed assault, how any government could survive the continuous psychopathic propaganda against it, but now they have hope. Meanwhile the United States can hardly believe that it is losing this war. It seemed like such a slam-dunk, another Iraq, another Libya - but not another Vietnam. How has Syria done it?

They have used the same process for each enemy territory. To foil the insincere accusations that the government was persecuting civilians, Syria has sent buses to take civilian hostages out, and, at the same time, it has offered two solutions to the terrorists: either they can be rehabilitated in the Syrian Army and fight for Syria, or they could take buses to Idlib. So Syria has squeezed the terrorists towards its northern borders, city by city, whilst greatly limiting civilian casualties.

The United States, which accuses the Syrian Government of purposely bombing civilians, has itself bombed civilians and terrorists alike in Raqqa, Iraq, along the north-east Syrian border. As Raqqa was reduced to ashes and stones, there were no buses to evacuate civilians or to allow press-ganged takfiri soldiers to escape.

There never was a civil war in Syria and most of the remaining bad guys are now all holed up in Idlib, surrounded by human shields. And America says it's worried about civilians. But we all can see that America wants to keep its takfiri mercenaries in Idlib, like a mad sorcerer deploying his orcs from some terrible dark tower.

NOTES

[1] Source: Their presence is unofficial. http://freenations.net/200-british-and-us-troops-trapped-in-idlib/ US troops are overtly present in a region touching Idlib. See the map below from the New York Times.

The U.S. asked the Merkel administration to participate in "retaliatory" regime change strikes on the Syrian government forces when, likely soon, another faked 'chemical' incident will be blamed on it. Several high ranking members of Chancellor Merkel's party want to follow that call. But now the Scientific Services of the German Bundestag, the equivalent of the U.S. Congressional Research Service, released an authoritative legal opinion (pdf, in German) on the issue. Such an attack would be illegal under international law and it would also violate the German constitution. There will be no official German support for such a wider attack on Syria. (In an earlier opinion the Scientific Service found that the continued U.S. presence in Syria is illegal.)

Fitting to the anniversary of a remarkable incident that took place in New York, Maram Susli, aka SyrianGirl, released this video with quotes from Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS, and from the U.S. ambassador to the UN Nicky Halley.

 

Source: Moon of Alabama.

Read more here: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/09/a-few-items-related-to-syria.html#more

German military strikes on Syria would be ‘absurd & irresponsible’ – Left Party chair

See also article at RT here: https://www.rt.com/news/438198-german-airstrikes-syria-wagenknecht/

The leader of Germany’s Left Party hit out at the government for mulling potential military strikes against Damascus, just one day after Berlin said it was in talks with allies about possible German military deployment in Syria.

As Syrian forces backed by Russia launch the final showdown in Syria against jihadist extremists in Idlib province, the potential for a U.S.-Russia confrontation has never been greater, as VIPS warns in this memo to the president. September 9, 2018

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Moscow Has Upped the Ante in Syria

Mr. President:

We are concerned that you may not have been adequately briefed on the upsurge of hostilities in northwestern Syria, where Syrian armed forces with Russian support have launched a full-out campaign to take back the al-Nusra/al-Qaeda/ISIS-infested province of Idlib.  The Syrians will almost certainly succeed, as they did in late 2016 in Aleppo.  As in Aleppo, it will mean unspeakable carnage, unless someone finally tells the insurgents theirs is a lost cause.

That someone is you. The Israelis, Saudis, and others who want unrest to endure are egging on the insurgents, assuring them that you, Mr. President, will use US forces to protect the insurgents in Idlib, and perhaps also rain hell down on Damascus.  We believe that your senior advisers are encouraging the insurgents to think in those terms, and that your most senior aides are taking credit for your recent policy shift from troop withdrawal from Syria to indefinite war.

Big Difference This Time 

Russian missile-armed naval and air units are now deployed in unprecedented numbers to engage those tempted to interfere with Syrian and Russian forces trying to clean out the terrorists from Idlib. We assume you have been briefed on that — at least to some extent. More important, we know that your advisers tend to be dangerously dismissive of Russian capabilities and intentions.

We do not want you to be surprised when the Russians start firing their missiles.  The prospect of direct Russian-U.S. hostilities in Syria is at an all-time high.  We are not sure you realize that.

The situation is even more volatile because Kremlin leaders are not sure who is calling the shots in Washington.  This is not the first time that President Putin has encountered such uncertainty (see brief Appendix below).  This is, however, the first time that Russian forces have deployed in such numbers into the area, ready to do battle.  The stakes are very high.

We hope that John Bolton has given you an accurate description of his acerbic talks with his Russian counterpart in Geneva a few weeks ago. In our view, it is a safe bet that the Kremlin is uncertain whether Bolton faithfully speaks in your stead, or speaks INSTEAD of you.

The best way to assure Mr. Putin that you are in control of U.S. policy toward Syria would be for you to seek an early opportunity to speak out publicly, spelling out your intentions.  If you wish wider war, Bolton has put you on the right path. 

If you wish to cool things down, you may wish to consider what might be called a pre-emptive ceasefire. By that we mean a public commitment by the Presidents of the U.S. and Russia to strengthen procedures to preclude an open clash between U.S. and Russian armed forces.  We believe that, in present circumstances, this kind of extraordinary step is now required to head off wider war.

For the VIPS Steering Group, signed: 

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research

Philip Giraldi, CIA Operations Officer (retired)

James George Jatras, former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate Republican leadership (Associate VIPS)

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, U.S. Air Force, Intelligence Officer, and former Master SERE Instructor (retired)

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and Former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)

Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret) (Associate VIPS)

David MacMichael, Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, Army/Infantry Intelligence Officer and CIA Presidential Briefer (retired)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council (retired)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

Appendix: 

Sept 12, 2016:  The limited ceasefire goes into effect; provisions include separating the “moderate” rebels from the others. Secretary John Kerry had earlier claimed that he had “refined” ways to accomplish the separation, but it did not happen; provisions also included safe access for relief for Aleppo.

Sept 17, 2016: U.S. Air Force bombs fixed Syrian Army positions killing between 64 and 84 Syrian army troops; about 100 others wounded — evidence enough to convince the Russians that the Pentagon was intent on scuttling meaningful cooperation with Russia.

Sept 26, 2016:  We can assume that what Lavrov has told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26. (In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials a few days earlier had showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov agreement – like sharing intelligence with the Russians (a key provision of the deal approved by both Obama and Putin).   Here’s what Lavrov said on Sept 26:

“My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin), apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.”

Lavrov went beyond mere rhetoric. He also specifically criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia, “after the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama stipulated that they would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …”

Oct 27, 2016:  Putin speaks at the Valdai International Discussion Club
At Valdai Russian President Putin spoke of the “feverish” state of international relations and lamented: “My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results.” He complained about “people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice” and, referring to Syria, decried the lack of a “common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises.”

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington’s justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

From the Kosovo Protection Corps in the Balkans to the White Helmets of Syria, a group of well- connected people with the fundings of governments and elite billionaires have sought to wage a war on public opinion and have recently exploited Jo Cox’s death to do so.

Article by Vanessa Beeley and Whitney Webb, first published at https://www.mintpressnews.com/inside-the-humanitarian-regime-change-network-exploiting-jo-coxs-death/248209/ on August 27, 2018.

LONDON — The Jo Cox Fund, set up in memory of the slain MP soon after her death in 2016, was established by a cadre of pro-interventionist “humanitarians” with a history of involvement in past regime-change operations and whose connections to some of the world’s most ardent imperialists, as well as the Not for Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC), are legion. For that reason, as well as the past of Cox herself, it is hardly surprising that the fund designated among its causes the U.S. coalition-financed White Helmets, whose primary purpose has been to escalate unlawful NATO state-proxy and direct military intervention in Syria.

However, the fund’s efforts in promoting the White Helmets goes far beyond merely filling the organization’s coffers. Using lessons learned in past NATO interventions, the founders of the Jo Cox Fund — along with their financiers and associates — have used the fund’s association with the White Helmets in order to protect that group from criticism, largely by exploiting Jo Cox’s posthumous status as a modern-day saint in British politics, now known more for her “compassion” than her support of pro-interventionist policies that are hardly “humanitarian” in practice.

Thus, the Jo Cox Fund — and those behind it — not only have exploited the fund to promote the White Helmets “humanitarian” image but have also profited from their combined expertise to develop a sophisticated “public relations” machine that effectively promotes the destruction of the Syrian state.

 

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This is Part II of a four-part series on the life and legacy of Jo Cox. Read part 1 here. In this part, we focus on how the people behind the Jo Cox Fund have applied strategies intended to promote foreign military intervention that was first perfected in the NATO intervention in the Balkans to the current conflict in Syria. Additionally, we examine how these players have helped develop the massive public-relations machine with the White Helmets at its center and how that machine has sought to use Cox’s death to sanctify the controversial group and shield it from scrutiny.

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Perfecting the blueprint for “humanitarian” regime change: from the Balkans to Syria

It all began in the Balkans. The blueprint for the Syrian regime change, multi-spectrum war, and the roadmap for partitioning a sovereign nation along sectarian lines, was inaugurated in what was once known as Yugoslavia. Corporate media in the West, during the conflict and after, have diligently followed the NATO script, namely that the Bosnian Serbs were “motivated by a hatred of Muslims.” It was largely ignored that the Serbs wanted to protect the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and that, in Bosnia, they opposed the concept of an Islamic fundamentalist government, which the authorities of Alija Izetbegovic were attempting to introduce.

The fact that many Bosnian Muslims — including Fikret Abdic, who was actually the true winner of the 1990 elections for the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina — were in agreement with the Bosnian Serbs over those two key issues was largely disregarded. While Western media labelled the Bosnian Serbs as “the new Nazis,” NATO-friendly Bosnian Muslims were euphemistically labelled “rebels,” and, in Kosovo, the NATO-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an organized crime group with Islamic fundamentalist leanings and connections, was labelled as “moderate” and “democrats.”

Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos, an expert on former Yugoslavia and a frequent traveller to the region, told Mint Press News:

Yugoslavia and the Serbs were the first victims of the American-led unipolar world that emerged in 1991. Because it was in Yugoslavia — namely, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo — where the U.S. and its principal ally, Britain, together with Germany, destroyed the sanctity of internationally recognized borders; disregarded the authority of the United Nations Security Council; dealt irrevocable damage to the United Nations Charter by having undermined legitimate state authorities and having supported, with arms, training, money, logistics and intelligence information, armed secessionist movements (which comprised fascist, Islamist and organised crime groups); facilitated the arrival of Mujahideen and jihadist fighters to the region; employed their respective media outlets to demonize the people standing in the way of their objectives — the Serbs — accusing them of mass murder and genocide, thus justifying the West’s policy in the Balkans; and then directly intervened with military force to guarantee the accomplishment of their objectives.  In short, Yugoslavia was the template for Iraq, Libya and Syria.”

Acclaimed historian Mark Curtis has written extensively about the British government’s collaboration with the “pro-Jihadist forces in Kosovo” under the leadership of Iraq war-hawk, Tony Blair. In his book Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam, Curtis concludes:

[T]he NATO bombing that began in March 1999 had the effect of deepening, not preventing, the humanitarian disaster that Milosevic’s forces inflicted on Kosovo.”

Author and academic John Laughland wrote a book detailing the travesty of justice that was the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, entitled: Travesty: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice. In an opinion piece written for The Guardian in 2008, under the title “Lies of the Vigilantes,” Laughland wrote:

Slobodan Milosevic was posthumously exonerated on Monday when the international court of justice ruled that Serbia was not responsible for the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica […] The new ICC, created by Britain, also seems to operate on the basis that white men do not commit war crimes: its prosecutors are currently investigating two local wars in Africa while turning a blind eye to Iraq. Only when that hideous strength which flows from the hypocrisy of interventionism is sapped, will the world stand any chance of returning to lawfulness and peace.”

Dr. Papadopoulos also spoke to Mint Press News about the role played by Bernard Kouchner, high-profile founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders), and former French Foreign Minister, in Kosovo:

Like Paddy Ashdown in Bosnia, Bernard Kouchner acted like a colonial-style governor in Kosovo. Mr. Kouchner played a lead role in the Western colonization of the Serbian province by, for instance, dismantling the Yugoslav civil service there and replacing it with a pro-U.S., pro-NATO and pro-EU one, and ensuring that NATO would have supervisory offices in key institutions in Kosovo.”

In a recent article published at Global Research, Dr. Papadopoulos highlights how in the summer of 1995, the Bosnian Serb army was presented with an opportunity to conquer Srebrenica and thereby end the massacres of Serb villagers in the area. According to Dr. Papadopoulos, “it was a trap set by Bill Clinton and Bosnian Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic, who were both looking for ‘genocide’ so that NATO would have the justification to extensively intervene in Bosnia.”

Dr. Papadopoulos then describes how even Kouchner, the “colonial–style governor” in Kosovo, admitted the lies that permeated Western media accounts of events in Bosnia.

In 2003, Kouchner interviewed Izetbegovic when the Bosnian Muslim leader was on his deathbed.  “They [the camps in Bosnia] were horrible places, but people were not systematically exterminated. Did you know that?” asked Kouchner. To which Izetbegovic replied, “Yes. I thought that my revelations could precipitate bombings. Yes, I tried, but the assertion was false. There were no extermination camps…” (excerpted from Les Guerriers de la Paix: Du Kosovo a l’Iraq, Editions Grasset, 2004; published in English as The Warriors of Peace).

Even now, after analyses and counter narratives abound to challenge the NATO-aligned media versions of events in the former Yugoslavia, those who question the “official” accounts are still attacked, maligned and slandered as “genocide deniers.”

23 years ago today, genocide took place in Srebrenica. We remember the victims and honour the courage of survivors
https://t.co/NuXgUmZoQO

— Jo Cox Foundation (@JoCoxFoundation) July 11, 2018

In Part 1 of this series, we outlined the role played by Mabel van Oranje in manufacturing consent for the NATO bombing campaign in the Balkans through her founding of the European Action Council for Peace in the Balkans. That “council for peace,” with van Oranje at the helm, went on to promote a bombing campaign that pounded Yugoslavia into sectarian division and chaos, from which the region has never recovered.

Another intelligence cog in the Syrian-regime-change-war apparatus was also present in Kosovo during the NATO intervention there. James Le Mesurier, who would go on to found the White Helmets in Turkey in 2013, served as intelligence coordinator for Pristina City in Kosovo soon after the NATO intervention that led to NATO being accused of war crimes for its targeting of thousands of civilians and media.

Years later, in 2015, Le Mesurier was interviewed for a Georgetown Security Studies Review, a publication for the Center of Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Services. The review examined the Le Mesurier-proposed “framework for demobilization and reconstruction in post-conflict Syria.” The parallels with the Kosovo operation reviewed by Le Mesurier and Georgetown Security are blatant:

These teams [White Helmets] possess many of the factors that made past demobilization efforts successful, such as the transition of the Kosovo Liberation Army to the Kosovo Protection Corps.”

In Syria, the Yugoslavia blueprint has since evolved, as the forces that destroyed Yugoslavia seek to perfect their practice of rehabilitating terrorists for the purpose of justifying foreign military intervention. In Kosovo, the KLA, a terrorist group, was rebranded as a “protection corps.” In Syria, the same “protection corps” myth was incubated with immediate effect, working in lock-step with the various terrorist and sectarian gangs that were armed, trained and financed by the U.S/U.K.-led interventionist coalition.

The Georgetown study argues that the White Helmets must be an integral part of the transitional process in post-conflict Syria. Despite claims of being an apolitical organization, the White Helmets would be involved in an external  “reconciliation” process managed by NATO member-states, their allies in the Gulf, and Israel, per Georgetown’s recommendations. Internal Syrian/Russian-led reconciliation processes are not even acknowledged, despite their many successes in achieving reintegration of many of the armed factions back into the fabric of Syrian secular society.

The study then claims that the Kosovo model shows that such proposed reintegration programs can succeed if they are managed by groups like the White Helmets and similar local actors aligned with the U.S coalition policy of toppling the Syrian government. The lofty claims of promoting “stability on multiple fronts” should ring hollow considering the role of the NATO member-states in fomenting instability and chaos in a recalcitrant sovereign nation to force compliance with their supremacist geo-strategic objectives in the region. Effectively, the White Helmets are the entry point of the shadow-state wedge that has been plunged deep into the heart of Syrian society and culture.

 

The Balkans, the Jo Cox Foundation and James Le Mesurier

Unsurprisingly, the Jo Cox Foundation retrospectively endorses the NATO intervention in 1999 and upholds the narratives that manufactured consent for this NATO-state unlawful aggression that was never legitimized by a UN mandate.

23 years ago today, genocide took place in Srebrenica. We remember the victims and honour the courage of survivors
https://t.co/NuXgUmZoQO

— Jo Cox Foundation (@JoCoxFoundation) July 11, 2018

Jo Cox named her first child Lejla, in memory of a “Bosniak genocide victim she met at Srebrenica.” Cox based much of her argumentation for military intervention in Syria upon the dubious and deadly case for military interference in the Balkans.

In February 2018, Brendan Cox resigned from both the Jo Cox Foundation and More In Common after sensationally admitting to being a repeat-offending “sex-pest” during his time working for Save the Children (STC). This followed new allegations that Cox drunkenly grabbed a woman by the throat, forced her against the wall of a London bar, and told her “I want to f**k you.” Cox had resigned from STC in 2015 after accusations of harassment and indecent behavior had forced his ignominious departure.

Brendan Cox had started working with orphans and children in Sarajevo when he was just 18 years old. In a speech given in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in March 2017, under the auspices of the Jo Cox Foundation, Cox stated that he had been “working to counter extremism and hatred long before it attacked his own family.” Cox’s journey began in the former Yugoslavia, where he worked with “survivors of the siege of Sarajevo” and continued for the “next ten years.” Cox claims to have spent every summer and Christmas running “holiday camps, volunteering in orphanages and teaching in schools.” Cox worked with “children from Moster, Vukovar and Srebrenica”

James Le Mesurier’s Balkans career path is a little more intricate than previously revealed. After speaking to sources in Serbia, his role has been clarified in greater detail.

In 1998 Le Mesurier was seconded to the Office of the High Representative (OHR) for Bosnia and Herzegovina, under Carlos Westendorp, before being sent to Kosovo in summer of 1999 after the deployment of KFOR (Kosovo Force) to the province.

From July 1999 – 2000, Le Mesurier was appointed Intelligence Coordinator for Pristina City, acting as liaison officer between Intel officers of different national contingents in KFOR. Le Mesurier left the British Army in 2000.

From January 2001 – February 2002, Le Mesurier was Deputy Head of the Advisory Unit on Security and Justice and the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Hans Haekkerup’s security policy body within the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). In this position, Le Mesurier acted as political advisor to the UN Police Commissioner and represented the SRSG on civil-military-police coordination bodies. He led interdepartmental working groups, developing regulatory regimes for private security companies and weapon possession and control.

From February 2002 – July 2003, Le Mesurier was advisor on economic crime with the EU Mission in Kosovo, supporting units countering money laundering, terrorism, smuggling, anti-corruption and financial disclosure.

 

The Bernard Kouchner connection

In 1999, MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Bernard Kouchner was one of the original co-founders of MSF and in 1999 he arrived in Pristina as the UN Special Representative to Kosovo, elected by Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General at the time. Kouchner served as head of UNMIK from July 1999 until January 2001. Kouchner also has a history of high-level involvement in interventionist campaigns from Romania in 1989 and including Haiti, Sudan, Iraq, Libya and the more recent, ongoing Syrian and Ukrainian NATO-led regime change projects.

According to the Serbian sources who described Le Mesurier’s role in greater detail, Le Mesurier would have been under the direction of Kouchner in Pristina:

Bernard Kouchner was UN Special Representative until mid-January 2001. Le Mesurier left the British Army (where he served as an intel coordinator for City of Pristina) in mid-2000. Therefore, it is clear that he was given a job by Kouchner.”

Kouchner’s tenure in Kosovo was plagued by controversy and accusations of involvement in human and organ trafficking masterminded by the Albanian mafia gangs within the KLA.  We will examine this element in greater detail in the final part of this series, which will outline the possibility of a far more nefarious role played by the White Helmets as an integral part of the global human-trafficking schemes that benefit from the chaos of conflict and war.  

In this video, Kouchner responds to questions about the “yellow houses” that were the suspected center of the organ-trafficking trade. Victims, the majority of whom were Serbs, had been taken from Kosovo to Albania where their organs were brutally removed. Kouchner responds with laughter and calls the reporter “stupid, insane.”

Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, detailed these crimes in her book The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals, which was published in 2008 just after Kosovo declared its independence. In 2010 an interim report by the Council of Europe vindicated Del Ponte’s claims, which had garnered skepticism and criticism from the NATO-aligned media and spokespeople. Del Ponte persistently complained, at the time, that UN authorities in Kosovo were systematically blocking her investigations into crimes committed by the Kosovan Albanians in the KLA and the rebranded Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC):

The allegations are macabre and shocking. In the closing days of the Kosovo conflict, hundreds of civilians were allegedly kidnapped by Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) guerrillas and transported to neighboring Albania. There, dozens were killed and their organs “harvested” to be sold abroad. The victims included Serbs, Russians, and at least one Albanian.” (Allegations of Organ Trafficking in Del Ponte Memoir Spark Scandal)

So, in Kosovo we saw the early interconnecting links that would later expand into Syria and into the establishment of soft-power structures that would infiltrate Syrian society and provide justification for the criminalization of the Syrian government and its allies. We witnessed the curiously coincidental positioning of actors such as Kouchner, Le Mesurier and even Cox — all of whom would move on to take a pivotal role in the Syrian regime-change war.

Kouchner parted company with MSF in 1979 but subsequently founded Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World). His has been one of the most strident anti-Syrian government voices in Western media and among the ruling elite organizations that have driven the narratives on Syria in the West. In 2013, Kouchner accompanied John McCain on a clandestine tour of Syria, smuggled in illegally by armed extremist factions. In 2012, Huffington Post published an article co-authored by French war-orchestrator Bernard-Henri Levy and Bernard Kouchner, Jacques Beres, Mario Bettati and Andre Glucksmann. It was entitled “Enough Evasion, We Must Intervene in Syria!”

Did Brendan Cox cross paths with Le Mesurier and Kouchner or both? Was it a coincidence that they all operated in the same interventionist theatre at the same time? Why have Cox and Le Mesurier never emphasized the crimes committed by the Kosovar Albanians against the Serbs? Why have they been silent (to our knowledge) on the organ trade and human trafficking that would have potentially preyed on the very orphanages where Cox worked during his summer holidays?

Probably the most telling element in the updated description of James Le Mesurier’s role is that he was instrumental in the conversion of the KLA, consisting of Al Qaeda elements alongside the Kosovar Albanian warlords, into the rebranded Kosovo ‘Protection’ Corps. This blueprint has clearly been carried forward into Syria with the creation of the White Helmets to merge with and offer protection for the extremist groups, including Al Qaeda. We have also seen similar rebranding exercises for Al Qaeda in Syria: Al Nusra Front has been given a number of new identities in an effort to disassociate it from its terrorist origins.

 

The White Helmets PR machine and the Jo Cox Fund

Having perfected the blueprint of “humanitarian” regime change in the Balkans, many of the same players, along with their proteges and the reincarnations of certain pro-intervention NGOs, have since been sought to apply this model to other “rogue” states deemed regime-change targets, such as Syria.

In Syria, the White Helmets have been crucial to these efforts aimed at disguising the destruction and plundering of the Syrian state as an exercise in “humanitarianism.” Unsurprisingly, the White Helmets’ reputation as “humanitarians” and “good-doers” has been promoted by a highly sophisticated and interconnected nexus of NGOs that have consistently perpetuated falsehoods about the Syrian conflict in service to reviving this blueprint — first developed in Kosovo —  once more in Syria. Many of the NGOs at the heart of this nexus count among their most influential members the same four individuals who formed the Jo Cox Fund in 2016.

Of the organizations most deeply involved in this effort, several stand out for their capacity to shift public opinion, their creation and co-opting of popular movements, and their ability to manipulate popular sentiment through the use of petitions, social media campaigns and other related strategies. Groups like Purpose, Avaaz and Change.org are arguably the most notable of these organizations and two of the founders of the Jo Cox Fund are intimately involved in their leadership.

For instance, Tim Dixon, once a speechwriter for Australian prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, is an experienced corporate and political strategist who shifted his focus to “humanitarian” NGOs after 2010 — co-founding Purpose Europe after joining Purpose New York in 2011, and subsequently the pro-intervention Syria campaign. Dixon also shares deep connections to Avaaz, which helped create Purpose, through Dixon’s collaboration with his “professional associate” Jeremy Heimans, who helped found Avaaz and co-founded Purpose.

Dixon has also collaborated with Brendan Cox for years, as together they have been “instrumental” in reshaping the “refugee” narrative “through opinion research, message development, popular movement-building and campaigning to reach mainstream audiences.” Then, after Jo Cox’s death, Dixon, Brendan Cox and Gemma Mortensen — another Jo Cox Fund co-founder — created the organization More In Common, which claims to work “to build stronger and more inclusive democratic societies that are resilient to the threats of populism and division.”

However, as will be shown in a moment, the connections among these three significantly pre-date More In Common, as all three were intimately involved in the pro-intervention “humanitarian” group Crisis Action Network.

Avaaz and Purpose often focus the campaigns they develop at “rogue” nations that challenge U.S. empire. As journalist and researcher Jay Taber wrote for Cory Morningstar’s Wrong Kind of Green: “When challenges to U.S. hegemony arise — such as in Bolivia, Libya, Syria, Burundi and Congo — Avaaz and Purpose create campaigns to discredit and destabilize these independent governments.” By dressing up these campaigns that are American empire-driven in the illusion that they are entirely “people driven” by local communities, these groups are capable of falsifying narratives about a country’s political climate on a massive scale.

Avaaz and Purpose have used campaigns they have created to great effect within Syria, particularly through campaigns that sprang up early on in the Syrian conflict in support of the so-called “revolution,” as well as through their creation of the Bambuser platform that allowed Syrian opposition “activists” to upload video footage that on several occasions was later shown to be falsified. Eventually, in 2018, the platform was closed down but not before a number of the falsified videos had been downloaded by watchful researchers and journalists.

Shortly after the creation of Bambuser, Avaaz campaign manager Pascal Vollenweider had bragged that Avaaz had helped “kickstart” the Syrian “revolution” by equipping these “citizen journalists” and giving them the tools to produce multimedia used to further false narratives about the reality of the Syrian conflict.

Watch | Avaaz campaign manager brag about “kick-starting” the Syrian conflict:

One of those Avaaz-sponsored campaigns, “Smuggle Hope into Syria,” was initially highly effective in promoting the false narrative of a people-driven revolution waged by heroic “rebels” and centered around “Danny” Abdul Dayem’s efforts to raise $2.5 million for communication equipment needed by “citizen journalists” who were promoting the “rebel” cause.  However, one of “Danny’s” videos that had aired on CNN was exposed as fake soon after, as were similar Avaaz and Purpose-backed videos produced by other “citizen journalists” like Khalid Abu Salah.

Since then, Avaaz and Purpose have heavily promoted a NATO-imposed “no fly zone” in Syria, without ever mentioning the dangers such a policy would pose to the Syrian civilians or the fact that such measures are historically precursors to large-scale military action. Furthermore, without ever providing proof, Avaaz has routinely accused Russia and the Syrian government of committing “coordinated atrocities” against media personnel and journalists in rebel-held areas of Syria. In addition, Avaaz has directly raised more than $2 million for the White Helmets.

Another organization that has operated in Syria and elsewhere among similar lines is Change.org, whose Chief Global Officer from 2016 to 2017 was Gemma Mortensen, another co-founder of the Jo Cox Fund. Change.org has been found to deliberately manipulate petitions on its page when they challenge the Western narrative on Syria, such as their removal — during Mortensen’s tenure — of a petition campaigning against the White Helmets’ nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the fact that the petition garnered more than double the number of signatures than had the petition calling for the group to be given the prize. At the time, Change.org claimed the petition rejecting the White Helmets’ nomination for the prize had “violated community standards.”

However, the most influential of this type, at least where Syria is considered, has been the Syria Campaign. The group was co-founded by Dixon and Mortensen in 2014 with funding from Ayman Asfari, the Syrian-in-exile oil baron living in England, who has donated almost £700,000 since 2009 to the U.K. Conservative Party. As was noted in Part I of this series, Asfari has been very influential in driving the false narratives about the Syrian conflict that are promoted by Western governments.

With Asfari’s funding, the Syria Campaign has officially sought to amplify “moderate” and “democratic” voices in the Syrian opposition. In practice, the Syria Campaign, along with its progenitor Purpose, have managed public relations for the White Helmets, creating high-quality multimedia content and even the group’s website, in order to promote the White Helmets in the mainstream media and on social media — essentially directing the group’s branding thousands of miles away from Syria, in their New York office.

Most notably, however, the Syria Campaign has led the lion’s share of White Helmet fundraising efforts from individual donations in the West in order to secure the “funding that they [the White Helmets] so desperately deserve.” Even though the White Helmets have received millions of dollars from NATO member states and Gulf states, the Syria Campaign urges would-be donors to “give generously.”

In addition, just like Avaaz, Purpose and the White Helmets themselves, the Syria campaign has actively pushed for a “no fly zone” in Syria, one that would require the deployment of 70,000 U.S. soldiers to enforce and would risk embroiling the U.S. in a full-scale war against the Syrian state and Russia. More recently, it promoted the hashtag #Act4Daraa, which sought to pressure the UN Security Council to prevent the Syrian government’s now-successful effort to eliminate Western sponsored extremist and ISIS pockets in Syria’s south.

Furthermore, the Syria Campaign has been intimately involved in attempting to silence critics of the White Helmets. In its report titled “Killing the Truth: How Russia is fuelling a disinformation campaign to cover up war crimes in Syria,” the Syria Campaign calls for technology and social media companies to block criticism of the White Helmets and pro-intervention narratives as they are “polluting the public debate central to any healthy democracy.” The report — which mentions Vanessa Beeley, co-author of this article series, by name — further urges news organizations to “not give conspiracy theorists a platform in the name of balance,” as alternative narratives “cloud the truth.” In effect, the Syria Campaign has been at the forefront of attempts to silence those who are exposing the murkier aspects of the White Helmets and the billionaire network pulling their strings.

 

Ayman Asfari extends influence in Syria

In May 2016, the Asfari Foundation (covered in part 1 of this series) teamed up with the Said Foundation to raise money for the Hands Up for Syria Appeal. The Asfari and Said Foundations matched the £ 3.997 million that was raised for “millions of young children” deprived of an education during the seven-year conflict in Syria. Speakers at the event included then-British Prime Minister David Cameron; David Miliband — President and CEO of International Rescue Committee; and actress Cate Blanchett, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Prince Charles sent a video message emphasizing the importance of education to the rebuilding of Syria.

Again there was no mention of the root cause of the issues being highlighted. Money was effectively raised to treat the symptoms of the British imperialist project inside Syria that violates international law on many counts. Why would the British monarch-in-waiting have any involvement in the “rebuilding” of a sovereign nation that his successive Tory governments have, alongside their allies in the U.S. coalition of proxy terror, systematically destabilized and weakened?

The money raised will be funneled into Idlib via the Hands Up Foundation, which claims to raise money for “vital health services” in North West Syria, a region infested with all manner of extremist and terrorist groups. Many of those groups have been evacuated to Idlib from liberated areas of Syria such as East Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta, increasing the numbers of armed, hostile groups in the area. It is worth remembering that OPCW refused to enter this area after the alleged chemical attacks in Khan Sheikhoun April 2017 because the risk of beheading or kidnapping was too high.

Hands Up Foundation operates in partnership with SAMS (Syrian American Medical Society), which works with the White Helmets alongside the controlling extremist factions where they are based. SAMS is a predominantly Chicago based, Muslim Brotherhood organization that receives copious funding from USAID, the U.S. State Department outreach agent for CIA clandestine operations against target nations. USAID has also donated $31 million to the White Helmets via Chemonics, one of its many subcontractors.

While 85 percent of inhabited Syria under Syrian government protection and control suffers under the weight of U.S./U.K./EU imposed sanctions that have targeted the Syrian state health sector, Hands Up Foundation is raising money for “medical salaries” of $150,000 per year at a health clinic “south of Aleppo.” Another project claims to be raising $105,000 for “medical training” in Idlib City, which was invaded by Nusra Front (Al Qaeda) in March 2015 — an invasion that resulted in the summary executions of civilians who were deemed “Shabiha,” a term that designates loyalty to the Syrian government, state and Syrian Arab Army. The White Helmets were filmed alongside the terrorist fighters, celebrating and participating in brutality against civilians.

According to Hands Up Foundation accounts for 2017, it has received a three year organizational development grant of £150,000  from the Asfari and SAID Foundations, “central” to achieving its aims in Idlib. While HUF makes claims of transparency and a document trail to recipients of its funding, there is nothing available to that effect on the website. Money is raised through its Syrian Supper Club, Marmalaid, and Singing for Syrians projects.

HUF focuses on three medical clinics, one in Reyhanli on the Turkish border and two inside northern Syria, in partnership with SAMS, which also operates in these areas. The placement of these clinics is important and will be examined in greater depth in Part 4.

The Said Foundation also appears to be involved in the training of paramedics in the same region of Syria — at the Bab Al Hawa hospital, in partnership with U.K.-registered charity Syria Relief. While the White Helmets are not mentioned, it is safe to assume that this “aid” will be heading their way. The screenshot is from an archive of this page on the Said website, as it now requires a “login” to view the information.

The clusters of medical centers supported by these foundations and charities are based exclusively in areas occupied by and under the control of U.S. coalition-backed armed groups. How do we know that the funding is not ending up in the hands of those groups as part of the “moderate opposition” bankrolling scheme?

Syria Relief comes under the umbrella of UOSSM (Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations), founded in France in 2012. UOSSM makes the same lofty claims as the White Helmets: “To support the health and well being of individuals and communities affected by the Syrian crisis regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, or political affiliation.” The Union includes SAMS. In my experience of entering the hospitals of East Aleppo after liberation in December 2016, SAMS and UOSSM stickers and logos could be seen on the walls of all the medical centers that had been overrun and requisitioned by Nusra Front, Ahrar Al Sham and other extremist groups. Those hospitals included the infamous M10 hospital next door to Nusra Front and White Helmet headquarters in Sakhour, East Aleppo.

Watch |  In April 2018 Independent French Humanitarian Pierre Le Corf runs through the logos on the l of the M10 hospital. It includes a message from terrorists in Libya for the terrorists in Syria saying that “Democracy is for Kafirs (non-believers)”

Again and again, we demonstrate the close-knit regime-change community, as diverse as it is deadly for Syria and the Syrian people, who have endured seven years of war owing largely to the efforts of these organizations to sustain the narratives that dupe people in the West into believing in the case for “humanitarian” intervention. An intervention that obfuscates the underlying causes while amplifying the fraudulent cover stories for another neocon destabilization campaign in Syria.

The diversity and complex branding of all these foundations, think tanks, organizations, NGOs, and associated charities can be compared to the rebranding of the terrorist groups, in particular Nusra Front (Al Qaeda). It serves to confuse, to bury the evidence of involvement in questionable activities deep inside the soft-power-complex underbelly.

 

A closer look at Crisis Action

The smart-power complex that generates support for the White Helmets is vast and powerful. At the center of the NGO Hydra is an organization that remains in the shadows, a more clandestine behavioral insight guru that motivates and directs other members of the cartel, rather than taking center stage.

Crisis Action brings together Tim Dixon, Gemma Mortensen and Brendan Cox, who was instrumental in the incubation of this influential body of policy makers. Cox was executive director from June 2006 to January 2009. As Gemma Mortensen says, “We [Crisis Action] need to stay behind the scenes because that is the way in which partners will genuinely see that we are in it for the benefit of the collective work, not to promote ourselves”

Gemma Mortensen was with Crisis Action from August 2006 to August 2015. She joined in 2006 as a Senior Political Analyst and progressed to U.K. Director, before becoming Executive Director in 2009. Crisis Action describes itself as a “global network of the leading human rights, humanitarian and foreign policy organizations; harnessing their expertise to mount joint campaigns to ensure world leaders uphold their collective obligations to protect civilians in situations of conflict.” Another catalyst for global change in a direction that will be governed by the sponsors’ objectives.

In 2013 Crisis Action was awarded a Ford Foundation grant as one of the seven NGOs to reshape the global human rights movement. Its “innovative model for conflict prevention” has been recognized by the 2012 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions and the 2013 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship. According to the Crisis Action annual report for 2017, Mabel Van Oranje is on the Board, thus almost closing the circle of the Jo Cox Fund originators’ involvement in this behind-the-scenes conflict “management” team.

Crisis Action partners are an impressive collection of “all the big human rights organizations,” including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save the Children, Mercy Corps, International Crisis Group, and many more NGOs that work as extensions of U.S./U.K. state foreign policy in a chosen conflict zone. In fact, the Crisis Action network is one of the most expansive webs of the NGOs prevalent in providing cover for multiple regime-change wars.

Among te Syria-related NGOs we find: Syria Campaign, Avaaz, 38 Degrees (branch of Avaaz), UN Foundation, Mosaic Syria, Chatham House, InterAction. These also include the Muslim Council of Britain, heavily influenced by Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, which have long been an instrument of destabilization in Syria and the region for the U.S. coalition.

Many of these Crisis Action partners were listed as supporters of the White Helmets in the run-up to the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, when the White Helmets failed in their bid to join such luminaries as Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize podium. Many observers were horrified to see Greenpeace (member of the Crisis Action coalition) publicly support the White Helmets.

This year the Nobel Peace Prize should go to the White Helmets who risk their lives in Syria https://t.co/bpWnEOjgbZ pic.twitter.com/0p2e5nn6r4

— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) August 18, 2016

When members of the public wrote to Greenpeace to question its judgment, they all received a standard response. This response, that basically dismisses criticism of the White Helmets as being generated by the “extreme right” or “supporters of Syria or Russia”, is the same argument used across all platforms defending the White Helmets. This uniformity of response might suggest that it is coming from a central source, perhaps the “friends at the Syria Campaign”,  and being fed to the organizations caught wittingly or unwittingly in the web of the anti-Syria soft power complex.

Greenpeace appeared to make no effort to engage with the questions, the evidence presented or the concerns of the public regarding the White Helmets. If the response is indicative of Greenpeace’s actual position, at the very least that is negligence on their part, at worst they must be considered to be compromised by their association with Crisis Action. As a major behavior influencing organization, Greenpeace owes it to their public sponsors to not mislead or misrepresent events in Syria. Particularly when that misrepresentation will inevitably support narratives provided by the White Helmets, designed to maintain external military and economic pressure upon Syria and its allies and to prolong the war, rather than foster peace.

Thanks for your message. I’m sorry to hear that you disagree with us posting about the work of the White Helmets.

We have looked at the claims made against the White Helmets, but found a lack of evidence and inconsistency in the allegations. Opposition also seems to be based on opposition to NATO policy, which in turn seems to be based on support for the Syrian government and the Russians.

The people making these claims are also questionable. For example, extreme right wing US politician Ron Paul, who thinks global warming is a hoax.

The White Helmets have the support of our friends at the Syria Campaign, and also the late MP Jo Cox, who was very knowledgeable on these issues. They also have 133 organisations backing their bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, which includes a number of highly respected organisations from around the world.”  (emphasis added)

The list of the organizations and individuals backing the White Helmets is certainly impressive and comprises many key actors from the Crisis Action NGO pool or those otherwise linked to Jo Cox. Another example of the exploitation of the murder of Jo Cox and the harnessing of her high profile and contacts to expand the support base for the U.K/U.S. White Helmet project in Syria. The Crisis Action machiavellian efforts certainly seem to have paid dividends for the White Helmets and their backers. Would we see such efforts being made for Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) or even for the REAL Syria Civil Defence, whose name has been stolen by the White Helmets and their marketing teams?

Asaad Hanna, the White Helmet Media and Advocacy Manager, is a regular contributor to Chatham House, according to his own CV. Chatham House is a U.K. government-linked policy influencer that has consistently promoted the White Helmets, even screening their Oscar-winning Netflix Documentary in October 2016, despite the mounting controversy surrounding the group of questionable “humanitarians.”

It is noteworthy that Hanna states that he is “managing a team of 150 media people in Syria and the office of the headquarters out of Syria.” As Peter Ford, former U.K. ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006, pointed out in Whitewashing the White Helmets: “They [the White Helmets] have a press department 150 strong, bigger than that for the whole of the UK ambulance service.”

InterAction, another “united voice for global change” and Crisis Action partner, was on the verge of giving Raed Saleh, leader of the White Helmets, the 2016 “Humanitarian Award” when he was unexpectedly deported from Dulles Airport because of his “extremist connections.”

Crisis Action lays claim to being a member of the NPIC (Not for Profit Industrial Complex) while stating:

We receive financial support from a range of foundations, governments and private individuals, many of which provide unrestricted multi-year funding. In addition, all of Crisis Action’s core partners make an annual financial contribution, with the exception of those located in the Global South.”

Crisis Action plays a pivotal role in swaying policy makers towards the agenda of their powerful donors and sponsors, which include Ford Foundation, Humanity Utd, Rockefeller Foundation, Skoll Foundation, George Soros Open Society Foundation, Sundance Institute, and a number of other major foundations. Canada, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland sponsor Crisis Action via their foreign affairs ministries.

According to its report and statements from its sponsors, Crisis Action has heavily influenced and covertly managed events in Sudan, Congo, Gaza, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Libya and Syria.Crisis Action claims to amplify the voices of Syrian heroes — which include the White Helmets, lauded by Crisis Action as an “awe inspiring feature of the last six years”. This will be further explored in Part 3.

As already mentioned, Crisis Action supported the White Helmet nomination for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, which “they sadly didn’t win” and celebrated the Oscar win for the Netflix documentary. Crisis Action worked with partners to secure a series of high-level meetings for the White Helmets in Brussels, Paris and London. Is this the extreme level of PR marketing and brand management we should expect for a “grass-roots” bunch of “bakers, tailors, engineers, students, carpenters, painters and pharmacists,” as the script goes?

With emphasis added, the Crisis Action Report states:

Crisis Action was privileged to work with the White Helmets, providing them platforms to engage decision-makers from Berlin to Washington DC. Their powerful testimony of their work put a human face on a grim conflict, shattering the prejudice that all Syrians are refugees or rebels, and motivating politicians and individuals to act on Syria who wouldn’t have done so otherwise.”

Crisis Action also collaborated with Bond, which is the umbrella group for British overseas development agencies, “to help shape a vision for Britain’s role in the world, post-Brexit. In the face of growing nationalism and antipathy towards immigrants,” Bond and Crisis Action collaborated to help their “partners” to influence the U.K.’s main political parties on the refugee crisis, aid, and climate change.

Ciaran Norris was political affairs advisor at Bond from 2014 to 2016, before he became director of the Rising Global Peace Forum (RGPF) from 2016 to 2017. Norris is currently head of external affairs at Oxfam. While Director at RGPF, Norris awarded the Peace Prize in 2016 to Jo Cox and the White Helmets:

The volunteers of Syria Civil Defence (aka The White Helmets) and the late Labour MP Jo Cox – who championed their heroism amongst so many other causes – are the perfect examples of people dedicated to peace. In our view, there could be no more deserving recipients for this prize and it is all the more significant that we recognise them together.”

A #LoveLikeJo tribute video emerged from this prize-giving ceremony, featuring Alison McGovern MP, White Helmet Munir Mustafa, and Nick Martlew, and was chaired by Norris. The panel reflected on the life of Jo Cox bringing the White Helmets more publicly into the fold of the global change manufacturers.

Munir Mustafa has since featured in Robert Stuart’s forensic investigation into BBC Panorama’s “Saving Syria’s Children” that has caused substantial waves among corporate media hierarchy in the U.K. Stuart’s work has involved “analysis of the 30 September 2013 BBC Panorama documentary ‘Saving Syria’s Children’ and related BBC News reports, contending that sequences filmed by BBC personnel and others at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo on 26 August 2013 purporting to show the aftermath of an incendiary bomb attack on a nearby school are largely, if not entirely, staged.” As a part of his investigation, Stuart exposed Mustafa as having connections to armed, extremist groups in areas occupied by the White Helmets. This inconvenient truth was overlooked by the organizers of the RGPF.

Mounir Mustafa, Deputy Head, The White Helmets: "Even in the midst of the ugliest of wars there is a glimpse of hope of people trying to be good." https://t.co/eVtXTA0TYC https://t.co/5XGmNpx9ND https://t.co/6NHqlZz7zF @GeorgeMonbiot pic.twitter.com/k0wEdzAOY5

— Robert Stuart (@cerumol) February 27, 2018

The global policy-influencing market is a very lucrative one for the board members and employees of Crisis Action. According to its 2017 annual report, Crisis Action received £3.1 million from its government and foundation sponsors. Their salaries and related costs came to a whopping £2.33 million, a huge percentage of their income.

 

Crisis Action case study: Hamza al Khatib

Beyond its dubious connections to powerful governments and organizations and its “supportive” role to the White Helmets, Crisis Action has directly promoted specific members of the group despite their known ties to extremists and unsavory pasts. By obfuscating the reality of the situation and elevating these individuals to practical sainthood, Crisis Action provides numerous examples of how elite-connected NGOs serve as PR agencies for the terrorist-linked foot soldiers of covert regime-change operations.

A clear example of Crisis Action’s role in promoting such dubious individuals for the sake of narrative is Hamza Al Khatib, who at one time was ubiquitously described as one of the “Last Doctors in Aleppo,” particularly during the final battles between the Syrian allied forces and Western-backed extremist factions just prior to final liberation of East Aleppo in December 2016.

This label was shamefully misleading on the part of the Western media, as it effectively “disappeared” the 4,000-plus doctors operating in Syrian government-secured West Aleppo, who had been extending aid into East Aleppo at the request of the Syrian Government — until the occupying militant groups began to refuse them entry in 2016.

The colonial media battalion stepped up its hyperbole war as the curtains came down upon the regime-change project they had supported in East Aleppo for almost five years at the expense of the Syrian civilians being held hostage, used as human shields, starved, tortured and abused by the extremist gangs the media euphemistically labelled “rebels.”

Mortensen’s petition platform, Change.org, joined the throngs of Al Khatib supporters alongside the Crisis Action campaigns. Over 779,000 signatures were allegedly achieved on the petition that called upon its global community to “make the world a better place” by supporting a “doctor who risked death to save lives”. A team of Change.org “PR professionals” produced reports on a variety of platforms to reinforce the emotive messaging. A.J.Walton, one such “PR professional,” reached out on Medium and outlined the organizations that supported this campaign:

Change.org is fortunate to partner with great humanitarian organizations. A few such organizations are Oxfam America, Mercy Corps, and USA for UNHCR, all working to help the victims of the Syrian conflict.”

An entire PR network rallied around the dying embers of the “revolution” in East Aleppo, drawing on their global supremacy in the information market to attempt to turn the tide of public consensus that was rapidly seeing through their firewall of lies. Al Khatib directly called upon “World leaders to save our lives in Aleppo” via the Change.org petition.

Abdo Haddad is a representative of the ancient Christian town of Maaloula who has spent considerable time raising awareness on the origins of the Syrian conflict, in Europe and further afield. The town is 56 km northeast of Damascus and was built into the craggy mountains that rise out of the surrounding plains. It is one of the few remaining places in the world where Aramaic is still spoken and taught in schools. Maaloula was briefly and brutally occupied by Nusra Front-led forces in 2013 before being liberated by local Christian militia, SAA and Hezbollah in 2014.

Haddad shared his observations on Al Khatib with MintPress News and reported:

Hamza Al Khatib is a pseudonym; his real name is Zaher Emad Katerji. Here he is photographed surveying battle maps with Fastaqim, one of the many extremist groups occupying East Aleppo… I took these screenshots and photos from his social media accounts … many of the posts have since been deleted.”

Haddad also explained to MintPress that he had checked on Al Khatib/Katerji’s Aleppo University medical degree status.

Haddad had spent some time going through Al Khatib’s Facebook posts and translating conversations to get a better picture of the darker side of the “heroic Last Doctor.”

 

In the photo above, taken from the Facebook page of Reuters photographer Abdelrhman Ismail, we see Hamza Al Khatib with his arm around Mayof Abu Bahr, one of the Nour Al Din Zinki beheaders of 12-year-old Abdullah Issa in July 2016, 200 meters from the Al Ansari White Helmet center that featured in the Oscar-nominated Last Men in Aleppo.

 

Haddad told MintPress:

Al Khatib knew that the local foreign-backed organizations, like the local councils and the so-called civil defence [White Helmets], were thieves and criminals; but he never mentioned that fact to the media channels who relied upon his testimony.”

Haddad also pointed out:

Al Khatib was described by Western media outlets as some kind of saint. Do ‘saints’ leave mines and IEDs, booby traps to murder more civilians after they have been evacuated out of danger by the Syrian government in the green buses? Conversations that Al Khatib had on Facebook with his cronies demonstrate that he personally made sure these hidden killers were planted in East Aleppo residential areas.”

Finally, Haddad described how Al Khatib had clearly witnessed the execution of at least one SAA prisoner-of-war by the militant groups, but had never thought to mention these atrocities to Western media.

Crisis Action and Change.org were responsible for the whitewashing of crimes committed by the U.S. coalition armed groups in East Aleppo just as surely as Al Khatib participated in them or denied their existence in his reports on events in the beleaguered enclave.

“I consider Al Khatib a traitor to Syria and to his own people” Haddad told Mint Press, adding:

Al Khatib played a criminal role in enabling the terrorist occupation of East Aleppo; he watched Syrians die under foreign-financed  torture and sectarian violence but said nothing. Is that the work of a genuine “doctor” or even a decent human being?”

 

Conclusion

From the Kosovo Protection Corps in the Balkans to the White Helmets of Syria, a group of well- connected people with the fundings of governments and elite billionaires have sought to wage a war on public opinion and to maintain a monopoly on the prevailing narrative. By using time-tested strategies to mobilize public outrage within the very countries whose governments fund and promote these emissaries of false “humanitarian” narratives, these individuals and those behind them seek to pull at our heart strings in order to manufacture public consent for destructive regime-change operations that leave a trail of bloodshed and failed states in their wake.

This model, perfected in the Balkans, has been used to great effect in Syria with the help of many of the same individuals who have worked to disguise a regime-change operation originally planned by powerful, corrupt interests. The favored Empire narrative producer this time is a “ragtag, grass-roots band of ordinary altruists from all walks of life,” more commonly known as the White Helmets. However, even a rudimentary examination of the White Helmets funding and their extensive PR network, as well as the true nature of the group, negates any notion of “humanitarian” motivation guiding the group itself or its Western and Gulf State masters.

This callous, calculating manipulation of humanitarianism for the profit and expansion of Western empire is made all too clear in the destruction that these narratives and their principal actors have wrought upon Syria — helping to prolong the conflict and, as a consequence, increase the horrifying toll on Syria’s beleaguered population. The Syrian people are faced with widespread destruction of infrastructure, displacement and long term trauma from the effects of this predatory campaign waged by the West against a sovereign nation.

As we will see in Part 3 of this series, the web of the main actors driving this manipulation of narratives and public opinion shares innumerable connections to prestigious “charitable” organizations as well as to each other. Notably, the founders of the Jo Cox Fund — Tim Dixon, Nick Grono, Mabel van Oranje, Gemma Mortensen, and Brendan Cox — have not only been at the forefront of such efforts in Syria, but they have all spent the majority of their careers engaged in similar efforts to whitewash imperial military adventurism on behalf of powerful political and philanthrocapitalist interests.

Top Photo | Brendan Cox makes a speech during a Jo Cox memorial in Trafalgar Square, London, June 22, 2016. Alastair Grant | AP

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. You can support Vanessa’s journalism through her Patreon Page.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Oksana Boyko (pictured right) in US vs UN? Ft. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations her Worlds Apart interview of Sunday 24 June, generally discussed how the United Nations should handle conflicts between the United States and Russia its two most powerful members . The discussion included at least two issues which are of concern to this site, candobetter.net : 1. Border control in the United States and Europe, and 2. Syria.

Antonio Guterres attempted to put all the arguments by proponents of open borders and they were all effectively rebutted by Oksana Boyko. At one point in the discussion, after she stated that the United States as well as European countries, have the right to control their borders Oksana was accused of listening to Fox News, that is the station which features Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and other outspoken advocates for the effective control of the United States border with Mexico. The video, embedded below, is easily worth the 28 minutes of your time required to watch it.

Later in the program Oksana Boyko put to Antonio Guterres that the United Nations should oppose the United Sates' schemes to partition Syria and preserve Syria's territorial integrity. [1]

Footnote[s]

[1] The partitioning of Syria is also supported by the group Australians for Kurdistan. The group absurdly maintains that, with up to 20 U.S. military bases in Syria's Kurdistan (acccording to RT on 1 Mar 2018 and other sources) the YPG (an acronym for "People's Protection Units") is building a communist or anarchist society which is also a beacon of women's liberation. The convenor of "Australians for Kurdistan" is John Tully. In Hitler of the Middle East (6/2/18) | Tasmanian Times, ostensibly an attack on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tully smears the popularly elected President of Syria, as "the Syrian dictator". Nowhere in his writings does Tully show any concern for the fate of Syria, including the 80,000 soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army, amongst the 400,000 citizens of Syria, who have been killed in the war against Syria since March 2011 in which which Erdogan has been complicit. That would come far closer to justifying Tully's emotive likening of Erdogan to Hitler than any of his actions against Kurdish secessionists in recent years.

The embedded video is from Occupational hazards? Daniel Ayalon, former deputy foreign minister of Israel, the 21 June Episode of RT's World's Apart In that program presenter Oksana Boyko (pictured left) interviews Daniel Ayalon (pictured right) about Israel's recent aerial bombardments of pro-Syrian-government forces inside Syria.

Oksana Boyko successfully challenged most, but not all, of Ayalon's lies and distortions.

Ayalon's supposed justification for Israel's violation of international law is that they were only attacking Iranians and Lebanese Hezbollah who were supposedly there, not to help defend Syria against tens of thousands of terrorist invaders, but to attack Israel.

Oksana Boyko, however, pointed out that Iran and Hezbollah only intervened in Syria after many years of war against Syria by terrorist proxies of the United States and its allies.

Given that, by one estimate, 400,000 Syrians including 80,000 soldiers have died in that conflict since March 2011, the actual and potential consequences of that conflict for Israel are trivial in comparison. It's unfortunate that Oksano Boyko did not provide those figures.

Ayalon pushed the Big Lie, long ago refuted, that the war in Syria was a sectarian conflict between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam.

Ayalon also claimed that Israel is the only democracy in the region, ignoring the fact that all elections held in recent years in Syria, particularly the Presidential election of 7 June 2014 in which 88.7% the 73.42% of eligible Syrian voters who voted, voted for President Bashar al-Assad, were verified by International observers. In Syria, unlike in Israel, where Palestinians are excluded, all residents - Sunni, Shiite and Alawite Muslims, Christians, Jews, Kurds, Armenians and others, are entited to vote.

No viewer aware of the facts about Israel can be left in any doubt that the criminality of Ayalon and the country he represents has not diminished since Israeli warplanes sank the USS Liberty in 1967 killing 34 crew members in an attempt to provide the United states with a pretext to join Israel in its war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

Kevork Almassian shows us on a coloured map with symbols who is occupying what in Syria at the moment, and discusses the Syrian Government's policy.

Let's avoid World War Three and bring justice, light and humanity to reporting on Syria and stop the lying deeds of US-NATO.

Time: 6:30pm
Place: State Library of Victoria
Date: 30th April 2018
Organisers: Hands Off Syria (Sydney) is coordinating with a group of activists and Syrians to organise a rally in Melbourne.

During a Barcelona concert on April 13, Roger Waters denounced the Syrian White Helmets as “a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.” Warning that the groups’ unverified claims about chemical weapons attacks across insurgent-held territory were aimed at triggering Western military intervention, Waters cautioned his audience, “If we were to listen to the propaganda of the White Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake of monumental proportions for us as human beings.”

In fact, Waters had first hand experience with the powerful pro-war PR operation behind the White Helmets. Back in October 2016, a public relations firm representing the White Helmets called The Syria Campaign attempted to recruit Waters by inviting him to a lavish dinner organized by a Saudi-British billionaire, Hani Farsi. The rock legend and renowned activist was told that by signing on to the organization’s mission, he could help “elevate the voices of Syria’s peaceful heroes”

[This article, by Max Blumenthal, is republished in part from Gray Zone.]

Just days before his recent concert in Barcelona, Waters was lobbied again to support the White Helmets, this time by an eccentric French photojournalist affiliated with what he described as a “very powerfull [sic] syrian network.” The activist demanded to join Waters on stage and deliver a message for the “children of syria.”

Waters did not respond to either request.

These emailed solicitations from White Helmets representatives and activists were provided by Waters to the Grayzone Project, and are published in full at the bottom of this article. The documents demonstrate how the organization’s well-funded public relations apparatus has targeted celebrities as the key to the hearts and minds of the broader Western public.

Unlike many other A-listers, however, Waters took time to research the White Helmets and investigate its ulterior agenda. 

“I was quite suspicious after I was invited to that [White Helmets] dinner,” Waters told the Grayzone Project. “And now my worst suspicions have been confirmed.”

The Syria Campaign’s initial approach

The October 2016 dinner invite was delivered to Waters by a representative for the Corniche Group, an international holding company belonging to the family of the London-based Saudi billionaire Hani Farsi. Farsi was seeking Waters’ presence at a fundraising dinner he had organized on behalf of The Syria Campaign.

The Syria Campaign is a well-funded public relations front established to promote The White Helmets as a group of heroic rescuers who require the protection of Western militaries. Through series of petitions and public demonstrations, The Syria Campaign has unsuccessfully pushed for a No Fly Zone in Syria that would have likely resulted in the kind of Western military intervention that toppled Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi and destabilized Libya.

The slick PR firm has also resorted to astroturfed public stunts like a pro-White Helmets flash mob and orchestral performance at New York City’s Grand Central Station where participants were paid up to $600 each.

Farsi’s relationship to the The Syria Campaign had been kept private until now. A Syrian-British oil tycoon named Ayman Asfari has taken a much more vocal role with the PR group, providing it with seed money to advance his mission to stimulate US and UK support for regime change in Syria. Waters was informed that Asfari’s wife, Sawsan, would be on hand for the 2016 White Helmets fundraising dinner.

Read more and see the emails at https://grayzoneproject.com/

Invitation to a meeting to coordinate contingency plans for an emergency rally in the event of war breaking out or bombing resuming in Syria/Middle East or on the Korean Peninsula.

Thursday 19 April
6pm
Level 4
Trades Hall
(Please note that we have changed to a larger room)

The global situation is unpredictable and inflammable.

The peace movement needs to come together to make contingency plans in advance to mobilise mass protests and rallies in the event of war breaking out.

A contingency plan and a broad coalition is needed to mobilise a wide range of people, organisations and contacts at a very short notice.

A co-ordinating group will be set up.

If you want to find out more or be a contact for your organisation or community but unable to come this Thursday, please reply to this email or phone 0417456001.

Shirley Winton
IPAN-Victoria
Independent and Peaceful Australia Network

This video will make you feel better about thinking, in a world where being programmed seems easier.

Filmed by Dima Aboud in Spain. Roger Waters exposes NATO-member-state White Helmets as a multi million dollar funded propaganda construct for terrorist factions inside Syria.

Video & translation: "Today your announcements show that your project is not humanitarian, but strictly political, since you no longer even hide the fact that your more or less single intention is to overturn the Syrian government. You are taking us back to dark days, where one of your predecssors, arguing humanitarian reasons, announced that he wanted to overturn Gaddaffi's government. We know where that took us. The nations of the world did not give us a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in order for us to follow servilely the way and the law of the strongest."

Translation (by Sheila Newman)

Marie Le Pen addresses Emmanuel Macron:

Mr President of the Republic,

If I have decided to address you directly here, this is because, on the pretext of chemical weapons use, (denied by the Syrian Government), the American president, Donald Trump, decided to attack Syria immediately.

This situation is all the more distressing because you yourself seem to want to associate our country with this new warlike adventure, before any independent investigation, without any consideration of international law, of our national interests, of our soldiers' lives, and of France's historic mission.

Yet, as France's attack on Iraq under President Chirac was vigorously condemned in the United Nations by his minister for foreign affairs, our country itself is called upon to make the voice of justice heard for world peace.

Already at that time, in 2003, do you remember, Mr President, some had already tried to get us to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction.

Today we know that unjustifyable gunboat policy of former times was based on a State's lie. A lie promoted in the theatre of mass media and all the way to the security council seats. That intervention, which France was unable to prevent, threw the whole Middle East into chaos and encouraged and armed Islamism.

The attacks we have experienced on our soil are almost the direct consequence, with the development of Daech, [...unintelligible] . The same scenario was repeated with the calamitous destabilisation of Syria and Libya, to which we owe today the immigration submerging Europe and the extension of jihadism in the Sahel and West Africa.

You are not ignorant of the fact that such political errors are never without consequence for us. Today your announcements show that your project is not humanitarian, but strictly political, since you no longer even hide the fact that your more or less single intention is to overturn the Syrian government.

You are taking us back to dark days, where one of your predecssors, arguing humanitarian reasons, announced that he wanted to overturn Gaddaffi's government. We know where that took us. The nations of the world did not give us a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in order for us to follow servilely the way and the law of the strongest.

Who could believe that in these circumstances of exceptional gravity, France, which is an old country, a country that knows better than most the cost of war, should let itself be dragged into such war madness and lightly accept the roles of political pig [unknown metaphore] and military support.

Over and above this business in Syrian, we can only worry about the temptation of the western leaders to rebuild a new Berlin Wall, as if they were unable to see the world as it is today. Since 1989 the world has changed. The threats don't come from a secular state in the Middle East [Le Pen is referring to Syria, which is secular, as was Libya], nor from European powers which are potential allies in the battle against terrorism, but from groups or states that aspire to impose on the world, in the middle east, in Africa, or even in Europe, the theocratic dictatorship of a political Islam.

Our battle does not oppose western nations against Muslims, but Islamic totalitarianism against free countries, whether they are Muslim or not. The free world will come to the end of this criminal ideology and its hegemonic projects. All our efforts must be directed to eradicate Daech and jihadist groups, even when they call themselves 'freedom fighters' in order to spread Islamist ideology.

We are the inheritors of a nation which can only be herself in a state of dignity, to quote De Gaulle. The situation demands that France be herself worthy of her history, her rank, worthy of the role that free nations have conferred on her through her glorious history.

Mr President, if you

Bombing not the answer for peace in Syria, rather a dangerous mistake - Independent and Peaceful Australia Network. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s reckless support for a military strike by the US in Syria demonstrates Australia’s lack of independence in its foreign policy.

IPAN spokesperson Mr Stephen Darley said, “Surely it is clear that any military exchange between Russian and US forces threatens a dangerous widening of the conflict and the lives of millions.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has accepted an invitation from the Syrian government to inspect the region where an alleged chemical weapon attack occurred demonstrating a willingness to support its claim they had not conducted such an attack.

The video showing children being hosed down allegedly from a chemical weapons attack needs to be investigated. Any chemical attack is an inhumane and illegal act, requiring the strongest condemnation.

If there is proof that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, regardless of who was behind it, then there needs to be serious consequences in the international court of justice where crimes against humanity are legitimately dealt with.

What is clear is that a bombing assault on sites in Syria is neither legal, effective nor acceptable. The risks of even more innocent people suffering death, injury and destruction of homes and the risk that a major powers war could ensue is being recognised internationally.

Mr Darley is calling on the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister to clearly reject the proposed missile attack and instead be a voice of reason in calling for all non-military means possible to be adopted to resolve the conflict.

This press release was issued two days before Mr Trumps attack of today.

This is deliberate bombing of civilians. Damascus is the place in Syria where almost all refugees are and the bulk of the population. This is such a dreadful thing to do to the people of Syria. The leaders of the countries involved need to be captured and brought to trial by their peoples! We are all threatened by their actions. The whole world is unsafe with such people in power.

Grotesque and blatant lie: Trump has just announced in quite sickeningly misleading tones, his plan to strike Syria, a country that has courageously resisted to date all attempts to pull it apart. The United States is engaging in criminal war activities and is now bringing the world to the point of nuclear war. We all need to stand up against this monster US government. It is sickening to hear the utter confabulation about a this being a humanitarian or godly mission. The United States and its cohorts in NATO are outdoing Hitler. I will try to post updates under this heading.
At the moment RT in English is having its transmission interrupted or blocked in some way. I am getting Spanish Rt however and here is my translation of what it says at https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/268383-reportan-fuertes-explosiones-damasco-orden?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=push_notifications:

Strong explosions being reported in Damascus now

"Strong explosions are being reported in Damascus following the order Trump gave to bombard Syria! 14 April 2018 01:19 GMT "

"https://es.rt.com/5r33 Portada Actualidad
Se reportan fuertes explosiones en Damasco tras la orden de Trump de bombardear Siria
Publicado: 14 abr 2018 01:19 GMT | Última actualización: 14 abr 2018 01:24 GMT
Las detonaciones y humo se reportaron muy cerca de la capital siria."

French and British have joined this war crime but alternative medias are being blocked

Please pass this on as widely as you can in case we lose the ability to communicate. There has been an attempt to hack my computer as I was writing this article.

Vanessa Beeley reports from Syria that Syria and Russia retaliating

11:34 AM Melbourne time:
"40 minutes of cruise missiles across Syria.
Syria and Russia responding."

First images of US-led strikes on Damascus emerge (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

We have also heard that Syria just shot down 13 missiles over Damascus. (Press TV Iran.)

Damascus is the place in Syria where almost all refugees are and the bulk of the population. This is such a dreadful thing to do to the people of Syria. The leaders of the countries involved need to be captured and brought to trial by their peoples!

BREAKING!Medical witness and remarkable documentation of how a false-flag chemical attack was filmed in Douma, and has almost brought about WW3. The Russian Defense Ministry has presented what it says is proof that the reported chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged. It also accused the British government of pressuring the perpetrators to speed up the “provocation.” Originally published at https://www.rt.com/news/424047-russian-mod-syria-statement/. [Two photos derived from video and slight change to introduction this https://candobetter.net version.]

"US President Trump, French President Macron, and British Prime Minister May accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons in Douma on the basis of evidence and staged videos of the so-called “White Helmets”, who are the medical wing of the fascist Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria. The countries mentioned above have called meetings of the UN Security Council in order to propose resolutions to strike at the legitimate government of Syria, which is heavily engaged in the fight against terrorism, and despite the assertion of a member state in the Security Council, Russia, that the (Douma) location was free of any chemical traces after the Russian experts entered Damascus, refuting their claims. The Syrian government has asked the experts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to enter and verify the incident, but Trump and his lackies from European and Gulf Arab countries blocked their ears and decided to proceed with their lies and threats." (General Confederation of Trade Unions of Syria.)

First published by the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War·Friday, April 13, 2018 at https://www.facebook.com/notes/hamilton-coalition-to-stop-the-war/statement-by-general-confederation-of-trade-unions-of-syria-regarding-us-and-eur/2408602269165730/.

Dear comrades, brothers, and sisters,

The United States and its followers in European countries, such as France and Britain, and their proxies in the region such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, have been provoking Syria since they began their terrorist war against Syria eight years ago, in order to carry out their agendas on Syrian territory. We are witnessing these days the manufacture of alleged evidence, the latest of which is the fabricated story of Eastern Ghouta hit by chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab Army.

These colonial powers have always used the UN Security Council and its instruments to strike sovereign states by using illusory and fake pretexts to achieve their goals, such as the infamous presentation of Colin Powell in 2003 at the UN Security Council to strike Iraq.

The chemical incident was staged in Douma because the terrorists suffered defeat at the hands of the Syrian Arab Army that liberated Eastern Ghouta, which defeat contributed to the safety and tranquility of the people of Damascus after they suffered a lot because of the terrorists who were raining down hundreds of missiles and rockets upon the capital. The more the Syrian Arab Army achieves victories on the ground, the more the terrorists urge their employers to save them, as happened when they concocted the chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun (in April 2017).

This time, US President Trump, French President Macron, and British Prime Minister May accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons in Douma on the basis of evidence and staged videos of the so-called “White Helmets”, who are the medical wing of the fascist Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria. The countries mentioned above have called meetings of the UN Security Council in order to propose resolutions to strike at the legitimate government of Syria, which is heavily engaged in the fight against terrorism, and despite the assertion of a member state in the Security Council, Russia, that the (Douma) location was free of any chemical traces after the Russian experts entered Damascus, refuting their claims. The Syrian government has asked the experts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to enter and verify the incident, but Trump and his lackies from European and Gulf Arab countries blocked their ears and decided to proceed with their lies and threats.

We, at the General Union of Trade Unions in Syria, declare our stand with our Syrian government and army under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad, with whom we have faced terrorism and its sponsors for eight years. We affirm that we are confident of victory and that these US and European threats constitute a flagrant violation of the UN Charter.

We call upon all honourable people from the World Federation of Trade Unions, the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, and all Arab and international organizations to expedite the campaign of defending Syria by sending messages of solidarity and support to Syria and by organizing marches and sit-ins in front of US embassies and consulates everywhere in the world, condemning this blatant US aggression and to save the world from Trump's ruthlessness. We ask you also to send letters to officials of the United Nations and of the United States of America, stressing that the threatened actions of the US president against Syria will lead to a global war that will drag the whole world into further chaos, destruction, and poverty and will increase the number of refugees generated by the wars already being waged by the United States against sovereign states in the world.

Long live the Syrian people in their war against terrorism! Long live international solidarity with Syria!

Executive Bureau
General Union of Trade Unions
Syrian Arab Republic

Video inside: Tom Duggan lives in Damascus, Syria. This week he covered the Jaishal Islam (Saudi supported) terrorist group leaving Douma, Syria. He reports, "We were expecting between 3000 and 8000 hostages to be released. We got less than 100. Where did they all go? They had been held for between four and six years. Jaishal Islam submitted the names of these people, their ID numbers, and the Syrian Government, in good faith, accepted the release of the terrorists in exchange for the hostages they claimed to have. This is a huge example of genocide, but the UN has not even acknowledged it." Up to 8000 Syrians slaughtered or starved by Jaishal Islam, which the Syrian Government has been fighting, and, meanwhile the United states posing as an 'exceptional' state, is threatening to attack Syria, which will draw Russia and probably China into war, on the basis of a completely unproven allegation that the Syrian Government used 'chemical weapons' against its own people. Duggan knows there is a high risk of Damascus being attacked by the rogue 'exceptional' US state, but he has decided to remain there.

"It all looks like a pretext for the United States and its allies to return to the scene and involve themselves in an armed conflict which, until now, they have lost to the Russians and the current Syrian government. So, there, I'm warning everyone, it's extremely dangerous. " (Jean-Luc Mélenchon)

French politician, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, condemns on warlike response to unverified chemical attack in Syria

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhfPrrz5rO0 (April 10, 2018)
(Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a left-wing veteran French politician who was placed 4th in first round of 2017 French presidential elections .)
"Everyone knows that in war the first casualty is truth. What actually happened on the ground is more or less unknown. And, the 'chemical attack', if there was one, is obviously abominable and should be condemned. But we still don't know who did it. It all looks like a pretext for the United States and its allies to return to the scene and involve themselves in an armed conflict which, until now, they have lost to the Russians and the current Syrian government. So, there, I'm warning everyone, it's extremely dangerous. I don't like at all the reception that Macron gave yesterday to three Baltic presidents who met for I don't know what reason, in Paris, and who came and played wargames to Mr Macron's applause. No, no and no. Russia is not our enemy; it is our partner. [Translated from the French [1] by Sheila Newman.]"

Macron and Gurria's Baltic politics

The Baltic presidents referred to by Mélenchon included Dalia Grybanskaite of Lithuania. There was also someone from Estonia. In a press announcement here https://www.lrp.lt/fr/centre-de-presse/communiqus-de-presse/la-chef-de-ltat-se-rend-en-visite-de-travail-en-france/29752, it says that Emmanel Macron, with OECD Secretary General, Angela Gurria, was looking at including Lithuania in the EU. This sounds like more attempts to disorganise current trading blocs, along the lines of US-NATO interference in Ukraine, in a manner which would negatively affect Russia.
As well as the arms trade and energy resources, other commercial trade and market blocs are motivating the current war rhetoric and threats. These can be seen as a continuation of the European trade wars that began in the 13th century, but carried out on a greater resource and production scale and with devastating weapons in reserve.
The links between Macron and the United States, and Soros funding to influence his election,[1] are an indication to me, along with his pro-US anti-Russia attitude and the variation of the traditional independent French approach to the Middle East, that France is in the grip of a globalist-financed economic ideologue from an elite internationalist class with little conscience or empathy. Macron came from 'nowhere' in political terms but was promoted by the French and international corporate press, which created such an unjustified anxiety about Le Pen, the other major Presidential candidate, as a nationalist threat akin to Hitler, that in an unprecedented move, the main traditional French political parties simply closed up shop, never to reopen. A number of the politicians exiting these defunct parties then joined Macron's staff, such was the mysterious promise of his candidacy.

French Politician, Marine Le Pen, says the conflict is pointless and France should not let the US boss it around.

"I think that currently France is contribution to the creation or the recreation of a certain form of the cold war with Russia. It's pointless, because it doesn't benefit France, or its economy, or international relations, to let the US, seeking to stir up a conflict with Russia, boss us around." (English voice-over, probably April 10, 2018, available at the 11.41 hrs point on the video of RT News at https://www.rt.com/shows/news/423839-rtnews-april-11-17msk/).
Le Pen has consistently called for peace instead of war and for Russia and Syria's sovereignty to be respected, which policy alone makes her unpopular with the globalists.

NOTES

[1][Original French transcribed by Sheila Newman from the video:]"Tout le monde sait que, dans les guerres, la première victime, c'est la vérité. Ce qui se passerait réellement sur le terrain, c'est à peu près inconnu. Et, 'l'attaque chimique' s'il y en a eu, est évidemment abominable, et doit être condamnée. Il reste à savoir qui aussi est livré. Ca ressemble beaucoup à un prétexte pour que les Etats Unis de l'Amérique et leurs alliés reviennent sur la scène et engagent un conflit armé que, jusqu'à présent, ils ont perdu en faveur des Russes et du gouvernement actuel de la Syrie. Bon, voila. Je mets en garde, c'est extrêmement dangereux. Je n'aime pas du tout la réception qu'a été faite hier des trois présidents baltes [?] réunis pour je ne sais pas pour quelle raison, à Paris, et qu'ils sont venus jouer les va-t-en guerre aux applaudissements de M. Macron. Non, non et non. La Russie n'est pas notre ennemi, c'est notre partenaire."

[2] http://freewestmedia.com/2017/02/15/soros-pouring-money-into-google-macron-to-stop-le-pen/

"All military personnel, from low ranking GI’s to the top generals and admirals, have an obligation to disobey illegal orders. Orders to carry out acts of war against a sovereign nation that is not threatening the U.S. are illegal orders." Jerry Condon, Veterans for Peace. This leading veterans’ organization is warning that a U.S. attack on Syria could lead to a nuclear war. Russian military forces in Syria will undoubtedly be among the targets of U.S. missiles. Russia has said it will shoot down U.S. missiles, and attack the “platforms from which they are fired,” i.e. U.S. ships.

US Veterans call for military personnel to disobey illegal orders to make war on sovereign powers.

“Why the rush to war?” asked Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace. “Why is the mass media cheerleading for war instead of asking hard questions? Why are Democratic and Republican politicians trying to out-do one another with calls for ever more massive attacks on Syria?

“There is no proof yet of a Syrian government gas attack, only a video made by a fundamentalist rebel group that wants more U.S. intervention. Even if the reports are true, a military response will only lead to more death and destruction, and dangerous escalations.

“We are talking about a direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers,” said Gerry Condon. “Why would the U.S. risk nuclear war over dubious chemical weapons claims?

“Veterans have longer memories than the press and the politicians,” said Condon. “We remember how we were lied into the Iraq War with false reports of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ U.S. wars throughout the Middle East have caused millions of deaths and destroyed entire societies. Our soldiers and their families have also paid an extremely high price.”

“Veterans, GI’s and their families will not accept another war based on lies,” said Gerry Condon. “We will be protesting in the streets, in the suites, at media outlets and at military bases.

All military personnel, from low ranking GI’s to the top generals and admirals, have an obligation to disobey illegal orders. Orders to carry out acts of war against a sovereign nation that is not threatening the U.S. are illegal orders.

“We swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” said Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace. “Right now those enemies are those who would rush our country recklessly into another devastating war.”

Video inside: Jimmy Dore, the comedian from the very intelligent and acid Jimmy Dore Show does a superbly simple analysis of US form for lying to start wars, plus the fact that the corporate media go along with this. And us on the brink of World War Three - "for nothing," as Dore sums up.

Video inside: This video records a really shameful action on behalf of the US regime, on a par with Hitler's arrogant exceptionalism and dishonesty. We have begun the video where the benighted Syrian ambassador begins to respond to a series of utterly unfounded accusations by Niki Haley, the US Ambassador. That she walks out with her following, without listening to him, shows the contempt in which the United States regime holds the people of Syria and its government. Many lives are at stake and the welfare of many generations, but the United States military-industrial complex do not even give them a hearing. Although we have begun the video at the point of the Syrian ambassador's speech, you can roll it back to hear Haley, and then the Russian Ambassador.

"The Russian federation demanded for this meeting to be held on the agenda items, threats to international peace and security, insofar as we are deeply alarmed at the fact that in a number of capitals, above all Washington and those blindly following it, London and Paris, a deliberate policy was undertaken to stoke international tensions. The leadership of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, without any justification and without considering the consequences, have engaged in a confrontational policy against Russia and Syria and they are prompting others to follow suit. A broad arsenal of methods is being leveraged to slander and insult: hawkish rhetoric, blackmail, sanctions and threats to use force against a sovereign state." (Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia addressing the Security Council on April 9, 2018, in regard to an alleged chemical attack in the suburban Damascus city of Douma.) See the whole address transcribed below, or listen to the English translator video.

Thank you. If you believe it is a great pleasure for me to speak about the issue we will talk about now, and to make a statement, then you are mistaken. Unfortunately, the situation is such that I will have to say a great deal today, and it will be incumbent upon you to listen to what I have to say. We are grateful to Mr. De Mistura [Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Syria] for his briefing as well as to Mr. [Thomas] Markran [Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs].

The Russian federation demanded for this meeting to be held on the agenda items, threats to international peace and security, insofar as we are deeply alarmed at the fact that in a number of capitals, above all Washington and those blindly following it, London and Paris, a deliberate policy was undertaken to stoke international tensions. The leadership of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, without any justification and without considering the consequences, have engaged in a confrontational policy against Russia and Syria and they are prompting others to follow suit. A broad arsenal of methods is being leveraged to slander and insult: hawkish rhetoric, blackmail, sanctions and threats to use force against a sovereign state.

Russia is being unpardonably threatened. The tone with which this is being done has gone beyond the threshold of what is acceptable, even during the Cold war. Such boorishness against my country is something your predecessors did not take the liberty to undertake. What is next? We remind a rhetorical question which our President put forward in 2015 from the UN General Assembly to our Western partners, above all the United States, concerning the reckless of their geopolitical experiments in the Middle East. “Do you understand now what you have done?” And the response at that time hung in the air.

But there is a response: no, you do not understand. Just as you fail to understand what you are doing now. The lack of a clear strategy on any issue is appalling not just to us, it confounds not only us, but it confounds the majority of those sitting here. But they have decided not to openly put this forward to you, following you everywhere you go, regardless of the fact that with everything you touch, chaos is left behind in the brackish waters from which you try to take out fish, something, but only mutant fish are being taken out. I will put forward another rhetorical question. Do you understand the dangerous threshold towards which you are bringing the world?

One of the areas where the hostility is most stark is Syria. The terrorists and extremists supported by external sponsors are enduring a defeat there. Let us recall that we are talking about those terrorists and extremists whom you supplied, financed, and deployed in a country to oust a legitimate government. Now it is clear why this is causing hysteria among those who invested political capital in these dark forces.

Recently, thanks to the efforts undertaken by Russia in line with the Security Council resolutions, a large-scale operation has been undertaken to lift the siege of Eastern Ghouta. Its residents, for a number of years, were forced to endure the mockery and torture of fighters. More than 150,000 civilians were evacuated from that Damascus suburb, completely voluntarily, with the requisite security conditions being provided. Tens of thousands of them have already been able to return to the liberated areas and many met with their relatives. There has been no change [or replacement of population]: this composition being shouted about by supporters of the Syrian opposition has not occurred. These are lies.

With the leaders of these armed groups, difficult negotiations took place. As a result, many of them left the areas they had occupied, with full respect for guarantees for their safety. Incidentally, during the transportation operations, several attempts were undertaken to stage terrorist attacks when the militants attempted to reach the buses with suicide belts. Others preferred to settle their status with the Syrian authorities. Thanks to Presidential amnesties, they will be able to return to civilian life, and subsequently, they may even enter the Syrian security forces. We are talking about implementation of a UN principle: demobilization, disarmament and reintegration.

However, this positive dynamic is not to the liking of some foreign sponsors through Western countries who are willing to take up any straw just to maintain a hotbed of terrorist resistance at a striking distance from the Syrian capital, so that the fighters can continue to terrorize ordinary civilians, to seize their food and to request from the international community that humanitarian assistance be delivered. Incidentally, they were not prepared to share medicine with ordinary civilians – as was shown in the inspection of the stronghold left behind by the fighters. It was already the case in the past in Eastern Aleppo: improvised hospital facilities in basements were full of medicine which, as a result of sanctions – Western sanctions –, were not provided to Damascus and other government-controlled areas.

Also, large storage of [indistinct] were found as were the bodies and corpses of people who had been subjected to torture. We are stunned at the scale of the tunnels that were used by Jihadis. In some of them, small trucks were able to freely move about. These surprising underground facilities brought together the positions of groups who are viewed by some as moderate, and they were linked to the stronghold of the Al-Nosra Front.

On April 6, the new head of Jaysh al-Islam, following instructions of sponsors, derailed the evacuation of a party of fighters from Douma and resumed the rocket and mortar fire against residential areas in Damascus. The firing targeted [indistinct name of four areas]. According to official information, eight people died. 37 civilians were wounded. Unfortunately, we failed to see statements from Western capitals condemning the shelling of a historical district of Damascus. The following day, April 7, fighters accused the Syrian authorities of dropping barrel bombs with toxic substances. At the same time, diversions were being mixed up. It was either called sarin, chlorine, or a mix of toxic gases. Based on a well-known scheme, these rumors were immediately taken out by those who are financed by western capitalists; I am referring to NGOs and the White Helmets who are mendaciously acting under the cloak of health professionals. And these reports were also taken up and transferred to media outlets.

It behooves us once again to state that many of these dubious structures have a clear list of the email addresses of representatives of Security Council members, which shows that some of our colleagues, with a reckless approach towards their status, are leaking sensitive information to their protégés. Incidentally, all should recall the way that accidentally, the White Helmets put on the internet a video which showed preparations for staging a so-called victim of an alleged attack perpetrated by the Syrian army.

In 2011, the chemical serial began, and it continues to be shown to us with the calculation for each new episode to be more resonant than the one prior to it. In Washington, London, and Paris, immediate conclusions were drawn, pinning blame on the Syrian authorities, or as they call it, the Syrian regime. Has nobody wondered why would Damascus need this? There were insults against the Syrian leadership. However, the main burden of responsibility was pinned on Russia and Iran. And I think this is hardly surprising to anybody at this point, but this was done immediately based on current trends, without any investigation being conducted.

On April 8, the Syrian troops sweeping through {Al-Shimona} near Douma found a homemade Jaysh al-Islam manufacturing area to manufacture chemical substances artisanally. Chlorine agents of German manufacture and special equipment were also discovered. In Istanbul, an opposition journalist, [indistinct name], put on his Twitter page a video allegedly from the area of the incident, probably from the White Helmets. An unknown individual is next to a handmade bomb with a chemical that allegedly struck the bedroom of a building in Douma. All of this was accompanied by comments about another attack by the regime against civilians. The staged nature of this action is something of which there is no doubt. The trajectory of the alleged bomb is unnatural. This bomb supposedly entered, piercing through a roof, and naturally, calmly, fell into a bed, without even damaging this bed. Can a bomb fall on a wooden bed without even damaging the wooden bed?! Clearly, it was placed there prior to preparation for the staging.

There’s an interesting sequence of events. The chemical provocation in Douma on Saturday, April 7, occurred immediately after the US delegation at the Security Council received instructions to convene for today, Monday, April 9, to convene expert level consultations on their draft resolution on the mechanism to investigate incidents with chemical weapons. The initial text today has far-reaching changes and revisions.

Under these obscure circumstances, we need of course to get to the bottom of what is taking place. However, we need to do so in an honest, objective, impartial way, without disregarding the principle of presumption of innocence, and by no means prejudging the outcome of the investigation. Despite provocations, Russian specialists continue their efforts to resolve the situation in Eastern Ghouta.

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 8, following a new agreement that was reached, the evacuation of Jaysh al-Islam fighters resumed. Following the liberation of Douma from fighters, Russian specialists on radiological, chemical and biological protection were sent there to collect evidence and information. They took soil samples which show the lack of any nerve agent or chlorine substances.

Locals were interviewed about the cessation of resistance to the fighters. Not a single local resident confirmed the chemical attack having taken place. In local hospitals, there were no reports about symptoms from a toxic substance such as chlorine. Other medical facilities are not located in Douma. The bodies of the dead as a result of contamination were not found. Medical personnel and residents have no information about their potential burial areas. Thereby, the use of sarin and chlorine is not confirmed. Incidentally, the representatives of the Syrian Red Crescent refuted the statement allegedly made on their behalf about a delivery of assistance to victims of toxic gas. I call upon those who will speak against me and slander the regime to proceed from the premise that there was no chemical weapons attack.

Sweden prepared a draft resolution to investigate the incident. In principle, in order to conduct an investigation, the OPCW needs no resolution. However, we are willing to consider this resolution. Today, we propose that what you envisage in your draft be done. Let the OPCW, who through the Director-general of the Technical Secretariat Mr. Üzümcü stated a willingness to get to the bottom of what took place, let it immediately tomorrow fly to Damascus. There, the Syrian authorities and Russian troops will provide conditions to travel to the area of the alleged incident for them to familiarize themselves with the situation. Incidentally, this is what President Trump and other Western leaders called on us to undertake.

As for the possibility of a chemical attack, this was repeatedly warned about by the Syrians at the Russian Center for the reconciliation of opposing sides. It was stated that in order to record on film a chemical attack, and I put this in quotes, “the necessary equipment has already been brought in.” We too made the relevant statements at the Security Council. You heard these warnings. You have heard them but deliberately ignore them insofar as they do not align with the doctrinal views of those who seek the elimination of a legitimate government in another Arabic country.

Still, what is not being looked into is the fact that a significant number of chemical weapons were discovered on November-December 2017 in Syrian territory that had been liberated from terrorists. On the storage sites in al-Zakhariya and al-Afafir in Hama province, twenty 1-ton containers were discovered. More than 50 munitions were found which contain toxic chemicals. In Tal-Adli, Idleb province, 24 tons of toxic chemicals were discovered and this is believed to be chlorine. At the storage site Adhamiya, 30 kilometers northeast of Damascus, 240 and 160 millimeter caliber munitions were found. Plastic canisters were found with phosphorus substances and compounds. In the area of Al-Servita, Idlib province, an industrial complex was found for the synthesis of various toxic substances. 54 chemical munitions were found with a 44 chemical containers and these could be used for the manufacture of toxic substances.

From the beginning of this year alone, four instances were reported of fighters using toxic chemicals against positions where government troops are located in Shuja and Al-Mesharif. More than 100 Syrian troops were hospitalized. On March 3rd, when Hazrama and Al-Tars were liberated in Eastern Goutha, fighters from government troops discovered in a tunnel an underground artisanal manufacturing site to produce chemical munitions of a handmade nature. And this is far from a full list. It points to the wrongdoings and abuses by the irreconcilable opposition. However, the OPCW’s experts being sent there to identify evidence is not something which we see people eager to do. We demand that OPCW verify all of those areas. Access can be provided.

Also, information is surfacing that at the Al-Tanf camp, American instructors have trained a number of groups of fighters to stage provocations with chemical weapons used to create a pretext for a strike. It was clear to us that attempts to shelter terrorists and at the same time punish the regime so hated by some Western capitals would sooner or later be undertaken. Speaking heads on television screens sought to repeat last year's strike against Syria. This morning, there were strikes against the T4 Air Field in Homs province.

We are deeply troubled by such actions. Provocations in Douma echo last year's incident in Khan Sheikhoun. The unifying aspect is the fact that there's a planned nature of these attacks. An analysis of the USS operations prior to and after the incident in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2007 shows that Washington, ahead of time, prepared for its operation. The USS Porter naval destroyer, from 4 to 7 April last year – that is when the toxic substance was used in Khan Sheikhoun, before the strike against the Shayrat airbase –, were already present in the Mediterranean waters where they were engaged in planned operations. They did not enter the ports where an exchange of munitions could have happened in order to increase the number of cruise missiles.

Incidentally, 4 to 5 April, the USS Porter destroyer was located southeast of Sicily, and the USS Ross naval destroyer was in a passage from the Rota naval base in the area south of Sardinia. Later, 6 April, an expedited movement of both naval destroyers was reported towards the firing positions more southwest of Cyprus. From there, on April 7, they conducted a mass strike against the Shayrat airfield. At the same time, the number of Tomahawk missiles that were launched (59) surpassed the overall munitions on both naval destroyers if they had actually been engaged in the anti-missile defense operations that had been assigned to them. For that purpose, only 48 units were necessary. Thereby, US naval vessels, even prior to the chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun, entered military service with extra strike equipment that is an increase of cruise missiles that were not necessary for the anti-missile defense. And this could attest to prior planning by Washington of an act of strike against Damascus.

The fake news on Saturday from Douma are geared entirely towards drawing attention of society away from the Skripal case which was muddled up by London, and throwing on Russia completely unconfirmed accusations with the aim of pulling solidarity to build an anti-Russian alliance. Now the British are stepping away from a transparent investigation and putting forward specific responses for the questions and at the same time they are sweeping up their tracks. During the Security Council meeting on April 5 on the Skripal case, we cautioned that an attempt to unjustifiably blame us of having had a hand in the Salisbury incident was linked to the Syrian chemical dossier. Yesterday, this issue saw new interesting developments. For the moment, Foreign minister Boris Johnson continues to disclose things against Russia and attempt to be witty, and here's the following pearl: experts of an RAF listening post south of Cyprus intercepted on the day of Skripal’s poisoning reports sent from Damascus suburbs to Moscow. And this is what Times is reporting. It contains the following sentence, the phrase “The package has been delivered” and “ the two individuals made a successful egress.” This turns out to be part of the intelligence information provided by London two hours prior to the expulsion of Russian diplomats. However is it not clear that there's an irrefutable link here? Is that not clear to all? Syria-Russia-Salisbury?

I will give a hint to the British intelligence services and I will do so free of charge. Here is another great idea to cover-up their tracks: they could suggest that 'Novichok', which is so liked now, reached Salisbury directly from Syria by package. This is a complete mockery here.

Ambassador Haley has recently said that Russia will never be a friend of the United States. And I wish to respond to that. Friendship is something which is both reciprocal and voluntary. One cannot force a friendship. And we are not particularly keen to be friends with you. Nor are we begging to be friends with you. What we want from you is really nothing. It's something that is normal civilized relations which you arrogantly refuse, disregarding basic courtesies.

And you are misguided if you think that you have friends. So-called friends of yours are only those who cannot say no to you. And this is the sole criterion for friendship in your understanding. Russia has friends and unlike yourselves, we do not have adversaries. We do not view the world through that prism. And yes, international terrorism, that is our enemy. However, we continue to propose cooperation. This needs to be respectful and mutual cooperation, it needs to go towards resolving real and not imagined problems. And you should be just as interested as we are in such a cooperation.

Ultimately, as permanent members of the Security Council, we bear the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Through the relevant channels, we already conveyed to the US that armed force under mendacious pretexts against Syria, where, at the request of the legitimate government of the country, Russian troops have been deployed, could lead to grave repercussions.

We call upon Western politicians to scale down their hawkish rhetoric, to meaningfully consider possible repercussions and to cease the reckless spill over of threats to global security. What military misadventures of the West brought about is well known to us if we consider the examples of Yougoslavia, Iraq and Libya. And nobody has vested you with the power to act as policemen of the world and as investigators, procurators, judges and executioners all at the same time.

We call for your return to the legal fold to comply with the UN Charter and to jointly tackle problems that arise, rather than attempting at each step to advance your egotistical geopolitical game. All of the energy needs to be focused on support for the political process in Syria, to which it is necessary to constructively pull the efforts of all influential players. Russia always stands ready to engage in such cooperation.

To conclude, Mr. President, I wish to take this opportunity to request an open briefing of the Security Council on the outcomes of the UN assessment mission in Raqqa and the situation in the Rahman camp. We see the way of members of the Commission attempting to create a smoke screen around this issue, which is a result of their actions in Syria, including the operation to raze Raqqa to the ground through bombings. No chemical provocations will divert attention from this, from what you've done. Thank you.

Russian and Iranian English television broadcasters need to issue invitations to Teresa May, Boris Johnson, Niki Haley, Macron, Donald Trump et al, to defend their aggressive stances against Russia, Syria, and Iran,” says candobetter.net’s James Sinnamon. Unbelievable accusations against sovereign states are issuing from the governments of the United States, Australia, the UK and Europe. We are talking about the lines run by US-NATO on the Scripal spy poisonings and the so-called chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, which they have refused in the UN to investigate on the ground. Despite the total implausibility of these stories, the western corporate press, which includes ABC Australia and SBS, promote them uncritically. Yet the purpose of these stories is to provide excuses for war. The only beneficiary of the promotion of war is the military-industrial-media complex. The only thing working against this complex is the alternative media, which happens also to include English programs run by Iran’s Press TV Iran and Russia RT. Why are these programs so popular, especially RT? It is because they appeal to intellectuals because they are so much more complex and nuanced than the frustratingly illogical confabulations that pass for mainstream news in the Anglosphere. Press TV Iran’s The Debate is an especially robust forum.

World leaders like jealous giant children

In a stunning abuse of power, one of the main theatres of initial promotion is the United Nations. The US ambassador, Niki Haley, continues to make outlandish claims in the bullying style of her predecessor, Samantha Power. It is like watching gangster molls with airs, who do not realise that they are being live-broadcast as they threaten plans to assassinate or otherwise remove presidents, invade countries, and bomb cities, all based on totally fabricated enemy ‘profiles’ of popular elected leaders as bad guys. In fact, if war-profits were not a consideration, you would be reminded of jealous children in a playground bullying their more popular colleagues.

Major threats

The major threats to modern civilisation: war, overpopulation, overconsumption, and energy resources scarcity. For a few years ago after the fall of the Soviet Union, war seemed a remote pastime, carried out between small tribal states, but then it began to metastacize from former Yugoslavia, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, then to Libya. Next was Syria and, at the same time, Ukraine. It is like watching the events leading up to the First World War. If you didn’t look at the regional oil and gas interests and rival hegemonies for countries that would afford access to them, then the whole thing seemed inexplicable. Even so, many people whose lives and lifestyles are not yet threatened, just cannot believe that people who have power would do such harm, apparently just out of ego and a desire for even more money.

Alternative press should invite accusing western powers to defend their arguments

James Sinnamon (the man who built Candobetter.net) suggests that PressTV Iran and RT could be still more effective, if they issued invitations to the leaders making accusations, to defend these on PressTV Iran and RT.

“I think that Russia, Iran and other nations, who are defending countries like Syria from military aggression, as a matter of urgency, could use their newsmedia - Russia's RT and Sputnik and Iran's PressTV even more effectively.
Perhaps those who conduct debates and interviews on Press TV Iran - Marcia Hashemi and Waqar Rizvi - and Russia's Oksana Boyko, Afshin Rattansi, [1] Sophie Shevardnadze and others - could, prominently and repeatedly, issue standing invitations to the likes of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Nikki Haley et al., or their delegated spokespersons, to put their views on their programs and have those views discussed and debated.
Surely, if Theresa May et al. are so confident that they are speaking the truth, they would jump at the opportunity to show, to the audiences of RT and PressTV, how the views presented by those stations are wrong?

Of course, I don't expect that Theresa May et al. will acccept. If they don't RT and PressTV should include their names in lists, displayed prominently on their sites, of all Western political leaders who have declined to appear on RT and PressTV.

Given that hundreds of thousands have already been killed by military aggression, just since the Gulf War of 1991, and that the stakes for humanity are so high if this pattern is not stopped, I see know of no reason for the managers of RT and PressTV to pull any punches from now on.”

Sinnamon adds that, Afshin Rattansi, of Going Underground, leads the way to some extent because he is always issuing invitations to his detractors to appear on "Going Underground". If those who declined to be interviewed by Mr Rattansi were prominently listed, his impact would be even greater.