by Darius Shahtahmasebi
The Anti-Media

Renowned journalist Glenn Greenwald recently tweeted the three rules of American exceptionalism:

3 rules of US Exceptionalism: 1) Our killing is better than theirs; 2) Nothing we do can be “terrorism”; 3) Only enemies are “war criminals”

Greenwald’s astute observations were presumably made in response to Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent remarks that both Russia and Syria should face war crimes investigations for their recent attacks on Syrian civilians.

“Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals, and medical facilities, and women and children,” Mr. Kerry said in Washington, where he spoke alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, as reported by the Independent.

Unsurprisingly, Russia responded by urging caution regarding allegations of war crimes considering the United States has been waging wars in a number of countries since the end of World War II. It has picked up a number of allegations of war crimes in the process.

Kerry’s continuous accusations that Russia bombed hospital infrastructure are particularly hypocritical in light of the fact the United States has bombed hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan on more than one occasion over past decade.

Further, former congressman Ron Paul’s Institute for Peace and Prosperity hit back at Kerry, accusing him of completely fabricating the most recent alleged hospital attack. As the Institute noted:

“In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault about a new UN resolution, he said (vid @1:00) about Syria:

 

“‘Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women. These are acts that beg for an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be held accountable for these actions.’

 

“No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press agency has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably notes every claimed casualty and is frequently cited in ‘western media,’ has not said anything about such an event anywhere in Syria.”

However, the most disturbing aspect of Kerry’s allegation is that the accusations against Russia run in tandem with Saudi Arabia’s brutal assault on Yemen. Saudi Arabia, with the aid of a few regional players — and with ongoing American and British assistance (not to mention billion dollar arms sales) — has been bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age without any legal basis whatsoever. Often, the Saudi-led coalition has completely decimated civilian infrastructure, which has led a number of groups to accuse the coalition of committing war crimes in the process.

Civilians and civilian infrastructure have been struck so routinely that the world has become increasingly concerned the actual targets of the coalition strikes are civilians (what could be a greater recruitment tool for al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen?) As noted by Foreign Policy:

“The Houthis and their allies — armed groups loyal to Saleh — are the declared targets of the coalition’s 1-year-old air campaign. In reality, however, it is the civilians, such as Basrallah and Rubaid, and their children, who are predominantly the victims of this protracted war. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in airstrikes while asleep in their homes, when going about their daily activities, or in the very places where they had sought refuge from the conflict. The United States, Britain, and others, meanwhile, have continued to supply a steady stream of weaponry and logistical support to Saudi Arabia and its coalition.”

Yemen is the poorest, most impoverished nation in the Arab world. The Saudi-led coalition has been striking refugee camps, schools, wedding parties and well over 100 hospitals to date. The coalition has been strongly suspected of using banned munitions such as cluster bombs. The country now has more than half a million children at serious risk of malnutrition. More than 21 million out of the total population of 25 million are in serious need of basic humanitarian assistance.

Just take one example of the cruel and disproportionate use of force that Saudi Arabia has used in Yemen (using American-made and supplied aircraft and weapons) — against Judge Yahya Rubaid and his family. As Foreign Policy reported in March of this year:

“According to family members, Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. It is unclear whether his house was attacked for this reason. What is clear, however, is that there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted.”

At the time this article’s publication, over 140 Yemenis had been killed and another 500 injured in a Saudi-coalition aerial attack on a funeral over the weekend. The civilian death toll continues to rise in Yemen, completely unchallenged by any major players at the U.N. When the U.N. does attempt to quell Saudi actions, the Saudis threaten severe economic retaliation.

How Kerry can accuse Russia of committing war crimes in Syria with a straight face is unclear, as reports of atrocious crimes committed in Yemen continue to surface.

This is not to say Russia and Syria should not be investigated for war crimes – but maybe, just maybe, we could live in a world where everyone responsible for committing these gross acts could be held accountable, instead of just those who pose an economic threat to the West.

Source: The Anti-Media (cc)

Darius Shahtahmasebi
the anti media: August 25, 2016

On August 19, American troops in Northern Syria nearly lost their lives. A joint team of elite American special operations troops and Kurdish fighters on the ground in Syrian territory were fired upon by a Syrian Su-24 warplane. One would think that given the Obama administration’s previous aspirations of going to war with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, the mainstream media — in tandem with government officials — would be loving the opportunity to immediately hit back at the Syrian regime.

According to Foreign Policy, U.S. military officials contacted their Russian counterparts also operating in Syria in response to the strikes, who offered their assurances that their planes weren’t operating in the area. “We made clear that Coalition aircraft would defend its troops on the ground if threatened,” said Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman in an email. “The Syrian Regime would be well advised not to interfere with Coalition forces or its partners,” he added.

Yet this story is hardly making headlines anywhere, and despite these warnings, no immediate action has been taken.

Why not?

The fact there are at least 300 U.S. commandos on the ground in Syria runs contrary to Obama’s repeated past promises there would be no boots on the ground in Syria. Anyone who has been following the Syrian crisis, however, knows there have been U.S.-NATO troops within Syria with little transparency.

If the corporate media ran with the story that U.S. troops almost lost their lives in Syria, it would open up a whole can of worms they probably could not contain. Stories of sending troops to Syria are supposed to fly under the radar with little media coverage.

How many U.S. troops are in Syrian territory? What is the legal basis for stationing troops in Syrian territory without a U.N. mandate or permission from the Syrian regime?

Most importantly, where are these operations headed?

Now that a top U.S. commander has gone on record to warn Russia and Syria that the U.S. will defend American special operations forces in Northern Syria if they come under fire from the regime again, it should be clear where this conflict is headed.

Together with the warning from Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway that if Syrian planes should fly in certain parts of their own country the U.S. will use their “airpower as needed to protect coalition forces and our partnered operations,” this paints a grim picture of the future of the Syrian battlefield. “Partnered operations” includes Kurdish fighters who have recently been targeted by Syrian warplanes.

Most frightening, however, as it transpires, is that U.S. troops are also working in tandem with Turkish troops now fighting inside Syrian territory.Turkish tanks and warplanes are also accompanying the Turkish troops. If Syrian warplanes feel compelled to target an invading ground force such as the Turks, they officially risk being shot down by coalition aircraft.

It is the wartime equivalent of breaking into somebody’s home and sitting in their kitchen while at the same time warning the owner to stay clear of the kitchen or risk being shot by the perpetrator.

The U.S. has finally found their loophole to turn their missiles on Assad. Of course, this announcement should be no surprise to anyone who has been following the Syrian conflict. This was the goal of U.S. operations within Syria the whole time, given that the U.S. has been looking to unseat Assad from Damascus for years.

The fact this comes at a time when Russian, Chinese and Iranian involvement in Syria is growing and as a fierce battle over the strategic city of Aleppo is occurring is no accident.

Syria is becoming the battleground for the third world war. The American people were told this would be a war against ISIS but have been pushed into an expanded war against the Syrian government without their tacit consent, without the approval of the U.N., and without the approval of Congress.

The Obama administration has duped the U.S. that a war that could be the world’s last.

For what?

(Originally published at the anti media – cc)

Darius Shahtahmasebi
The anti-media : August 2, 2016

A recent article from the Guardian by Natalie Nougayrede, former executive editor and managing editor of French newspaper Le Monde, is another blatant attempt by the corporate media to pin all the blame for the Syrian crisis on the Syrian regime, as opposed to other powerful, meddling forces at play in Syria.

Nougayrede’s main thesis is that ISIS cannot be defeated simply through military action in Iraq and Syria or by intelligence operations throughout Europe. ISIS, she claims, “can be defeated only if the attraction that the militant group exerts on young, confused Sunni Muslims, in the Middle East and elsewhere, is somehow neutralised.”

The “attraction” she refers to is the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. She states quite confidently:

“If Assad stays in power, which seems to be the ultimate goal of recapturing Aleppo, more – not less – radicalisation will ensue; the absence of political transition in Syria will fuel the Sunni anger that ISIS thrives on.”

But there’s just one problem: statements of this kind are the epitome of lazy, pro-corporate media nonsense.

Firstly, it may be the case that Assad’s secular, Alawite regime attracts radical jihadists, but those jihadists have to get their weapons from somewhere. Suppliers of these weapons are the United States, NATO members, and powerful regional players such as Saudi Arabia — and this is no accident. Even the Western-backed so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been dominated by extremists for years, yet the U.S. has known this and still continues to support the Syrian opposition. Further, as the New York Times reported in 2012, the majority of weapons being sent to Syria have ended up in the hands of jihadists.

The U.S.-NATO establishment has asserted that the rise of groups like ISIS was regarded as an unintended consequence, ultimately pinning the blame on the Assad regime. But these assertions are a complete and utter falsity. A classified DIA report predicted the rise of ISIS in 2012, stating:

“If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria… and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

Secondly, Nougayrede conveniently leaves out the fact that ISIS arose out of the U.S.-U.K.-led invasion of Iraq, not out of Assad’s policies within Syria. ISIS was formerly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq, which rose to prominence following the of power left after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled. Shortly after, when Paul Bremer was put in charge, he dissolved the Iraqi police and military, firing close to 400,000 former servicemen, including high ranking military officials who fought in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. These generals now hold senior ranking positions within ISIS.

If it weren’t for these actions, ISIS wouldn’t exist.

Further, Nougayrede’s calls for Assad to step down are at direct odds with the will of the Syrian people, who, let’s face it, should be the only people to decide who leads them. As Anti-Media has documented, the fact remains that since the conflict erupted in 2011, Assad has held the majority support of his people despite the numerous atrocities he has been accused of conducting, including widespread torture.

The elections in 2014 – which Assad won by a landslide with international observers claiming no violations – demonstrate the majority of Syrians do not want him to step down. One could speculate that although the Assad regime is certainly no picnic, in the face of radical jihadist groups trying to destabilise the country, he may, in fact, be the most moderate choice. This was confirmed even last year when a poll conducted by Le Figaro found over 70 percent of the Syrian people still supported Assad.

Nougayrede also appears to absurdly imply that if Assad were to step down or be forcibly removed from power, terrorism would disappear. As previously stated, there was no al-Qaeda presence in Iraq until Saddam Hussein was forced out of power and his armed forces were reduced to rubble. There was no major al-Qaeda threat in Libya until the CIA began backing al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels to topple Muammar Gaddafi before misusing a U.N. Security Council Resolution in 2011 to bomb Libya — a rich country that had a high standard of living under Gaddafi  — back into the Middle Ages.

There was no al-Qaeda at all before the U.S. and Saudi Arabia invented it to counter the Soviet influence in the Middle East, but the mainstream media conveniently ignores all of these facts while selling another conflict like it’s going out of style.

Haven’t the Syrian people suffered enough?

the anti media (creative commons)

Anti-war : June 17, 2016
Justin Raimondo, June 17, 2016

I used to wonder why in the heck right-wing commentators on Fox News kept repeating the same mantra over and over again: sitting through the Republican debates, my eyes glazed over when I heard each and every candidate denounce the Obama administration for refusing to say the Sacred Words: “radical Islamic terrorism.” What are these people talking about, I thought to myself: they’re obsessed!

In short, I wrote it off as Fox News boilerplate, until the other day when, in the wake of the Orlando massacre, Donald Trump said the following on Fox: “Something is going on. He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other.” Reiterating this trope later on in the same show, he averred that the President “is not tough, not smart – or he’s got something else in mind.”

The Beltway crowd went ballistic. Lindsey Graham had a hissy fit, and other Republican lawmakers started edging away from the presumptive GOP nominee. The Washington Post ran a story with the headline: “Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved With Orlando Shooting.” Realizing that this level of bias was a bit too brazen, the editors changed it an hour or so later to: “Donald Trump Seems to Connect President Obama to Orlando Shooting.” Not much better, but then again we’re talking about a newspaper that has a team of thirty or so reporters bent on digging up dirt on Trump.

In any case, Trump responded as he usually does: by doubling down. And he did it, as he usually does, on Twitter, tweeting the following:

“Media fell all over themselves criticizing what Donald Trump ‘may have insinuated about @POTUS.’ But he’s right:”

The tweet included a link to this story that appeared on Breitbart: an account of a 2012 intelligence report from the Defense Intelligence Agency predicting the rise of the Islamic State in Syria – and showing how US policy deliberately ignored and even succored it. Secured by Judicial Watch thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, the document says it’s very likely we’ll see the creation of “an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.” And this won’t just be a grassroots effort, but the result of a centrally coordinated plan: it will happen because “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts” by Syrian “opposition forces” then engaged in a campaign to “control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Der Zor) adjacent to Western Iraqi provinces (Mosul and Anbar).”

This is precisely what happened, and, as we see, the Iraqi Army is now in the field – with US support – trying to retake Mosul and Anbar, with limited success. Yet it’s not like we didn’t know this was coming – and didn’t have a hand in creating the problem we are now spending billions of dollars and even some American lives trying to “solve.” Things are turning out exactly as the DIA report said they would:

“[T]here is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”

And who, exactly, are these “supporting powers”? The anonymous author of the report points to “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.” Last I heard, the US is part of the West – although the way things are going, that may not be true for very much longer. And of course the US has had a policy of supporting the “moderate” Syrian Islamist “opposition,” which ended in massive defections from the so-called Free Syrian Army to openly jihadist outfits like al-Nusra and ISIS.

There was a split in the administration over this policy, with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then CIA director David Petraeus arguing for a full-scale effort to overthrow beleaguered Ba’athist strongman Bashar al-Assad with massive aid to a loosely-defined “opposition.” Petraeus even openly argued for arming al-Nusra – the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda – and there were indications that, before Hillary left Foggy Bottom, an arms pipeline was opened up between the Libyan jihadists we aided in overthrowing Ghaddafi and their Syrian brothers.

Obama was reluctant to get more involved, but Hillary and Petraeus were gung-ho, along with the usual “humanitarian” interventionists in the administration and the media, who were accusing the President of standing by while “genocide” was being carried out by Assad. In reality, the jihadists were chopping off heads and wreaking just as much devastation as the Syrian army, but these facts didn’t make it into the media narrative.

In any case, the administration split was finally resolved when the President announced he was going to intervene in Syria with air strikes. This provoked a huge backlash from flyover country, with congressional switchboards tied up and protests coming in fast and furious. Clearly, the American people didn’t want another war in the Middle East, and, one by one, members of Congress who had planned on voting yes began to back down. The President backtracked – happily, I imagine. Hillary, who had alreadyleft the administration, was handed her final rebuke. Yet the seeds planted by her Syria policy would soon sprout into flowers of evil.

War was avoided, at least for the moment – but the prediction of that anonymous DIA agent was coming true. As thousands of US-trained –and-equipped rebels joined ISIS, along with the arms and other goodies provided courtesy of the US taxpayers, their leader declared the “Caliphate” and expanded its operations into North Africa, Europe – and the US.

The long reach of the Islamic State has been felt in this country twice in recent months: first in San Bernardino, and now in Orlando. Both terrorists traveled to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly for religious purposes, where they may have received training – and instructions.

When Omar Mateen opened fire in that Orlando nightclub, killing fifty people and wounding nearly one-hundred, the monster we created came back to haunt us. It didn’t matter that he may not have had direct links to ISIS: inspired by them, he carried out his grisly mission as he swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the “Caliph” of the Islamic State.

The Washington Post, in its mission to debunk every word that comes out of Trump’s mouth, ran an article by Glenn Kessler minimizing the DIA document, claiming that it was really nothing important and that we should all just move along because there’s nothing to see there. He cited all the usual Washington insiders to back up his thesis, but there was one glaring omission: Gen. Michael Flynn, who headed up the DIA when the document was produced and who was forced out by the interventionists in the administration. Here is what Flynn told Al-Jazeera in an extensive interview:

Al-Jazeera: “You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?
Flynn: I think the administration.
Al-Jazeera: So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?
Flynn: I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.
Al-Jazeera: A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.”

Of course, Glenn Kessler and the Washington Post don’t want to talk about that. Neither do the Republicans in Congress, who supported aid to the Syrian rebels and wanted to give them much more than they got. They’re all complicit in this monstrous policy – and they all bear moral responsibility for its murderous consequences.

Gen. Flynn, by the way, is an official advisor to Trump, and is often mentioned as a possible pick for Vice President.

The idea that we could use Islamists to fight jihadists was always crazy, and yet that is what the foreign policy Establishment and the congressional warhawks in both parties have been pushing. The “Sunni turn,” initiated by the Bush administration, supported (and funded) by the Saudis, the Turks, and the Gulf states, and escalated by the Obama administration, has empowered our worst enemies and endangered the American people. And here is the ultimate irony: it was done in the name of “fighting terrorism.” This gives new meaning to the concept of “blowback,” CIA parlance for an action (often covert) that has the unintended consequence of blowing back in our faces.

It certainly blew back in the faces of those partygoers in Orlando – in a hail of bullets.

That Trump gets this is little short of amazing, and yet truth often comes to us in unexpected ways. He may be an imperfect vessel – and that is surely an understatement – but he is absolutely correct in this instance: this administration and this President either “doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other.”

The media and the Never Trumpers leaped on this statement and translated it into the old Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim trope, but that’s not what he was talking about. He was talking about the largely unknown history of our intervention in Syria, where Hillary Clinton was the jihadists’ best friend and benefactor. It was she who led the charge to “liberate” Syria, to arm the “moderate” head-choppers and do to that war-torn wreck of a country what she had done to Libya. Obama knows it: and so does the media. But their lips are sealed.

Fortunately, mine aren’t.

So we finally unlock the Great Mystery: why oh why does is this administration and the Clinton campaign so reluctant to utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism”? Is it because of political correctness and a fear of inciting “Islamophobia”? Don’t flatter them: they’re not above that, when it serves their purposes. But it doesn’t serve their purposes this time.

What they’re afraid of is alienating their allies in the Middle East – not just the jihadists they’ve funded and succored in an effort to overthrow Assad, but primarily the Saudis, the Turks, and the Gulf sheikhs who are all in on the game and are playing it for all it’s worth. And of course there’s the Clinton Foundation, which has received millions in “donations” from the Saudi royals and their satellites.

The US policy goal in the region is to block the Iranians and their Shi’ite allies, including Syria’s Assad, from expanding their influence in the wake of the failed Iraq war. That war installed a Shi’ite regime in Baghdad, and in order to protect our vaunted ally Israel – which is set on regime change in Syria – we are backing and have been backing Sunni radicals, precisely those “radical Islamic terrorists” whose name will never pass Hillary Clinton’s lips.

(read the full article at anti-war)