ISIS

On Wednesday April 1, 2015 at Yarmouk Palestinian camp in the outskirts of Damascus, a ceremony was held, organized by the Syrian Ministry of Reconciliation. However, the camp was attacked by elements from the nearby village of Hajar al-Aswad, allied with some ex-militants of Hamas who first joined the Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda) and who have now joined Daesh. [ISIS.]
During several hours, heavy fighting between Daesh and the various Palestinian militias, including their former comrades of Hamas. By late evening, the jihadists controlled most of the camp. But during the night, the Syrian Arab Army deployed reinforcements and Daesh withdrew completely.This article republished from Voltaire Network, 3 April 2015 Underneath is a second Voltaire.net article which alleges the presence of Israeli Mossad agents provocateur in Yarmouk.

The "Yarmuk" and "Palestine" camps are not tent camps or slums as in other Arab states, but concrete cities, built to Syrian standards. Traditionally, the Syrian Arab Republic administers them in link with Palestinian political parties.

At the end of 2012, militiamen loyal to Hamas Khaled Meshaal allowed jihadists from the Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda) and Israeli Mossad officers into the camp in an attempt to assassinate the leaders of Fatah and the PFLP [#nb1" class="spip_note" rel="footnote" title="“Mossad agents in the Al-Qaeda unit that attacked the Yarmouk camp”, Voltaire (...)" id="nh1">1] . The Syrian Arab Republic immediately, via SMS, called the 160 000 inhabitants to flee. 120,000 of them had been relocated within 48 hours in schools and hotels of the capital. The Syrian Arab Army had then stormed the camp with the support of the Palestinian Authority. Ultimately, as a result of heavy fighting and a terrible siege, a political agreement had led to "freeze" the camp where 18 000 people remained. Yesterday’s ceremony should have marked the reconciliation between firstly the Syrian Arab Republic, the PFLP and Fatah and the other branch of Hamas and the al-Nosra elements.

For two years, Palestinian groups opposed to the Syrian Arab Republic attacked any food supply convoys entering the camp, confiscated the goods and then sold them at 3.5 times their price to the other inhabitants of the camp. To feed itself the population is thus forced to join these groups which then pay them a salary in dollars.

The Gulf press has launched a propaganda campaign accusing the Syrian Arab Army of starving and bombing the Palestinians, as Israel does in Gaza.

Syria is the only Arab state to provide absolute legal equality for Palestinians and free access to its schools, its universities and its social services. Several generals of the Syrian Arab Army are Palestinians.

Translation: Roger Lagassé

Mossad agents in the Al-Qaeda unit that attacked the Yarmouk camp

Source: http://www.voltairenet.org/article177039.html Voltaire Network | 2 January 2013.

The battle that raged starting December 9 in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp (south of Damascus) has revealed new alliances.

The strategic objective was to involve Palestinians in the war in Syria, mobilizing them on a sectarian basis (they are mostly Sunni) against the secular regime. But the refugees did not allow themselves to be manipulated, no more than in Lebanon in 2007, when the mercenaries of Fatah al-Islam tried to mobilize the Palestinians of Nahr el-Bared against Hezbollah.

Elements of Hamas loyal to Meshaal allowed fighters of the Al-Nousra Front (Levantine branch of Al-Qaeda) to enter the camp where they mainly clashed with men of the PFLP (nationalists and Marxists).

It now appears that the al-Qaeda fighters were not only made up of Muslim extremists, but also included Israeli Mossad agents. They had specific plans to corner the leaders of other Palestinian factions and eliminate them. Not finding them, they allowed the other members of Al-Qaida to systematically loot the empty apartments of these leaders.

After a week of heavy fighting, elements of al-Qaida, Mossad-included, retreated and the camp was declared a "neutral zone." Of the 180 000 inhabitants, about 120,000 had fled the camp at the request of the Syrian authorities and were relocated by them to Damascus.

Video and transcript inside: Three days ago I heard a casual report, lasting maybe two lines, on SBS or ABC news, that ISIS militants had taken over a suburb of Damascus six kilometers from the Presidential Palace. Although this sounded really awful, the lack of detail was suspicious. One could imagine the United States using such a half-baked report as an excuse to attack the area from the air and kill the Syrian president, so I tried to find out more by going outside Australian and US/NATO news sources. The Syrian government has since driven ISIS out of the area. [1] Below this introduction is a video interview with Alaa Ibrahim, and my transcript of it. From Voltaire.net [1] I learned were that Yamouk refugee 'camp' is not a camp with tents but a fully fledged built-up suburb of Damascus, mostly inhabited by Palestinian refugees, to whom Syria grants full rights to housing, free education and health, like ordinary citizens. Palestine, as readers would be aware, no longer exists on the map, but it used to be next door to Syria, on its southern border, in the area now occupied by Israel. Syria is the only Arab state that provides legal equality to Palestinians and it administers their areas in conjunction with Palestinian leaders. Something like seven million of Syria's population before the current war were refugees from, as well as Palestine, the nearby war-torn states, notably Iraq. (It is amazing that the Australian refugee advocate movement and our anti-war movement - such as it is - does not appear to have realised this.)

On 2 April 2015, political analyst Alaa Ibrahim was interviewed by RT news about how Islamic State fighters seized Yarmouk Refugee area in South Damascus, 6.4km from the city center.

Alaa Ibrahim: "We now have an effective ISIS presence in that area. The camp has been under rebel control since 2012 and it has been under the control of two rebel factions, ... ? and Moktus. Two of these groups have very radical Islamic ideology, but nonetheless, the presence of ISIL has a political significance because it is the first time we have seen a stronghold of ISIL (or ISIS) so close to the Syrian capital.

Yarmouk has been the closest point the rebels have ever got to the Syrian capital, Damascus. If you have a look at the geography of the place, areas around the Yarmouk camp which were all under the control of rebels, have recently in the past few months had signed settlements - which the Syrian government calls a 'national reconciliation agreement' - between the Syrian Government and the local rebel factions in these areas and, as a result the Syrian government has fortified its presence south of Damascus and further secured the perimeter of the capital.

The only real chance to achieve a breach in this perimeter of Damascus is through the Yarmouk area. The Syrian government has been avoiding attacking the Yarmouk camp because it knows many - estimates say between 15 and 20,000 - Palestinian refugees live in that area, so it would be a political embarassment for the Syrian government if it carries attacks there and surely civilians would die as a result of these attacks so I think they [Syrian Government] decided to avoid the camp, which created a weak point in their parameter around the capital, Damascus.

Also, there's another development that comes into play: the fact that the Nusra Front, which is very strong in the camp, wanted to fortify its position against the other rebel factions, so it brought in ISIL in a rear alliance between the two organisations, hoping to prevent any local rebel factions from signing any agreement or agreeing with the Syrian government to surrender or give the camp back to the control of the Syrian government."

Interviewer: " The logistics of what has happened aside, what is it going to mean for these many thousands - as you've just been saying - of the refugees inside this camp? What's it going to mean for their safety and security? "

Alaa Ibrahim: "Well, they don't have a very good situation to begin with. The camp is completely dependent on humanitarian aid delivered to the camp on a monthly basis by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees ... and by the Syrian government. The situation in the camp was very bad to begin with. There is an infestation of diseases ..."

Interviewer interrupting: "Are they safe from ISIS?"

Alaa Ibrahim: "No, they're not safe from ISIS/ISIL. They were not safe in the first place, when they lived under battling rebel factions, including al Queida and Syrian Muslim Front."

[1] ISIS driven out of the area per a report from Voltaire Network, 3 April 2015, republished at http://candobetter.net/node/4354.

Originally published under the title of "Iran's deputy FM: Yemen's president uses terrorists to fight rebels," this is the transcript, with links to the video, of Sophie Shevardnadze's interview with Iran Deputy Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The beginning of the video is particularly instructive, as Hossein Amir-Abdollahian gives a run-down on what is happening from Iran's very close perspective. Among other things, it becomes clear that Iran does not believe that the United States is trying to stop IS. Saudi Arabia has said that it is going to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it will not let this happen. It also says that it will not let Syria fall. The Minister says that the reason the United States wants to wreck Syria is that then it will have destroyed the main Russian foothold in the Middle East and that will allow the United States to dominate the region and maintain world hegemony. See also this Crosstalk episode where US realpolitik intentions and consequences and rhetoric are discussed in a very informed manner, particularly in relation to Yemen.

Iran's deputy FM: Yemen's president uses terrorists to fight rebels

Date of publication on RT at http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/245101-yemen-terrorists-rebels-isis/ March 30, 2015 08:30.

Transcript and Video

Yemen has turned into another battlefield, raging across the region. ISIS is prospering on the ruins of state. The flames of war grow brighter with Saudi Arabia and its allies joining the combat on the side of the Yemen’s government forces. But is that a solution? Hasn’t the method of intervention discredited itself - just inspiring more violence? We look at the issue with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Sophie&Co.

Follow @SophieCo_RT

This article by Professor Tim Anderson was previously published on Global Research on 8 Mar 2015. See also: US war on ISIS is a Trojan Horse (7/3/15) and Washington's Al Qaeda Ally Now Leading ISIS in Libya (9/3/15) by Tony Cartalucci. Reports that US and British aircraft carrying arms to ISIS have been shot down by Iraqi forces have been met with shock and denial in western countries. Few in the Middle East doubt that Washington is playing a 'double game' with its proxy armies in Syria, but some key myths remain important amongst the significantly more ignorant western audiences.

A central myth is that Washington now arms 'moderate Syrian rebels', to both overthrow the Syrian Government and supposedly defeat the 'extremist rebels'. This claim became more important in 2014, when the rationale of US aggression against Syria shifted from 'humanitarian intervention' to a renewal of Bush's 'war on terror'.

A distinct controversy is whether the al Qaeda styled groups (especially Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS) have been generated as a sort of organic reaction to the repeated US interventions, or whether they are actually paid agents of Washington.

Certainly, prominent ISIS leaders were held in US prisons. ISIS leader, Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) is said to have been held for between one and two years at Camp Bucca in Iraq. In 2006, as al-Baghdadi and others were released, the Bush administration announced its plan for a 'New Middle East', a plan which would employ sectarian violence as part of a process of 'creative destruction' in the region.

According to Seymour Hersh's 2007 article, 'The Redirection', the US would make use of 'moderate Sunni states', not least the Saudis, to 'contain' the Shia gains in Iraq brought about by the 2003 US invasion. These 'moderate Sunni' forces would carry out clandestine operations to weaken Iran and Hezbollah, key enemies of Israel. This brought the Saudis and Israel closer, as both fear Iran.

While there have been claims that the ISIS 'caliph' al-Baghdadi is a CIA or Mossad trained agent, these have not yet been well backed up. There are certainly grounds for suspicion, but independent evidence is important, in the context of a supposed US 'war' against ISIS . So what is the broader evidence on Washington's covert links with ISIS?

Not least are the admissions by senior US officials that key allies support the extremist group. In September 2014 General Martin Dempsey, head of the US military, told a Congressional hearing 'I know major Arab allies who fund [ ISIS ]'. Senator Lindsey Graham, of Armed Services Committee, responded with a justification, 'They fund them because the Free Syrian Army couldn't fight [Syrian President] Assad, they were trying to beat Assad'.

The next month, US Vice President Joe Biden went a step further, explaining that Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia 'were so determined to take down Assad ... they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad ... [including] al Nusra and al Qaeda and extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world ... [and then] this outfit called ISIL'. Biden's admissions sought to exempt the US from this operation, as though Washington were innocent of sustained operations carried out by its key allies. That is simply not credible.

Washington's relationship with the Saudis, as a divisive sectarian force in the region, in particular against Arab nationalism, goes back to the 1950s, when Winston Churchill introduced the Saudi King to President Eisenhower. At that time Washington wanted to set up the Saudi King as a rival to President Nasser of Egypt. More recently, British General Jonathan Shaw has acknowledged the contribution of Saudi Arabia's extremist ideology: 'This is a time bomb that, under the guise of education. Wahhabi Salafism is igniting under the world really. And it is funded by Saudi and Qatari money', Shaw said.

Other evidence undermines western attempts to maintain a distinction between the 'moderate rebels', now openly armed and trained by the US, and the extremist groups Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS. While there has indeed been some rivalry (emphasised by the London-based, Muslim Brotherhood-aligned, Syrian Observatory of Human Rights), the absence of real ideological difference is best shown by the cooperation and mergers of groups.

As ISIS came from Iraq in 2013, its Syrian bases have generally remained in the far eastern part of Syria. However Jabhat al Nusra (the official al Qaeda branch in Syria, from which ISIS split) has collaborated with Syrian Islamist groups in western Syria for several years. The genocidal slogan of the Syrian Islamists, 'Christians to Beirut and Alawis to the Grave', reported many times in 2011 from the Farouk Brigade, sat well with the al Qaeda groups. Farouk (once the largest 'Free Syrian Army' group) indeed killed and ethnically cleansed many Christians and Alawis.

Long term cooperation between these 'moderate rebels' and the foreign-led Jabhat al-Nusra has been seen around Daraa in the south, in Homs-Idlib, along the Turkish border and in and around Aleppo. The words Jabhat al Nusra actually mean 'support front', that is, support for the Syrian Islamists. Back in December 2012, as Jabhat al Nusra was banned in various countries, 29 of these groups reciprocated the solidarity in their declaration: 'We are all Jabhat al-Nusra'.

After the collapse of the 'Free Syrian Army' groups, cooperation between al Nusra and the newer US and Saudi backed groups (Dawud, the Islamic Front, the Syrian Revolutionary Front and Harakat Hazm) helped draw attention to Israel's support for al Nusra, around the occupied Golan Heights. Since 2013 there have been many reports of 'rebel' fighters, including those from al Nusra, being treated in Israeli hospitals. Prime Minister Netanyahu even publicised his visit to wounded 'rebels' in early 2014. That led to a public 'thank you' from a Turkey-based 'rebel' leader, Mohammed Badie (February 2014).

The UN peacekeeping force based in the occupied Golan has reported its observations of Israel's Defence Forces 'interacting with' al Nusra fighters at the border. At the same time, Israeli arms have been found with the extremist groups, in both Syria and Iraq. In November 2014 members of the Druze minority in the Golan protested against Israel's hospital support for al Nusra and ISIS fighters. This in turn led to questions by the Israeli media, as to whether ' Israel does, in fact, hospitalize members of al-Nusra and Daesh [ISIS]'. A military spokesman's reply was hardly a denial: 'In the past two years the Israel Defence Forces have been engaged in humanitarian, life-saving aid to wounded Syrians, irrespective of their identity.'

The artificial distinction between 'rebel' and 'extremist' groups is mocked by multiple reports of large scale defections and transfer of weapons. In July 2014 one thousand armed men in the Dawud Brigade defected to ISIS in Raqqa. In November defections to Jabhat al Nusra from the Syrian Revolutionary Front were reported. In December, Adib Al-Shishakli, representative at the Gulf Cooperation Council of the exile ' Syrian National Coalition', said 'opposition fighters' were 'increasingly joining' ISIS 'for financial reasons'. In that same month, 'rebels' in the Israel-backed Golan area were reported as defecting to ISIS, which had by this time began to establish a presence in Syria's far south. Then, in early 2015, three thousand 'moderate rebels' from the US-backed 'Harakat Hazzm' collapsed into Jabhat al Nusra, taking a large stock of US arms including anti-tank weapons with them.

ISIS already had US weapons by other means, in both Iraq and Syria , as reported in July, September and October 2014. At that time a 'non aggression pact' was reported in the southern area of Hajar al-Aswad between 'moderate rebels' and ISIS, as both recognised a common enemy in Syria: 'the Nussayri regime', a sectarian way of referring to supposedly apostate Muslims. Some reported ISIS had bought weapons from the 'rebels'.

In December 2014 there were western media reports of the US covert supply of heavy weapons to 'Syrian rebels' from Libya, and of Jabhat al-Nusra getting anti-tank weapons which had been supplied to Harakat Hazm. Video posted by al-Nusra showed these weapons being used to take over the Syrian military bases, Wadi Deif and Hamidiyeh, in Idlib province.

With 'major Arab allies' backing ISIS and substantial collaboration between US-armed 'moderate rebels' and ISIS, it is not such a logical stretch to suppose that the US and 'coalition' flights to ISIS areas (supposedly to 'degrade' the extremists) might have become covert supply lines. That is precisely what senior Iraqi sources began saying, in late 2014 and early 2015.

For example, as reported by both Iraqi and Iranian media, Iraqi MP Majid al-Ghraoui said in January that 'an American aircraft dropped a load of weapons and equipment to the ISIS group militants at the area of al-Dour in the province of Salahuddin'. Photos were published of ISIS retrieving the weapons. The US admitted the seizure but said this was a 'mistake'. In February Iraqi MP Hakem al-Zameli said the Iraqi army had shot down two British planes which were carrying weapons to ISIS in al-Anbar province. Again, photos were published of the wrecked planes. 'We have discovered weapons made in the US , European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL's control in Al-Baqdadi region', al-Zameli said.

The Al-Ahad news website quoted Head of Al-Anbar Provincial Council Khalaf Tarmouz saying that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province. Also in February an Iraqi militia called Al-Hashad Al-Shabi said they had shot down a US Army helicopter carrying weapons for the ISIL in the western parts of Al-Baqdadi region in Al-Anbar province. Again, photos were published. After that, Iraqi counter-terrorism forces were reported as having arrested 'four foreigners who were employed as military advisors to the ISIL fighters', three of whom were American and Israeli. So far the western media has avoided these stories altogether; they are very damaging to the broader western narrative.

In Libya, a key US collaborator in the overthrow of the Gaddafi government has announced himself the newly declared head of the 'Islamic State' in North Africa. Abdel Hakim Belhaj was held in US prisons for several years, then 'rendered' to Gaddafi's Libya, where he was wanted for terrorist acts. As former head of the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, then the Tripoli-based 'Libyan Dawn' group, Belhaj has been defended by Washington and praised by US Congressmen John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

Some image softening of the al Qaeda groups is underway. Jabhat al-Nusra is reported to be considering cutting ties to al Qaeda, to help sponsor Qatar boost their funding. Washington's Foreign Affairs magazine even published a survey claiming that ISIS fighters were 'surprisingly supportive of democracy'. After all the well published massacres that lacks credibility.

The Syrian Army is gradually reclaiming Aleppo, despite the hostile supply lines from Turkey, and southern Syria, in face of support for the sectarian groups from Jordan and Israel. The border with Lebanon is largely under Syrian Army and Hezbollah control. In the east, the Syrian Army and its local allies control most of Hasaka and Deir e-Zour, with a final campaign against Raqqa yet to come. The NATO-GCC attempt to overthrow the Syrian Government has failed.

Yet violent destabilisation persists. Evidence of the covert relationship between Washington and ISIS is substantial and helps explain what Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad calls Washington's 'cosmetic war' on ISIS. The extremist group is a foothold Washington keeps in the region, weakening both Syria and Iraq . Their 'war' on ISIS is ineffective. Studies by Jane's Terrorism and Insurgent database show that ISIS attacks and killings in Iraq increased strongly after US air attacks began. The main on the ground fighting has been carried out by the Syrian Army and, more recently, the Iraqi armed forces with Iranian backing.

All this has been reported perversely in the western media. The same channels that celebrate the ISIS killing of Syrian soldiers also claim the Syrian Army is 'not fighting ISIS'. This alleged 'unwillingness' was part of the justification for US bombing inside Syria. While it is certainly the case that Syrian priorities have remained in the heavily populated west, local media reports make it clear that, since at least the beginning of 2014, the Syrian Arab Army has been the major force engaged with ISIS in Hasaka, Raqqa and Deir eZour. A March 2015 Reuters report does concede that the Syrian Army recently killed two ISIS commanders (including Deeb Hedjian al-Otaibi) along with 24 fighters, at Hamadi Omar.

Closer cooperation between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah is anathema to Israel, the Saudis and Washington, yet it is happening. This is not a sectarian divide but rather based on some clear mutual interests, not least putting an end to sectarian (takfiri) terrorism.

It was only logical that, in the Iraqi military's recent offensive on ISIS-held Tikrit, the Iranian military emerged as Iraq's main partner. Washington has been sidelined, causing consternation in the US media. General Qasem Suleimani, head of Iran's Quds Force is a leading player in the Tikrit operation. A decade after Washington's 'creative destruction' plans, designed to reduce Iranian influence in Iraq, an article in Foreign Policy magazine complains that Iran's influence is 'at its highest point in almost four centuries'.

—

Select references

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya (2006) Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a 'New Middle East'

Seymour Hersh (2007) The Redirection

Al Akhbar (2011) Syria: What Kind of Revolution?

The New Yorker (2013) Syrian Opposition Groups Stop Pretending

RT (2014) Anyone but US! Biden blames allies for ISIS rise

Iraqi News (2015) American aircraft dropped weapons to ISIS, says MP

Washington Post (2015) Syrian rebel group that got U.S. aid dissolves

David Kenner (2015) For God and Country, and Iran, Foreign Policy

Reuters (2015) Syrian air strike kills two Islamic State commanders/p>

The Pentagon has issued an official statement saying Iran has conducted air strikes against the Islamic State, but Iran denies this. The minister says this is "psychological warfare intended to antagonize Muslims in the region. We support the people of Iraq and Syria in their fight against the Islamic State by offering organizational and advisory assistance. And we do this openly. Why? Because these are extremist and criminal groups operating against the people of Iraq and Syria. We oppose them and consider them to be a threat to the entire region. But air strikes can’t be effective, and we don’t conduct them. He also denies any problems with Iran's sunnis. [...] We don’t trust the Americans. We think it’s the US that helps breed these extremist groups in the region. They arm, finance and train them. That’s why we feel that this US-led coalition is a puppet show that won’t yield any results. The Islamic State fights a guerrilla war on a vast territory in desert terrain, that’s why air strikes are a non-starter. We think that the only way is to mobilize the people, and we’ve seen some good progress when the militants were forced to retreat and leave the cities they previously captured." (Article's original source is "Iran interior minister: US bred ISIS, now tries to fight them with useless airstrikes" on SophieCo, RT.

Sophie Shevarnadze: Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Interior Minister of Iran. Thank you very much for joining us.

Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli: You are welcome.

Story ₁ includes video (9:50).

See also:
People of Ayn al-Arab regain control of cultural center and 48th Street (17/10/14) and People of Ayn al-Arab repel new ISIS assault, recapture more areas (18/10/14) from SANA and Mythology and The Islamist State (18/10/14) by William Blum on Global Research.

Update, 17 Oct 14: from Syrian Free Press and RT: Kurdish forces repel Daash-ISIL mercenaries from Kobani. See Appendix.

In an interview, conducted with Press TV on October 15, 2014 Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya explains in the reasons behind the ISIL (also known as ISIS) attack on the Syrian town of Kobani (Ain al-Arab) in the Syrian Kurdish autonomous region. Mahdi shows that the supposed campaign of bombardment against ISIS is illusory, with few bombs being dropped on ISIS fighters and far more being dropped on Syrian infrastructure. Turkey, whilst pretending to oppose ISIS is supporting ISIS against the Syrian Kurds to the point of provoking mass unrest against the Turkish government in which 40 Turkish Kurds have died.

Female Kurdish fighter featured in the film

Towards the end of the video, although the fighting around Kobani looks grim in many ways, Mahdi reminds us that Syria has many friends in the world. As well as people of good will in the West, there are the governments of Iran, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, many Latin American countries and the resistance movement, Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

#KurdishVictory" id="KurdishVictory">Kurdish forces repel ISIS from Kobani - RT sources

Footnote[s]

#fnKobani1" id="fnKobani1">1.#txtKobani1">↑  Previously published on Global Research as Nazemroaya: Crushing Kobani's Kurds is a Prerequisite to an Invasion of Syria. This was apparently only published on the front page of Global Research. Unlike other stories published on Global Research, this story does not seem to appear on a separate page. The YouTube page is here. - Ed.

There is no reasoning with an empire waging a world war of deception

By Larry Chin. Republished from Global Research, October 05, 2014

On September 24, 2014, the United Nations passed a resolution paving the way to open-ended "anti-terror" warfare against the Islamic State (IS), the "network of death", promising a war that will "last for years". The "war on the Islamic State" is a lie. It is the same fetid Big Lie that is the "war on terrorism", reheated and updated with new, bloodier special effects, new propaganda, a familiar but revised cast of demonic villains and a new military attack calendar.

Three thousand lives were sacrificed on 9/11 for the fabricated "war on terrorism" against "Al-Qaeda" and Osama bin Laden. Now, thirteen years of continuous imperial onslaught and tens of thousands of deaths and atrocities later, the "Islamic State" escalation will topple Syria, Iran, transform Iraq, and provide yet another pretext to wreak havoc anywhere else the empire wishes.

But it is the same lie, built on the same propaganda cornerstones: the myth of the "outside enemy", the threat of "Islamic terror", eternal pretexts to galvanize public opinion behind an Anglo-American agenda of conquest and war that will never end.

It is the same lie, founded upon the idea that "Islamic terrorists" are enemies of the West, when, in amply documented fact, these terrorists are the West's finest foot soldiers and military-intelligence assets.

The Islamic State, like Al-Qaeda and all entities that comprise the "Islamic Jihad" is a creation of the CIA and Anglo-American intelligence (Pakistan's ISI, Saudi intelligence, British MI6, the Israeli Mossad, etc.). The various jihadist militias and military-intelligence assets and fronts–IS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusrah, etc. are "American made", openly supported and utilized by the United States and its allies, as they have been continuously from the Cold War to this very second. These forces are carefully manipulated and guided weapons for US-NATO. Terrorists are instrumental to the ongoing US-led covert and overt operations in Syria. Terrorists run by the US and CIA destabilized and toppled Libya, are integral to coming regime changes. Under both direct and indirect orders of US-NATO sponsors and handlers, these "demon hordes" are, and will continue to be, the leading military-intelligence assets behind every major geostrategic action in the region.

The IS joins Al-Qaeda as today's favorite "boogeyman" target. The war masks the true intent, which is the toppling of Syria and Iran, and onward.

The "terrorists" are depicted in propaganda as either villains or "freedom fighters", depending on the day and the military theater. The horrific acts of the death squads, including beheadings and other atrocities, are standard operating procedure in CIA black operations, terror techniques going back to the Vietnam War and the Phoenix Program, and are done upon orders of US and US-allied military-intelligence. Decapitations of Syrian civilians have been ongoing for years, to media silence. The recent spate of beheadings of Americans and British have been selectively carried out (and in some cases staged) for propaganda purposes. Political theater designed to galvanize the dimwitted, ignorant masses to support massive retaliatory war.

According to recent polls, four out of five registered American voters overwhelmingly support military attacks against the Islamic State. The acquiescent, ignorant American masses, still irretrievably pacified by the propaganda "shock and fear" effect of 9/11, enthusiastically back any "retaliation" against "bad guys who cut off heads" and "threaten America", and have no problem sending American youth to the front lines to be cannon fodder. They are "defending freedom". The American sheeple believe–even love to believe–the Big Lie. Whereas the citizens of Hong Kong and in other countries take passionately to the streets to fight for their democracy, the average American has long abdicated his and her duty as an informed, vigilant citizen. Far too busy shooting nude selfies on handheld gadgets–their brains addled by inane entertainment, and Hollywood celebrations of the national security apparatus–to care.

So-called liberals and progressives also back action against the Islamic State. The few who have any inkling that Islamic terror is a product of the US war machine wind up wringing their sweaty hands over the red herring of "blowback": the tired idea that the US created but lost control of a Jihadist force that it now must contain. It is bogus. These militias are the American empire's key foot soldiers and operatives, the leading force behind plans to topple Syria, just as they were in Libya. This is not blowback, but a well orchestrated military-intelligence operation, cloaked beneath a criminal conspiracy that is maintained by an ironclad elite consensus.

Islamic terrorism "stops" the minute that its sponsors at CIA, MI, ISI, etc. stop using it. The war itself stops when the elites who have planned this Final Solution to seize control of the last remaining oil supplies on the planet–the very life blood of the Anglo-American empire–stop, and give up their war of conquest and greed. The entire apparatus collapses. But this will not happen in this lifetime. Not even in the event of planetary calamity.

To threaten humanity, to pretend to wage war against boogeyman that they themselves created, and continue to support and use: only those of world class evil could conceive of and carry out this horror.

The American network of death goose-steps to the abyss

With each passing day, more of the Anglo-American empire's veneer falls away, revealing the violence at its core.

Leading the charge in front of the United Nations, the mendacious President Barack Obama thundered:

"No God condones this terror. There can be no reasoning–no negotiation–with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force."

Here was a performance directly out of the playbook of the Third Reich and Bush/Cheney, brimming with threats, false morality, pseudo-religious claptrap, and invective directed against the perceived enemies. Here was Obama being who he really is, a war criminal. The ghost of Hitler has to be envious.

No God condones deceit. No God condones the terror of the Anglo-American empire's war of conquest. No God condones the extermination of tens of thousands of lives in more than a decade of imperial conquest for oil.

There is no reasoning–no negotiation–with the criminal leadership of an empire that will thrash and kill to the brink of extinction. There is no reasoning–no negotiation–warmongers who have wiped out entire swaths of humanity.

There is no reasoning–no negotiation– with an empire so desperate and out of answers that gangsterism replaces the rule of law, and false flag operations constitute foreign policy. There is no reasoning with those who could, in the span of just a few months, set off false flag destabilizations in Syria, false flag operations in support of a neo-Nazi cabal in Ukraine, plan and cover up the false flag shootdown of Flight MH-17 (blamed on Russia), support the bombing and conquest of Gaza by Israel (blamed on Hamas, in the wake of the murder of Israeli teenagers by ISIL terrorists), and set off the "sudden" rise of the Islamic State.

There is no reasoning–no negotiation– with an empire that must and will stop at nothing to control every inch of the Eurasian subcontinent, and destroy all opposition along the way, including potential nuclear confrontations with Russia and China.

There is no reasoning–no negotiation– with the functionaries and enablers of this empire–in governments, in media, everywhere. There is also no reasoning–no negotiation– with the cognitively impaired sheeple.

There is no reasoning–no negotiation– with the killers, the world planning orchestrators speaking the "language of force"; these "great men and women" who hold humanity in contempt.

There is, indeed, no reasoning–no negotiation–with this brand of evil.

From PressTV News Videos YouTube Channel

"The last people who should be returning to the scene of their former crimes are Britain, France and the United States of America." Those words were said by George Galloway, a British MP during a debate in the lead up to a vote on the UK participating in airstrikes in Iraq against ISIL. It came as no surprise that the vote went through, though concerns remain about how the very countries involved in the 2003 Iraq War and subsequent chaos which helped in forming ISIL, can beat their own Frankenstein. In this edition of the debate we ask: was the mission a never-ending creation of pretexts, however false, in order to justify an unending war in Iraq?

"In Paris this week [week of September 20], the great and the gruesome came together to discuss the existential threat of ISIS, but the two countries actually doing something meaningful about that threat - Syria and Iran - were of course not invited. Confused? You won't be after you have heard our first guest, Hasib Risby, a commentator on the region and part of digital resistance." A very clear analysis of what is happening with ISIS, Syria, Iran, and the US in the Middle East, by George Galloway and Gayatri Pertiwi with Haseeb Rizvi. The original program (with no transcript) is at http://rt.com/shows/sputnik/189028-isis-summit-paris-uk/

GALLOWAY: A state of total confusion reigns in the western capitals about what to do about the catastrophe unfolding in Syria and in Iraq. The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, rules out Britain going back to war in Iraq and is instantly repudiated by David Cameron. Still, at time of recording (September 20, 2014), who insists that 'all options remain open'.

GAYATRI: In the US, things are no more clear. There, the commander in chief of the US military, President Obama, is impudently contradicted by the top military brass. The president says that there will be absolutely no American boots on the ground. And yet, the generals, including the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that there will be, in fact, boots on the ground, if necessary.

GALLOWAY: Cameron claims he can bomb ISIS in Syria from over Syrian airspace, without the permission of the Syrian government. The said Syrian government is armed and dangerous and entirely within its legal rights to shoot down any and all military aircraft over their territory, and has the military hardware to do so.

GAYATRI: Neither the US nor the UK governments who, some argue, caused the disaster in the first place, have any intention of helping the actual government of Iraq - a government only in power because of them. And they won't even deliver to Bagdad the weapons and planes they have already paid for, even though ISIS is at the gates.

GALLOWAY: In Paris this week [week of September 20], the great and the gruesome came together to discuss the existential threat of ISIS, but the two countries actually doing something meaningful about that threat - Syria and Iran - were of course not invited. Confused? You won't be after you have heard our first guest, Hasib Risby, a commentator on the region and part of digital resistance.

Haseeb, welcome to the show. Tell the viewers, first of all, how things are on the ground now, in Iraq. What territory does ISIS hold? Who's fighting them? Are there any indications of a change in the military situation on the ground?

HASEEB: So the situation varies from parts to parts, but primarily, we're talking about north east Syria and north west Iraq being under heavy ISIS influence. Not necessarily blanket control, but heavy segments of those areas. And, within those areas that they have control [over] there's various battles taking place along the borders of those regions that they control. So, for example, they're fighting with Kurds, they're fighting against other Syrian rebel groups, such as Al-Nusra and the Islamic Front, as well as, I think, the Free Syrian army as well. And, towards Iraq, they're fighting, obviously, the Iraqi armed forces as well as Shia militias that are defending their territory against further ISIS expansion. So, at the moment, ISIS are involved in a lot of battles. They're fighting quite a few people at the same time, to be honest. And the recent kind of resurgence of the Iraqi armed forces as well as from the US airstrikes and stuff has prevented futher expansion, but they are showing no sign of stopping. And that's kind of worrying. They seem to be still going about their day to day exectuions in a very kind of sophisticated, well-planned manner.

GALLOWAY: And they're still controlling major Iraqi cities.

HASEEB: Absolutely. And, you know, in Syria, for example, in the city of Ah-Raqqah [1], they more or less run the show there completely.

GALLOWAY: Which is thought to be the place where they're carrying out these hidious executions of foreigners.

HASEEB: Yeah, yeah. That part and various border towns between Iraq and Syria, where there is, you know, very loose control of anything, is where they'are operating, and they have pretty good control over those areas.

GALLOWAY: Now you mentoned the US airstrikes. I've seen US air strikes. I've seen them in Vietnam, I've seen them in Cambodia, I've seen them in the Iraq war, I've seen them in Afghanistan. These are not meaningful US airstrikes. Which leads me to wonder why? If the United States was really as concerned about ISIS as they say they are and that we should be, they would be bombing them a lot more seriously than they are. These are very desultory, very occasional, and very small airstrikes. Why?

HASEEB: Absolutely. And, you know, adding on to what you're saying, they should have reacted much sooner, one would imagine. It's taken this long for them to react to it, whilst previous prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki,[3] was constantly pleading to America for support against the growing threat of militancy in his country, but it fell on deaf ears, basically. What you see is as soon as for example, ISIS started threatening the Kurdish region, is when America suddenly started taking things more seriously -

GALLOWAY: Only there, in the Kurdish region, where their oil interests are -

HASEEB: Where their oil interests are -

GALLOWAY: And where they want to break Iraq up!

HASEEB: Well, there you go. It's a strategic place for them, Kurdistan, because, you know, they've got ties with Israel, and you've heard storied about Kurdistan selling oil to Israel, just a matter of weeks after ISIS took over and stuff like that, completely illegally. But you see that America and the west in general, only reacted then. Not when 2000 or so Shia army cadets were massacred

GALLOWAY: Why can't the regional players sort this matter out themselves?

HASEEB: What you have at the moment is these very confused blurred lines that exist where, whilst Saudi Arabia and all these countries, essentially, went to Paris for a deal, were the ones that essentially that kind of allowed ISIS to exist in the first place, through turning a blind eye to money and weapons being trafficked to them. And now they realise that it's going to come back to bite them. So now they're trying to react, but it's a bit too late, because the people inside these countries, already, inside Saudi Arabia, inside Qatar, they've been fed the sectarian rhetoric already. So they buy the ISIS line very easily, You see already, in places like Jourdan and Saudi Arabia, many ISIS flags have been raised, and there are a lot of people

GAYATRI: So the opposite of feeling threatened?

HASEEB: Exactly, so, to be honest with you, Saudi Arabia, any of these Gulf states, to try and intervene militarily against ISIS will just be counter-productive as well, just as much as it would be for the US to do so. Which then makes it another sticky situation. If Iran and Syria were the only ones to kind of attack ISIS, then it becomes, 'Oh, the Shias are attacking Sunnis!'

GALLOWAY: Hasib, there's a state of confusion. There's no Islamic State, but there's a state of confusion reigning over all this. I mean, even in ontological terms. What exactly are ISIS? Who are they? What do they want?

HASEEB: ISIS... if you try and simplify what they are, essentially is a collection of ruthless, angry and violent individuals that have come together under a false notion of, you know, a 'califphate',[4] under some sort of illusion that they're trying to do a good thing for the world. And their ethos essentially is something that has been fed by something that has been prevalent in Saudi Arabia for so long, under the teachings of Wahhabism and Salafism. And I understand, obviously that not all Wahhabis and not all Salafis are as extreme as ISIS,

GALLOWAY: - Of course not -

HASEEB: However, the fundamentals behind these sects have really spurred on the kind of ideological principles for why ISIS go about doing the things that they do. And further more, it's like, it seem that they've kind of tried to go one above Al Qaeda, with their ruthlessness. They've decided, you know, 'We're going to stand out!' - you know - 'This is going to be our brand!' - almost. And the way they celebrate and glorify their violence, and dehumanise those that they're killing, it's actually pretty chilling. And I don't we've seen a group like it.

GALLOWAY: Or the end of it.

GAYATRI: I mean, from the Free Syrian Army we've already witnessed the most horrible things -

HASEEB: And they're the moderate ones, by the way!

GAYATRI: - And now -

GALLOWAY: They were the moderates - the moderate heart-eaters, you mean! We haven't actually seen ISIS eating hearts yet. That's probably something still to come. They behave like a kidn of death cult.

HASEEB: Yeah.

GALLOWAY: There seems nothing Islamic about them.

HASEEB. No.

GALLOWAY: I hate it when people call them the Islamic State because they're neither Islamic nor are they a state. How do they find any theological justification for the mass excecution of helpless, handcuffed prisoners in the wartime? How do they justify theologically slicing off the heads of Aid workers and journalists that fall into their hands, and videoing it for the entertainment, presumably, of their own site?

HASEEB: Their justification, presumably, is that anyone that disagrees with their very specific set of thoughts is not worthy of life, essentially. Especially when you're on their land.

GALLOWAY: But it's not their land, is it?

HASEEB: Well -

GALLOWAY: The person slicing the heads off of these American and British journalists is thought to be English.

HASEEB: Yeah.

GAYATRI: Well, they're from London. That's the part I don't compute. Young men from London! You know, growing up in this modern global city and then going back -

HASEEB: For them, their land is essentially this Islamic caliphate land. You've seen the view of - I'm sure you've seen the picture of where they want to go eventually. So they've carved this section out for themselves and whatever they say goes in this area. I've seen videos of scholars - sorry - their clerics, rather, where they tell you that when you're cutting someone's head off, you should enjoy it. It shouldn't be like when you kill an animal - you should do that very mercifully - but when you kill a human being, because it's a enemy of God, you should enjoy it. Take your time. So it's very, very disturbing. There's this very kind of strong lust towards violence within this group that is - I don't think we've seen it before. I don't think we've seen, you know, a group like this before.

GALLOWAY: No.

Gayatri: They're hell on earth, isn't it.

HASEEB: Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it was in one of the newspapers, the Guardian, I think, that introduced ISIS in the British media as, 'Here's a group that is worse than Al Quaida.' And that stood out to me as well. I'm thinking, as a good way to put it -

GALLOWAY: They make Al Quaida look like boy scouts. Now, how do we follow Digital Resistance and what do you do?

HASEEB: So, what we do; we collate news from various media outlets to try and put together a story line that actually makes sense that's actually true as to what's happening. As well as that we provide analysis and opinions on various newstories. You can follow us on twitter @dgtlresistance or facebook.

NOTES

Civil war
Main article: Battle of Ar-Raqqah

In March 2013, during the Syrian civil war, Islamist jihadist militants from Al-Nusra Front and other groups overran the government loyalists in the city and declared it under their control after seizing the central square and pulling down the statue of the former president of Syria Hafez al-Assad.

The Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front set up a sharia court at the sports centre[ and in early June 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) said they were open to receive complaints at their Raqqa headquarters.

Since May 2013 the ISIS has been increasing its control over the city, at the expense of the Free Syrian Army and the Al-Nusra Front. The ISIS has executed Alawites and suspected supporters of Bashar al-Assad in the city and attacked the city's Shia mosques and Christian churches such as the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs, which has since been converted into an ISIS headquarters. The Christian population of Ar-Raqqah, which was estimated to be as many as 10% of the total population before the civil war began, has largely fled the city.

In January 2014 it was reported that ISIS militants in the city gained control of the western part of a Syrian army base, while the group closed all educational institutions in the city, where it has withstood rebel assaults.

On 25 July, the Islamic State captured the Syrian Army base in Raqqah which garrisoned the 17th Division, and beheaded many soldiers.

[3] Nouri Kamil Mohammed Hasan al-Maliki, previous primeminister of Syria, current Vice President.
[4] A Caliphate is an islamic state, led by a political and religious leader, known as a caliph, seen as a successor to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

Video inside."Syrian Girl" is an Australian geopolitical analyst who has presented Australians and the world with truths rarely heard elsewhere about what is happening in Syria. She is much interviewed in the alternative media, but hardly listened to by her own country, although it is now on the verge of an unjust and illegal war with Syria.

Update, 28 Sep 2014: The March to War: Fighting ISIL is a Smokescreen for US Mobilization against Syria, Iran (27/9/14), and USA Bombed ‘Empty Buildings’ in Airstrikes on Daash-ISIL in Syria (27/9/14) from Syrian Free Press, "Islamic State": Pretext for US attack on Syria? by Kevin Barrett (17/9/14), Western logic on Syria: ‘We need to bomb it to save it’(27/9/14), ...

See also: US Aggression Drags World into Age of Global Anarchy and US Strike on Syria is Desperation Incarnate by Tony Cartalucci, Syrian Free Press, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA),Syria News, PressTV, Voltaire Net, Global Research, Syrian Girl YouTube channel.

See also: #AboutGamerGate" id="AboutGamerGate">What the Media isn't telling you about #GamerGate

Ed. Title, "Dangerous bias in terror wars" added by candobetter.net editor to help readers identify content. This article contains a complaint about ABC reporting bias which editors at candobetter.net believe has immediate grave consequences with respect to war crimes. Candobetter.net is publishing it in an attempt to increase the prospects for it to receive adequate and remedial attention from the ABC, which we believe could save many lives and contribute to descale events that threaten to escalate into a third world war. The complaint concerns a Radio National AM program presented by Chris Uhlmann with reporter Matt Brown, entitled, "Mixed Response from Syrian rebels to American-led war on IS."

Program: ABC, Radio National, AM
Date: 18/9/2014
Title: Mixed Response from Syrian rebels to American-led war on IS
Presenter: Chris Uhlmann Reporter: Matt Brown
***********************************************************************************************
24 September 2014
Dear Audience and Consumer Affairs,
The above-mentioned AM program breaches the ABC Code of Practice in regards to Accuracy, Impartiality and Diversity of Perspectives.

INTRODUCTION

The United States with support from Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, has begun airstrikes on Syria, ostensibly to target IS forces. To enter the airspace of Syria without the authorization of the Syrian government is an illegal act. Also, last week the American Congress voted to train and arm ‘moderate Syrian rebels’. These rebels are fighting both the Islamic State and the Syrian government, and there is reason to believe they see the Syrian government as their principal target. Under international law, it is illegal for countries to fund and supply weapons to insurgents intent on overthrowing the government of a sovereign state.

The Australian government will have enormous pressure on it from the U.S. Administration to support their military actions in Syria. It is, therefore, imperative that Australians are as well-informed as they can possibly be about the war in Syria and the so-called moderate rebels that America and its allies are arming. Decisions which will determine the history of the 21st century are being made.

What is more, the conflict in Syria impacts on communities in Australia and on people’s sense of security and well-being. We can all be disorientated by the mixed messages and the hatred stirred up in biased, imprudent reports and commentaries on the war. It should be the responsibility of the ABC, our national broadcaster, to inform us fully and impartially on Syria and the region. However, its Middle East correspondent, Matt Brown, is not doing this.

ACCURACY and IMPARTIALITY

In his report on AM (18 September 2014) Matt Brown presented a biased portrayal of ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria. He described the rebels as ‘moderate’, as if their being moderate was a fact, not an opinion.

Furthermore, emotive expressions that could elicit sympathy for the rebels were used. These included, concern, hope, congratulated, thankful, and a welcome gesture.

There was no suggestion that these rebels might be opportunists, who happily wear the label ‘moderate’ today as it entitles them to receive military hardware from the U.S. and its allies, but who have aligned with terrorist groups, including ISIL, at times in the conflict when it suited them. Also, in coming days, months and years, there are already signs they will choose Al-Qaeda affiliated groups over the U.S. and their allies.

Unlike Brown, BBC’s Jeremy Bowen expresses serious reservations about ‘moderate’ rebels.

I have met many FSA fighters and they do have moderate views, certainly in comparison with jihadist groups. But the fighters are often religious and see no problem with building up alliances with the jihadists against a common enemy. Fighters also move from one group to another.

Also, it’s been reported that the family of Steven Sotloff, one of the American journalists beheaded by ISIL, accused ‘moderate rebels’ of selling Steven to the extremists.

Does a ‘moderate’ rebel kill differently to an ‘extremist’ rebel?

Ahmad Al-Rahal, a ‘moderate rebel’ introduced in the AM report, declared in an interview in March 2014,

There is no sectarianism in this revolution. Syria only has two sects: that of the regime and that of the revolution.

It is difficult to see how such a crude uncompromising approach to a ‘revolution’ differs from the Khmer Rouge’s, whose ideology was just as black and white and led to the killing fields in Cambodia. It is therefore shocking that Brown reports on Al-Rahal totally uncritically.

Given the lethal qualities of the ‘revolution’ in Syria and its attraction to young Muslim Australians, the ABC has a heavy responsibility to both the general public in Syria and in Australia to ensure ‘rebels’ in Syria, no matter what their name-tag today, are neither glamorized nor sanitized by ABC journalists.

The other ‘moderate’ rebel commander Brown introduces to the AM audience is Jamal Al Maa’arufe (also spelt ‘Ma’ruf’ and ‘Maruf). Currently, Maa’arufe is said to head a coalition of insurgent groups called the Syrian Revolutionaries’ Front. Dr As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University has written the following about Jamal Maa’arufe on his blog, Angry Arab:
A Syrian leader of rebel thugs, Jamal Ma`ruf, having been groomed by Saudi intelligence, announces in the media that he is now ready and willing to fight ISIS. Let me translate: he has just received a large supply of weapons and cash from American and Saudi intelligence. Let the thuggery begin.

DIVERSITY of PERSPECTIVES

Although rebels control quite a large area in Syria, the majority of Syrians still choose to live in government controlled cities and towns. These people include up to two million Syrian Christians as well as Muslims of all sects who do not support a militarized opposition or an Islamised political system, similar to Saudi Arabia’s or Iran’s. Yet, their voices are not heard in this AM report. It is as if they do not exist, yet they are people Australians would feel great empathy for if only we knew their stories and views.

Ironically perhaps, James Foley, the American journalist whose beheading became part of the pretext for U.S. military strikes on Syria, did diligently seek the views of civilians in Aleppo who were critical of the Free Syrian Army, supposedly moderate rebels. This may have cost him his life. In an October 2012 article titled Syria: Rebels losing support among civilians in Aleppo, Foley wrote,

The rebels in Aleppo are predominantly from the countryside, further alienating them from the urban crowd that once lived here peacefully, in relative economic comfort and with little interference from the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
“The terrorism here in Syria is spreading, and the government has to do something about it,” said Mohamed Kabal, a 21-year-old university student.

Foley also presented the perspective of a disillusioned rebel.

He said he's seen civilians executed after rebels recklessly accuse them of being mercenaries for the regime.
“I saw one beaten to death,” he said. “The FSA didn’t check their facts, and now he’s dead. I know the man. He was 46. He has five children.”

Unlike some media outlets, such as the BBC, Channel 4, and the Telegraph, the ABC has not sent a reporter into government controlled cities to seek a diversity of perspectives in regards to the war. The ABC has maintained it hasn’t been able to get a visa for a reporter. But this is no excuse for the lack of balance in Matt Brown’s report. In June, tens of thousands of Syrians in Lebanon voted in the Syrian presidential election. Brown could travel to Beirut to seek out their views.

TRUTHS vs INACCURATE & BIASED REPORTING

In 2011, on an ABC community webpage, there was an account of the violence and terror then being committed by armed gangs across Syria. However, despite challenges, the mainstream narrative on the crisis in Syria has been consistent: a minority sect is oppressing the Sunni majority and a brutal dictator is killing his own people. Matt Brown promotes it in this AM report, as do print journalists, NGOs, human rights organizations, even UN bodies. When prominent Malaysian peace activist, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, writes on what might attract young Muslim men the rebel cause in Syria, we in Australia should pay heed. He is a ‘moderate’ Muslim exploring truths.
Unfortunately, through repetition, the narrative has become an embedded ‘truth’. Hence, although a well-regarded M.I.T. professor, a doctor in pharmacology, a US intelligence expert, a veteran investigative journalist; have all challenged the claim that Assad used chemical weapons against his people in August 2013, ABC presenter Waleed Aly can still insist Assad did, without thinking it necessary to substantiate the accusation.

So Matt Brown’s recent AM report continued the tradition of this narrative. It began with a discussion of the Sunni IS forces and ended with damnation of the ‘torture chambers’ of Bashar Al-Assad, who, as Brown says, is the ‘main target’ of ‘moderate’ rebels. (NB: Alternative sources question the ‘Caesar’ claims of ‘torture chambers’, but a mainstream journalist is highly unlikely to be instructed to probe deeply once a convenient ‘truth’ is embedded.)

On AM, rebel claims were presented without challenge by Brown; thus, they easily become ‘truths’. So Jamal Al Maa’arufe speaks about the fight against the “unjust Bashar’s illegitimate state”. Belief that the Syrian state is illegitimate may be what prompts rebels to brutally murder state employees, including bakers, post office workers, doctors and teachers. But how can a state that has been represented in the U.N. since its inception be ‘illegitimate’?

Brown says a government airstrike ‘reportedly’ killed Jamal Al Maa’arufe’s wife and daughter. Brown acknowledges it is a claim. However, apart from this AM report, a tweet and a Facebook entry, It is very hard to find support on the internet for it. An article in SYRIA: direct, reports on the airstrike, but it claims Maa’arufe’s deputy was killed; there is no mention of family members. Already Brown presents a sympathetic portrait of rebel leader Al Maa’arufe. Suggesting that he has lost his wife and daughter in a government airstrike further reinforces that portrayal. That may be the purpose of it. as to repeat what seems to be merely a little chatter on the internet seems irresponsible journalism, especially when the stakes are so high when there is misinformation presented on Syria, high for the people of Syria and the region, and high for Australians, as we are now learning.

CONCLUSION

Unchallenged rebel slogans, misinformation and distortions can only further entice young Muslim Australians to Syria to fight the ‘Alawi dictatorship of Bashar Al Assad’, as James Carleton described it on RN Breakfast (22/9/14) in clear contradiction of the true demographics, which are that the Syrian government, army, and business elite are dominated by Sunni Muslims. Young Australian Muslims who aspire to becoming martyrs in Syria or Australia can inadvertently become the victims of lies.

Syria is a conflict we all contribute to if we do not demand the highest standards of reporting. Not only do we risk being victims of our own naivety and gullibility, but by ignoring the voices and suffering of millions of Syrians - people like us - we compromise our basic beliefs and values, and we risk being complicit in heinous crimes.

Regards,

Ms Susan Dirgham

National Coordinator of "Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria"

Image: Syrian TV interviewer with Dr Kinda Shammat, Minister in Syrian government (Screen shot taken from Syrian TV)

Image: Screen shot of image of a tweet showing ‘moderate’ rebel Jamal Ma’ruf, presented in Matt Brown’s report.

Provoking war abroad raises spectre of staged attacks at home.

This article, by Tony Cartalucci, was published on the Land Destroyer Report (landdestroyer.blogspot) on 18 September 2014. Appendix added: End the Sanctions on Syria video by SyrianGirlPartisan.

The Australian mainstream media anticipates staged terrorist attacks by supposed Islamist extremists: Terror raids: Attack feared within days, Tony Abbott says, Australia's PM confirms threat to Parliament House, Editorial: Timely police raids on accused terrorists prevent horror on our streets – The Courier-Mail, Live blog: Senior Australian in Islamic State 'ordered kidnappings and beheadings in Sydney and Brisbane'- ABC News, Beheading plot: Where the terrorism raids occurred - ABC News, Authorities thwart beheading plot in Australia's biggest ever counter-terrorism raids - ABC News, Security to conduct train toilet searches as terror threat raised - Brisbane Times, Lone wolves: Small cells of radicals are Australia's greatest terror threat, experts say, Homegrown terrorism Australia's main national security concern says Julie Bishop - ABC 7.30 Report (5/8/14).

September 18, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci, aka Land Destroyer) - The FBI has foiled yet another entirely fabricated terror threat of its own creation, with missing mechanisms in two firearms provided to a potential terrorist being the only thing that prevented this latest case of entrapment from going "live." A Rochester man, Mufid A. Elfgeeh, is accused by the FBI of attempting to provide material support to ISIS (undercover FBI agents), attempting to kill US soldiers, and possession of firearms and silencers (provided to him by the FBI). The FBI's own official press release stated (emphasis added):

According to court records, Elfgeeh attempted to provide material support to ISIS in the form of personnel, namely three individuals, two of whom were cooperating with the FBI. Elfgeeh attempted to assist all three individuals in traveling to Syria to join and fight on behalf of ISIS. Elfgeeh also plotted to shoot and kill members of the United States military who had returned from Iraq. As part of the plan to kill soldiers, Elfgeeh purchased two handguns equipped with firearm silencers and ammunition from a confidential source. The handguns were made inoperable by the FBI before the confidential source gave them to Elfgeeh.

What is perhaps more chilling are the details of Elfgeeh's plans to kill US soldiers. The FBI's press release stated (emphasis added):

Court documents also indicate that Elfgeeh first discussed the idea of shooting United States military members in December 2013 when he told CS-2 that he was thinking about getting a gun and ammunition, putting on a bulletproof vest, and "just go[ing] around and start shooting." In February 2014, Elfgeeh told CS-2 that he needed a handgun and silencer. Elfgeeh later gave CS-2 $1,050 in cash to purchase two handguns equipped with silencers and ammunition. On May 31, 2014, CS-2 delivered the two handguns equipped with silencers and ammunition to Elfgeeh. After Elfgeeh took possession of the items, he was arrested by members of the Rochester Joint Terrorism Task Force. Elfgeeh is currently being held in custody.

Elfgeeh's plans are also - coincidentally - verbatim, the dream scenario of Washington's warmongers currently attempting to sell a war that will straddle both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border, allow the US to provide terrorists operating in Syria with air support, and lead to punitive operations against the Syrian government for attacking US-backed terrorists with the final objective being long-sought after regime change in Damascus.

With serial beheadings failing to raise Western public support necessary for an expedient intervention in Syria, more insidious provocations appear to be in the works. Setting the stage, a CBS/Associated Press story titled, "Former Deputy CIA Director: ‘I Would Not Be Surprised' If ISIS Member Shows Up To US Mall Tomorrow With AK-47," would claim immediately after the initial James Foley execution video that:

"The short-term concern is the Americans that have gone to fight with ISIS and the west Europeans that have gone to fight with ISIS could be trained and directed by ISIS to come to the United States to conduct small-scale attacks," Morell stated. "If an ISIS member showed up at a mall in the United States tomorrow with an AK-47 and killed a number of Americans, I would not be surprised."

Morell warned that over the long-term the extremist group could be planning for a 9/11-style attack that killed thousands of Americans.

Elfgeeh's entrapment is only the beginning. Staged "terror raids" in Australia are also ratcheting up hysteria ahead of an actual event of mass murder carried out on Western soil. The BBC would report in their article, "Australia raids over 'Islamic State plot to behead'," that:

Police have carried out anti-terror raids in Sydney sparked by intelligence reports that Islamic extremists were planning random killings in Australia.

PM Tony Abbott said a senior Australian Islamic State militant had called for "demonstration killings", reportedly including a public beheading.

The raids, with at least 800 heavily-armed officers, led to 15 arrests.

Image: Australian security forces swept the city of Sydney arresting suspects of an alleged plot by ISIS to behead a random member of the public and then drape an ISIS flag upon their body in an attack that would only stand to serve Western ambitions to expand war on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border. The plot is cartoonish in nature, but Westerners should not underestimate what lengths special interests will go through to provoke war.

The cartoonish nature of the plot - beheading a random member of the public before draping an ISIS flag over their body - is meant to provoke maximum fear and anger first, then maximum support for Australia's continued involvement in Wall Street and London's hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East. Likewise, the Rochester arrest made by the FBI amid their own terror plot, serves only to incite fear across the public and irrational support for intervention in Syria that will, in fact, lead to further support of extremists as well as the destruction of the only institution in the region truly fighting terrorism - the Syrian Arab Army.

A Functioning Firing Pin Away From a Staged Mass Shooting

The FBI has a long list of foiled terror plots of its own creation. More disturbingly are the plots they conceived but "accidentally" allowed to go "live." One might recall the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. FBI agents, according to the New York Times, were indeed overseeing the bombers that detonated a device killing six and wounding many more at the World Trade Center.

In their article, "Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast," NYT reported:

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York City's tallest towers. The explosion left six people dead, more than 1,000 injured and damages in excess of half a billion dollars.

Considering the 1993 bombing and the fact that the FBI literally oversaw the construction and deployment of a deadly bomb that killed 6, it is clear that the FBI can at any time through design or disastrous incompetence, turn one of their contrived entrapment cases into a live terror attack. One can only guess at how many similar FBI operations are currently taking place within the United States involving ISIS sympathizers - any one of which could be turned into a live terror attack provided the weapons handed over to potential terrorists are functioning, just as the bomb was in 1993 when it was driven into the lower levels of the World Trade Center.

Image: The FBI has an impressive portfolio of intentionally created, then foiled terror plots. Its methods include allowing suspects to handle both real and inoperable weapons and explosives. These methods allow the FBI to switch entrapment cases "live" at any moment simply by switching out duds and arrests with real explosives and successful attacks. Because the FBI uses "informants," when attacks go live, these confidential assets can be blamed, obfuscating the FBI's involvement

Everything from a mass shooting to a bombing, and even an Operation Northwoods-style false flag attack involving aircraft could be employed to provide Wall Street and London with the support it needs to accelerate its long-stalled agenda of regime change and reordering in both Syria and across the Iranian arc of influence. Readers may recall Operation Northwoods, reported on in an ABC News article titled, "U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba," which bluntly stated:

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

That the FBI and Australian authorities are coordinating staged security operations in tandem on opposite ends of the globe to terrify their respective populations into line behind an impending war with Syria suggests a new "Operation Northwoods" of sorts is already being executed. Staged executions on cue by ISIS in the Middle East of US and British citizens at perfectly timed junctures of the West's attempt to sell intervention both at home and abroad also reek of staged mayhem for the sole purpose of provoking war. Could grander and ultimately more tragic mayhem be in store? As ABC News' article on Operation Northwoods suggests, there is no line Western special interests will hesitate to cross.

With the West attempting to claim ISIS now has a "global" reach, the US and its partners' attempts to obfuscate the very obvious state-sponsorship it is receiving will become exponentially more difficult. That the FBI is admittedly stringing along easily manipulated, malevolent patsies who at any time could be handed real weapons and sent on shooting sprees and/or bombings, Americans, Europeans, and Australians would be foolish to conclude that their real enemy resides somewhere in Syria and not right beside them at home, upon the very seats of Western power.

#EndSanctions">Appendix: End the Sanctions on Syria by SyrianGirlPartisan

Member of Senate Armed Services Committee Agrees Republished from Washington's Blog (16/9/14), Global Research (17/9/14); In-depth Report: Syria: NATO'S next war? America's top military official – the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey – just admitted in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing what we've been saying for months ... America's closest allies are supporting ISIS:

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA, MEMBER OF ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Do you know any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL?

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: I know major Arab allies who fund them.

GRAHAM: Yeah, but do they embrace them? They fund them because the Free Syrian Army couldn't fight Assad. They were trying to beat Assad. I think they realized the folly of their ways.

Maybe a good start for defeating ISIS would be to stop funding them and their BFFs?

The article below has been adapted from the PressTV article US to regret military action in Syria: IRGC chief (16/9/14). The Appendix, also from PressTV, is Obama threatens to oust Assad if US planes downed in Syrian airspace (16/9/14). To view the embedded videos, please visit those pages.

US to regret military action in Syria: IRGC chief

Tue Sep 16, 2014 10:7AM GMT

The chief of Iran's Islamic Revol­ution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the US and its allies will regret any military operation in Syria. 'The Islamic Republic of Iran's policy is to support Syria and this US action is from a bullying position and is condemned and if it does so it will regret it," Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Tuesday. The general was reacting to the US government's (claimed)1 decision to form an international coalition to fight the Takfiri ISIL terrorists fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Chief of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Moham­mad Ali Jafari

'The US is disappointed with any influential role to be played by the ISIL and similar groups and it is calling for this so-called coalition. We doubt if their serious objective is to annihilate the ISIL," Jafari said.

He noted that the US is declaring war on the ISIL while it continues to support other militant groups fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Jafari said the enemies are determined to topple the 'current ruling government in Syria."

The general said the US and the Israeli regime created this group in order to trigger war among Muslims in the Middle East regime and serve as an obstacle to resistance against the Zionist regime.

On Monday, France hosted a conference, dubbed the International Conference on Peace and Security in Iraq, to discuss ways of tackling the ISIL terrorists in Iraq and Syria amid US efforts to form a so-called international coalition to battle the Takfiri group.

Despite the international community's emphasis on the importance of Iran's role in the regional developments, Tehran was not invited to the meeting in Paris mainly due to the US opposition.

The US has also announced that Iran will not be a part of its so-called coalition against the ISIL.

Iran has cast doubt over the sincerity of the coalition and reiterated that it had no interest in attending the Paris meeting.

Tehran has on several occasions voiced support for the Iraqi government since it began fighting against the ISIL in June. The ISIL terrorists are in control of some areas in Syria and have captured large swathes of land in neighboring Iraq.

The Takfiri terrorist groups have committed heinous crimes and threatened all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and Izadi Kurds, during their advances.

#USbullying" id="USbullying">Obama threatens to oust Assad if US planes downed in Syrian airspace

Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:53AM GMT

PressTV interviewer and Jim W. Dean of Veterens Today

US President Barack Obama has threatened to wipe out Syria's air defense system and topple the Syrian government if President Bashar al-Assad ordered his forces to shoot American planes entering Syrian airspace.

He made the remarks during a meeting in the White House before his speech about Washington's strategy about the ISIL terrorist group, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Obama ordered the US military on Wednesday to expand its bombing campaign against ISIL terrorists and launch airstrikes in Syria.

'If he [Assad] dared to do that, Mr. Obama said he would order American forces to wipe out Syria's air defense system, which he noted would be easier than striking ISIS (or ISIL) because its locations are better known," the newspaper said.

'He went on to say that such an action by Mr. Assad would lead to his overthrow, according to one account," the Times said.

The US president also noted that ISIL made a major strategic error by killing American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff 'because the anger it generated resulted in the American public's quickly backing military action."

During his televised speech on Wednesday, Obama said, "I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq."

"America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat," he said.

The Pentagon announced that the United States already has conducted more than 150 airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has warned the US and its allies against attacking ISIL targets on Syrian soil.

"Syria is ready to cooperate and coordinate with regional and international efforts to combat terror in accordance with UN resolutions and respect of Syrian sovereignty," he said in Damascus last month.

"Everyone is welcome, including Britain and the United States, to take action against ISIS and Nusra with a prior full coordination with the Syrian government," Moallem added.

On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington will not coordinate its airstrikes on ISIL terrorists inside Syria.

'We're not going to coordinate it with Syria... It's not a cooperative effort. We are going to do what they haven't done, what they had plenty of opportunity to do, which is to take on ISIL and to degrade it and eliminate as a threat," Kerry said.

AGB/AGB

Footnote[s]

#fnUsBully1" id="fnUsBully1">1. #txtUsBully1">↑ The parenthesised "(claimed)" was added. A shortcoming with some PressTV articles, or with their English translations, is that where a claim, that conforms to the Western imperialist narrative of a conflict has been repeated often enough by the msm, it is often reported by PressTV as fact, even where credible dissident journalists have challenged that claim. An example is the claim that the United States and its allies are waging war in Iraq and threatening to do so in Syria to destroy ISIS. See Washington Menaces America with its ISIS Creation (11/9/14) by Tony Cartalucci and ISIL operating with help of foreign military power (17/9/14) by Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today.

Update 13 Sep 14: Embedded Syrian Girl video The ISIS Syrian Rebel Debacle Decoded added as Appendix.

Syria could be America’s key ally against ISIL and other terror groups. Instead, the U.S. has chosen to align with Saudi Arabia, a country where churches are banned and women are not permitted to drive, and a country that has funded and directed much of the insurgency, both ‘moderate’ and extreme, in Syria. President Obama's latest military action decision ignores the work of journalists Sotloft and Foley, who exposed brutality of so-called moderate rebels that Obama wants to arm. Australians for reconciliation in Syria call on the Australian and US governments to heed the wishes of the people of Syria; to support the Syrian army’s fight against terror groups; and to respect its right to work for peaceful political changes without foreign interference. We can honour our own freedoms, equalities and responsibilities in Australia by respecting those of Syrians.

Obama's decision to arm 'rebels' in Syria is illegal, dangerous and ill-researched

“Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria” (AMRIS) deplores the decision by U.S. President Obama to take military action against ISIL in Syria without the consent of the Syrian Government. Such military action will be illegal.

Furthermore, AMRIS condemns U.S. military support to what President Obama terms the ‘Syrian opposition’. The vast majority of Syrian people do not support any militarized opposition groups, but rather support the institutions of the state. (NB: There is an internal opposition - parties and groups which eschew violence.)

The Syrian regular army has lost tens of thousands of soldiers in its battle against militias, including ISIL. With very little support from the local population, these sectarian militias depend on foreign fighters who include Sunni Muslims misled by a myth, namely that a minority Shi’a sect is oppressing the Sunni majority in Syria.

US sows sectarianism against secular Syrian society and denies democratic vote of Syria for its Government

Syria is a secular society and its government and army reflect the diverse mix of ethnic groups and faiths in Syria. The ministries are dominated by Sunni politicians and the conscript army is predominantly a Sunni army. The Defence Minister is Sunni. The president’s wife is Sunni. Members of the business elite are mostly Sunni Muslims.

There must be recognition of

- the inclusive Sunni Islam practised in Syria, which is rooted in Sufi Islam not Wahhabism, the school of Islam aligned with the Saudi royal family

- the right and responsibility of Syrian people to defend themselves and their country against militias funded by both foreign governments and individuals who condone the killing of civilians who support the secular Syrian state

- the wide-ranging rights and freedoms that women have in Syria

- the rights and freedoms people of different faiths have in Syria to practice their religion (Christmas and Easter are public holidays in Syria, just as Muslim holy days are.)

- the fact that more than 73% of Syrians eligible to vote participated in the June 2014 presidential election

- the fact that investigative journalists, members of the U.S. intelligence community, and M.I.T. academics maintain rebels, NOT the Syrian Government, were most likely responsible for the chemical attack in Damascus in August 2013.

Syria could be America’s key ally against ISIL and other terror groups. Instead, the U.S. has chosen to align with Saudi Arabia, a country where churches are banned and women are not permitted to drive, and a country that has funded and directed much of the insurgency, both ‘moderate’ and extreme, in Syria.

Journalists Sotloft and Foley exposed brutality of so-called moderate rebels that Obama wants to arm

By supporting militia groups which are labelled ‘moderate’ but which target soldiers, public servants and secular Syrians just as ISIL does, the U.S. and its allies will entrench the chaos, destruction and death in Syria and the region. The pretext for U.S. military action in Syria is the beheading of two American journalists, Steven Sotloff and James Foley. However, in articles published before they were abducted, Sotloff and Foley exposed the brutality of the so-called moderate rebels. The truths they revealed and their courage in exposing them do not demand an alliance with ‘moderate’ rebels complicit in their killings; they demand support for peace and reconciliation in Syria.

NATO promotion of geopolitical wars builds hatred, despair and disorganisation

The hatred being incited between Muslims to promote geopolitical wars in the Middle East will impact on communities across the globe. People everywhere risk losing their moral compass and compromising basic human values and belief systems which are needed to unite us and ensure peace and security for us all.

Need for more rigorous research before new actions

AMRIS calls for rigorous research of events in Syria in order to challenge partisan narratives.

AMRIS calls on the government to heed the wishes of the people of Syria; to support their army’s fight against terror groups; and to respect their right to work for peaceful political changes without foreign interference. We can honour our own freedoms, equalities and responsibilities in Australia by respecting those of Syrians.

Spokesperson is Ms Susan Dirgham, National Coordinator of “Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria”

MEDIA RELEASE – 11th September 2014

#SyrianDebacleDecoded" id="SyrianDebacleDecoded">Appendix inserted by Candobetter.net Editor:: The ISIS Syrian rebel debacle decoded

Alex Jones covers how Obama's plan for war in the Middle East is a decades-long war in the making. Geopolitical analyst Mimi Al-Laham, AKA Syrian Girl, also joins the show to reveal what you're not being told about the recent Middle East "beheading" videos and how ISIS is too strong to not have a powerful state backer. (Editorial comment: This video is not yet on Alex Jones' InfoWars.com. An earlie interview with the Syrian Girl is Syrian Girl: ISIS’ True Purpose Revealed (22 July 2014).