Inside see Syrian Girl's excellent video report on how the media has played reporting on Syria, using children's photos. She really explains the details well and her video contains footage that I have not seen before and new information.

Video documentary of army training and interviews with former enemies of the Syrian Army who have sought amnesty and now train to fight for Syria: "On several occasions since 2011, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has offered amnesty to anti-government militants who lay down their arms. Amnesties are usually offered to former combatants after are conflict ends, in Syria though they’re being granted as the war rages on. Men who haven’t completed their mandatory military service, are returned to the Army and serve in special “Amnestied groups” where they will fight with the government forces they once opposed.

Each has his own story about how he came to be offered amnesty. Some joined the armed opposition voluntarily, others say they were kidnapped and forced to cooperate. Some used to serve in the army but went AWOL due to circumstances beyond their control and were classified as deserters. Several are concerned about relatives who are fighting with one of the many militant factions. With such diverse backgrounds, some of the soldiers find it hard to trust each other completely, not knowing what side their comrades-in-arms are really on or what they may have done in the past.

What they all have in common is that they have been deeply affected by the war: they have lost homes and family members; and each one has a tragic story to tell. They all insist they are either victims or witnesses of war crimes but never the perpetrators. They sing patriotic songs and swear allegiance to Assad. Enlisting the amnestied remains controversial in Syria but the soldiers themselves say they’re happy to be given a second chance even if it means continuing to risk their lives in action, this time on the government’s side." First published on Rt Published time: 14 Aug, 2016 06:30 at https://www.rt.com/shows/documentary/354592-amnesty-syria-army-wartime/

What are we to make of Hillary Clinton's emails, recently revealed by Wikileaks? Here we examine the first two that were released. "In my view Clinton is as mad as a cut snake. You will see through these documents that the emphasis is entirely on Israel's interests, not America's, and whatever she thinks they are not the same. Of course she is completely in the hands of the Zionist lobby, as was Australia's recent Prime Minister Gillard, who lent her services to the Clinton campaign. But then Clinton is in the hands of anyone with money and the power to swing votes. She talks of Israel's security dilemma. Well, that's a good one: a state with an estimated 200-400 nuclear weapons (yes, a couple would be enough) facing states without even one has a security dilemma? ..." (Earth to Earth, Turkey.)

Mad as a cut snake?

Earth to Earth, writes about Hillary's emails:

"In my view Clinton is as mad as a cut snake. You will see through these documents that the emphasis is entirely on Israel's interests, not America's, and whatever she thinks they are not the same. Of course she is completely in the hands of the Zionist lobby, as was Australia's recent Prime Minister Gillard, who lent her services to the Clinton campaign. But then Clinton is in the hands of anyone with money and the power to swing votes. She talks of Israel's security dilemma. Well, that's a good one: a state with an estimated 200-400 nuclear weapons (yes, a couple would be enough) facing states without even one has a security dilemma?

She talks of trading off Syria for Iran, i.e. if the United States removes Bashar al-Assad then Israel might not attack Iran. We know this is what both Israel and Saudi Arabia were encouraging in the time of the Bush administration. They wanted the U.S. to do it. Can anyone imagine what the consequences would be of military strikes on live nuclear reactors?

Yet here Clinton talks of such a war as if it's something on the supermarket shelf she can't decide whether to pick up. In the second email, she talks of U.S. reluctance to launch an air war on Syria. In fact that is exactly what it wanted, but was blocked by Russia. (Thank heavens!) Never mind, says Clinton, we can do it without the U.N. and Russia won't object.

This is total crap. From the word go, it was clear that Russia had far too much invested in Syria, in the preservation of a government chosen by the Syrian people and in the preservation of its own regional and global strategic concerns, to let Syria go. Clinton thinks the U.S. could just walk in and bomb the Syrian air force into submission. This was never going to happen and clearly someone with more sense than Clinton prevailed. She says that Syria is not like Libya, where the 'opposition' was unified (I think this is the word she uses.) Again, crap. There was never any Libyan opposition strong enough to fight any further than the municipal limits of Benghazi. The 'rebels' were the window dressing for the full scale air assault by the U.S., Britain and France. At no stage were they unified. These emails at least help us to understand why Clinton could be the/one of the most dangerous U.S. presidents ever elected. Don't forget her threat to obliterate Iran if it attacks Israel (never likely - it would be the other way around but geared to look like an Iranian attack or a preemptive Israeli attack) and don't forget her threat of a few days ago, to renew the war on Syria and destroy Assad. Where we started we finish: this is exactly what Israel wants and there is absolutely nothing in it for the U.S. How shocking is it that the mainstream media has closed ranks behind this lying, corrupt and very dangerous person and has launched the most vicious campaign I have ever seen against a presidential candidate, Donald Trump." (Earth to Earth, Turkey)

WMDs all over again

Iran has been inspected and reinspected for nuclear weapons, revealing none, like the weapons of mass destructionn (WMDs) that did not exist in Iraq, but these two emails from Hillary Clinton (recently available by Wikileaks) reveal a focus on the idea that Iran may develop nuclear weapons capability. Israel is not officially supposed to have nuclear weapons, but Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear technician and peace activist revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986.[1] In Hillary Clinton's emails below, which were written in 2012, she operates on the premise that Israel has nuclear weapons and that the United States approves of this and wants Israel to maintain nuclear hegemony in the region. She sees solidarity between Iran and Syria as inimical to this state of affairs, reflecting the US claim that Iran aims to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Israel bossing the region around. She says, "The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today." Of course its Arab enemies accuse Israel itself of provocation and Israel has a history of acts of terrorism.[2] Hillary Clinton also suggests that, if Iran got nuclear weapons then Saudi Arabia might expect nuclear weapons. But that hasn't stopped the United States supplying Saudi Arabia with every other kind of weapon, as its top world customer.[3]

Casual promotion of mayhem

In order to prevent the mooted scenario of an independent Arab state catching up with Israel, Clinton recommends destroying the relationship between Syria and Iran by destroying the Syrian government by promoting a civil war. Well we now know the result of Hillary's preferred policy has been mayhem in Syria and Iraq, spreading all the way to Europe in the largest wave of refugees since the second world war. Clinton gives her opinion that if Iran were to get nuclear weapons it could use them as a deterrent to Israel's military threats in the region, yet she also reveals that she believes that Israel is on the point of "launching an attack on Iran that could provoke a major Mideast war". [Ed. This email was written some time in May 2012 and Israel has not engaged in nuclear attacks on the region yet.]

Poor predictability of her policies and failure to see their consequences

She also claims that Russia would not "stand in the way" if the [United States] were to intervene in Syria (meaning stoke war there). But she is writing some time in May 2012 and Putin only became Russian president in May 2012. (Relatedly, Clinton also reveals that she knew the US had stirred the pot in Kosovo.) These emails are now about four years and a few months old. Since Hillary wrote them, we have seen that Russia finally did intervene in Syria, although it stayed out of that fight for as long as possible. It unwisely failed to veto US interference in Libya, but the consequences of US/NATO intervention in Libya were so horrible that it became unlikely that Putin would go along with such a thing again. US interference in Ukraine put Russia in a position where it had to draw a line as it became clear that the US was surrounding Russia with military bases and attempting, through NATO, to alienate Russia's allies and trade partners.

It seems that Hillary's United States wants to use Israel to promote its own interests in the Middle East but this would go against Russia's and Arab interests, with the exception of Arab states, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which have aligned with Israel and the United States/NATO. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are financing religious terrorism (ISIS and others) against Syria, Iraq and Libya. Turkey, led by a pro-Muslim Brotherhood president,[4] was seen as a US/NATO ally and was benefiting by buying cheap oil through ISIS but it relies a lot on trade with Russia and recently has apologised to Russia for shooting down a Russian plane.

Hillary advocates for the most brutal regimes, not against them

Hillary's reductionist descriptions[5] of the presidents of the only two secular states in the Middle East - Libya (now destroyed by US/NATO) and Syria - as brutal dictators - are being used to justify her recommendation of US intervention to create civil wars all over the Middle East and to destroy Syria and isolate Iran. Going into the future, towards this scenario, Saudi Arabia has been allowed to maintain among the most brutal regimes on the planet, with total subjugation of women as slaves; it has been allowed to engage in genocidal war in Yemen, not only with impunity, but Mr Trad, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador at the UN in Geneva, was elected as chair of a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council in June 2014. Meanwhile Ms Clinton is part of a U.S./NATO wolf-pack that pretends to be 'intervening' in the Middle East to rid it of 'brutal dictators'.

Where Trump seeks dialogue, Clinton wants war

What can we make of these emails, of the woman who wrote them, of the country that she represented as Secretary of State, of her candidacy for its president? For what reason should the world allow Israel to defend its position and call the shots in the region, on behalf of non-regional players who are interested in controlling the region's oil and challenging Russia and China's interests in the region? It seems obvious that Israel must share some of its territory with a new Arab state called Palestine, sooner or later, and disarm its nuclear stores. It seems obvious that the United States should establish good relations with Russia, which could help balance out expansionary ideas in China or for a caliphate in a damaged Middle East, instead of ramping up its military displays in Europe and pushing at Russia's borders.

And here are Hillary Clinton's emails:

The best way to help Israel deal with Iran's growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.

Negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear program will not solve Israel's security dilemma. Nor will they stop Iran from improving the crucial part of any nuclear weapons program — the capability to enrich uranium. At best, the talks between the world's major powers and Iran that began in Istanbul this April and will continue in Baghdad in May will enable Israel to postpone by a few months a decision whether to launch an attack on Iran that could provoke a major Mideast war.

Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly. An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today.

If Iran were to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapons state, Tehran would find it much easier to call on its allies in Syria and Hezbollah to strike Israel, knowing that its nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent to Israel responding against Iran itself.

Back to Syria. It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel's security — not through a direct attack, which in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel has never occurred, but through its proxies in Lebanon, like Hezbollah, that are sustained, armed and trained by Iran via Syria. The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel's leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests. Speaking on CNN's Amanpour show last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak argued that "the toppling down of Assad will be a major blow to the radical axis, major blow to Iran.... It's the only kind of outpost of the Iranian influence in the Arab world...and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza."

Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel's security, it would also ease Israel's understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly. Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted. Right now, it is the combination of Iran's strategic alliance with Syria and the steady progress in Iran's nuclear enrichment program that has led Israeli leaders to contemplate a surprise attack — if necessary over the objections of Washington. With Assad gone, and Iran no longer able to threaten Israel through its, proxies, it is possible that the United States and Israel can agree on red lines for when Iran's program has crossed an unacceptable threshold. In short, the White House can ease the tension that has developed with Israel over Iran by doing the right thing in Syria.

The rebellion in Syria has now lasted more than a year. The opposition is not going away, nor is the regime going to accept a diplomatic solution from the outside. With his life and his family at risk, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's mind.

Email from Hillary Clinton: UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05794498 Date: 11/30/2015

The Obama administration has been understandably wary of engaging in an air operation in Syria like the one conducted in Libya for three main reasons. Unlike the Libyan opposition forces, the Syrian rebels are not unified and do not hold territory. The Arab League has not called for outside military intervention as it did in Libya. And the Russians are opposed.

Libya was an easier case. But other than the laudable purpose of saving Libyan civilians from likely attacks by Qaddafi's regime, the Libyan operation had no long-lasting consequences for the region. Syria is harder. But success in Syria would be a transformative event for the Middle East. Not only would another ruthless dictator succumb to mass opposition on the streets, but the region would be changed for the better as Iran would no longer have a foothold in the Middle East from which to threaten Israel and undermine stability in the region.

Unlike in Libya, a successful intervention in Syria would require substantial diplomatic and military leadership from the United States. Washington should start by expressing its willingness to work with regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to organize, train and arm Syrian rebel forces. The announcement of such a decision would, by itself, likely cause substantial defections from the Syrian military. Then, using territory in Turkey and possibly Jordan, U.S. diplomats and Pentagon officials can start strengthening the opposition. It will take time. But the rebellion is going to go on for a long time, with or without U.S. involvement.

The second step is to develop international support for a coalition air operation. Russia will never support such a mission, so there is no point operating through the UN Security Council. Some argue that U.S. involvement risks a wider war with Russia. But the Kosovo example shows otherwise. In that case, Russia had genuine ethnic and political ties to the Serbs, which don't exist between Russia and Syria, and even then Russia did little more than complain.

Russian officials have already acknowledged they won't stand in the way if intervention comes.

Arming the Syrian rebels and using western air power to ground Syrian helicopters and airplanes is a low-cost high payoff approach. As long as Washington's political leaders stay firm that no U.S. ground troops will be deployed, as they did in both Kosovo and Libya, the costs to the United States will be limited. Victory may not come quickly or easily, but it will come. And the payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. The resulting regime in Syria will see the United States as a friend, not an enemy. Washington would gain substantial recognition as fighting for the people in the Arab world, not the corrupt regimes. For Israel, the rationale for a bolt from the blue attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be eased. And a new Syrian regime might well be open to early action on the frozen peace talks with Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsor since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles. All these strategic benefits and the prospect of saving thousands of civilians from
murder at the hands of the Assad regime (10,000 have already been killed in this first year of civil war).

With the veil of fear lifted from the Syrian people, they seem determine to fight for their freedom. America can and should help them — and by doing so help Israel and help reduce the risk of a wider war.

Wikileaks has launched a searchable archive for 30,322 emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State.

NOTES

[1] Mordechai Vanunu (Hebrew: מרדכי ואנונו‎‎; born 14 October 1954), also known as John Crossman,^{#cite_note-2">[2]#cite_note-3">[3]} is an Israeli former nuclear technician and peace activist^{#cite_note-4">[4]} who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986.^{#cite_note-nyt2004-5">[5]#cite_note-6">[6]} He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and abducted by Israeli intelligence agents.^{#cite_note-nyt2004-5">[5]} He was transported to Israel and ultimately convicted in a trial that was held behind closed doors.^{#cite_note-nyt2004-5">[5]}

Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement. Released from prison in 2004, he became subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been arrested several times for violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He says he suffered "cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of Israeli authorities while imprisoned, and suggests that his treatment would have been different if he had not converted to Christianity from Judaism.^{#cite_note-7">[7]}

In 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole. The sentence was considered unusual even by the prosecution who expected a suspended sentence. In response, Amnesty International issued a press release on 2 July 2007, stating that "The organisation considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release."^{#cite_note-8">[8]} In May 2010, Vanunu was arrested and sentenced to three months in jail on a charge that he met foreigners in violation of conditions of his 2004 release from jail.

Vanunu has been characterized internationally as a whistleblower^{#cite_note-9">[9]#cite_note-10">[10]} and by Israel as a traitor.^{#cite_note-11">[11]#cite_note-12">[12]#cite_note-13">[13]} Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as "the preeminent hero of the nuclear era".^{#cite_note-14">[14] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu}

See also: Kennedy, the Lobby and the bomb, previously published (2/5/2013) on VoltaireNet. (As of 6/8/2016, images are missing from the candobetter.net republication, so, at least, until this fixed, we recommend that you read the original Voltaire Net version.)

[2] http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/terrorism.html See also re the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRZSzdQuOqM. http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-history-of-chemical-weapons-use/5352003

[3] In 2015 Saudi Arabia was the world's biggest importer of weapons and the top recipient of American-made arms from 2011-2015, followed closely by the United Arab Emirates, according to research compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which has been analyzing international arms transfers since 1968. See http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/24/politics/us-arms-sales-worldwide/

[4] The Syrian President, as Gaddafi did until recently, presides over a secular state. He does not want a caliphate. But the United States and Israel are promoting all the extreme groups and leaders in the Middle East who do want a caliphate to restore something akin to the Ottoman Empire, which relied on slavery for its administration and succession. Iran, although a Muslim state, presents a bulwark against Wahabism (Saudi Arabia's religion, which condones mass slavery). Iran did not have the same tradition of mass slavery as the rest of the Ottoman Empire. Farazmand, Ali (1998) “Persian/Iranian Administrative Tradition”, in Jay M. Shafritz (Editor), International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp 1640–1645 – Excerpt: "Persians never practiced mass slavery, and in many cases the situations and lives of semi-slaves (prisoners of war) were in fact better than the common citizens of Persia." (pg 1642). Cited in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Iran#cite_note-1 This article describes the aims of a caliphate. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261264/its-not-isis-we-need-beat-its-caliphate-daniel-greenfield

[5] See, "Does Bashar al-Assad really have to go?

Here is a brief update on the activities of the US Peace Council delegation in Syria. We went to Ma'alula today [29 July 2016] and tomorrow most of us will fly home. I could spend many words and hours debunking every lie you have been told about Syria and Syrians in the last 5 years, a Sisyphean task in today’s environment. Instead I will share some of my perceptions of recent events based on my experiences in Damascus this week.

Yesterday [28 July] was quite an interesting day. We met with President Assad in the morning and talked at some length. We began by exchanging introductions and then we asked him some very serious questions. We were not allowed to record the session but many of us took at least some notes. He told us that his strongest focus is on representing the Syrian people and holding the state together on their behalf. He described numerous programs the Syrian state has enacted to protect the people during this very difficult time. The government has converted schools and other buildings into refugee centers. They continue to provide, to the best of their ability, free education and medical care to everyone in the government held areas; they supply power, clean water and food even to areas that are occupied by militants where it is possible.

And he proudly told us that the Syrian Arab Army, an army of the people which is defending the country against a brutal attack, have finally closed the road from Aleppo to Turkey. This is very important because the militants in East Aleppo, and especially Al Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, have been receiving money and weapons from Turkey. He then told us that he had just issued the order to implement the humanitarian corridors and amnesty for Syrian nationals. He said that there are two ways to deplete the violence. The first is to fight to the bitter end. The other is to provide an incentive for people to stop fighting and give them a safe passage back to the lives they have left.

These are the first steps in the reconciliation plan which the Reconciliation Minister had talked about extensively, and which was cited by many others we spoke to as the best thinking to restore peace to Syria. We had already had two extended meetings with the Minister of Reconciliation, one in his office and the other over dinner at our hotel where he explained the methodology for reconciliation which they have been developing for some time. Amnesty and humanitarian aid are just the beginning. Evacuating as many civilians as possible is a temporary step to secure their welfare while negotiations are ongoing.

They used this process quite successfully in Homs last winter when they evacuated thousands of fighters and their families from neighborhoods they have long held hostage. Many were bused to Idlib where they may well resume fighting, but a densely populated areas of Homs is now secure and the civilians are able to live their lives in peace. The tens of thousands of citizens who remained were provided humanitarian relief and basic needs with reconstruction assistance on the horizon. You can see the video I posted on my blog at the time when they joyously welcomed the Syrian Arab Army. Minister Haidar admitted that Reconciliation plans are a work in progress and problems do occur. He also explained a complex process involving contact with and empowerment of the local people in the occupied areas that I can explain at some other time.

Each case is unique. East Aleppo has been very closely tied to a stream of foreign fighters who came in through Turkey. They are unlikely to walk away. Al Nusra/Al Qaeda is the primary organization there. And there may be a larger civilian population than in some of the other areas where the plan has succeeded. While the world is watching, it must be stated that the deep plan of working with local fighters and civilian councils will not unfold immediately. Ali Haidar, the Minister of Reconciliation and the long time leader of a dissident party prior to the current crisis in Syria (the war), is on his way to Aleppo to assess conditions and work on making the contacts necessary to begin the real process of reconciliation.

Of course, the first steps of this plan for reconciliation have been all over the news with varying judgements. The New York Times refers to reconciliation and restoration of the fighters’ citizenship as ‘surrender’, but that is not the way those vested in ‘reconciliation’ see it. People we spoke to told us that Syrians are tired of the war. Many initially joined the fight because they were being paid. They say that others joined out of confusion during the initial attacks on their villages and neighborhoods and that many men in occupied areas are given the choice to fight for the militants or be killed immediately. The president told us that he would prefer to heal the country rather than unleash a sea of rage and revenge. The only context in which this does not make sense is one where the sovereign Syrian State is not acknowledged.

Starvation might be less an issue in Aleppo than the fact that the fighters and their families will no longer have income. Last week it was reported, even by Western sources that the current situation was imminent and so an effort was made by the militants in East Aleppo to bring in several months worth of food and other necessities. In the last 24 hours, the Russians have air dropped more food and supplies into East Aleppo. And there are resources at the humanitarian corridors. The NY Times is reporting that people don’t want to leave East Aleppo. However, RT, however, is reporting that militants are firing on civilians who try to leave the area. Clearly there are problems that need to be addressed.

However, there are significant differences between the perspective presented by the Western press and that of the Syrians we met with this week. There is one I would like to point out, that was made very clear by everyone I met with during my stay here in Damascus. Syria is a sovereign country. It has a government which is doing its best to provide the services that governments provide including the provision of necessary resources and services to civilians including personal security which includes ethnic and religious tolerance and equality under the law. None of the forces at war with the government of Syria have demonstrated the capacity, or more importantly, the desire to provide these basic human and civil rights to the people of Syria.

President Bashar Assad, who was elected two years ago by the majority of Syrian citizens with a clear majority of votes, comes across as a well educated, progressive individual who is taking responsibility for providing for the people of his country who elected him by a significant majority, and leading a government which is attempting to respond to the issues that have caused civil unrest and discontent within that society while at the same time facing a vicious attack, funded, armed and manned by wealthy countries that have no civil rights and provide few social resources to their population. Not only is the government of Syria with their President doing their best to support the people of that country, but were he to leave, there would be no leadership in the fight against forces that oppose the values of the vast majority of Syrian people and are determined to tear the state apart.

Syrian is home to several ethnic groups and numerous sects of Christianity and Islam. They have lived together in peace for centuries if not longer. This week, the Grand Muftii and the Bishop of the Orthodox Church told us they are ‘cousins’. People tell me it is shameful to ask another person their religion or ethnic background as it is socially irrelevant. There is an awareness of the economic issues that are a source of suffering but the war has taken precedence. There is no doubt that the Syrian government has made mistakes and no one in Syria denies it. However, the US demand that Assad abandon his office and his responsibilities is unrealistic and out of sync with American values as well as with Syrian values. The US insistence on continuing to fuel this vicious war with money and weapons, through proxies and direct strikes, through propaganda and political manipulation, until he abdicates is criminal. It is a violation of international law, us law, and common morality.

In this 43 minute interview, previously published on 15 July 2016 on Syria News as most important points Dr. Assad cleared in latest NBC interview, the elected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confronts and demolishes the lies peddled to public of Australia, the United States, Britain and their allies about the Syrian conflict.

This is the man that Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition leader Bill Shorten have labeled a murderous tyrant. It would be interesting to see how they would stand up to a similar degree of scrutiny. If they were ever similarly interviewed about their own actions towards Syria, including Australia's economic sanctions, which have doubtless cost many of the 350,000+ Syrian lives lost since March 2011, they would surely be torn to shreds.

Excerpt: President Assad explains that only Syrians can decide whether or not he will remain President

Full 43:05 minute interview

Video, transcript. This is a virtually complete rundown on the history of US aggression against Syria from 2001. “We have never done anything more loathsome or despicable than what we’re doing in Syria” -Virginia State Senator Richard Black. In this article, Virginia State Senator Richard Black and Janice Kortkamp discuss the shameful situation in Syria, where the US government is actively arming and funding Al Nusra (Al Qaeda) and “conduits” (“moderates”), blending them together, and then using this model to exterminate the Syrian population. It should be noted that the mass media machine is seemingly losing its effect, as more and more prominent and senior figures (e.g Robert Fisk) are calling a spade a spade, or a “moderate” a terrorist. It just goes to show that you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time." (Free Syrian Press introduction to the video and transcript interview below.)

Originally posted on the Syrian Free Press by syrianpatriots

JEFFREY STEINBERG: Senator Black it’s a pleasure to be here. And you’ve just returned from a trip to the Middle East, to Syria and Lebanon, and why don’t you just start by telling us what you saw and your assessments of the situation there?

VIRGINIA STATE SENATOR RICHARD BLACK: What we did, we spent the better part of a week; we spent our time in Lebanon initially; we met with General [michel] Aoun, who is sort of the presumptive next President of Lebanon. We met with Foreign Minister [gebran] Bassil who is the head of the Christian bloc of the parliament there. And also with the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon; which is a new thing. You know the Syrians have not had an ambassador there until just recently.

From there we flew to Damascus and were then taken out and we visited Palmyra, where the Syrian army conducted an enormously heroic fight to drive out ISIS and assisted by the Russians who did a very good job there. And then we drove from Palmyra to Homs. Homs is the largest province, it’s the size of an American state, but it’s also a very large city.

It was an incredible visit, because, like you, I have studied the Syrian war, the origins of the war for years, since 2011. I know you go back before that, but this is when I got so focused on it. And the best way to explain it, is that through intensive study and what we would call “open source intelligence,” you begin to get a very clear concept of what the war is all about, and the origins of the war. But when you go there and you actually walk the grounds and you shake hands with the soldiers and meet with the refugees and people like that, it turns black and white into Technicolor. And I’m going to tell you: Syria is one of the most incredibly wonderful nations on Earth. And the fact that America set out to topple the government and destroy it, long before there was the faintest hint of civil unrest, it’s really one of the great stains on American honor.

So when I went there, one the one thing that stands out so vividly is this incredible religious tapestry of religious harmony, between the Christians, the Alawites, the Sunnis, the Shi’ites, everyone; and there is such freedom of religion in Syria, and it’s stunning. You know, as an American, here we have the Federal courts being partially repressive to Christianity in particular, and you go over there and I went to the Syrian broadcast system SANA, did an interview. And I came out and in the press room here is the plywood cutout of the Christmas tree and the ornaments are journalists who were martyred covering the war. And you think, “My gosh, if you did this in the United States, the ACLU would be all over you! You’d be in Federal court, and they’d rip down the tree.”

And we went to the theater in Homs province, in Homs city; it’s a large, modern theater, probably seated a thousand people. And they introduced me and they were very polite and receptive. And I sat next to the governor and his wife, and they’re Muslim, and so I’m watching: Here’s this choral presentation, very beautiful, everyone in tuxedos and the orchestra and a very lovely woman, and naturally, the woman very charismatic, you’re focused on her; and then gradually your eyes start to shift gaze. And then, suddenly, I look and I realize that behind them is a theater screen with a projection of Jesus Christ, bloodied, crown of thorns, staggering under the weight of the cross. And I looked at it — and I didn’t even know what they were singing, because they were singing in Arabic, right? And I realized later that they were singing Christian religious songs. And I turned to the wife of the governor, and I said, “Is this a religious theater, a Christian theater?” She said, “No, no, no, this is just a regular theater for entertainment. We put on shows, we put on concerts, everything.” But it happened that on the Julian calendar, we were there for Palm Sunday and we left just prior to Easter. 

And so, she said, many of the people here for the presentation are Muslim. She said, the choral group, many of them are Muslim also. And here, they’re participating in the praise of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! Not that they are not serious Muslims, but it’s also indescribable without seeing it in person. I had heard about it, and from hundreds of Syrians, but to see it and just to encounter it at random, you suddenly were able to “breathe” religious freedom there!

STEINBERG: I think I told you, when I was in Damascus in March of 2010, some of the things that were completely stunning to me, were the Grand Mosque right off of this great market area. You walk in there; it’s a gigantic, beautiful mosque, and right in the middle of it is the tomb of John the Baptist.

BLACK: Yes.

STEINBERG: And we went to parts of the old city, and we visited one of the earliest, the very first of the Christian churches anywhere in the world, and it’s just really stunning. The first event that we went to, was an ecumenical conference. It was at a Sunni religious school; there were Shi’ite, Alawite, Sunni; there were Christians, there were Franciscan monks attending; people from Scandinavian churches. And that night there was a celebration in the old city, and they had these Sunni dervishes.

 So it’s what you’re describing: If you’re not there and you don’t see it, it’s almost hard to concede that this is such a natural phenomenon in this country, and you see what the Saudis and the Turks and others are trying to establish, which this hard, sectarian fight within Islam , that has no bearing on the traditional culture of Syria as a country! 

BLACK: Yes, and you know, I spoke with Lebanon very senior officials, and of course, discussed this with President Assad and with the top leadership of the Syrian parliament. And one of my questions, is why is there war in Syria? We know, this was not a popular uprising. This was a calculated decision by the CIA, MI6, French intelligence, working with the Muslim Brotherhood, Turks, Saudis — an organized plan to topple the government. And of course we were familiar that there competing plans for oil and gas pipelines. And I come up a divided mind on exactly what’s going on: It is true that the oil and gas pipelines are a major, major incentive for this war.

But the other thing, that both Lebanese and the Syrians were quite insistent on, is that it is Saudi Arabia’s desire to impose Wahhabism. They’re not content that the vast majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims; now, if you listen to the press, they say, “oh, you know, we need a Sunni government.” Well, there are umpteen million Sunnis who are in the government and in high positions, and in the army and everywhere else. What they really mean is that we want Wahhabism, the type of Wahhabism that says that you impose severe, brutal Sharia law, and you begin beheading people, you force conversions and you take the wives of the Christians that you’ve murdered and you sell them at slave markets, which is happening right now in Iraq, perhaps in some parts of Syria also; but their feeling is that the true zeal behind this is this desire to impose the harshest, most extreme and violent, brutal form of Islamic rule.

STEINBERG: What you’re describing is the ISIS and the al-Nusra Front which is simply al-Qaeda, and the Saudis carry out beheadings, cutting off limbs, as their brand of Sharia law justice, exactly as ISIS and Nusra do in the areas they control.

BLACK: That’s exactly correct. And this has gone on through history. When I visited the Church of the Patriarch of Syria and the East, we went to a little adjacent, Christian school, and they had paintings of martyrs, and just as a reminder, that the history of Turkey, the Turks and the Saudis share the same history of violence towards those who do not share this most extreme view. And there was a painting that just stood out in my mind of a martyr, a woman during the Armenian genocide, a Christian, and the extremists had come in and they had amputated her feet and her hands. And she had an infant, and she cradled the infant and breast-fed the infant for the next couple days until she finally died of the torture they’d imposed on her. 

So you know, they had suppressed this in Turkey under Ataturk, starting 1925. I read the Turkish Constitution; it’s admirable, it’s a very fine Constitution. But now you have President Erdogan who has said…

STEINBERG: He’s ripping it up.

BLACK: He’s tearing it to shreds, and he says “I want the powers of Adolf Hitler.”

STEINBERG: That’s right.

BLACK: Our ally. Our ally says, “I want the powers of Adolf Hitler!” Imagine that!

STEINBERG: Mm-hmm. And it was brushed off and explained away in the American media as a misquote or something like that, as if he hadn’t said it, and didn’t mean it.

BLACK: And he never retracted a word of it! But a spokesman said, “well, you know, it’s sort of out of context.” Well — gimme a break. How do you put “the powers of Adolf Hitler” out of context! You know?

STEINBERG: Right, exactly.

I wanted to ask you, because I think you made a very important point about the Saudis and what they want, the Turks and what they want, but if the United States and Western European were not in on this for their own reasons, from the very outset, I doubt that the Saudis or the Turks would have been able to create the mess. And I’m reminded that way back in 1991, right at the point that the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union were disintegrating, according to Gen. Wesley Clark, he met with Paul Wolfowitz in Dick Cheney’s office — Cheney was Secretary of Defense under Bush Sr.—and Wolfowitz went through a list of governments targeted for regime change because they had at various points, allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And Syria was right near the top of that list; Syria, Iraq, Libya, others. 

And so, I wanted to get your assessment, given the way the situation has played out, the tragedy of the last five years, do you think that this could have actually occurred were it not for the full, witting complicity of the United States, both under President George W. Bush and now, for the last seven years, under President Barack Obama? 

BLACK: That’s an excellent question. If one of our assistants could hand me the black and white poster over there, I think this could help to explain it somewhat. [Placard reading “Syrian War Countdown” 16:10] 

Let me just run you through this, because the timeline is extremely important: In 2001, Gen. Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe has told us, that the Pentagon was ordered by the Secretary of Defense to make plans to topple seven different countries, neutral, non-belligerent countries, in what was an act of aggression under the law of war, which is a war crime. And so, the Pentagon began war-planning 2001. 

Now, President Bashar al-Assad did not take office until I think it was 2000; so he was brand new. He’d come in as a reformer. But reform, good or bad, didn’t matter; we were going to topple seven countries, all of them also enemies of the Saudi Arabians. The United States is pulled around by the nose by Saudi Arabia, and for our senior leaders in this country, they all have a meeting with Mr. Green. And Mr. Green persuades them to do whatever the Saudis tell them. 

So, OK, you start with 2001, the Pentagon starts planning. In 2006, WikiLeaks has released a document that came from the Chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy; at the time, we didn’t not have an ambassador, so the Chargé d’affaires was the senior person. That document outlined, in detail, plans to overthrow the government of Syria. And the two things that stand out in my mind is, we have a problem because President Assad came in as a reformer, he’s doing a lot of positive things, and so it is drawing an enormous amount of foreign direct investment and we’ve got to smear the image of Syria so that it will begin cutting off this flow of funds, and will adversely impact the Syrian economy. This is the United States, your country and my country, saying “we’re going to destroy another country by smearing their reputation. 

The other thing which I think was equally sinister, is in this country that has this beautiful religious harmony, we said have got to create religious division, religious frictions and hatred among religions, so that we can disassemble this country. 

But there were six very specific things outlined. And keep in mind, in 2006, there were no demonstrations, there was no political opposition, there were no uprisings, people were prosperous, they were happy. 

So here you go from 2005, we start planning the war; 2006, we come up with explicit plans. You go to 2011 and the CIA works to gain the release of the most deadly al-Qaeda operatives in Libyan prisons and uses those people to spark an uprising in Benghazi, the purpose of which — and I wish, you know, Congress, while they’re always talking about Benghazi, they never talk about before Benghazi. What was the reason we were there in the first place! Why did we attack our

ally, Colonel Qaddafi — now we have had problems with Qaddafi but we had resolved them …

STEINBERG: In 2003, he dismantled his WMD program and became — even John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham, in early 2009, were in Tripoli and said “this guy’s our best friend in our war against — ” it wasn’t ISIS yet, but “the war against al-Qaeda and the other jihadists.” 

BLACK: Yes, yes. So, absolutely, he was our best ally. And however, his big mistake was he had a huge arsenal of modern weapons, that we needed, to overthrow Syria. The reason that we went into Libya was, to capture their weapons to feed and fuel the war against Syria. Because we knew, Syria was a powerfully united, cohesive nation of people who — you know, every country has people who are unhappy or who are dissidents; we have ‘em in this country — but we knew that we had a tough nut to crack here, because this was a very cohesive country. So we needed a huge amount of armaments. The reason we went into Libya was to capture these. And this is all laid out by Pulitzer Prize winning author Seymour Hersh in his article, “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” something that was censored; almost everything he’s done has been widely printed by major media, and they censored it. But the London Review of Books has it published, and he explains why we went in, how we captured the weapons, and how we started the rat line, flying arms in. 

Because the CIA could not go before Congress and say, “Look, we intend to attack a neutral, non-belligerent country, where the people are happy, prosperous, and enjoy greater women’s rights and religious freedom than any other Arab nation; we’re going to rip it to shreds, we’re going to open up a torrent of bloodshed: Please give us an appropriation so we can purchase weapons to do it.”

STEINBERG: Right. 

BLACK: That would not have gone over well. So, we went around it, and we captured the weapons in Libya, sent ‘em to Syria. Three months after the war in Libya, even before Colonel Qaddafi had fallen, we started the war in Syria. And the technique that we used, — now just watch the timeline: We go from 2001, we decided to bring ‘em down then, it was 10 years! An entire decade of planning and plotting and preparing.

STEINBERG: Exactly, exactly. 

BLACK: So, you look at this timeline, and then, of course, we’ve employed massive, unrelenting propaganda against President Assad and his government. We call him a “regime,” the “Assad regime.”

STEINBERG: Right, as opposed to “an elected, sovereign government.” 

BLACK: Yes. Now, of course, we always ignore the fact that he was popularly elected, in fair and open elections in 2014. Now, on the other hand, we sit at Geneva III at the peace talks, and on one side we have Saudi Arabia, where if you were to suggest the election of the King or dictator of Saudi Arabia, your head would be a spike the next day; and then, on the other hand, you have President Erdogan, the man who would be Adolf Hitler! [laughter]

STEINBERG: Right! 

BLACK: It is so bizarre. And the method that we use, the specific method when we triggered this is interesting. The Arab Spring started with a single suicide, and it is very difficult to conceive that it did not spread without very active covert action. Nothing ever happens in politics, nothing just happens without a push. 

So there actually began to be legitimate demonstrations in Syria as well as across the Middle East. What I found interesting, I talked to several people — I just bumped into them on my trip, and they said, “Oh, I was anti-Assad then.” Well, one of them turns out to be my interpreter; he’d been with me for the better part of a week! And one day we’re talking, and he said, “You know,” he said, “I was a demonstrator against President Assad.” And I said, “Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me about it?” 

He said, “Well, we just started. It was during the Arab Spring, and we started holding demonstrations.” Much like, you and I have both probably been involved in demonstrations! But he said, “first, people started showing up with al-Qaeda flags.”

STEINBERG: Yeah. The black flags. 

BLACK: “Then,” he said, “people started showing up with military weapons.” Now, there is no Second Amendment in Syria, so you don’t just grab a Kalashnikov at the corner drug store.

STEINBERG: Right. You don’t go to a gun show on Sunday afternoon. 

BLACK: That’s right, you don’t do that. And he said, “The third thing, is they began to preach religious hatred!” And all along the demonstrators would say, “You guys, get out of here, get out of here! This is not what we’re about. We’re just here asking the government for some changes.” And the friction became tougher and tougher, and he said, “My uncle was the head of all the demonstrators” in this large city, and he said, in the seventh month of back and forth with the al-Qaeda people, they murdered him; they killed him. 

And so I asked the same question of the several people I encountered, who had been anti-Assad. Well, they weren’t anti-Assad, they were demonstrators; they weren’t demonstrating against him.

STEINBERG: Sure. They wanted reforms. 

BLACK: They wanted reforms. You know, I’ve been in demonstrations; I wasn’t demonstrating to bring down the government, I was there for reform. 

And this was news to me, because I knew about this transition, but what was stunning that consistently, — two out of the three said that this transition took place over the span of a single month; the second one said it took place over the span of two months. So within one to two months, what started as demonstrations became an al-Qaeda-led violent, jihadist uprising. And of course, you still had demonstrators struggling to make it a demonstration. But that was how it developed.

STEINBERG: You know, it coincided with the period in 2010 going into 2011, when back here in Washington, there was a study ordered by President Obama, of how to relate to the anticipated insurgencies that were going to sweep across the Muslim world, particularly North Africa and the Middle East. The conclusion that was arrived at by people like Dennis Ross, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, was that the horse the United States should ride in on was the Muslim Brotherhood. 

BLACK: Yeah.

STEINBERG: And these are still classified, National Security Study and Decision Directives, that are the cornerstone of the U.S. strategy, which was to basically play into the jihadist insurgencies. 

BLACK: Yes, and you know, that brings us to a good point: You then come to the point of the uprising itself, how was this carried out? Just prior to the uprisings, Ambassador Ford was sent to Damascus; we had not had an ambassador there for some time. He was put in place by Hillary Clinton. Around that time, of course, you have all of these covert agencies; Western agencies, plus the Saudis and the Turks. And their mechanism was the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood had created a violent uprising under the father, Hafez Assad, and it’s often portrayed some put-down of these poor people. It was not at all that: It was a violent uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. 

The Brotherhood copied, almost with precision, the approach that the Nazis took during Kristallnacht, which triggered the anti-Jewish backlash by the Nazi Party. The Nazis during Kristallnacht and they painted the Jewish star on all Jewish buildings and residences, and then on signal they surged through and they smashed and they beat, they killed 92 people. With identical procedures, the Muslim Brotherhood, first they hired people to stand on the street corners with placards that said, “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave.” Which meant, we’re going to kick out 10% of our population, another 10% we’re going to murder them. In short order, it changed to “Christians to the grave, Alawites to the grave,” which meant, we’re going to kill 1 out of every 5 Syrians. 

So they had these people carrying these placards, and then, at a certain point, the Muslim Brotherhood sent people out at night; they marked the residences, and the businesses, with the Nazarene symbol; and then right after mosque, with the most extremist mosques, they surged out and began beating and roughing up and murdering Christians. Within three days from the city of Hama, 70,000 Christians streamed into Damascus; why Damascus? Because they knew that President Assad would protect the Christians. He would protect anyone who was under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood. 

And interestingly, then, Ambassador Ford and the French ambassador, get in a car; and the city of Hama had been ringed with security forces so that they could restore order to the town. And violating diplomatic protocol, they bypassed security, they met with the demonstrators, and they promised total American support. And by that action, they converted demonstrations into an armed revolution. And this was done intentionally.

STEINBERG: Right. I was at an event in Washington, in June of 2011, and there was still a Syrian ambassador in Washington at the time. It was Dr. Imad Mustafa. And this was really even before the major eruptions of violence that came a bit later in the year. And he presented a series of videos of sermons that were given by these Wahhabi and other radicalized clerics in these small, rural areas; and it was an absolute call to arms! And this was early on in the process. He said, “this is what we’re dealing with. This is a problem that has existed for a long time, but now, suddenly this problem has mushroomed tremendously, because there’s all of this outside support and encouragement coming from Washington and coming from all of these other places.” 

This is what has been described as “regime change.” Using quote “civil society,” as a kind of a human shield, for organized, well-armed, violent elements, that make the claim that they’re part of a public outcry, upsurge; but in fact, it’s an organized, financed, and armed operation. 

You mentioned the Sy Hersh article: the United Nations as part of the enforcement of the arms embargo had been monitoring all of those weapons going from Libya into Syria, into the hands of the jihadists. And there were a series of UN reports that tracked out, from Benghazi ships and planes from Qatar and from Turkey, that were overseen by American and British officials on the ground, loading the weapons up; and this is all in official United Nations reports, indicating exactly what you described: the flow of weapons through these channels into the rebels in Syria. Yet, you won’t read a word about that in the American and European media, which is completely on board with this regime change strategy. 

BLACK: Well, you know, I’ll tell you what is amazing, Jeff, is that when we started the war on terror, after 9/11, it was essentially a war against al-Qaeda and similar organizations. We have gone full circle from opposing al-Qaeda, which sent 3,000 Americans to a flaming death on 9/11, complete circle to where we now supply them; we arm them; we finance them; and it’s all coming with the approval of the highest authorities in the United States government. 

And you know, if you want to consider whether the people of Syria are for or against their government and their President, just consider this: Syria has a population of 23 million people. It is in the sixth year of a war in which it has been opposed by the United States, Great Britain, France, NATO, the European Union,…

STEINBERG: Right. The GCC. 

BLACK: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the GCC — this massive force! I mean, basically, all of the great nations of the world, — almost all, not China and Russia, of course — but almost all of the great nations have descended on little Syria, and it’s like “The Little Train That Could,” they just keep chuggin’ and chuggin’ and chuggin’. 

And I spoke with the First Lady, who is just utterly charming. She is not — unlike the First Ladies we’re accustomed to who are ostentatious, and pompous and arrogant — she is very down to earth, a very nice person; and she said, “One of the things I’ve done,” she said, unlike worrying about hamburgers and billboards and things like that, she goes out and she meets the families that have lost sons in battle, and she says, “I’ve now met with over 1,000 personally.” She said, “when I first did it, I was naturally apprehensive, and I knew that I would go to some homes and the people would be just so distraught that they’d burst out in anger at anybody who came, and was like me.” But she said, “I was so surprised. I had never encountered that. Every home I go to, they tell me, we are so deeply sad for the loss of our son, but we cannot think of anything for which we would rather have sacrificed our son than for the defense of Syria, for the unity of this nation.”

And I saw that over and over: I went to a hospital for amputees, and I discovered, — just to my personal disgrace as an American — that the sanctions we have imposed on Syria prevent them from receiving prosthetic devices, amputees. They said, not long ago, they had 600 cancer patients, and they said, “look can you make an exception to the exchange provisions,” where we’d blocked all foreign exchange, “so we can get medication for these cancer patients?” And the Treasury Department said, “No. You don’t get prosthetic devices for people who are missing legs and arms; you don’t medication for cancer patients…” There’s such utter cruelty in our government! I mean — our Federal government! 

When I was a young Marine, we used to — at the end of the day we’d stand there, the drill instructor would march back and forth, and we’d scream the Marine Corps hymn, and we’d say the words, “we will fight for right and freedom and to keep our honor clean, we’re proud to claim the title of United States Marine.” If ever our honor has been disgraced, here we are cutting off access to prosthetic limbs for people! Where have we come?! What has come of this country?!

STEINBERG: Exactly. And these are really violations of the Geneva Conventions. There are rules of war, and rules for the kind of medical care that all parties deserve in wartime. And it’s violated. 

I wanted to ask you before we finish up: Within the bounds of what you’re comfortable discussing, your impressions and things that came from both your discussion with President Assad and maybe some of the other officials; and similarly, when you were Lebanon, I’m wondering what General Aoun might of shared with you, in terms of his view of what has happened in the region; because is one of the countries that has been greatly affected, and badly, badly damaged by this phenomenon. The Saudis have basically vetoed a President being selected by the parliament because they don’t want anything that would stand in the way of their — as you say — their drive to spread Wahhabism everywhere. 

BLACK: Yes. Well, you know, Lebanon has a unique structure, where the President is always a Christian, the Prime Minister is always Sunni, and the Speaker of the Parliament is Shi’a. It’s their way. They don’t quite achieve religious harmony quite as smoothly as Syria does. But interestingly, General Aoun spent a good part of his life fighting against Syria, because Syria occupied a portion of Lebanon; and Syria withdrew under President Assad. When he took over he began the withdrawal and completed the withdrawal of Syrian troops. General Aoun always took the position, he said, “when you’re in my country you are my enemy,” he said, “when you’re out, you are my friend.” And he has been true to that. He’s a delightful man. 

And he clearly is supportive of the government of Syria, and I think is very respectful of the President of Syria. And I think he realizes something that I was quoted by ISIS as saying. You know, there were three Americans chosen as enemies as ISIS, but they quoted me, in a way that said, “this man is telling the truth, and listen,” because they said, “in the words of the enemy.” They called me the “American Crusader” — “in the words of the enemy,” and they quoted me accurately and I had said something to the effect that, if Assad falls, then the dread black and white flag of al-Qaeda will fly over Damascus; and within months, Lebanon will fall, and Jordan will fall. And with the consolidation of this very large area under the control of al-Qaeda, we will then face this tremendous extremism that will percolate over into Turkey where it already is taking hold, very rapidly. And that that will begin a drive on Europe, and I believe that this time, Europe will fall.” 

And I think that from General Aoun’s perspective, from President Assad’s perspective, from the various officials that I spoke with, I think they share this belief; I think they believe that this is the objective of al-Qaeda. 

And you know, the Joint Chiefs of Staff became so distraught, so very concerned about the eventual outcome of events in Syria, that they tasked the Defense Intelligence Agency in the summer of 2013 to do complete study and to render findings of fact. The Defense Intelligence Agency, which is not political like the CIA, came up with three findings: They said 1) President Assad must not leave office because if he does, Syria will fall into chaos, just as Libya has done. 2) Turkey is a major problem, because they are the supplier of ISIS, they give them arms, ammunition, everything that ISIS gets comes out of Turkey. And 3) which is the very thing that President Assad has said from the beginning, they said, there are no moderate rebels. The notion is a fantasy, they do not exist! And yet, I think yesterday, Secretary Kerry was out there saying, we’ve got to help the moderate rebels. The “moderate rebels” are al-Qaeda, who flew the jets into the Twin Towers and today these are the “moderates”! 

So this is where we have come….

STEINBERG: Right, right. And “Saudi Arabia is our greatest ally in the region.” 

BLACK: Yeah. Saudi Arabia, there is increasing evidence pointing to Saudi Arabia as the prime actor in the attacks on 9/11; more and more people are beginning to conclude that as evidence starts emerging. 

And so here we are: We are allied with the country most complicit in the 9/11 attacks on us, and we have gone full circle and we are now supplying al-Qaeda with TOW antitank missiles and we’re preparing to give them even more advanced weapons such as antiaircraft missiles; they can be used to shoot down Boeing 747 jets at Dulles Airport, and Heathrow and LaGuardia and across the world. 

Extremely reckless, nearly an insane American policy, driven by Saudi wealth that lines the pockets of top people in this country. It’s sad.

STEINBERG: I want to thank you very much. This was really an important visit that you made, a courageous visit. And I think sharing these insights and getting them out as widely as possible is one of the critical steps in getting the United States back on its traditional track which we have veered off of so dangerously that we might not make it as a nation, if we don’t make the corrections in time. 

BLACK: We are on a suicidal course, and I really appreciate you, helping to get the word out. We’ve got to change course, or it’s coming here, and it’s coming fast.

STEINBERG: That’s right. Thank you again.

BLACK: Thank you very much.

Damascus, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad blamed some Western leaders for the terrorism and refugee problems facing Europe.

During a meeting on Sunday with the visiting delegation of the European Parliament headed by Vice-President of the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs Javier Couso, the President discussed the situation in Syria, the terrorist war waged on it and the growing destructive impacts of the spread of terror to world regions.

President al-Assad said it is normal that what is happening in Syria and the Arab region would greatly affect Europe given the geographical vicinity of the two regions and the cross-cultural communication.

[Article first published at Syrian Arab News Agency on 10 July 2016, as "President al-Assad: European parliamentarians should work to correct their governments’ policies that caused problems"..]

He held the leaders of some Western states responsible for the problems of terrorism and extremism and the refugee flows currently facing Europe for having adopted policies that are against the interests of the peoples of these states.

The President slammed those Western leaders for providing the political cover and support to the terrorist organizations in Syria.

Striking a relevant note, President al-Assad said the European parliamentarians could play a significant role to correct the wrong policies of their governments that have caused terrorism to spread and led to worsening the living conditions of the Syrian people due to the economic blockade they imposed on them, forcing many Syrians to leave their country and seek refuge in other states.

For their part, the European delegation members said their visit to Syria and the suffering of the Syrian people they have seen firsthand would make them put effort to the effect of correcting the policies of the European governments and pressuring them into lifting the sanctions.

The European parliamentarians affirmed the need to keep Syria’s sovereignty intact, stressing that the Syrians alone should decide their country’s future without any foreign interference.

On March 27th, President al-Assad received a French delegation that included parliamentarians, intellectuals, researchers and journalists and said during the meeting that such visits by parliamentary delegations and having these figures inspect firsthand the situation in the Syrian cities could be useful for them to efficiently work to correct the wrong policies adopted by some governments, including that of France, towards what is happening in Syria.

In a statement to SANA, Javier Couso said that the meeting with President al-Assad was an opportunity to discuss several issues and ask questions about the situation in Syria, and that at the end of the meeting it was affirmed that dialogue is the only way to resolve the crisis in Syria without any foreign interference in its affairs.

He also talked about the delegation’s visit to Damascus, lauding the coexistence he witnessed in the Syrian society.

For her part, delegation member and Member of the European Parliament Tatjana Zdanoka stated that President al-Assad presented during the meeting “precise formulas” about what is happening in Syria, and that the meeting was very friendly and open.

On a relevant note, the delegation met with Grand Mufti of the Republic Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, who called upon European parliamentarians to stand up to US arrogance and hegemony.

H. Said / Hazem Sabbagh

[Candobetter.net Ed: This article foreshadows the imminent release of the new war-faction novel, Beyond all recognition by Kenneth Eade, some of whose other strong political and legal novels we have already featured.]

One of our most distinguished and highest ranking military men, Major General Smedley Butler said, “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

Since the protests of the Vietnam War, it has been “business as usual” under every government since the Reagan administration. Besides the war in Iraq, which was based on one of the most massive deceptions in recent history for which nobody has been held accountable, and which can be said to be a self-fulfilling prophecy (we now have ISIS in Iraq and Al Qaeda in Iraq thriving where it did not exist before) we are seeing this business rear its ugly head in the conflicts in Syria and the buildup of NATO in Eastern Europe and military advice to the Ukraine, to fight the non-existent threat and fantasy of Russian aggression.

“Perception Management” was pioneered in the 1980’s under the Reagan administration in order to avoid the public opposition to future wars that was seen during the Vietnam War.[1] The United States Department of Defense defines perception management as: “Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator's objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations, security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.”
At the onset of the Iraq war in 2003, journalists were embedded with US troops as combat cameramen. The reason for this was not to show what was happening in the war, but to present the American view of it. Perception management was used to promote the belief that weapons of mass destruction were being manufactured in Iraq to promote its military invention, even though the real purpose behind the war was regime change. [2]

Alvin and Heidi Toffler cite the following as tools for perception management in their book, War and Anti-War:1) accusations of atrocities, 2) hyperbolic inflations, 3) demonization and dehumanization, 4) polarization, 5) claim of divine sanction, and 5) Meta-propaganda.

In 2001, the Rendon Group, headed by John Rendon, was secretly granted a $16 million contract to target Iraq with propaganda. [3] Rendon, who had been hired by the CIA to help create conditions to removal Sadaam Hussein from power, is a leader in “perception management”. Two months later, in December 2001, a clandestine operation performed by the CIA and the Pentagon produced false polygraph testimony of an alleged Iraqi civil engineer, who testified that he had helped Sadaam Hussein and his men hide tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. [4] Of course, we now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq.

A study by Professor Phil Taylor reveals the differences between the US and global media over the coverage of the war to be: 1) Pro-war coverage in the US made US media “cheerleaders” in the eyes of a watchful, more scrutinous global media; 2) Issues about the war were debated more in countries not directly affected by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; 3) The non-US media could not see the link between the “war on terror” and the “axis of evil”, and 4) The US media became part of the information operations campaign, which weakened their credibility in the eyes of global media.

President Bush himself admitted in a televised interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News that, “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” Vice President Dick Cheney stated on Meet the Press, “If we’re successful in Iraq…we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”

Prior to 2002, the CIA was the Bush Administration’s main provider of intelligence on Iraq. In order to establish the connection between Iraq and terrorists, in 2002, the Pentagon established the “Office of Special Plans” which was, in reality, in charge of war planning against Iraq, and designated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to be the provider of intelligence on Iraq to the Bush Administration. Its head, the Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas J. Feith, appointed a small team to review the existing intelligence on terrorist networks, in order to reveal their sponsorship states, among other things. In 2002, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz wrote a memo to Feith entitled, “Iraq Connections to Al-Qaida”, which stated that they were “not making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al-Qaida.” Peter W. Rodman, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, established a “Policy counter Terror Evaluation Group” (PCTEG) which produced an analysis of the links between Al-Qaida and Iraq, with suggestions on “how to exploit the connections.” [5]

“In February 2003, when former Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the U.N., he described “a sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al-Qaeda network,” stating that “Iraq today harbors a deadly network headed by Zarqawi’s forces, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden,” and that Zarqawi had set up his operations, including bioweapons training, with the approval of the Sadaam Hussein regime. This has since been discredited as false. However, in October 2004, due to the fact that the Iraqi insurgency was catching on as a cause in jihadist circles, Zarqawi pledged his allegiance to Al-Qaeda. This was after his group had exploded a massive bomb outside a Shiite mosque in August 2003, killing one of Iraq’s top Shiite clerics and sparking warfare between the Shiite and Sunni communities. The tipping point toward a full-blown civil war was the February 2006 attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which is credited to Haythem Sabah al-Badri, a former member of Sadaam Hussein’s Republican Guard, who joined Al-Qaeda after the U.S. invasion. This gave birth to the AQI, Al-Qaeda in Iraq [6]

General Wesley Clark, the former NATO Allied Commander and Joint Chiefs of Staff Director of Strategy and Policy, stated in his book, Winning Modern Wars, “As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.”
In 2004, John Negroponte, who had served as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, was appointed as ambassador to Iraq with the specific mandate of implementing the “Salvador Option”, a terrorist model of mass killings by US sponsored death squads. [7]

In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld sent Colonel James Steele to serve as a civilian advisor to Iraqi Paramilitary special police commandos known as the “Wolf Brigade”. Steele was a counter-insurgency specialist who was a member of a group of US Special Forces advisors to the Salvadorian Army and trained counter-insurgency commandos in south America, who carried out extreme abuses of human rights. [8] The Wolf Brigade was created and established by the United States and enabled the re-deployment of Sadaam Hussein’s Republican Guard. The Brigade was later accused by a UN official of torture, murder and the implementation of death squads. [9] The techniques used by these counter-insurgency squads were described as “fighting terror with terror”, which was previously done in other theaters, such as Vietnam and El Salvador. [10]

The use of death squads began in 2004 and continued until the winding down of combat operations in 2008. In addition to the death squads, regular military units were often ordered to “kill all military age males” during certain operations; “dead-checking” or killing wounded resistance fighters; to call in air strikes on civilian areas; and 360 degree rotational fire on busy streets. These extreme measures were justified to troops in Iraq by propaganda linking the people to terrorism. [11]

Colonel Steele, with the help of Col. James Hoffman, set up torture centers, dispatching Shia militias to torture Sunni soldiers to learn the details of the insurgency[12] This has been attributed as a major cause of the civil war which led to the formation of ISIS. [13]

The operation of death squads as counter-insurgency measures was also common knowledge at the time. [14]

Private contractors, such as Steele, were often subject to different rules than the military forces they served and, in some cases, served with. As of 2008, an estimated 155,286 private contractors were employed by the US on the ground in Iraq, compared to 152,275 troops. The estimated annual cost for such contractors ballooned to $5 billion per year by 2010. [15]

In August 2006, four American soldiers from a combat unit in Iraq testified in an Article 32 hearing that they had been given orders by their commanding officer, Colonel Michael C. Steele, to “kill all military age males”. [16]

The “targeted killing” program that has been developed under President Obama’s watch is being hailed as the most effective tool against fighting terrorism. [17] Unfortunately, no mention is made in the mainstream media of the innocent victims (collateral damage) caused by this assassination program, nor its lack of authority under international law. [18] According to the journalist Glen Greenwald, all military age males in strike zones of the latest drone aircraft strike programs are considered militants unless it can be proved otherwise. Some say that this has resulted in more civilian casualties than has been reported by the government.[19] [20]

Kenneth Eade is a political novelist and author of “A Patriot’s Act” and “Beyond All Recognition”, both of which are available in bookstores and Amazon.com.

NOTES

[1] Parry, Robert (December 28, 2014) “The Victory of Perception Management” Consortium News
[2] Brigadier BM Kappor (2016) The Art of Perception Management in Information Warfare Today, USI of India
[3] Bamford, James (November 18, 2004) The Man Who Sold the War, Rolling Stone
[4] Brigadier BM Kappor (2016) The Art of Perception Management in Information Warfare Today, USI of India 2016
[5] Richelson, Jeffrey (February 20, 2014) U.S. Special Plans: A History of Deception and Perception Management, Global Research
[6] Cruickshank, Peter and Paul (October 31, 2007) Al-Qaeda in Iraq: A Self-fulfilling Prophecy, Mother Jones
[7] Chossudovsky, Michel (November 17, 2013) “The Salvador Option for Syria: US-NATO Sponsored Death Squads Integrate ‘Opposition Forces’” Global Research
[8] Mass, Peter (May 1, 2004) “The Way of the Commandos” New York Times
[9] Buncombe, Andrew (February 26, 2006) “Iraq’s Death Squads: On the Brink of Civil War” The Independent. Spencer, Richard (October 25, 2010) “WikiLeaks War Logs: Who are the Wolf Brigade?” The Daily Telegraph. Leigh, David (October 24, 2010) “The War Logs: Americans handed over captives to Iraq torture squads” The Guardian.

[10] Snodgrass Godoy, Angelina (2006) Popular Injustice: Violence, Community and Law in Latin America, Stanford University Press, pp. 175-180.
[11] Davies, Nicolas J. (November 20, 2014) Why Iraqis may see ISIL as Lesser Evil Compared to U.S. Backed Death Squads, AlterNet
[12] Freeman, Colin (June 29, 2014) “Death Squads, ISIS and a new generation of fighters – Why Iraq is facing break-up”
[13] Cerny, Jakub (June 2006) “Death Squad Operations in Iraq, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
[14] Dunigan, Molly (March 19, 2013) “A Lesson From Iraq War: how to outsource war to private contractors”, The Guardian
[15] Von Zielbauer, Paul (August 3, 2006) GI’s Say Officers Ordered Killing of Young Iraqi Men, New York Times
[16] Jaffe, Greg, “How Obama went from reluctant warrior to drone champion”, Washington Post, July 1, 2016
[17] ACLU, U.S. Releases Casualty Numbers and New Executive Order on Targeted Killing, ACLU Press Release July 1, 2016
[18] Greenwald, Glenn (May 29, 2012) Militants: Media Propaganda, Salon.com
[19] Obama’s Kill List –All males near strike zone are terrorists (May 30, 2012) RT America.

It was great to see that SBS Australia actually published an interview by Luke Waters of the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, last night. Assad criticized the double standards of the west, by which the west openly attacks the Syrian government politically, but continues to deal with it behind the scenes. He included Australia in this criticism. He called for a more humanitarian and less costly solution to the refugee crisis through stopping support to the terrorists. SBS's presentation of the interview was, however, very poor. The interview was preceded and followed by extremely biased material and one cannot help but think of the influence of Saudi funding on the presentation of Middle Eastern affairs by western media.

Particularly gratuitous seemed the opinion of a former Australian ambassador to Egypt, Bob Bowker, who, whilst acknowledging that Syria had been very stable (but not mentioning that it was the last of the stable governments in the Middle East apart from Iran) characterised Assad as a once 'progressive' president, who had then [unexplained] stopped being progressive; there had been protests and he had so brutally put them down that five years later, the country was still being torn apart because of that dissatisfaction. Bowker pretended that Assad had no reason to blame the disintegration of Syria on foreign-backed armies. This seemed quite incredible since the presence of multiple anti-government armies funded by the United States and various NATO entities, but especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is well known. Bowker is also an adjunct professor at the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies, ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences.

Who funds such ahistorical bias? The almost blanket anti-Syrian Government media coverage which includes 'expert academic comment' in Australia and the West is probably largely funded by Saudi dollars.[1] One cannot forget that Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund study centers and other organisations and governments all over the world. In fact they are said to be responsible for 20 per cent of Hilary Clinton's campaign fund. Yet Saudi Arabia and Qatar receive little criticism from Australia or NATO although they are among the greatest human rights abusers and the most repressive governments in the world and Saudi Arabia is currently conducting a genocidal war in Yemen.

Transcript of Interview

(This interview transcript if from the Lebanese Communication Group Al-Manar and the video was published on the Syrian President's youtube channel. This transcript and video has also been published (1/78/16) on the Syrian Free Press.)

The following is the full text of the interview:

Journalist: Mr. President, thank you for speaking with SBS Australia.

President Assad: You’re most welcome in Syria.

Question 1: It’s now more than five years since the Syrian crisis began. It’s estimated somewhere around a quarter of a million people have been killed, many of them civilians. There’s an undeniable humanitarian disaster. How far into the crisis do you think you are, and is there an end in sight?

President Assad: Of course, there is an end in sight, and the solution is very clear. It’s simple yet impossible. It’s simple because the solution is very clear, how to make dialogue between the Syrians about the political process, but at the same time fighting the terrorism and the terrorists in Syria. Without fighting terrorists, you cannot have any real solution. It’s impossible because the countries that supported those terrorists, whether Western or regional like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, don’t want to stop sending all kinds of support to those terrorists. So, if we start with stopping this logistical support, and as Syrians go to dialogue, talk about the constitution, about the future of Syria, about the future of the political system, the solution is very near, not far from reach.

Question 2: Much of the reporting in the West at the moment suggests that the demise of the Islamic State is imminent. Do you believe that’s true, and how far away from seizing Raqqa, this very important city of Raqqa, do you believe you are?

President Assad: It’s not a race. Raqqa is as important as Aleppo, as Damascus, as any other city. The danger of those terrorist groups is not about what land do they occupy, because it’s not a traditional war. It’s about how much of their ideology can they instill in the mind of the people in the area that they sit or live in. Indoctrination, this is the most dangerous thing. So, reaching Raqqa is not that difficult militarily, let’s say. It’s a matter of time. We are going in that direction. But the question when you talk about war is about what the other side, let’s say the enemy, could do, and that’s directly related to the effort of Turkey, especially Erdogan, in supporting those groups, because that’s what’s happening since the beginning. If you talk about Syria as an isolated military field, you can reach that area within a few months or a few weeks, let’s say, but without taking into consideration the Turkish effort in supporting the terrorists, any answer would be a far cry from the reality, an un-factual answer.

Question 3: Mr. President, how concerned are you about recent fatal clashes which have been reported between your longtime ally Hezbollah and your own forces?

There is good Syrian-Russian-Iranian coordination on fighting terrorism

President Assad: Fighting between us and Hezbollah? They are not fighting. They support the Syrian Army. They don’t fight against the Syrian Army, they fight with the Syrian Army. The Syrian Army and Hezbollah, with the support of the Russian Air Forces, we are fighting all kinds of terrorist groups, whether ISIS or al-Nusra or other affiliated groups with Al Qaeda that’s affiliated automatically to al-Nusra and ISIS.

Question 4: So, there have been some recent reports of clashes between… are those reports incorrect.

President Assad: No, they are talking not about clashes; about, let’s say, differences and different opinions. That’s not true, and if you look at the meeting that happened recently between the Ministers of Defense in Iran, in Tehran; Syrian, Russian, and Iranian, this means there’s good coordination regarding fighting terrorism.

Question 5: To be clear, do you categorize all opposition groups as terrorists?

President Assad: Definitely not, no. When you talk about an opposition group that adopts the political means, they’re not terrorists. Whenever you hold machineguns or any other armaments and you terrorize people and you attack civilians and you attack public and private properties, you are a terrorist. But if you talk about opposition, when you talk about opposition it must be Syrian opposition. It cannot be a surrogate opposition that works as a proxy to other countries like Saudi Arabia or any other country. It must be a Syrian opposition that’s related to its Syrian grassroots, like in your country. It’s the same, I think.

Question 6: You said recently that the ceasefire offered Syrian people at least a glimmer of hope. How, five months on, do you think that hope is going?

President Assad: Yeah, it is. It’s still working, the ceasefire, but we don’t have to forget that terrorist groups violate this agreement, on a daily basis. But at the same time, we have the right, according to that agreement, to retaliate whenever the terrorists attack our government forces. So, actually you can say it’s still working in most of the areas, but in some areas it’s not.

Question 7: There are various accounts of how the Syrian crisis began. Some say it was children graffiting anti-government slogans and they were dealt with brutally by the government. I understand you don’t accept that narrative. How, in your view, did the crisis begin?

President Assad: It’s a mixture of many things. Some people demonstrated because they needed reform. We cannot deny this, we cannot say “no everybody was a terrorist” or “everyone was a mercenary.” But the majority of those demonstrators – I’m not talking about the genuine demonstrators – were paid by Qatar in order to demonstrate, then later they were paid by Qatar in order to revolt with armaments, and that’s how it started, actually. The story of children being attacked, this is an illusive story. It didn’t happen. Of course, you always have, let’s say, mistakes happening in the practice on the ground, like what happened in the United States recently, during the last year, but this is not a reason for people to hold machineguns and kill policemen and soldiers and so on.

Question 8: You do say that some of these people legitimately needed reform. Was that as a result of any heavy-handedness from your government at all?

President Assad: No, we had reform in Syria. It started mainly after 2000, in the year 2000. Some people think it was slow, some people think it was too fast, this is subjective, not objective, but we were moving in that regard. But the proof that it wasn’t about the reform, because we made all the requested reforms after the crisis started five years ago, and nothing has changed. So, it wasn’t about reform. We changed the constitution, we changed the laws that the opposition asked for, we changed many things, but nothing happened. So, it wasn’t about the reform; it was about money coming from Qatar, and most of the people that genuinely asked for reform at the beginning of the crisis, they don’t demonstrate now, they don’t go against the government, they cooperate with the government. They don’t believe, let’s say, in the political line of this government, and this is their right and that’s natural, but they don’t work against the government or against the state institutions. So, they distinguish themselves from the people who supported the terrorists.

Question 9: How do you respond to the fact that some of your ministers defected and cited brutality as reason?

President Assad: Actually, they defected because they’ve been asked to do so by, some of them, Saudi Arabia, some of them by France, it depends on the country they belong to. And now, they are belonging to that so-called opposition that belongs to those countries, not to the Syrians. They have no values in Syria, so we wouldn’t worry about that. It didn’t change anything. I mean it didn’t affect the fact or the reality in Syria.

Question 10: One of your main backers, Russia, has called for a return to the peace talks. Do you think that’s a good idea?

President Assad: You mean in Geneva?

Journalist: Yes.

Geneva negotiations need to have the basic principles in order to be fruitful

President Assad: Yeah, of course, we support every talk with every Syrian party, but in reality those talks haven’t been started yet, and there’s no Syrian-Syrian talks till this moment, because we only made negotiations with the facilitator, which is Mr. de Mistura. Actually, it hasn’t started. So, we support the principle, but in practice you need to have a certain methodology that didn’t exist so far. So, we need to start, but we need to have the basic principles for those negotiations to be fruitful.

Question 11: One thing that intrigues a lot of people about the Syrian crisis is why your close allies Iran and Russia stay so loyal?

By defending Syria, allies are defending their stability and interests

President Assad: Because it wasn’t about the President, it’s not about the person. This is the misinterpretation, or let’s say the misconception in the West, and maybe part of the propaganda, that Russia and Iran supported Assad, or supported the President. It’s not like this. It’s about the whole situation. The chaos in Syria is going to provoke a domino effect in our region, that’s going to affect the neighboring countries, it’s going to affect Iran, it’s going to affect Russia, it’s going to affect Europe, actually. So, when they defend Syria, they defend the stability and they defend their stability, they defend their interest. And at the same time, it’s about the principle. They defend the Syrian people and their right to protect themselves. Because if they defend the President and the Syrian people are not with him and don’t support him, I cannot withstand five years just because Russia and Iran support me. So, it’s not about the President, it’s about the whole situation, the bigger picture, let’s say.

Question 12: Do you have any dialogue either direct or indirectly with the United States?

Western countries are dealing with Syria through back channels

President Assad: At all, nothing at all. Indirect, yes, indirect, through different channels. But if you ask them they will deny it, and we’re going to deny it. But in reality, it exists; the back channels.

Question 13: What are some of those channels?

President Assad: I mean, let’s say, businessmen going and traveling around the world and meeting with the officials in the United States and in Europe, they meet in Europe, and they try to convey certain messages, but there’s nothing serious, because we don’t think the administration, the American administration, is serious about solving the problem in Syria.

Question 14: Well, quite recently, there were reports more than 50 diplomats have called for what they described as “real and effective military strikes” against you, against Syria. Does this in any way concern you, and do you think it signals a more aggressive policy from the United States towards Syria moving forward?

American administrations are famous of creating problems, but they never solve any

President Assad: No, warmongers in every American administration always exist. It’s not something new. But we wouldn’t give a fig, let’s say, about this communique, but it’s not about this communique; it’s about the policy, it’s about the actions. The difference between this administration and the previous one, Bush’s one, is that Bush sent his troops. This one is sending mercenaries, and turned a blind eye to what Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Qatar did, since the beginning of the crisis. So, it’s the same policy. It’s a militaristic policy, but in different ways. So, this communique is not different from the reality on the ground. This is asking for war, and the reality is a war.

Question 15: You referred to the previous government, the Bush government. There are some who say one of the reasons you’ve survived as long as a government has been America’s reluctance to get on the ground in another war in the Middle East. Do you not accept that, based on what you’re saying?

President Assad: Yeah, the American administrations since the 50s are very famous of creating problems but they never solve any problems, and that’s what happened in Iraq. Bush invaded Iraq, in a few weeks he could occupy Iraq, but then what’s next? It’s not about occupying. This is a great power. We’re not a great power. So, it’s not about America occupying Syria. What’s next? What do they want to achieve? They haven’t achieved anything. They failed in Libya, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Syria, everywhere. They only created chaos. So, if the United States wants to create more chaos it can, it can create chaos, but can they solve the problem? No.

Question 16: Do you have a preference who wins the upcoming US election?

President Assad: Actually no, we never bet on any American president, because usually what they say in the campaign is different from their practice after they become president, and Obama is an example, so we don’t have to wait. We have to wait and see what policy they’re going to adopt, whoever wins the elections.

Question 17: So, you can see a circumstance where Syria would work collaboratively with the United States and the West?

We are not against cooperation with the US based on mutual interest

President Assad: We don’t have a problem with the United States, they’re not our enemy, they don’t occupy our land. We have differences, and those differences go back to the 70s and maybe before that, but in many different times, let’s say, and events and circumstances, we had cooperation with the United States. So, we’re not against this cooperation. But, this cooperation means talking about and discussing and working for the mutual interest, not for their interest at the expense of our interest. So, we don’t have a problem.

Question 18: Mr. President, you’ve spent a lot of time yourself, as you’ve just said, in the United Kingdom. Can you see there being any repercussions for Britain’s decision to exit the European Union for Syria and for the Syrian crisis?

British people are revolting against their “second-tier” and “disconnected” politicians

President Assad: I don’t think I can elaborate about that, as it’s a British issue, and I’m not British neither European. But at the same time I can say that this surprising result, maybe, has many different components, whether internal as economic and external as the worry from the terrorism, security issues, refugees, and so on. But this is an indication for us, as those officials who used to give me the advice about how to deal with the crisis in Syria, and say “Assad must go” and “he’s disconnected” proven to be disconnected from reality, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked for this referendum, but I think this is a revolt of the people there against, I would call them sometimes second-tier politicians. They needed special, let’s say, statecraft officials, to deal their country. If another administration came and understands that the issue of refugees and security is related to the problem in our region, this is where you’re going to have a different policy that will affect us positively. But I don’t have now a lot of hope about this. Let’s say we have a slim hope, because we don’t know who’s going to come after Cameron in the UK.

Question 19: Can I ask; Australia is part of the international coalition to defeat the Islamic State. Obviously, that’s one of your goals, so in that instance there’s a shared goal. Do you welcome international intervention when there’s a shared goal like that.

President Assad: Actually, we welcome any effort to fight terrorism in Syria, any effort, but this effort first of all should be genuine, not window-dressing like what’s happening now in northern Syria where 60 countries couldn’t prevent ISIS from expanding. Actually, when the Russian air support started, only at that time when ISIS stopped expanding. So, it needs to be genuine. Second, it needs to be through the Syrian legitimate government, not just because they want to fight terrorism and they can go anywhere in the world. We are a legitimate government and we are a sovereign country. So, only on these two circumstances we welcome any foreign support to fight terrorism.

Question 20: A number of Australians have died fighting for either the Kurdish militia or the Islamic State. Do you have a message for these young people who feel so enraged by what’s taking place in Syria that they travel over here to fight?

President Assad: Again, the same, let’s say, answer. If there are foreigners coming without the permission of the government, they are illegal, whether they want to fight terrorists or want to fight any other one. It is the same. It’s illegal, we can call it.

Question 21: Mr. President, Australian politicians have used very strong language about your role in the crisis, as have other leaders, internationally. Australia’s Prime Minister has referred to you as a “murderous tyrant,” saying that you’re responsible for killing thousands of innocent civilians. Australia’s opposition leader has called you a “butcher.” Yet Australia’s official position is still to work with you toward a peace agreement. How do you reconcile those two very different positions?

Western nations attack Syrian government and yet deal with it under the table

President Assad: Actually, this is the double standard of the West in general. They attack us politically and they send us their officials to deal with us under the table, especially the security, including your government. They all do the same. They don’t want to upset the United States. Actually, most of the Western officials only repeat what the United States wants them to say. This is the reality. So, I think these statements, I just can say they are disconnected from our reality, because I’m fighting terrorists, our army is fighting terrorists, our government is against terrorists, the whole institutions are against terrorists. If you call fighting terrorism butchery, that’s another issue.

Question 22: Australia has agreed to take an additional twelve thousand Syrian refugees; some have already arrived. Do you have a message for these Syrians, many of whom still say they love Syria and they want to return. Do you have a message for those people, as I said, who are in Australia, and other countries around the world?

A more humanitarian and less costly European solution to refugee crisis is stopping support to terrorists

President Assad: Actually, you mentioned a very important point. Most of the refugees that left Syria, they want to come back to Syria. So, any country that helped them enter their new country, let’s say, their new homeland, is welcome as a humanitarian action, but again there is something more humanitarian and less costly: is to help them staying in their country, help them going back by helping the stability in Syria, not to give any umbrella or support to the terrorists. That’s what they want. They want the Western governments to take decisive decisions against what Saudi Arabia and other Western countries, like France and UK, are doing in order to support the terrorists in Syria just to topple the government. Otherwise, those Syrians wouldn’t have left Syria. Most of them, they didn’t leave because they are against the government or with the government; they left because it’s very difficult to live in Syria these days.
 

Question 23: Do you hope that these people will return and would you facilitate for them to return?
President Assad: Definitely, I mean losing people as refugees is like losing human resources. How can you build a country without human resources? Most of those people are educated, well trained, they have their own businesses in Syria in different domains. You lose all this, of course, we need.

Question 24: The Commission for International Justice and Accountability says there are thousands of government documents which say has proved your government sanctioned mass torture and killings. In the face of that evidence, how do you say that no crimes have taken place, and I point also to other independent organizations, which are critical of deliberate targeting hospitals. Do you concede that some mistakes have been made as you’ve targeted some rebel-held areas?

President Assad: You are talking about two different things. One of them, the first one is the reports. The most important report that’s been financed by Qatar, just to defame the Syrian government, and they have no proof, who took the pictures, who are the victims in those pictures, and so on. Like you can forge anything if you want now on the computer. So, it is not credible at all. Second, talking about attacking hospitals or attacking civilians, the question, the very simple question is: why do we attack hospitals and civilians? I mean the whole issue, the whole problem in Syria started when those terrorists wanted to win the hearts of the Syrians. So, attacking hospitals or attacking civilians is playing into the hands of the terrorists. So, if we put the values aside now for a while, let’s talk about the interests. No government in this situation has any interest in killing civilians or attacking hospitals. Anyway, if you attack hospitals, you can use any building to be a hospital. No, these are an anecdotal claims, mendacious statements I can say; they are not credible at all. We’re still sending vaccines to those areas under the control of the terrorists. So, how can I send vaccines and attack the hospitals? This is a contradiction.

Question 25: Mr. President, as a father and as a man, has there been one anecdote, one story, one image from the crisis, which has affected you personally more than others?

President Assad: Definitely, we are humans, and I am Syrian like the other Syrians. I will be more sympathetic with any Syrian tragedy affecting any person or family, and in this region, we are very emotional people, generally. But as an official, I am not only a person, I am an official. As an official, the first question you ask when you have that feeling is what are you going to do, what are you going to do to protect other Syrians from the same suffering? That’s the most important thing. So, I mean, this feeling, this sad feeling, this painful feeling, is an incentive for me to do more. It’s not only a feeling.

Question 26: What’s your vision for Syria? How do you see things in two to three years?

President Assad: After the crisis or…? Because, the first thing we would like to see is to have Syria stable as it used to be before, because it was one of the most stable countries and secure countries around the world, not only in our region. So, this the first thing. If you have this, you can have other ambitions. Without it you cannot. I mean, if you have this, the other question: how to deal with the new generation that lived the life of killing, that saw the extremism or learned the extremism or indoctrinated by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, and so on. This is another challenge. The third one is bringing back those human resources that left as refugees in order to rebuild Syria. Rebuilding the country as buildings or infrastructure is very easy; we are capable of doing this as Syrians. The challenge is about the new generation.

Question 27: How do you think history will reflect on your presidency?

President Assad: What I wish is to say that this is the one who saved his country from the terrorists and from the external intervention. That is what I wish about it. Anything else would be left to the judgment of the Syrian people, but this is my only wish.

Journalist: Mr. President, Thank you very much for speaking with SBS Australia.

President Assad: Thank you very much.

NOTES

Funding of universities with Saudi dollars has been abundantly flagged as unwise because of Saudi promotion of the doctrine of Wahhabism which is the basis of many Islamic terrorist groups. However, what has not been discussed in Australia is the way such funds can then influence commentary on foreign affairs and the wars that the Saudis back. The almost blanket anti-Syrian Government media coverage which includes 'expert academic comment' in the West is probably largely funded by Saudi dollars. In 2006 it was reported that "Prince Al-Waleed has recently bought 5.46% of the voting shares of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s diversified international media and entertainment empire that includes Fox News Channel (FNC). Fox had been reporting on the Saudi role in the promotion of Islamist terror, and it is thought that the prince may hope to dampen any potential criticism by his investment." (Implications of Saudi Funding to Western Academic Institutions)

Mervyn Bendle, "Secret Saudi funding of Australian institutions," News Weekly, February 21, 2009
"Many Australian universities, now driven entirely by financial priorities, have uncritically welcomed Saudi sources of funding, even though this creates a major national security problem, writes Mervyn F. Bendle. Massive funding is presently being provided by Saudi Arabia to promote Wahhabism, the fundamentalist, exclusivist, punitive, and sectarian form of Islam that is both the Saudi state religion, and the chief theological component of Sunni versions of Islamism, the totalitarian ideology guiding jihadism and most of the active terrorist groups in the world. Globally, this money is flowing to terrorist groups, political parties and religious and community groups, as well as to universities and schools. In Australia, there is concern that such funding could damage and even corrupt the Australian university system, especially given the existing ideological bias, political naivety, opportunism, managerialism, and the pseudo-entrepreneurial attitudes of many university academics and administrators. The question of how foreign powers and agents are able to influence, direct or even control tertiary education in Australia and other Western countries is vitally important. This is because the rise of Islamism, jihadism and the present terrorism crisis increasingly involve fourth-generation warfare (4GW)." [...] "An excellent case study of how Saudi funding can impact on Australian universities is the recent fiasco at Queensland's Griffith University. In April 2008, it was revealed that Griffith University "practically begged the Saudi Arabian embassy to bankroll its Islamic campus for $1.3 million", assuring the Saudis that arrangements could be kept secret if required. (The Australian, April 22, 2008)."

"Given the vast sums of petrodollars and the availability of useful idiots and agents of influence in strategic positions, it is unlikely that Australian universities will resist the allure of Saudi funding, nor will they resist pressure to guide their teaching and research in an Islamist direction, especially in connection with the war on terror, the history of Islam, the Middle East conflict, Islam and the West, and the role of women. Consequently, it will only be continuing public and academic vigilance and political pressure that will protect Australia's tertiary education system, moderate Muslim communities and liberal democratic traditions." Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-10-13/32626

This news was sent by Marinella Correggia, of the No War Network. The Italian Committee to end the EU sanctions against Syria https://bastasanzioniallasiria.wordpress.com/ was created 15 days ago by a group of Italian activists. See also the video in English (and in other languages) embedded below. Shamefully, European Union sanctions against Syria were renewed for one year, yesterday. People who want Syria to survive should not take this lying down.

A huge group of Syrian religious people launched a vibrant call to European Parliamentarians, mayors and people, in English see here: https://bastasanzioniallasiria.wordpress.com/english/. (see also the other languages on the web page)

On the basis of this call, the Committee launched the Campaign to end the sanctions. Part of that is a petition on Change, which everybody in the world can sign here (the petitionis in Italian but the text is the same than the call of the religious people which you can find in English): https://www.change.org/p/parlamentari-sindaci-basta-sanzioni-alla-siria-e-ai-siriani

The Nobel Peace Laureate Maired Maguire signed the petition and supported the end of EU/USS sanctions it with a communiqué https://bastasanzioniallasiria.wordpress.com/il-premio-nobel-per-la-pace-aderisce-alla-campagna-basta-sanzioni-alla-siria/

Also Italian MPs of differents groups issued a resolution towards the Italian government.

We are trying to get the European governments aware of this mobilization. It is enough that one country opposes the renewal and the EU sanctions will be dropped! If anyone of you is close to some politicians/governments, please contact them.

The following article, together with an embedded 1:36 minute video, was previously published on the English language edition of the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on 14 May. See also: Australian boxers fighting for peace in Syria (26/5/16) | SBS and other republished SANA articles: Australian sport delegation concludes visit to Lattakia (19/5/16) and Australian boxing team conducts friendly matches with Syrian national team (14/15/16).

The Australian Boxing Team visiting Syria in solidarity with its fight against terrorism conducted yesterday a series of exercises preparing for a set of matches today in Fayhaa Sports City.

Rev. David Smith, head of the Australian delegation, a boxer and a cleric, said in a statement to SANA:" We want to draw the attention of the world to the fact that Syria is alive, and there are still life and joy and sports here, not just death and destruction; which is always the message broadcasted on television. We are doing that through sport because we want to play with our friends here and build more relations with Australian and Syrian people, and we want to show the whole world the real Syria and the real Syrian people"

Smith pointed out that this is his fifth visit to Syria in the last four years, and that he is working on building relations between the Syrian and Australian people.

"We would love to see more cooperation between Syria and Australia in every level but certainly in sports, and the Syrian players are very good and strong, and can win any team in the world." Smith added.

For his part, the honorary consul of Syria in Australia Maher Dabbagh said that the Australian team includes distinguished boxers who have a heroic history in Australia, indicating that the team's visit has a significant impact on reflecting the reality of what is happening in Syria in its fight against terrorism.

Head of Syrian Boxing Federation Issa Nassar, highlighted that the Australian team's visit to Syria includes an array of games with the national team in Damascus as well as in Latakia.

The Australian Boxing Team is visiting Syria for the second time under the slogan "Boxers for Peace", joined by a media team to document the visit and sports activities, and other tourist activities to show the real image of Syria in the Australian media.

The article, Amnesty International: Syria: Armed Opposition Groups Committing War Crimes in Aleppo City, originally published here on 14 May 2016, has been made an appendix. At face value, the article appeared to confirm what candobetter and other news sources (as opposed to the msm) have been writing about the terrorist invaders. However, concealed within the article is the claim that "the scale of war crimes by government forces is far greater" i.e. precisely the same narrative that is clearly intended by the Western msm to justify the expansion of the current war, ostensibly against Islamic State, into a war to remove the allegedly even more brutal 'regime' of President Bashar al-Assad.

On 3 March 2016, more than two months ago now, the supposed human rights organisation Amnesty International 'reported':

Russian and Syrian government forces appear to have deliberately and systematically targeted hospitals and other medical facilities over the last three months to pave the way for ground forces to advance on northern Aleppo, an examination of airstrikes by Amnesty International has found.

Even as Syria's fragile ceasefire deal was being hammered out, Syrian government forces and their allies intensified their attacks on medical facilities.

"Syrian and Russian forces have been deliberately attacking health facilities in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. But what is truly egregious is that wiping out hospitals appears to have become part of their military strategy," said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International.

"The latest string of attacks on health facilities north of Aleppo appears to be part of a pattern of attacks on medics and hospitals, a strategy that has destroyed scores of medical facilities and killed hundreds of doctors and nurses since the start of the conflict."

The organization has gathered compelling evidence of at least six deliberate attacks on hospitals, medical centres and clinics in the northern part of the Aleppo Countryside governorate in the past 12 weeks. The attacks, which killed at least three civilians including a medical worker, and injured 44 more, continue a pattern of targeting health facilities in various parts of Syria which amounts to war crimes.

...

The press release also made more claims against the Syrian government, Syrian Army and Russian military forces including:

• The Syrian government was attempting "to empty an entire town or village of residents by targeting hospitals and infrastructure to facilitate the ground invasion";

• A doctor from Anadan said: "Hospitals, water and electricity are always the first to be attacked. Once that happens people no longer have services to survive ...";

• "Hospitals in opposition-controlled areas around Aleppo became a primary target for the Russian and Syrian government forces. This eliminated a vital lifeline for the civilians living in those embattled areas, leaving them no choice but to flee," said Tirana Hassan.

• There were no military vehicles, checkpoints, fighters or front lines near the hospitals that were attacked and that the hospitals were exclusively serving their humanitarian function;

• At least 27 hospitals, including eight in Aleppo governorate, have been targeted by Russian and Syrian government forces since September 2015. A total of four medical staff workers and 45 civilians were killed in these 14 attacks;

The above story is now difficult to find on the Amnesty International web-site as they no doubt fear that people who read it are likely to learn that it has no more factual basis than Amnesty's previous claims that invading Iraqis cast prematurely born babies out of incubators onto the floors of Kuwaiti hospitals in 1990 or their claims against the Libyan government in 2011.

The other report by Shamnesty, sorry, Amnesty International, republished in the #shamnestyAppendix">Appendix below, repeats the same lie peddled by the mainstream and phony alternate media since the armed conflict began in March 2011: "the scale of war crimes by government forces is far greater".

This begs the question, if both the regime and the rebels are slaughtering the same Syrian civilians, then why can't they just stop shooting each other and just work together?

Anyone who has properly informed herself/himself about the Syrian conflict from our Syria pages and other alternate newsmedia linked to from those pages, would know that the Syrian Arab Army has, in fact, been defending the people of Syria and itself from precisely the same forces that Amnesty International claims, in this press release, to oppose, that is tens of thousands of invaders, from all corners of the globe paid for and armed by the United States, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and their allies.

So far 80,000 soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army have lost their lives fighting this invasion._{#fnSubj_1" id="txtSubj_1"> 1}

If Amnesty International truly cared about the welfare of the civilians of which it writes in the above press release, it would not have smeared the government of Syria and its heroic army. Instead it would be pointing its finger firmly at all those countries who have been arming, paying and giving passage and sanctuary the terrorists, including the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and France.

#shamnestyAppendix" id="shamnestyAppendix"> Appendix: Original article consisting of Shamnesty Media Release

This media release includes the claim that "the scale of war crimes by government forces is far greater."

Amnesty International: Syria: Armed Opposition Groups Committing War Crimes in Aleppo City

"Amnesty International is calling on the Gulf states, Turkey and others believed to be providing support to armed groups in Syria to immediately block the transfer of arms to armed groups, including logistical and financial support for such transfers ...." This article comes from a press release from Amnesty International, which usually takes the 'rebel' side, but which here seems unable to close its eyes to the brutality of the so-called 'rebels', although Amnesty continues to hedge its bets and toe the US/NATO line by implying that the Gulf States, Turkey and others supporting armed groups might continue to supply, "those groups that meet stringent reliability tests which demonstrate that they can act consistently with full respect for international human rights and humanitarian law should be considered for future supply." What groups might they be? we ask. We are publishing this press release here because it is unlikely to be prominently reported in any NATO sympathising mainstream press, despite the importance of this awful news. The theory (not voiced here) is that the ceasefire in Syria and the withdrawal of Russia has been exploited by the rebels against the Syrian Arab Army (government army) maintenance of ceasefire, to the disadvantage of Syrians.

[Amnesty International: Friday, May 13, 2016 - 11:00am:WASHINGTON] Armed groups surrounding the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo city have repeatedly carried out indiscriminate attacks that have struck civilian homes, streets, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians and displaying a shameful disregard for human life, said Amnesty International.

The organization has gathered strong evidence of serious violations from eyewitnesses, and obtained the names of at least 83 civilians, including 30 children, who were killed by attacks in Sheikh Maqsoud between February and April 2016. More than 700 civilians were also injured, according to the local field hospital. Video evidence seen by Amnesty International shows artillery shelling, rocket and mortar attacks carried out by the Fatah Halab (Aleppo Conquest) coalition of armed groups in the area, targeting the Kurdish People's Protection Unit (YPG) controlling the area.

"The relentless pummelling of Sheikh Maqsoud has devastated the lives of civilians in the area. A wide array of armed groups from the Fatah Halab coalition has launched what appear to be repeated indiscriminate attacks that may amount to war crimes," said Magdalena Mughrabi, interim Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

There are around 30,000 civilians living in Sheikh Maqsoud which is a predominately Kurdish part of Aleppo city. The area is controlled by YPG forces and surrounded from the northern, eastern and western fronts by opposition armed groups who have targeted it from all three sides. Syrian government forces control areas south of Sheikh Maqsoud. In 2014, YPG forces started fighting against the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS). In recent months however tensions have increased with opposition armed groups, particularly in the Aleppo area. Attacks by armed groups have killed at least 62 YPG fighters, according to the Families of the Martyrs Association.

In recent days the very fragile cessation of hostilities across Syria agreed to in Geneva in February was extended to areas around Sheikh Maqsoud in the Aleppo Countryside governorate. However, attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud have continued unabated over the past few months.

Mounting evidence of indiscriminate attacks

Satellite imagery, obtained by Amnesty International and corroborated by testimony from residents, shows destroyed and badly damaged houses in a residential street in the western part of Sheikh Maqsoud, more than 800 metres away from the frontline.

Mohamad lost seven members of his family when his home in Sheikh Maqsoud was struck by an improvised ‘Hamim' rocket launched by an armed group on 5 April 2016. Those killed included his 18-month-old daughter, his two sons, aged 15 and 10, and an eight-year-old nephew. He and two of his other young nephews sustained shrapnel wounds and were critically injured. His home is 800 metres away from the frontline.

"There are no [military] checkpoints near my house. It is a residential street and there are even people displaced by fighting or who fled airstrikes in Aleppo city living on the same street," he told Amnesty International.

Two days earlier Mohamad's neighbour's house was hit by a mortar which killed two children.

Another resident of Sheikh Maqsoud told Amnesty International that the shelling intensified in February and that people spent days in their homes unable to leave. She described how her home was attacked in April by what she believed was a weapon fitted with a gas canister.

"All I remember was the walls collapsing and hearing an explosion. We got injured – I had shrapnel in my hands and legs […] We live […] very far away from the frontline. There are no checkpoints close by or any other military points," she said.

Saad, a local pharmacist living in Sheikh Maqsoud, described 5 April 2016 as "the bloodiest day the neighbourhood had witnessed". Shelling from armed groups continued for nine hours straight, he said.

"We counted at least 15 Hamim rockets and more than 100 mortars. The shells were falling everywhere, it was indiscriminate," he said.

Among the weapons used by the armed groups are unguided projectiles which cannot be accurately aimed at specific targets such as mortars and home-made ‘Hamim' rockets, as well as other projectiles fitted with gas canisters which are known as "hell cannons". These weapons are inherently indiscriminate and should not be used in the vicinity of civilian areas.

"By firing imprecise explosive weapons into civilian neighbourhoods the armed groups attacking Sheikh Maqsoud are flagrantly flouting the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets, a cardinal rule of international humanitarian law," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

There are also allegations that members of armed groups attacking Sheikh Maqsoud may have used chemical weapons. A local doctor told Amnesty International that on 7 and 8 April he treated six civilians and two YPG fighters for symptoms including shortness of breath, numbness, red eyes and severe coughing fits. Several of the victims, he said, reported seeing yellow smoke as missiles impacted. A toxicologist consulted by Amnesty International, who viewed video-clips of the apparent attack and reviewed the doctor's testimony, said the patients' symptoms could be the effects of a chlorine attack. A subsequent statement purportedly issued by the leader of the Army of Islam armed group said that a field commander had deployed an "unauthorised weapon" on Sheikh Maqsoud and that he would be held to account.

International community must not tolerate abuses by armed groups

Two of the armed groups attacking YPG forces in Sheikh Maqsoud - Ahrar al Sham and Army of Islam - have sent their own representatives to the UN-brokered negotiations over the Syria conflict in Geneva. The other armed groups have approved other delegates to represent them at the talks.

"The international community must not turn a blind eye to the mounting evidence of war crimes by armed opposition groups in Syria.The fact that the scale of war crimes by government forces is far greater is no excuse for tolerating serious violations by the opposition," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

The terrifying accounts from civilians in Sheikh Maqsoud shed light on the horror of daily life in pockets of the city under constant attack by armed groups that are violating the laws of war with impunity.

"International backers of armed groups operating in Syria must ensure they are not fuelling abuses by transferring weapons that are being used or might be used by armed groups to commit or facilitate serious human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

Amnesty International is calling on the Gulf states, Turkey and others believed to be providing support to armed groups in Syria to immediately block the transfer of arms to armed groups, including logistical and financial support for such transfers, where there is credible evidence that they have committed serious human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. Only those groups that meet stringent reliability tests which demonstrate that they can act consistently with full respect for international human rights and humanitarian law should be considered for future supply.

Deteriorating humanitarian conditions

As well as being subjected to indiscriminate shelling, civilians in Sheikh Maqsoud are effectively trapped in the area amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation. Continuing clashes have prevented aid from entering Sheikh Maqsoud and people from leaving. Government forces have only allowed civilians requiring medical attention out of the area on the side that they control and have also restricted the entry of medical supplies and food – with only vegetables and bread allowed in. According to residents, the pharmacies in Sheikh Maqsoud are empty, many have shut down.

"We barely have any food left in the neighbourhood," one resident said adding that aid supplies were running out rapidly.

"Sheikh Maqsoud is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. It is critical that the Syrian government and armed groups urgently allow unfettered access for humanitarian aid and allow civilians who wish to leave the area to do so," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

Background

The armed groups carrying out indiscriminate attacks on the Sheikh Maqsoud area are part of the Fatah Halab military coalition which includes: Islamic Movement of Ahrar ash-Sham, Army of Islam, al-Shamia Front, Brigade of Sultan Murad, Sultan Fatih Battalions, Fa Istaqim Kama Omirt Battalions, Nour al-Deen Zinki Battalions, 13 Brigade, 16 Brigade, 1st Regiment (al-Foj al-Awal) and Abu Omara Battalions.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights at least 23 civilians were killed by YPG shelling and sniper attacks in opposition-held areas in Aleppo city between February and April 2016.

Footnote[s]

#fnSubj_1" id="fnSubj_1">1. #txtSubj_1">↑ Another estimate of of the number of Syria's military dead since 2011 is 60,000, which is somewhat less terrible than 80,000. This lower figure, which does not include the larger number of civilian dead, is still roughly the same as the number of Australians who died in that terrible inter-imperialist slaughter of the early twentieth century, otherwise known as the 'First World War'.

Inside this article is a seven-minute video summarising what has happened in Syria. For those of you confused about this part of the world and what is happening, this clever video covers a lot in a simple way.

Some things this video does not cover: It does not go into the colonial history of similar interventions which have disorganised local power and built up to the current horrors. It does not talk about how many soldiers have died, nor of how the bulk of Syria's remaining population have fled to the government-controlled areas for safety. It does not talk about Russia's role in the area to support the government forces. Linking the creation of refugees to foreign-backed war in the region, it criticises the United States for not taking many refugees. However, for people outside Syria, the message needs to be that the west should stop creating refugees through war. This is a message that is entirely omitted by refugee activists in Australia, for instance, who seem to be quite uninterested in what is causing these floods of refugees. Australia effectively has almost no anti-war groups left. The video also does not mention the problem of growing water scarcity in Syria with Turkish diversion of the Euphrates, drought since 2006 and aquifer depletion in the context of a growing population. But drought and population growth are also matters seriously affecting other countries, such as California in the United States and most Australian states. The important difference is that California and Australia are not over-run by armed foreign-backed militia - as yet.

For the record, the below is a partial record of correspondence between Susan Dirgham, National Coordinator of 'Australians for Reconciliation in Syria', and Q&A, the Australian television program. Like most Australian media outlets, the ABC almost invariably presents Syria in a squewed, ahistoric manner that supports the continued and disastrous interference by the US, NATO and its allies in the region, maintaining war.

Questions to Q&A Panel; Monday 16 May 2016

How does it help Australia to ignore the voices of millions of 'ordinary' Syrians (Sunni, Shia, Catholic, Orthodox, atheist etc)  who share our truest values, and instead promote the claims of those who support a violent form of radical Islam?

How does it help our security and social harmony to be a member of the unholy alliance that has formed between radical Islamist groups in Syria and US neo-cons and their friends?   Such an alliance could lead to the deaths of millions of innocent people and the destruction of countries.

The basic question is, 

What will become of us as a nation if we hide from the truth and play dirty? 

Newly-discovered images of alleged BBC "napalm victim": In June 2014 a Netherlands resident contacted me, expressing anxiety about being recognised in a frame from 'Saving Syria's Children' which I had posted on Facebook. Although the woman was not among the group of alleged napalm/thermite victims in the frame in question, I subsequently recognised her in a You Tube video shot at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo on 26 August 2013, apparently in the guise of a victim of the same alleged events portrayed in Ian Pannell and Darren Conway's BBC reports. This is the latest report in Robert Stuart's extraordinary investigation into BBC war propaganda.

1. In June 2014 a Netherlands resident contacted me, expressing anxiety about being recognised in a frame from 'Saving Syria's Children' which I had posted on Facebook. Although the woman was not among the group of alleged napalm/thermite victims in the frame in question, I subsequently recognised her in a You Tube video shot at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo on 26 August 2013, apparently in the guise of a victim of the same alleged events portrayed in Ian Pannell and Darren Conway's BBC reports. I have written about this here and here.

A number of images currently viewable on the Facebook account of one of the woman's relatives would appear to make it plainer still that the person who contacted me is indeed the same person who appears in the You Tube footage of the aftermath of the alleged Aleppo incendiary bomb attack. Details here.

2) My attempts to secure documents relating to Saving Syria's Children from the BBC through a Freedom of Information request appear, somewhat inevitably, to have run aground.

Following a decision notice from the Information Commissioner's Office upholding the BBC 's rejection of my request, I had argued in an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) that the evidence set out in my blog:

...clearly demonstrates that the BBC has committed the greatest betrayal of audience trust imaginable by a news broadcaster – the fabrication of an atrocity for the purposes of war propaganda. Such an egregious transgression is quite possibly unique in the history of broadcasting.

I further argued that Saving Syria’s Children and related BBC News reports had breached Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law”.

In response the Tribunal has issued a Case Management Note (3 May) observing that:

"Mr Stuart’s rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights may be capable of being litigated and remedy given to him if a Court finds there was a breach of those rights. The question of whether reports are genuine or fabricated may also be capable of being independently investigated."

However the Tribunal "is unable to grant Mr Stuart a remedy for what he says is a contravention of his rights under that Covenant" and directs that I must provide it with reasons why the information I have requested from the BBC was or is “not held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature”.

The deadline for submitting a response is 24 May.

3) A high quality copy of Saving Syria's Children is currently available on Vimeo. The section which forms the focus of my blog commences at 30:38. As BBC Worldwide has long since blocked all You Tube postings of the documentary, please consider downloading the Vimeo copy while it is available. This version is the highest quality I have seen to date and has already yielded a number of interesting new details, such as an apparent glimpse of the Dutch woman pictured above (see update here).

4) Further to my submission of shocking images of a staff member of UK registered charity Hand in Hand for Syria's "flagship medical facility", Atareb Hospital, Aleppo, posing with an array of weapons and munitions, an officer of the Charity Commission's Investigations Monitoring and Enforcement department has responded (12 April):

"I am currently considering the information that you have provided in order to determine what regulatory action, if any, is required. I confirm that I will provide a more detailed response once I have completed my assessment."

5) A reminder of the two sets of graphics highlighting some very startling inconsistencies in accounts of the alleged events of 26 August 2013 by BBC International Correspondent Ian Pannell and BBC 'Trust Me I'm A Doctor' presenter Dr Saleyha Ahsan and my recent presentation on Saving Syria's Children for From Stop War.

Robert Stuart
https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com

Migration is part of our collective history, but Europe’s political leaders are still failing completely to address widespread public concern over the flood of migrants now storming Europe’s borders. The consequences of these pressures will have profound impacts.

Unable to reach rational solutions beyond discussing how many each member state should be obliged to take, bribing African countries to take back their own citizens who don’t qualify as refugees and now paying Turkey to take back illegals bound for Greece, while taking a similar quota of Syrians from Turkey, are inadequate responses. Our leaders are moving into systemic chaos, where the Human Rights Act, has spawned a people-trafficking industry that is endangering our security and running rings around governments at taxpayers’ expense. It is not fit for purpose and needs reform. Without leaving the EU, the UK could suspend and redraw the act with our European partners, who all have much to gain from a more sensible approach.

In Britain, the Government, under Labour, first lost control of immigration and then tried to spin the idea that a large influx of people is vital to our interests. Despite attempts at reforms, the system is still failing. Legal migration in to the UK has hit record levels - up 40 per cent on 2014, according to the Office for National Statistics. Nearly 100,000 illegals were detected trying to enter the UK in 2015, while the EU is receiving thousands of illegal migrants a day – triple the rate last year.

The situation has been escalating for years, but after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand moral gesture to take in 800,000 ‘refugees’ a year in response to the photo of a drowned boy on a Turkish beach and then demand other EU states take their share, it has ignited the hopes of millions more to settle in Europe. Now barbed wire borders are being erected in the heart of Europe, destroying the ideal of free movement.

Described as refugees or just ‘migrants’, as though there has merely been some bureaucratic error in their status, the asylum lobby and much of the media are cheerleading the appeal for public sympathy as a tragic human interest story. But this terrorist infiltrated people-smuggling led invasion, facilitated by EU governments, presents a huge challenge from failing states with exploding populations and self-inflicted turf wars.

Generous policies in Sweden and Germany are enabling thousands of non-EU migrants and illegals to settle legally there and then move to other member states as internal EU migrants. Over 1.2 million have claimed asylum in 2015. Our politicians consistently ignore this back door impact.

Sweden has been receiving up to 2000 unaccompanied minors a week in late 2015, nearly a third of its migrant influx, who can then have their families flown in to join them. Most were males giving their age as 16 or 17 but receiving groups say many appear much older. According to Statistics Sweden, 50 per cent of refugees are not in work seven years after arriving in the country. Even after 15 years, 40 per cent are still on welfare without a job – a major drain on the country’s welfare system.

Refugee lobbyists say it is the moral duty of Western countries to absorb these migrants. Do the media and politicians seriously think that Europe can take in the populations of sub-Saharan Africa and beyond? When will the line be drawn? All UK parties are well aware of the mounting pressures on housing, schools and health services, but don’t like to talk about it. Or the 25-50 per cent of young people in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece who don’t have a job. So too, they should be aware of the Parliamentary report in 2008 that the large rise in legal immigration to the UK had virtually no net economic gain for the country. Nor do we need high immigration to counter a temporary rise in ageing populations. Ever more migrants also get old and then need support.

The Government talks about skilled immigrants Britain needs, but skilled immigrants account for only 20% of total non-EU immigrants in Britain and many actually do unskilled work when they get here.

Proposals to cap numbers will barely touch the scale of the true problem - a permanent population swelling so quickly by other immigration pathways, including a generous interpretation of family reunion from outside the EU that is adding to the pressures on our environment and food security.

Australia is often cited by UK politicians as a model immigration system, but its population just hit 24 million– 17 years earlier than expected. With net overseas migration contributing 53 per cent to total population growth, the population is now set to double every 50 years. This in an arid continent with only six per cent of the land able to grow crops.

Europe’s growing immigration crisis
In 1950, the countries that later constituted the EU-27 had a population of 370 million. By 2010 it topped 500 million - equivalent to absorbing the inhabitants of another present-day France and Britain combined. By January 2015 Eurostat figures show the population was 508.2 million - up 1.3 million from the previous year, with the majority of 1.1m a result of net legal immigration into the EU.

Add to this the rapidly growing number of illegals – with over 1.2 million detected in 2015 and many more entering undetected, according to the EU borders agency, Frontex.

Today, only Syria currently has an acute refugee crisis, but to avert mounting chaos and retain the fabric of the EU, we have to stop the lure of a gateway to permanent citizenship to millions. People in Europe might be more reassured if irregular migrants eligible for asylum were offered temporary support and then returned to their countries when the crisis resolved. Many of those who claimed asylum from countries like Somalia and Iraq go back for extended holidays, but the claims for asylum continue. Iraqi Airways now operates four flights a week from the UK to facilitate demand for vacations back home. Yet Iraqis are in the top ten asylum applications to the UK in 2015,

Also in the list are Nigeria – touted as Africa’s fasted growing economy and other democratic countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and even Albania – now 25 years since it became a European democracy. Eritrea is top of the list, supposedly linked to harsh national service. What is going on? International pressure should sort this out, not expect resettlement.

Part of the problem is that EU countries don’t have repatriation agreements with many countries involved, but this could be remedied quite simply, as just about all the sender countries in Africa and many in Asia are recipients of generous Western aid. We need to use this leverage. Several countries, like Senegal, condone exporting people in the hope they will reach Europe, find work and send back remittances.

Global leaders need to be focused on real solutions and more effective regional aid in all these fragile states as well as engaging more constructively with Russia, Iran and countries in the region to bring about positive outcomes. You can help far more people cost effectively in nearby protected areas than import millions into high-cost West European countries. Sweden is now having to spend its foreign aid budget on trying to deal with new migrant arrivals.

The current level of UK immigration and increasing birth rates will require building the equivalent of a new Manchester every year. It is little wonder we have a housing crisis. How can we possibly accommodate this and claim it is sustainable?

In 1998, the Office for National Statistics predicted that the UK population would rise to 65m by 2051. We’re already there! Now they say it could reach 80 million by 2040, mostly as a result of immigration.

David Cameron promises a review of welfare benefits for EU migrants but equally, we need to look at the pull factors for illegals – many openly piling up in Calais attempting to cross to the UK. The EU Commission says it is the responsibility of each Member State to set the rules for welfare support.

We need urgent action to address these issues and clear shared rules that would be strict enough to discourage ineligible people from attempting dangerous journeys. The growing cost to communities of accommodating large-scale inflows of people, in a now crowded world, raises many challenging questions. This is not a left or right issue or racist. It is about global social and environmental sustainability.

Doctors without Borders is well regarded and influential. It is appreciated that many good people work for and support MSF/Doctors Without Borders. The need has arisen, however, to inquire about Doctors without Borders' independence and the consequences of its work in Syria. An objective look is likely to reveal that while Doctors without Borders is helping in some areas, it is causing harm in others.

Open Letter to MSF/Doctors without Borders

by Rick Sterling / May 4th, 2016

Dear MSF International President Dr. Joanne Liu,

Your organization is well regarded and influential.  I appreciate that many good people work for and support MSF/Doctors Without Borders.  However, I need to inquire about your independence and the consequences of your work in Syria. I believe an objective look will reveal that while you are helping in some areas, you are causing harm in others.

Following are questions on this important issue:

(1) As you know, Aleppo is a large city with the government forces holding western Aleppo while other parts of the city are dominated by armed opposition groups, primarily Nusra/Al Qaeda.  About 1.5 to 2 million people live in the government areas with about 200 to 250 thousand in the areas controlled by armed opposition. So 80-90 % of the population is in government-controlled areas. This is rarely mentioned but seems important.  Given this fact, is it true that you provide aid and support only to the opposition held areas?

(2) On April 21 the Western and Gulf backed “High Negotiations Committee” announced they were quitting the Geneva negotiations. The next day, hundreds of mortars and bombs started being launched into western Aleppo from the zones controlled by Nusra and other terrorist groups.  These bombs are powerful, wounding and killing indiscriminately. Syrian journalist Edward Dark noted that western media and groups such as MSF were silent on this even though hospitals were being hit, dozens of children and civilians killed. On twitter he reported day by day …..

— West Aleppo is simply being obliterated by rebel shelling. A city of 2 million people is being butchered.

— Carnage and devastation as ‘moderate rebel’ bombs fall on west Aleppo like rain.

— Terrorist rebel bombs are still falling like rain on west Aleppo. 15 people murdered at a mosque in Bab Faraj after Friday prayers.

— This is the hospital where my son was born. Dabeet Hospital in W.Aleppo completely destroyed by rebel shelling.

Has MSF denounced these killings and attacks on hospitals in western Aleppo?

(3) The unconcern about indiscriminate attacks and killing in government-held areas of Aleppo has also been denounced by Syrian-Canadian physician Dr. Nabil Antaki. He has recently written:

With regards to recent events in Aleppo, I state very clearly that the mainstream media are lying by omission… All of us here in Aleppo are disgusted by their lack of impartiality and objectivity. They only talk about the loss of life in east of Aleppo which is entirely controlled by Al Nusra…. These are their ‘moderate rebels’ …This same media remains silent on the daily losses and suffering endured in the Western areas of Aleppo living under the rain of mortar fire from these terrorist factions. This media never mentions the continuous bombardment and the carnage we have witnessed in western Aleppo where every single sector has been targeted. On a daily basis we see dozens of people murdered….. For three days now, these media outlets have been accusing the “Assad regime” of bombing an MSF hospital to the east of Aleppo and of killing the last pediatrician in the city. This demonstrates that, for these media, the only priority is this pocket of the city where terrorists are embedded. The three quarters of Aleppo under Syrian government control, where numerous pediatricians are practicing, is of no consequence.

Dr. Liu, will you meet with Dr. Antaki?  Perhaps he could give you a tour and confirm to you what he says. He is a well known and respected doctor in Aleppo and fellow Canadian citizen.

(4) There are many discrepancies in reports about the April 27 attack on Al Quds Hospital. MSF Middle East Operations Manager Pablo Marco, interviewed the next day on CNN and PBS Newshour, said “there were two barrel bombs that fell close to the hospital …. then the third barrel bomb fell in the entrance of the hospital”. Barrel bombs are only delivered by helicopters. In contrast, your press release the same day says “the hospital was destroyed by at least one airstrike which directly hit the building, reducing it to rubble.” A CBC report continued this version, claiming “An MSF-supported hospital in the northern Syria city of Aleppo is now a pile of rubble. Airstrikes brought down the building on Wednesday.” The hospital photograph indicates it is not a “pile of rubble” and it’s unclear where the damage is. The sandbag reinforcement and damaged car in front indicate it might have been a battle scene but the rest is unclear.  Which story is correct and accurate?

The number of fatalities has varied from initial death counts of 14 to later reports of over 50. How are these numbers verified?

(5) MSF representatives Pablo Marco and Muskilda Zancada suggest this was a deliberate and intentional attack on the hospital.  In an interview Ms. Zancada says “Al Quds Hospital has been functional for more than 4 years so it was basically impossible that this information was not known… The facts are pointing to this being a deliberate attack.” In contrast with Ms. Zancada’s assertions, most Aleppans have never heard of “Al Quds Hospital”. The “hospital” did not exist before the conflict and the photo shows an unidentified apartment building.  Is it accurate to call this facility a “hospital”?  Mr. Marco claimed that MSF supported personnel visited the hospital every other week so there must be many reports, documents and photos confirming whether it was a 34 bed hospital. Otherwise, it seems fair to say this was actually a medical clinic in the ground floor of an unmarked and largely abandoned apartment building.

(6) Can Mr. Marco or Ms. Zancada please identify the damage inflicted by the airstrike (or barrel bomb) at Al Quds Hospital on April 27?  The Russian Ministry of Defense has released a photograph indicating the building had similar damage in October 2015.

(7) As you know, Nusra/Al Qaeda is considered ‘terrorist’ by all parties including the US, French, and Canadian governments.  Does the Al Quds Hospital primarily or significantly serve Al Qaeda and/or other terrorist fighters? If so, are your supporters aware they are assisting fighters who launched bombs attacking western Aleppo as shown here and previously destroyed the once prized Al Kindi Hospital with a huge truck bomb as shown here? I appreciate you have a commitment to the hippocratic oath but given the widespread medical needs, why are you prioritizing assistance to Nusra/Al Qaeda?

(8) Many videos from Al Quds Hospital feature members of the “White Helmets”.  Are you aware the White Helmets was established by the US and UK with initial training in Turkey by a UK military contractor?  Are you aware the organization is not independent or neutral and has explicitly called for western intervention in Syria? The origins of the “White Helmets” is documented here . There is an online petition denouncing this clever but cynical marketing campaign here.

(9) Can you you please compare and contrast the videos showing attacks at MSF- supported Al Quds Hospital with videos showing attacks in western Aleppo? The videos from Al Quds Hospital are here and here with an animated one here. The attacks in western Aleppo including an attack on Al Dabeet Hospital are here, here and here. Do you see the difference between videos from armed opposition area vs. those from western Aleppo? Some look authentic and some look possibly staged.

(10) We know that many Western and Gulf countries are providing funds to help the armed opposition in Syria.  For example in 2012 the Canadian government said: “The reason the $2 million was being channeled through Canadian Relief for Syria instead of the UN or International Committee of the Red Cross was because it was intended for Syrian opposition groups and was not humanitarian aid.” Is MSF directly or indirectly receiving grants or funds from the Canadian, French or US governments to serve Syrian opposition groups?

(11) There has been a wave of media coverage of Al Quds Hospital and the death of Dr. Moaz (sometimes spelled Maaz). Some of the reports are clearly intended to tug at the heart and natural sympathy of people. Unfortunately propagandists can be effective in this area as they seek to manipulate public opinion. There are many examples with the Kuwaiti babies and incubators being one of the most famous frauds as it successfully won public support for Gulf War 1. Both Amnesty International and the International Red Crescent were (unwittingly) part of the fraud. My point is this: Some of the Al Quds Hospital stories are questionable and may be fraudulent.

For example, the letter from a fellow physician acclaiming Dr Moaz was published by “The Syria Campaign” which is the marketing creator of the “White Helmets”. The letter is supposedly from a fellow doctor who might or might not be real. They use a false name yet claim he “manages the Children’s Hospital in Aleppo”. Another questionable piece of ‘evidence’ of the death of Dr. Moaz is the video supposedly taken just before the building was hit by missile or bomb. It’s curious that the building would be destroyed and the CCTV cameras (several of them) survive and be ready for editing. Is this real or is it just another example of the “moderate rebel’ social media propaganda?

(12) Biased media coverage on Syria serves to demonize the Assad government and prolong the conflict. It has made it easier for foreign aggressors to continue funding the proxy armies such as Nusra/Al Qaeda.  There is danger of vastly increased conflict and bloodshed if foreign governments or NATO intervene directly. In fact, calls for greater aggression are increasing in the wake of publicity around the attack at Al Quds Hospital.  Are you aware that the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia seemed to threaten an escalation of the conflict as he said “The world is not going to allow them to get away with this.”?

Dr. Liu, we agree with your insistence that medical personnel and facilities should not be attacked. That is in keeping with the Geneva Conventions on War.  There are other international laws, including laws against aggression and the right of self-defense.  It is clear that the Syrian government is being attacked by proxy armies funded by a coalition of foreign governments in violation of international law and the UN Charter.

Will you investigate whether the criticisms expressed in this letter are accurate and take appropriate action? It seems that current MSF actions and statements on Syria are biased and effectively serving the coalition of governments waging war on Syria in violation of international law.  The bias and propaganda sustain the conflict and threaten to make it even worse.

Best regards,

Rick Sterling

Rick Sterling is a retired engineer and co-founder of Syria Solidarity Movement. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

This article was posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2016 at 7:40pm and is filed under Media, Propaganda, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terrorism (state and retail).

This article also published (4/5/16) on the Free Syrian Press. See also: The shameful traitors of Hamas show once again to be a bullhorn on the payroll of Erdogan-Saudis (2/5/16) | Syrian Free Press, Syrian Army, Palestinian resistance forces launch operations to recapture al-Yarmouk camp (17/4/16) | Syrian Free Press - previously published by the FARS News Agency.

[...]The evidence presented here is only the tip of the iceberg. No doubt that some Palestinians, like some traitorous Iraqis, Syrians and Lebanese, joined the destabilization scheme, but when we get down to the nitty gritty, like most Syrians, most of Syria’s Palestinian citizens back the Syrian Arab Republic, the only Arab nation that has given them a home, supported their righteous cause and treated them as equals. It is shameful beyond shameful that these truths and more were not only ignored but deceptively covered up by “Palestine Solidarity Movement” activists to push a cookie-cutter propaganda line that meshed with the increasingly toothless nature of “solidarity” speak and praxis, not to mention the worldview of their Jewish and Khaleeji “colleagues”. [...] This publication is an extract only from the original article by Jonahtan Azaziah, published 18 April, 2016 at "Meet The Pro-Syria Palestinians That Electronic “Intifada” Will Never Tell You About."

Notable Palestinian supporters of the Syrian Government [Candobetter editorial heading]

[...]
~ Anwar Hadi, the spokesman of the PLO, who said from day one of the ungodly crisis in Yarmouk that the blame lies squarely at the feet of the Takfiri rebels, who entered the once-vibrant Syrian-Palestinian camp in massive numbers and committed massacres, chased out civilians and looted homes along with businesses. Electronic “Intifada” and company wrote numerous articles attacking the Syrian government for the humanitarian disaster, like Jabhat al-Nusra, the FSA and ISIS were/are mere daydream-constructs “the regime” and its “Shabiha” brought forth from thin air.

~ The Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), the Syrian Arab Army’s Palestinian branch, which has fought on numerous fronts throughout Syria and offered countless martyrs in the struggle against Daesh and its ideological counterparts.

~ Fatah al-Intifada, a Palestinian Resistance group which has been ultra-active in the ongoing fight to liberate Yarmouk. Many volunteers, like Tayseer Mousa and Waleed Suleiman, left their homes in the Damascus countryside city of Jaramana to defend their brethren. Portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah can be found all over their offices.

~ Liwa Al-Quds, the third most powerful Syrian military force after the Syrian Arab Army and the Hizbullah-trained NDF according to Al-Masdar News. Liwa Al-Quds has been a tremendously key part of the battle for the liberation of Aleppo, particularly the camps of Handarat and Nayrab.

~ The PFLP-GC, led by the indefatigable Ahmad Jibril and known for their strong support of the democratically elected government in Damascus, these warriors have also been fighting in multiple arenas, from the capital to Aleppo to Latakia and elsewhere. They played an important role in the historic liberation of the besieged Shi’a towns Nubl and Al-Zahra, showing that there is a united Syrian-Palestinian-Lebanese-Iraqi-Iranian, Sunni-Shi’a, Muslim-Christian front against the usurping Zionist regime’s Wahhabi vassals.

~ Hizbullah moujahid Ali Fawzi Taha ( Haydar al-Hajj Jawad) from Bourj el-Barajneh. Born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother, Ali was martyred during the liberation of the strategic, ancient city of Al-Quryatayn. He participated in many victories across Syria, including game-changers like Al-Qusayr and Al-Qalamoun. Considering he was a member of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance, the only Arab force to ever drive ‘Israel’ out from sovereign Arab lands, is it not significantly newsworthy that this hero had a Palestinian background?! If only he had been a BDS activist or an Amnesty International “researcher”, then Electronic “Intifada” would’ve assuredly profiled him.

~ Muhammad Rafeh, a beloved Palestinian-Syrian actor from the popular TV show Bab al-Hara and outspoken supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Muhammad had lost family members a year before in the Zionist entity’s massacre of protesters in the occupied Golan Heights on Naksa Day and was also known for his strong stance against the ‘Israeli’ enemy. The FSA kidnapped Muhammad and slaughtered him for standing with the Syrian government; very “revolutionary”, wouldn’t you say?

~ Archbishop Atallah Hanna, Palestine’s highest-ranking Orthodox Christian authority and a fiery, BLISTERING vocal backer of the Syrian Arab Republic. Not only has Theodosios of Sebastia spoken in no uncertain terms about the aggression against Syria being a Zionist plot, but he’s also defended Islam and the importance of Muslim-Christian unity in the face of Takfirism at length. The Archbishop is a true Arab hero and is undoubtedly on the path to sainthood.

~ Samer al-Issawi, Palestine’s most epic hunger striker (277 days) and a living legend in every sense of the phrase; the man’s will is of such an unbreakable nature that it will forever echo in history and forever haunt the Zionist enemy. Samer, whose fam goes way back with both the PFLP and the DFLP, supports the Syrian Arab Republic and stands firmly against the war on this sovereign nation. His steadfast anti-Imperialism only adds to his larger-than-life character. Yet, apart from PFLP and DFLP affiliated media, this fact remains largely unknown.

~ Palestinians across occupied Falasteen, not to mention Syrians throughout the Golan Heights, have protested in full support of the Syrian Arab Republic and Hizbullah on too many occasions to make mention of here. And we’re not talking about minuscule rallies but bright, rowdy, militant, BIG demonstrations with seas of Syrian Arab Republic flags waving and portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad standing tall. Not even one of these events was covered by “Palestine Solidarity Movement” mainstreamers.[...]

[...] Simply put, to defend Palestine today is to defend Syria and vice versa, for as Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah declared years ago, the Syrian Arab Republic is the backbone of the Mouqawamah and only a fool or a traitor would sit idly by as his backbone is being broken. So what category do the “activists” of the “Palestine Solidarity Movement” fall under? Fools? Traitors? Or a lil’ bit of both?

Australian Politics Professor Tim Anderson recently wrote a book entitled, The Dirty war on Syria. In the embedded video, he describes the alarming ignorance of Australians generally about why the West is so down on Syria. This is a fascinating, humane and intelligent interview with Syrian TV. Among the many subjects covered are how the Australian media treats Anderson, how he became interested in the war in Syria, interpreting the propaganda war against Syria, and the future of Syria.

Tuesday's Syrian election was a vote of confidence by the Syrian people in their government. 5,085,444 voters cast their ballots out of a possible 8,834,994 eligible voters. The overall participation rate of 58% (virtually identical to Canada's last federal election) exceeded the government's expectations in most places but was low in others. For example, it was over 80% in Homs but only 52% in Tartous. What might explain the uneven results is the history of the war. People who suffered the most from the war, for example in Homs, were probably more grateful for their liberation and more motivated to exercise their political rights than people in Tartous who saw no fighting at all (though they lost thousands upon thousands of sons and grandsons in the war).

Ken Stone was an observer at the Syrian elections. He has an M.A. in political science from McMaster University.

Also significant was the fact that over 140,000 refugees returned across the Lebanese border in just one day in order to vote. And the polling hours in Damascus, which suffered a lot from the fighting, had to be extended until 11 pm to accommodate all the voters. There were even polling stations set up by the government in recently liberated Palmyra and Al-Qaryaten, though those polls were largely symbolic because the inhabitants of those towns have not yet been able to return to their homes due to widespread destruction, following liberation by the Syrian Arab Army.

The voter participation rate is key to this election, more important than the individual candidates who were elected. Here's why: you need to understand elections in a constitutionally-created state, in which one party dominates, in terms of a strike vote in a trade union. It demonstrates continuing confidence in the leadership at a turning point in the struggle. A union would not be satisfied with a strike vote of 58%, going into a strike. And probably the Syrian government would have wished for a higher rate going into the negotiations at Geneva. But it knew from the start that holding the elections under the conditions of war and occupation was a gamble, because there are a lot of eligible voters living outside of Syria right now, living in places besieged by the terrorists, and who have died but not yet been accounted for. Taking into account these factors, the participation rate would probably have been much higher.

Among our solidarity delegation, we have been pleased that the Syrian authorities did not try to inflate the figures to make the election results appear better than they actually were: it reinforces our contention that the Syrian government is a credible force in the serious negotiations ahead.

As mentioned, the turning point for Syria is the current round of negotiations taking place right now in Geneva to find a lasting political solution to the crisis. Today, the Syrian delegation took their seats with a mandate from the Syrian people, whereas the opposition delegation of head-choppers cobbled together at the last minute by the USA and Saudi Arabia have no mandate at all from the unfortunate Syrians who suffer under military occupation in “rebel-held” areas. No elections were held there. Western governments, such as the USA, have dismissed the Syrian election out of hand, though the participation rate in the last US election was only 48%.

But that's not to say there weren't any interesting candidates elected. The sister of a Syrian soldier, Noor Al-Shogri, stood for election as an independent in parliament. Her brother, Yahya Al-Shoghri, was filmed as he was being executed by ISIS terrorists in 2014 in Raqa. (If you can stomach the summary execution in cold blood of a prisoner of war, you will find the video brazenly posted by the terrorists on Youtube.) The barbarians demanded that he say, as his dying words, “Long live the caliphate!” He famously refused and declared instead that “It will be erased!” His last words then became a rallying cry in the national resistance against the foreign aggression. Noor Al-Shogri easily won her seat.

I met an independent candidate in the Old City of Damascus, Nora Arissian, a small Armenian woman with flaming red hair. She came up to me in the Greek Melkite Patriarch's procession to the polling station and thanked me for Canada taking in 25000 Syrian refugees and then she pointedly added, “We want them all eventually to come home!” She too won her seat.

The election results were delayed by a couple of days because the Syrian election commission was unsatisfied with the preparedness of eight polling stations in partially-occupied Aleppo. As I understand it, the elections in Aleppo had to be continued on the day following election day.

Some people have asked what is the role of Palestinian refugees in this election. The answer is that Palestinians, ethnically-cleansed in 1948 and after, do not vote in Syrian elections. The political and social status of Palestinians in Syria is the highest of any Arab country but the Syrian government doesn't grant them citizenship or let them vote because it doesn't want to dilute their right under international law, reaffirmed by numerous resolutions of the United Nations, to return to their homes and farms in Palestine. The fact that the Syrian government has been so adamant about this principle, it is one of the main causes of the foreign aggression against the country (and in support of the State of Israel.) So the Syrian government pays a heavy price for its strong support of the Palestinian people. In turn, the vast majority of Palestinian refugees in Syria strongly support their government, even though many have been made refugees a second time by the invasion into their neighbourhoods of the terrorist mercenaries from over 80 countries. For example, a fierce struggle is taking place in Yarmouk right now just a few kilometres from where I write, among Isis, AlNusra, and other terrorist gangs, over control of this former Palestinian neighbourhood/camp, which used to hold a quarter of a million people but is now a devastated ghost town with only a few thousand souls.

It bears repeating that these parliamentary elections were defiantly called by the Syrian government as “an exercise in national sovereignty.” The point was to show the world, especially those western and Gulf states, who have waged the five-year long war of aggression against Syria, that Syrians are united in the belief that Syrians, and only Syrians, will decide the fate of Syria.

It appears that the gamble paid off.

ps. For photos of the last few days of activities of the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria and to find out how to join the third or fourth tour, please go to:

https://www.facebook.com/International-Tours-of-Peace-to-Syria-454873351281581/?ref=ts&fref=tsheck

First published on 21st Century Wire.

“We declare our right on this earth…to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” ~ Malcolm X

Yesterday Parliamentary elections were held in Syria. 7000 polling booths were opened across the country. 11, 341 candidates were proposed from across Syria with 250 to be elected to Parliament, including a number of female candidates.

Candidates were spread out as follows: 988 in Damascus, 817 in Damascus countryside, Aleppo 1437, in Aleppo regions 1048, In Idleb 386, in Homs 1800, Hama 700, Lattakia 1653, Tartous 634, Deir Ezzor 311, Hasaka 546, Raqqa 197, Daraa 321, Sweida 263 and in Quneitra 240

Voting centres opened at 7.30 am and were obliged to extend their sessions by five hours to accommodate the high turn out of voters.

Some of the women candidates in Syrian Parliamentary elections.

“The voting centers include over 2,000 centers in Damascus, 17 in Deir Ezzor, 1,047 in Lattakia, 661 in Homs, 347 in Sweida, 741 in Hama, 368 in Hasaka, 816 in Tartous, and 347 in Sweida are receiving voters.

It should be noted that voting centers were opened in Damascus, Damascus Countryside, Hama, Lattakia, Aleppo, Tartous, Hasaka, and Deir Ezzor to receive voters staying in these provinces who are originally from other areas, namely the provinces of Idleb, Raqqa, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, and Daraa.” ~ SANA

Students from Damascus University queueing to vote: SANA

So contrary to spurious claims from western governments and media, efforts were made to open the voting to all Syrian civilians including those who have fled terrorists held areas. We must also bear in mind that over 90% of IDPs [Internally displaced persons] have fled to Government controlled areas, thus further discrediting claims that these elections are non representative.

For a full photo report on the Syrian elections: Peoples Assembly Elections 2016

On an equally positive note, of course ignored in the western and gulf media, 1.7 million of these internally displaced refugees have been able to return home thanks not only to the SAA [Syrian Arab Army] liberation of whole swathes of Syrian villages and towns from US NATO terrorist occupation but also due to the Syrian Governments laudable efforts to rebuild and restore infrastructure in these areas.

Small government loans are being given to impoverished families to enable them to re-establish their lives torn apart by the illegal war of aggression that has been waged against Syria by the US, NATO, GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] and Israel for the last five years.

It is guaranteed that none of these initiatives will be reported in the mainstream media, including the Syrian Higher Committee for Relief’s efforts to facilitate the delivery of Humanitarian aid to the remaining terrorist held civilian areas in Syria.

As Professor Tim Anderson [who is in Syria to observe the elections as indeed he was in 2014] said:

“Syrian democracy needs no outside approval. Repeated outside demands that ‘Assad must go’, or that a Washington-approved executive ‘transition government’ be formed, have become meaningless, since the military tide turned in the embattled country’s favour.”

The Syrian elections proceeded according to the Syrian constitution and law. We see this being enforced in Aleppo for example where it was decided that violations of the voting process had taken place and a re-election was called for.

UNSC [Security Council] resolution 2254 stated clearly that Syria’s future is in the hands of the Syrians and the Syrians are proving that they are doing just that with little fuss but a lot of enthusiasm and determination to deny foreign intervention in their sovereign affairs.

The Syrian “Dictator” goes to Vote

Now lets have a look at the President that western governments and their media minions would have us believe to be a bloodthirsty, butchering dictator as he and his wife Asma head for the polling booths with no security in sight.

Compare this if you will, to the protests being held across Britain demanding that David Cameron aka “Dodgy Dave” resign over the Panama papers scandal, the subsequent police clamp down and the manhandling of protestors.

Perhaps even more laughable in the face of the UK Government’s own deteriorating human rights record at home and abroad, is their statement on the Syrian elections:

Britain said Damascus’ decision to go ahead with the elections in the war-torn nation, where hundreds of thousands cannot take part, shows “how divorced (the government) is from reality.” 

With homelessness and child poverty reaching Victorian levels in Britain, legal cases pending for criminal arms sales to the genocidal Saudi coalition conducting wholesale slaughter of Yemeni civilians, and recent reports on the British government clandestine assassination programmes, one would be justified in saying the British government has not only divorced itself from reality but from Humanity in every feasible way.

“Reprieve highlights the fact that Britain conspired in a US-inspired Kill List soon after 9/11. It says quite categorically that “Starting in 2002, working closely with the Americans, Britain had played a leading role in the euphemistic Joint Prioritized Effective List. As with Yemen, the JPEL Kill List was not even limited to a war zone – it spanned over into Pakistan, which was an ally, not an enemy at war.”

What this effectively means is that not only has Britain brought back the death penalty it has done so without public or parliamentary consultation, and carried out these deadly deeds regularly without even a basic trial.” ~ Britain’s Secret Assassination Programme

France takes the hippocritic oath.

France has also hit the deck with cries of illegitimacy regarding the Syrian elections.

“The idea that there could be elections is not just provocative but totally unrealistic. It would be proof that there are no negotiations or discussions [in Geneva].”~ Francois Hollande

This statement comes from the man who crossed an executioners palm with silver to secure a multi billion dollar arms deal with Qatar.

In this photo Hollande is presenting France’s most prestigious award, the Legion D’Honneur to Saudi interior minister, Muhammed Bin Nayef.  Bin Nayef is personally responsible for choosing who of the many prisoners in Saudi jails is eligible for execution or crucifixion without trial and usually on trumped up charges.

So one is once more justified to ask, which leg is Hollande standing on when he denigrates Syrian elections while commending one of the world’s most renowned terrorists on his efforts to combat…terrorism.

The award for hypocrisy goes to..

US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said that the US “would view those elections as not legitimate in the sense that they don’t represent… the will of the Syrian people.

“So, to hold parliamentary elections now, given the current circumstances, given the current conditions in the country, we believe is at best premature and not representative of the Syrian people,” Toner said.

Early last week Toner said that “a political process that reflects the desires and will of the Syrian people is what should ultimately decide the future leadership and the future government of Syria.” ~ RT

Here is the response of the Syrian people to Mr Toner’s comments:

Mohammed Ali of Press TV reports from Damascus

Conclusions

As I said in yesterday’s exchange of messages with ex Ambassador to Syria and alleged death squad creator, Robert Ford:

“History is repeating itself a little too often Mr Ford, be very careful that you don’t bring your own house of cards down around your ears..Syria is denying your agenda time and time again and I can appreciate your Governments frustration but mistakes are being made and your propaganda apparatus is coming apart at the seams due largely to the integrity and unity of the Syrian people.

The day the US or any NATO member can say it had to extend the voting because such huge numbers turned out, is the day you can lecture me about “regimes”. The day your own Government is finally sanctioned and prosecuted as a war criminal for its policy of overtly or covertly butchering the peoples of sovereign nations is the day you can criticise any other duly elected world government.”

The US, NATO, GCC and Israeli agenda has careered into the brick wall of Syrian resistance, integrity and unity.  The will of the Syrian people is being listened to by the Syrian government.

Ideologically and spiritually the Syrian people believe in their political and military victory.  The Syrian people have said “no” time and time again to foreign intervention. They have endured crippling economic sanctions, invasions by proxy terrorist armies, occupation by mass murderers funded and armed by the US and NATO alliance but their resilience will ensure their self determination against all odds.

To achieve their objectives in Syria, the US and NATO are reliant upon mercenaries, terrorists, rapists and felons who have no vested interest in victory other than lining their own pockets with drugs and oil revenue.

The US and NATO agenda in Syria has no basis in law or even sound ideology, it is based upon pure greed and power sustained by corruption and inhumanity.  It shall fail and Syria will emerge unbowed, stronger and ultimately victorious.  The Syrian people have redrawn the geopolitical road map with strength of will alone.  This is the will you should be respecting Mr Toner, no other.

“The Syrian people are engaged in a war that has been going on for five years, through which terrorism managed to shed innocent blood and destroy much infrastructure, but it failed in achieving the primary goal it was assigned, which is destroying the principle structure in Syria, meaning the social structure of the national identity.” ~ President Bashar al Assad.

***

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog The Wall Will Fall.

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

Previously published on the Syrian Free Press. Story includes #syrianVote">embedded video (10:00 min). See also: Syria's Press conference the United Nations doesn't want you to see (20/6/14) | canDoBetter, Syria Elections 2016: US-NATO's Failed Attempt to Deny the Will of the Syrian People (14/4/16) by Vanessa Beeley | Global Research, Polling Stations Closed in All of Syria's Provinces – Elections Committee (14/4/16) | Sputnik News.

The voting takes place in areas under the government’s control. More than 7,000 polling stations have been set up. More than 3,500 candidates are competing for 250 seats. President Bashar al-Assad speaks of high voter turnout and says the candidates cover all sectors of the syrian society. Speaking after voting in Damascus, Assad noted that terrorism has been able to destroy much of Syria’s infrastructure, but not its social structure and the national identity. Parliamentary elections are held in Syria every four years. The last vote was held in May 20-12, four months after constitutional reforms were approved by President Assad.

Last month, US secretary of State John Kerry called for Syria to be partitioned saying it was "Plan B" if negotiations fail. But in reality this was always plan A. Plans to balkanize Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern states were laid out by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a 2006 trip to Tel Aviv. It was part of the so called "Project For a New Middle East". This was a carbon copy of the Odid Yinon plan drawn up by Israel in 1982. The plan outlined the way in which Middle Eastern countries could be balkanized along sectarian lines. This would result in the creation of several weak landlocked micro-states that would be in perpetual war with each other and never united enough to resist Israeli expansionism.

"Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan… " Oded Yinon, "A strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties",

The leaked emails of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reveal advocates of the Oded Yinon plan were behind the US push for regime change in Syria. An Israeli intelligence adviser writes in an email to Hillary,

"The fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies,".

Kerry's plan B comment came right before UN's special envoy de Mistura said federalism would be discussed at the Geneva talks due to a push from major powers. Both side's of the Geneva talks, the Syrian Government and the Syrian National Coalition flat out rejected Federalism. Highlighting the fact that the idea did not come from the Syrian's themselves. The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Al Jaafari, said that the Idea of federalization would not be up for discussion. "Take the idea of separating Syrian land out of your mind," he would say.

But some may not completely understand the full implications of federalism and how it is intrinsically tied to balkanization. Some cite the fact that Russia and the United States are successful federations as evidence that federation is nothing to fear. However the point that makes these federalism statements so dangerous is that in accordance with the Yinon plan the borders of a federalized Syria would be drawn along sectarian lines not on whether any particular state can sustain its population. This means that a small amount of people will get all the resources, and the rest of Syria's population will be left to starve. Furthermore, Russia and the US are by land mass some of the largest nations in the world, so federalism may make sense for them. In contrast Syria is a very small state with limited resources. Unlike the US and Russia, Syria is located in the Middle East which means water is limited. In spite of the fact Syria is in the so-called fertile crescent, Syria has suffered massive droughts since Turkey dammed the rivers flowing into Syria and Iraq. Syria's water resources must be rationed amongst its 23 million people. In the Middle East, wars are also fought over water.The areas that the Yinon plan intends to carve out of Syria, are the coastal areas of Latakia and the region of Al Hasake. These are areas where a substantial amount of Syria's water, agriculture and oil are located. The intention is to leave the majority of the Syrian population in a landlocked starving rump state, and create a situation where perpetual war between divided Syrians is inevitable. Ironically promoters of the Yinon plan try and paint federalism as a road to peace. However, Iraq which was pushed into federalism in 2005 by the US occupation is far from peaceful now.

Quite simply, divide and conquer is the plan. This was even explicitly suggested in the headline of Foreign Policy magazine, "Divide and conquer Iraq and Syria" with the subheading "Why the West Should Plan for a Partition". The CEO of Foreign Policy magazine David Rothkopf is a member of to the Council of Foreign Relations, a think tank Hillary Clinton has admits she bases her policies on. Another article by Foreign Policy written by an ex-NATO commander James Stavridis, claims "It's time to talk about partitioning Syria".

The US hoped to achieve this by empowering the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups, and introducing Al Qaeda and ISIS into Syria. The Syrian army was supposed to collapse with soldiers returning to their respective demographic enclaves. Evidence of this could be seen in the headlines of NATO's media arm in 2012, which spread false rumours that Assad had run to Latakia, abandoning his post in Damascus. The extremists were then supposed to attack Alawite, Christian and Druze villages. The US hoped that enough Alawites, Christians and Druze would be slaughtered that Syria's minorities would become receptive to the idea of partitioning.

Then NATO planned on shifting narratives from, "evil dictator must be stopped" to "we must protect the minorities". Turning on the very terrorists they created and backing secessionist movements. There is evidence that this narrative shift had already started to happened by 2014 when it was used to convince the US public to accept US intervention in Syria against ISIS. The US designation of Jabhat Al Nusra as a terrorist organisation in December of 2012 was in preparation for this narrative shift. But this was premature as none of these plans seemed to unfold according to schedule. Assad did not leave Damascus, the Syrian army held together, and Syrian society held onto its national identity.

It could be said that the Yinon plan had some success with the Kurdish PYD declaration of federalization. However, the Kurdish faction of the Syrian national coalition condemned PYD's declaration. Regardless, the declaration has no legal legitimacy. The region of Al Hasakah where a substantial portion of Syria's oil and agriculture lies, has a population of only 1.5 million people, 6% of Syria's total population. Of that, 1.5 million, only 40% are Kurdish, many of which do not carry Syrian passports. PYD's demand that the oil and water resources of 23 million people be given to a tiny part of its population is unlikely to garner much support amongst the bulk of Syria's population.

Former US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger understood that the key to dismembering a nation was attacking its national identity. This entails attacking the history from which this identity is based upon. In an event at Michigan University Kissinger stated that he would like to see Syria balkanized, asserting that Syria is not a historic state and is nothing but an invention of the Sykes-Picot agreement in the 1920's. Interestingly, Kissinger is using the same narrative as ISIS, who also claims that Syria is a colonial construct. In fact, ISIS has been a key tool for Kissinger and the promoters of the project of a New Middle East, as ISIS has waged a campaign of destruction against both Syrian and Iraqi historical sites.

In spite of efforts to convince the world of the contrary, the region that now encompasses modern day Syria has been called Syria since 605 BC . Sykes-Picot didn't draw the borders of Syria too large, but instead, too small. Historical Syria also included Lebanon and Iskandaron. Syria and Lebanon were moving towards reunification until 2005, an attempt at correcting what was a sectarian partition caused by the French mandate. Syria has a long history of opposing attempts of divide and conquer, initially the French mandate aimed to divide Syria into 6 separate states based on sectarian lines, but such plans were foiled by Syrian patriots. The architects of the Yinon plan need only have read Syria's long history of resistance against colonial divisions to know their plans in Syria were doomed to failure.

See also Assembly of Syrian Tribes and Clans in Hasaka reject so-called “federal region in Northern Syria”, previously published (19/3/16) on SANA. This article by Maram Susli was previously published on New Eastern Outlook. Maram Susli, also known as "Syrian Girl," is an activist-journalist and social commentator covering Syria and the wider topic of geopolitics. especially for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook."

Dr Bashar al-Jaafari is the Syrian UN ambassador. In this interview he refutes the ABC-US-NATO line that Tony Jones runs on Syria. Among other things, he says, "Number one, we are not regime. In Syria, there is no regime. There is a government. We are the legitimate government." Bashar al-Jaafari was present when independent international witnesses delivered their (positive) reports on the conduct of the Syrian elections of June 2014 (video included).

ABC Lateline’s Tony Jones speaks with Dr Bashar Jaafari, Syrian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, as he attends the UN-brokered Syrian peace talks as the lead negotiator for the Syrian government.

TRANSCRIPT:

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: This story is about the conflict in Syria. After five years and more than 250,000 lives lost, a new round of peace talks is under way in Geneva to try to bring an end to the conflict. As the new talks enter their third day, we’ll cross in a moment to the Swiss capital to speak to Syria’s lead negotiator. The talks were made possible by the UN-backed ceasefire which came into effect on 27th February, the first major truce in the five-year war. The peace talks aim to establish a transitional government in Syria leading up to fresh presidential elections. One key stumbling block is the future of Syria’s President Assad. The chief negotiator for the Syrian opposition says the transitional period can only begin with the fall of Assad or his death. Well the Syrian delegation is sticking by their President and refuses to discuss his future, so how will that fundamental difference be resolved?

Dr Bashar Jaafari is the Syrian Government’s representative at the United Nations. He’s also a central figure at the peace talks and he joins us live from Geneva.

Thanks for being there, Ambassador Jaafari.

BASHAR JAAFARI, SYRIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UN: Thank you so much for having me with you.

TONY JONES: Now with Vladimir Putin withdrawing most of his forces, can President Assad hope to remain in power without Russian military support?

BASHAR JAAFARI: Of course, definitely. We have been fighting the terrorists all over Syria for five years, as you know. The participation and contribution of our allies and friends, the Russians, started just a couple of months ago, as you know. But before that, we were doing the – the Syrian Army was doing the most important part of the mission of combating terrorism on the Syrian territory. But however, just to answer your question, the Russian decision has not been a unilateral decision taken by Moscow at the detrimental of Damascus, as some media anchors try to say. This decision was taken jointly by both President Putin and President Assad and it has, of course, definitely a political motivation, a political reason. The main reason for that is to encourage the process of the national reconciliation process, to give a chance to the talks, indirect talks amongst Syrians in Geneva, but also to give a signal that the biggest part of the mission of combating terrorism has been fulfilled successfully. So what we have here is not a Russian withdrawal. You may call it a partial withdrawal, but you may call it definitely a redeployment of the Russian forces deployed in Syria.

TONY JONES: OK. Well, ambassador, you are there in Geneva to talk peace with your delegation. President Assad in a recent interview said he would one day take back all of the territory that he lost during the conflict. Does your president still believe there is a military solution in Syria?

BASHAR JAAFARI: No, President Assad didn’t say that, actually. He didn’t mean that there is only a political – a military solution to the crisis. He said that there is only a military solution to the issue of combating terrorism. But definitely, President Assad and the Syrian Government are engaged in this – in the political process and this is – this is why we are here in Geneva. So there are two tracks parallel – the military track and the political track. The military track aims at destroying the terrorist and combating the terrorism, the international terrorism, whether you call it jihadist or, you know, mercenaries or pure international terrorist networks. But definitely there is another track which is called the political track and this is why we are here in Geneva.

TONY JONES: OK, I’ll come to that in a moment, but the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, quite clearly understood what President Assad was saying as being that there will be more fighting in the future, that he would fight to take back all that land and he said quite clearly a message to your President that this was something that Russia would not accept.

BASHAR JAAFARI: No, no, no. I’m sorry to tell you that I think that you are misleading this kind of statements. The point is the following, my friend: the Syrian Government has the constitutional duty to liberate all the Syrian territory from all kind of terrorist – all forms of terrorist active on the Syrian soil. So we are not – we don’t feel ashamed of what we are doing. It is our constitutional duty.

TONY JONES: But ambassador, …

BASHAR JAAFARI: … to get rid of the international terrorism active on the Syrian soil.

TONY JONES: … can I just – can I – sorry, ambassador – ambassador, can I just interrupt you there just for a moment because on this program just last month President Assad’s advisor Dr Bouthaina Shaaban told us that liberating the people of Aleppo was the most important thing, that Aleppo would have to be liberated and brought back under Syrian regime control in order for there to be any peace. Is that still true?

BASHAR JAAFARI: Again, again, allow me to clarify this kind of statements. Number one, we are not regime. In Syria, there is no regime. There is a government. We are the legitimate government and I am representing this legitimate government at the United Nations. So nobody has the right to monopolise or to deform our representativity. We are a legitimate government and everybody should call us a government. We are not regime. Number one. Number two, we have in fact priorities. Yes, Aleppo is more important than other less than important than Aleppo. So we may start with freeing and liberating Aleppo and then Palmyra and then Raqqa. We have the duty to liberate all these important historical cities in Syria. So, whether it is Aleppo or Raqqa or Deir ez-Zor …

TONY JONES: But ambassador, the point about Aleppo – the point about Aleppo is that you regard the opposition forces in Aleppo as terrorists and therefore reserve the right to continue military engagement against them, by the sound of it. Won’t that defeat the whole idea of a peace process with those opposition forces who are occupying half of Aleppo?

BASHAR JAAFARI: My friend, in Aleppo, most of the armed groups are not opposition. They are either mercenaries hired by the Gulf state’s money. They call them jihadist – you know that very well. They call them rebels, they call them revolutionaries, they call them even Syrian moderate opposition while they are foreigners and mercenaries. So most of those armed groups deployed in Aleppo and fighting the Government are nothing but terrorists. There is a slight margin of those people, of those fighters in Aleppo that you may consider opposition and I’m not talking about these people. I’m talking about the big part of those who are fighting the Government in Aleppo and its surroundings and they are nothing but international terrorists coming into Syria through our border with Turkey. So Turkey should be held accountable for facilitating the access of these terrorists to inside Syria.

TONY JONES: OK. The peace plan that’s been signed up to by Russia, Iran, the US and many others puts it forward that there should be an establishment of a transitional government, that after 18 months of that transitional government there should be elections, including for the President. Will President Assad stand aside from the transitional government as the opposition is demanding or will he insist on being a part of it and possibly even leading it as President?

BASHAR JAAFARI: No, I think you are anticipating on the results and outcomes of the Syrian-Syrian talks. We don’t anticipate, number one. Number two, the Resolution 2254 does not say anything about President Assad to be removed or to step down. Number three, the – what you have called Syrian national transitional body, we are not dealing with this kind of terminology anymore because in the 2254 we have the terminology of governance. We are not speaking anymore about what you – about the terminology that you used a few minutes ago. So we are ready to engage into the Syrian-Syrian talks without any foreign interference, without any preconditions or prerequisites to find out or to reach a Syrian-Syrian solution to this – to the Syrian part, Syrian side of the Syrian crisis, because in Syria, you have a huge international war by proxies. The CIA has its proxies, the Pentagon has its proxies, the Israelis have their proxies, the Saudis, the Turks, the Qataris have their proxies, the French have their proxies and all kinds of these international mafia is fighting in Syria, killing the Syrian people for – in favour of foreign agendas. So it is not a Syrian-Syrian war. It is Syria fighting an international war by proxies on the Syrian soil.

TONY JONES: Alright. Well let’s talk about what some Syrians in the opposition are saying and particularly we can point to the head of the High Negotiations Committee, Mohammed Alloush. He says the transitional period can only start after the fall of Bashar al-Assad or his death – or his death. Is the future – is the future – is the future of these peace talks going to depend on whether Assad stays or goes?

BASHAR JAAFARI: Well number one, we – we haven’t yet – we don’t have yet in Geneva all the Syrian oppositions, meaning that the special envoy did not yet fulfil the provisions of Security Council Resolution 2254, which stipulates that the special envoy should gather the broadest spectrum of Syrian oppositions. This, we don’t have it yet in Geneva. This is number one. Number two, this guy you have just named – pronounce his name, is nothing but a terrorist. He’s shelling Damascus, he’s killing students at the university and he’s – he belongs to a terrorist faction called Jaysh al-Islam. And this is why we objected to his participation at the talks in the first round. Now he is, through his statement, through this kind of irresponsible statement, he is inciting to terrorism in violation of Security Council resolution relevant to the issue of combating terrorism. Here I mean 1924, 1989, 2178 and 2199. So he is violating the Security Council resolutions en bloc, en bloc, and nobody is holding him responsible for what he is saying. By calling for the assassination …

TONY JONES: Ambassador, it’s – it isn’t – it isn’t only him, of course.

BASHAR JAAFARI: Give me one minute, please. Give me one minute. Give me one minute.

TONY JONES: Yes, OK. Alright.

BASHAR JAAFARI: Let me finish. Let me finish, please. By calling for the assassination of a head of state, that means he is a terrorist and he is calling – he is presenting himself as a terrorist. You may not be part of political talks aiming at bringing a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis and at the same time act as a thug and mobs.

TONY JONES: OK. So are you proposing – I mean, you’ve put forward a document entitled Basic Elements for a Political Solution. That is your document, your negotiating team’s document.

BASHAR JAAFARI: Indeed. Indeed.

TONY JONES: Are you proposing in that document that President Assad remain in charge of a transitional government for this transitional period that we’re talking about?

BASHAR JAAFARI: If you jump to this conclusion easily then why we are at Geneva? Why are we here? You are anticipating on everything. We are here to engage into a political process between the Syrians themselves. We don’t need to hear from anybody from outside how to proceed and how to form our national unity government, how to reconcile ourselves with the oppositions in plural. Here we are not talking about one faction. We are talking about all the oppositions in plural. So the future of Syria should be decided by the Syrians themselves. This is what the resolution says: Syrian-led political process without any foreign interference and without any preconditions. Everybody should understand the meaning of this magic sentence in the Resolution 2254.

TONY JONES: So without any preconditions, does that mean that you – your own delegation would, at some point, contemplate the possibility of President Assad stepping aside from the presidency to help create an atmosphere of peace?

BASHAR JAAFARI: Nobody has any right to anticipate on the final outcomes of the Syrian-Syrian talks. Any precondition is in itself a violation of the references of the Resolution 2254. So, nobody has the right to interfere into our domestic affairs and say who should govern Syria and who should be the president.

TONY JONES: So, does that mean you are open to the possibility of President Assad stepping aside?

BASHAR JAAFARI: I am not misinterpreting anything of what I have just said. I am saying that the future, our own future should be decided by the Syrians themselves. President Assad is not part of the resolution – the destiny President Assad is not part of the – of Resolution 2254. There is nothing in this literature and rhetorics and references adopted by the Security Council or the Vienna Declaration or the Munich Declaration that indicates anything about changing the President or changing the Government. Nobody has the right to change anything in Syria but the Syrians by themselves. We are not Somalia, we are not Libya, we are not Iraq, we are not Sudan. We are Syria.

TONY JONES: So does that include – does that include Russia, which of course is probably the most significant player outside of the Syrian delegations at these talks and it appears that there are serious reports now in fact that Russia is unhappy with the Syrian Government’s intransigence over the future of President Assad. They are prepared, so it is said, to offer him safe haven in Russia if he chooses to leave.

BASHAR JAAFARI: Sir, this is a wrong question. With all due respect, you cannot pose any kind of such, you know, question. You are yourself now misleading the public opinion by even providing such a scenario. Any – any scenario aiming at tailoring the future of Syria by foreigners is not acceptable by the Syrians. Number one. Number two, when you say that the Syrian people is – are asking this or that, did you consult the Syrian people? Did you organise a referendum? Did you seek the opinion of the Syrian people? How could you say that you are saying this on behalf of the Syrian people while you are not Syrian and you were not in Syria and you did not consult the Syrian people? Please, let us be responsible while using the terminology. The Syrian people is – is not a foreign – foreign matter. The Syrian people is a domestic matter for the Syrians themselves. Thank you so much.

TONY JONES: As we’ve seen – ambassador, as we’ve seen, the Syrian people are terribly divided. The country itself is split into a number of sections which may never be reconciled. Is one possibility that Syria must inevitably become three separate, possibly more than three separate, nations?

BASHAR JAAFARI: That will never happen, Sir. Take it from me, that will never happen. Once the Europeans and the Americans will leave their sanctions – economic sanctions imposed on the Syrian people, the Syrian people will not leave Syria. Once the so-called international community will take responsible steps to combating terrorism and make – exert pressure on the Turkish Government to stop these flows of terrorists crossing the border from Turkey inside Syria, Syria will be much better. Once the Syrian – the so-called international community will help Syria to overcome the burdens of combating terrorism, Syria will be much, much better. So there are important conditions that we need to fulfil if we really want to help the Syrians and to help Syria not being divided or separated into three or four or five, whatever, mini-states. That will never happen because we are a responsible government and we are implementing the Constitution. We have the duty to protect our country from all these hyenas and thugs and mobs. Thank you.

TONY JONES: Ambassador, you wouldn’t have a civil war in Syria if there wasn’t a significant proportion of your population that believed that President Assad is a dictator who has been repressing them for many years. So I’m asking you simply because I know that you know him: does President Assad personally believe that he can re-establish himself in power after five years of bitter conflict?

BASHAR JAAFARI: My friend, there is no civil war in Syria. I would strongly advise you and refer you to the WikiLeaks documents. The WikiLeaks documents prove that Washington instructed its ambassador in Damascus since 2004 to topple the Syrian Government by force. So please go back to the American documents called WikiLeaks and you will see that what we are suffering from nowadays was concocted since 2004, after the occupation of Iraq. Thank you so much.

TONY JONES: And very briefly – I know you’ve got to go, ambassador. Very briefly, this question about President Assad, does he personally believe that he can maintain himself in power after all this conflict?

BASHAR JAAFARI: The Syrian people will maintain him in power if the Syrian people wish to do so. It is not the business of foreigners to decide for the future of our president. It is a matter that is relevant to the – the will of the Syrian people. Of course it is a Syrian matter that will be decided by the Syrian people. So just give us a chance. Lift the sanctions, stop the terrorists from crossing the border from Turkey and Jordan and Israel, stop this support to the so-called moderate Syrian opposition while they are all foreigners and mercenaries, stop arming these terrorists and you will see that Syria will be much better and we will get back to you in a much better and fresh shape. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

TONY JONES: Ambassador Jaafari, we know that you need to race off to these talks and to other events.

BASHAR JAAFARI: I need – I need to leave, indeed. I need to leave.

TONY JONES: We thank you very much for taking the time to give us your perspective. Thank you.

BASHAR JAAFARI: Thank you.

It has been an enigma for me and others that Noam Chomsky seems to be blind to the covert war against Syria. One would normally assume that any Chomsky follower could see the US (and allies) hand behind the 'Arab Spring'. Chomsky had described the basic blue print. After investigating, for me, the only possible explanation for Chomsky not joining the dots in regard to Syria relates to his close friendship with Robert Fisk: Is Chomsky deferring to Fisk on matters related to Syria?

My political activism began in the late 1960s when my brother became a draft resister and a founding member of SDS in Melbourne. I also joined SDS.  One critical aspect of the anti-war efforts carried out by SDS was the printing and distribution of well-researched articles  For example, my brother once wrote a paper on the secret US bombing of Laos, and I remember its long reference list.  Noam Chomsky was always referenced. 

The hangman of Iraq was not content to kill tens of thousands of his own people. He came to Syria to carry out his favourite hobbies of killing, assassination and sabotage. That man has been sending arms for the criminals in Syria since he took power. 

The Syrian dissidents modus operandi will continue to be terrorism, particularly bombings and assassination. .. The covert war is unlikely to stop.. though there may be periodic lulls in the struggle. 

Although one must read a CIA report with a critical eye, it is interesting to note that according to the report the total casualties for the "Hama incident numbered about 2,000" (page 7 of the report).  This figure contradicts dramatically with that usually given by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

The following is some of the transcript from the latest episode of 20 March of RT's In The Now entitled "Trump Card". In the first part program host Host Annissa Naouai interviews Doctor Theodore Karasik a senior advisor of Gulf State Anaytics to discuss how the Syrian conlict may develop now that Russia has decided to withdraw most of its forces from Syria.

Much of the interview consists of a long ostensible explanation by Dr. Karasik of Saudi Arabia's actions in the conflict. The transcript of the end of the interview concludes in the paragraphs immediately below. Below, at the end of the article, is a #criticalResponse">critical response to that interview posted to that In the Now page.

#criticalResponse">Transcript of the conclusion of Annissa Naouai's interview with Dr. Theodore Karasik

04:18 Annissa Naouai (AN): Critics in the West were just pointing out how this was all just an attempt to bolster Assad. Putin's gotten in and out. How is Bashar al-Assad really feeling about Russia leaving Syria? You know, I mean, Syria doesn't really have many friends out there world at the moment.

04:32 Dr. Theodore Karasik (TK): I think that the Assad government is very interested in what happens next clearly. Russia is telling Assad that there must be movement on the political front in order to rectify the problems within Syria today and to come to a new state entity, if you will, that will govern the Syrian state.

This point is something that Moscow has driven home since the entry of Russia into Syria six months ago – that the political solution must come first and dealing with Islamic State in total, particularly in Raqqa, comes second. You can't have it the other way around.

Therefore, you see Russia pushing Assad to go along with this settlement discussion that's ongoing in Geneva. The big question, of course, is what about Assad's other friends, particularly in Tehran – and the Iranian reaction is this one that seems very positive, so far, but we need to be very careful about the dynamics within Iran and how various schools of thought will look at Russia's latest move and what that means for the settlement of Syria in the coming months and throughout the rest of the year.

06:07 AN: What about other key players like Saudi Arabia? Are they going to use this as an opportunity to make some moves? I assume in Tehren that could possibly be one of the options that is being discussed.

06:21 TK: I think what the Saudis are interested in the most is the protection of their interests in the Levant. I think that it's clear that Riyadh and other allies of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were taken by surprise with the Russian announcement of quote unquote 'withdrawal'. I think Riyadh also recognises that this gives an opportunity for a diplomatic solution. I don't think Riyadh wants to use the Islamic military alliance completely in full operation within the Levant, but, if push comes to shove, they will.

So I think that this is a moment for Saudi Arabia to decide how best to proceed diplomatically on trying to find a solution to Syria where Assad does leave and I think that all parties are beginning to agree that President Assad's days are numbered in his current position.

07:23 AN: Doctor Theodore Karasik, a senior advisor at Gulf State Analytics, thanks so much for being In The Now.

Response to the above Interview posted to "In the Now"

I thought that Russia's stance on President Bashar al-Assad is that only the Syrian people were entitled to decide on whether or not he was to be their President and for how long he would remain President. All the evidence, of which I am aware, shows that, even with all the killing, destruction and other hardships faced by Syrians since March 2011, the Syrian President remains immensely popular. In fact, he enjoys far more popularity than the leaders of purported democracies of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Israel and others that have criminally conspired against him. Probably the only national leader who can claim to be more popular than Bashar al-Assad is Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Syrians can count themselves lucky to have been led since March 2011 by such a capable and well-intentioned man as Bashar al-Assad.

I found outrageous the suggestion by your guest, Dr. Theodore Karasik, that a settlement of the Syrian crisis required that the Syrian President step down. By saying so, Dr. Karaz demonstrated ignorance at best, or contempt for the wishes of the Syrian people at worst.

Your failure to challenge Dr. Karasik's views is what I have come to expect of corporate mainstream 'journalists' in the West and not from RT.

Could I suggest that you look at the many interviews that the Syrian President has given to the newsmedia in recent years, including CBS's 60 Minutes of 2014, and compare his forthright and honest answers, to the most probing questions, to what was mouthed by Dr. Karasaik?

Were President Bashar al-Assad ever to find the time to appear on "In the Now" together with Dr. Karasik, he would easily be able to show him up for what he is and cut his arguments to ribbons. I wish more journalists were as capable as the Syrian President.

The Assembly pointed out that the timing of this declaration came as a reaction to the exclusion of Kurds from dialogue in Geneva, stressing that the Kurds constitute an important component of the Syrian society that cannot be excluded from the process of shaping the country’s future.

The statement noted that no party has the right to tamper with the form of state and its political system in a unilateral way and in an uncalculated, reaction manner, since such behavior constitutes a flagrant threat to the unity of the Syrian people and geography.

The Assembly said that the self-administration experience, even if it hides behind claims of democracy, is a reflection of the will of a singular component and constitutes an attempt to force others to comply with this will in order to impose a fait accompli.

The statement affirmed that declaration of the so-called “federal region in northern Syria” doesn’t express the will of millions of Syrians who stand by the Syrian Arab Army in its fight against terrorism to restore security and stability to the country.

The Assembly stressed that Syria’s future, form of state, and system of government cannot be subject to whims and short-sighted calculations, rather they are decided by the Syrian people, defined according to constitution, and protected by the will of the people and international laws.

The participants reiterated their rejection of any plot which undermines Syria’s unity, stressing that the residents of Hasaka province are united and will not permit any foreign schemes to pass.

They also called for enhancing national unity, adhering to Syria’s territorial integrity, rejecting federation, and intensifying efforts to combat terrorism and foil the conspiracy targeting Syria.