Monday, October 12, 2015

La joie de vivre des syriens malgré la guerre qui leur est imposée

  Ils chantent "SYRIE mon beau pays" dans un supermarché de Damas






La joie de vivre des Syriens, quoi qu’il arrive. Dans un centre commercial de Damas, les syriens chantent Helwa Ya Baladi ( Beau, Mon pays) de Dalida.
Beau, Mon pays
Une jolie chansons et deux jolies chansons
Beau, Mon pays
Mon espoir était toujours , mon pays
Que j’y retourne , Mon pays
Et que je reste toujours à ton coté pour toute ma vie
Les souvenirs de tout ce qui s’est passé
Te rappelles-tu mon pays ?
Mon coeur est plein d’histoires
Te rappelles-tu mon pays ?
Le premier amour était dans mon pays
Je ne peux pas l’oublier , Mon pays
Où sont les vieux jours ?
Avant ton adieu ?!
On disait que la séparation était impossible
Et chaque larme sur les joues coulait
Plein d’espoir que nous soyons présents
Dans la mer de l’amour sur les deux rivages
Un beau mot et deux beaux mots
Beau, Mon pays
Une jolie chansons et deux jolies chansons
Beau, Mon pays
Où est l’amour de mon coeur , Mon pays ?
Il était loin de moi , Mon pays
Et chaque fois que je chante ,
Je pense à lui
Dis mon amour tu me laisses pour où aller ?
La plus belle mélodie on la chantera nous deux
Le plus beau mot est  » Mon pays  » dans une chanson entre deux lignes
ya lel ya en ya en ya lel
Un beau mot et deux beaux mots
Beau, Mon pays
Une jolie chansons et deux jolies chansons
Beau, Mon pays
Mon espoir était toujours , mon pays
Que j’y retourne , Mon pays
Et que je reste toujours à ton coté pour toute ma vie.
https://fr-fr.facebook.com/madamscandal3/videos/311306052373210/?fref=nfhttps://fr-fr.facebook.com/madamscandal3/videos/311306052373210/?fref=nf

Russia's Campaign Against ISIL is Efficient Since Its 'Target is Clear'

News | 12.10.2015 | 18:47
 
Sputnik - Making clear that Islamic extremists are the real enemy in Syria constitutes one of Russia's key accomplishments of the last two weeks, strategic analyst Paolo Raffone told Sputnik.
This makes Moscow's airstrike campaign efficient, he maintains.
"The enemy, according to the Russian strategy, is not the government of Assad but Islamic State. So the military intervention is simplifying the equation," Raffone said. Russia's major "achievement is to clarify that the alternative is either the current government or ISIL, there is nothing in between."
The airstrike campaign has already helped to change reality on the ground by helping the Damascus-led forces to push terrorists from their positions. For instance, on Monday, the Syrian military announced that large parts of the Aleppo Governorate were liberated.
Despite recent successes, it is still too early to say that the tide has turned. "For the time being we cannot say that ISIL forces are ruined. They have been put under pressure for sure but significant gains in military terms have not yet been made," the expert cautioned.
Moscow's campaign was launched on September 30 following a request from the Bashar al-Assad government. It involves providing air support for the Assad's forces during their ground offensive. However, Vladimir Putin ruled out putting Russian boots on the ground.
Raffone also commented on Washington's decision to abandon its $500 million program aimed at training and equipping moderate elements within armed Syrian opposition. He called the announcement an "embarrassment for the US and the Western coalition.
"The trick of using these moderate jihadists did not work and they had to admit it," he noted.
 
Tags: ISIS Russia Syria

An Open Letter from the U.S. Peace Council


To All Our Friends and Comrades in the Peace Movement



Dear Friends and Comrades in Peace,

As you are well aware, our world is at a critically dangerous juncture: the possibility of a military, potentially a nuclear, confrontation between NATO, led by the United States, and Russia. The militaries of the two nuclear superpowers are once again facing each other, this time in Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine, and in Syria. And tensions are increasing each passing day.

In a sense, we can say that a world war is already taking place. Currently, the governments of 15 countries are bombing Syria. They include seven allied NATO countries: US, UK, France, Turkey, Canada, Belgium, and Netherlands. They also include non-NATO allies of the United States: Israel, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and Australia; and most recently, Russia.
On the western borders of Russia, another dangerous war is going on. NATO is expanding its forces into countries bordering Russia. All the borderland governments are now allowing NATO and US military forces on their territory, where threatening NATO military exercises are taking place only a few miles from major Russian cities. This is certainly causing a great deal of tension for the Russian government, as it would naturally do the same for the US government if Russian forces were stationed on the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders, carrying out military exercises a few miles from major American cities.
Either, or both, of these situations can easily lead to a direct confrontation between US and its NATO allies on the one hand, and Russia on the other; a confrontation that has the potential of escalating into a nuclear war with disastrous consequences.
It is in light of this dangerous situation that we are addressing our friends and comrades in the peace and anti-nuclear movement. It seems to us that many of our allies in the movement are paying scant attention to the dangers that threaten the whole existence of humanity on a global scale today, and are limiting their reactions to just protesting this or that action on the part of
this or that side. At best, they are saying to the US and Russia “a plague on both your houses,” criticizing both sides for equally increasing the tensions. This, in our view, is a passive, ahistorical, and more importantly ineffective, response that ignores the urgency of the existing threat. Moreover, by bestowing blame in equal measure, it masks its real causes.

But the roots of the current crisis are much deeper than the recent conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. It all goes back to the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the desire of the US, as the sole remaining
superpower, to unilaterally dominate the whole world. This fact is very bluntly stated in the document published by the neo-cons in September 2000, titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century,” upon which the current US policy is based (forgive us for this lengthy reminder):
At present the United States faces no global rival. Americas grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible. There are, however, potentially powerful states dissatisfied with the current situation and eager to change it....
Today its [the militarys] task is to ... deter the rise of a new great-power competitor; defend key regions of Europe, East Asia and the Middle East; and to preserve American preeminence.... Today, that same security can only be acquired at the retaillevel, by deterring or, when needed, by compelling regional foes to act in ways that protect American interests and principles....
It is now commonly understood that information and other new technologies ... are creating a dynamic that may threaten Americas ability to exercise its dominant military power. Potential rivals such as
China are anxious to exploit these transformational technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate.... If an American peace is to be maintained, and expanded, it must have a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence....
[T]he reality of the todays world is that there is no magic wand with which to eliminate [nuclear] weapons ... and that deterring their use requires a reliable and dominant U.S. nuclear capability.... Nuclear weapons remain a critical component of American military power....
It addition, there may be a need to develop a new family of nuclear weapons designed to address new sets of military requirements, such as would be required in targeting the very deep underground, hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries.... U.S. nuclear superiority is nothing to be ashamed of; rather, it will be an essential element in preserving American leadership....
[M]aintaining or restoring a favorable order in vital regions in the world such as Europe, the Middle East and East Asia places a unique responsibility on U.S. armed forces....
For one, they demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.... Nor can the United States assume a UN-like stance of neutrality; the preponderance of American power is so great and its global interests so wide that it cannot pretend to be indifferent to the political outcome in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf or even when it deploys forces in Africa.... American forces must remain deployed abroad, in large numbers.... Neglect or withdrawal from constabulary missions will ... encourage petty tyrants to defy American interests and ideals. And the failure to prepare for tomorrows challenges will ensure that the current Pax Americana comes to an early end....
[I]t is important that NATO not be replaced by the European Union, leaving the United States without a voice in European security affairs....
Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would
still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region....
[T]he value of land power continues to appeal to a global superpower, whose security interests rest upon ... the ability to win wars. While maintaining its combat role, the U.S. Army has acquired new missions in the past decade most immediately ... defending American interests in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. These new missions will require the continued stationing of U.S. Army units abroad.... [E]lements of U.S. Army Europe should be redeployed to Southeast Europe, while a permanent unit should be based in the Persian Gulf region....
When their missiles are tipped with warheads carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, even weak regional powers have a credible deterrent, regardless of the balance of conventional forces. That is why, according to the CIA, a number of regimes deeply hostile to America North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria – “already have or are developing ballistic missilesthat could threaten U.S allies and forces abroad.... Such capabilities pose a grave challenge to the American peace and the military power that preserves that peace. The ability to control this emerging threat through traditional nonproliferation treaties is limited....
The current American peace will be short-lived if the United States becomes vulnerable to rogue powers with small, inexpensive arsenals of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction. We cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states to undermine American leadership....
And, most importantly, none of these can be achieved absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor....(all emphases added)
And this document has been the guiding principle of US policy ever since, for both Bush and Obama administrations. Every aspect of US policy today is in line with the letter of this document, from the Middle East, to Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America, bypassing the UN as global peacekeeper and replacing it with NATO’s military power as the global enforcer, as recommended in this document. Any leader or government that resists the planned US domination of the world must go, by use of military force if necessary!
The “catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harborthat they needed was handed to them on a silver platter on September 11, 2001 and the whole plan was put into motion. A new enemy,Islamic Terrorism, took the place of the old enemy,Communism. The global war on terrorismthus began. First came Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Libya, and now Syria, with Iran waiting for its turn (all of them listed in the document as targets of regime change by force). Similarly, based on the same strategy, Russia, and later China, as global rivalsand deterrentsto the US global domination, must also be weakened and contained. Hence, also, the amassing of NATO forces on Russian borders and the dispatch of US Navy carriers and warships to East Asia to encircle China.
Unfortunately, it seems, this overall strategic picture is being missed by a significant part of our peace movement. Many forget that the demonization of foreign leaders, and slogans like Saddam Hussein must go,” “Gadhafi must go,” “Assad must go,” “Chavez must go,” “Maduro must go,” “Yanukovych must go,and now, Putin must go,(all clearly in violation of international law and the UN Charter)

are all part and parcel of the same global domination strategy that is threatening peace and security of the whole world, and even the very existence of humanity as a whole.
The question, here, is not about defending this or that leader or government, or disregarding their violation of their citizensrights. The issue is that we cannot look at each one of these cases in isolation
from the others and deal with them piecemeal without seeing the root cause of all of them, i.e., the US drive for global domination. We cannot hope to eliminate nuclear weapons when the two most powerful nuclear states are on the verge of a military confrontation. We cannot protect innocent civilians by funding and arming extremists, directly or through allies. We cannot expect peace and cooperation with Russia while amassing NATO forces and carrying out military exercises on its borders. We cannot have security if we do not respect the sovereignty and security of other nations and peoples.
Being fair and objective does not mean being even-handed between the aggressor and its victims. We need to stop aggression before we can deal with the victimsresponses to the aggression. We ought not
blame the victim of aggression instead of the actions of the aggressor. And looking at the whole picture, there should be no doubt about who the aggressors are.
It is in light of these facts that we believe we cannot avoid the impending catastrophe without joining forces, with the needed sense of urgency, to demand the following in both words and action:
  1. NATO forces must be immediately withdrawn from the countries bordering Russia;
  2. All foreign forces must leave Syria immediately, and Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity must be guaranteed.
  3. Syrian conflict must be dealt with only through political processes and diplomatic negotiations. The US must withdraw its policy of Assad must goas a precondition, and stop blocking diplomatic talks.
  4. Negotiations must include the government of Syria especially, as well as all regional and global parties that are affected by the conflict.
5. The future of the Syrian government must be decided by the Syrian people alone, free of all external interferences.
  1. The US strategy for global domination must be abandoned in favor of peaceful coexistence of all countries and respect for every nations right to self-determination and sovereignty.
  2. The process of dismantling NATO must begin immediately.
We call upon all of our friends and comrades in the peace and anti-nuclear movement to join hands with us in a democratic coalition to end all wars of aggression. We wholeheartedly welcome all cooperative responses by our friends and comrades in the movement.
U.S. Peace Council October 10, 2015 

"Deconstructing the NATO Narrative on Syria" Eva Bartlett:

11 octobre 2015 16:22:59 UTC−4

And Ather DISSIDENT VOICE ARTICLES

Latest Articles

Deconstructing the NATO Narrative on Syria

by Eva Bartlett / October 10th, 2015
Over the past five years, the increasingly ridiculous propaganda against President al-Assad and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has ranged from the scripted (OTPOR fomented -“revolution“) “peaceful protesters under fire” rhetoric, to other deceitful lexicon like “civil war,” and “moderate rebels.”
As the intervention campaigns continue with new terrorist and “humanitarian” actors (literally) constantly emerging in the NATO-alliance’s theatre of death squads, it is worth reviewing some of the important points regarding the war on Syria.
Million Person Marches
On March 29, 2011 (less than two weeks into the fantasy “revolution”) over 6 million people across Syria took to the streets in support of President al-Assad. In June, a reported hundreds of thousands marched in Damascus in support of the president, with a 2.3 km long Syrian flag. In November, 2011 (9 months into the chaos), masses again held demonstrations supporting President al-Assad, notably in Homs (the so-called “capital of the ‘revolution’”), Dara’a (the so-called “birthplace of the ‘revolution’”), Deir ez-Zour, Raqqa, Latakia, and Damascus.
Mass demonstrations like this have occurred repeatedly since, including in March 2012, in May 2014 in the lead-up to Presidential elections, and in June 2015, to note just some of the larger rallies.
In May 2013, it was reported that even NATO recognized the Syrian president’s increased popularity. “The data, relayed to NATO over the last month, asserted that 70 percent of Syrians support” the Assad government. At present, the number is now at least 80 percent.
The most telling barometer of Assad’s support base was the Presidential elections in June 2014, which saw 74 percent (11.6 million) of 15.8 million registered Syrian voters vote, with President al-Assad winning 88 percent of the votes. The lengths Syrians outside of Syria went to in order to vote included flooding the Syrian embassy in Beirut for two full days (and walking several kilometres to get there) and flying from countries with closed Syrian embassies to Damascus airport simply to cast their votes. Within Syria, Syrians braved terrorist mortars and rockets designed to keep them from voting; 151 shells were fired on Damascus alone, killing 5 and maiming 33 Syrians.
For a more detailed look at his broad base of popular support, see Professor Tim Anderson’s “Why Syrians Support Bashar al Assad.”
The Reforms
Prior to the events of March 2011 Syrians did have legitimate desires for specific reforms, many of which were implemented from the beginning of the unrest. In fact, President al-Assad made reforms prior to and following March 17, 2011.
Stephen Gowans noted some of those early reforms, including:
  • Canceling the Emergency Law;
  • Amending the the constitution and putting it to a referendum [8.4 million Syrians voted; 7.5 million voted in favour of the constitution];
  • Scheduling, then holding, multi-party parliamentary and presidential elections
The constitution, according to Gowans, “mandated that the government maintain a role in guiding the economy on behalf of Syrian interests, and that the Syrian government would not make Syrians work for the interests of Western banks, oil companies, and other corporations.”
It also included:
  • “security against sickness, disability and old age; access to health care; free education at all levels”
  • a provision “requiring that at minimum half the members of the People’s Assembly are to be drawn from the ranks of peasants and workers.”
Political commentator Jay Tharappel further articulated:
The new constitution introduced a multi-party political system in the sense that the eligibility of political parties to participate isn’t based on the discretionary permission of the Baath party or on reservations, rather on a constitutional criteria….the new constitution forbids political parties that are based on religion, sect or ethnicity, or which are inherently discriminatory towards one’s gender or race. (2012: Art.8)
No surprise that NATO’s exile-Syrian pawns refused the reforms and a constitution which ensures a sovereign Syria secure from the claws of multi-national corporations and Western banks.
In his article, “Decriminalising Bashar – towards a more effective anti-war movement,” writer Carlos Martinez outlined Syria’s positives, including its anti-imperialist, socialist policies; its secularism and multiculturalism; and—poignantly—its continued support for Palestinians and anti-Zionist stance.
These are all points that contradict the lies spewed over the past nearly five years, and shatter the feeble justification for continuing to wage war on Syria.
Twisting the Numbers to Serve the War Agenda
The number and nature of Syrians killed varies depending on which list one consults. Many talking heads draw from one sole source, UK-based Syrian Rami Abdulrahman of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) (run out of his home and based on information provided largely by unnamed “activists”). Abdulrahman hasn’t been to Syria for 15 years, and, as Tony Cartalucci noted, is “a member of the so-called ‘Syrian opposition’ and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.” Further, Cartalucci explained, “Abdul Rahman’s operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a “European country” he refuses to identify.” So not an impartial source.
In her February 2012 “Questioning the Syrian Casualty List“, political analyst Sharmine Narwani laid out the logistical difficulties of collating the number of deaths, including:
  • Different casualty lists and difficulty confirming accuracy of any of them.
  • Lack of information on: how deaths were verified and by whom and from what motivation.
  • Lack of information on the dead: civilian, pro or anti government civilians; armed groups; Syrian security forces?”
She found that one early casualty list included 29 Palestinian refugees “killed by Israeli fire on the Golan Heights on 15 May 2011 and 5 June 2011 when protesters congregated on Syria’s armistice line with Israel.”
Jay Tharappel looked at two of the other prime groups cited regarding casualties in Syria: the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) and the Violations Documentation Center (VDC).
He noted that neither of the groups “are ‘independent’ in the sense that they function merely to provide facts, they’re all open about their agenda to overthrow the Syrian government…and for the imposition of a no-fly zone on behalf of the ‘moderate rebels’, whoever they are.”
Further, according to Tharappel, “the SNHR doesn’t provide any evidence to substantiate its assertions about the numbers killed by government forces. They claim to have ‘documented [victims] by full name, place, and date of death,’ however none of these can be found on their website.”
Regarding the VDC, he wrote, “there are good reasons to believe the VDC is listing dead insurgents as civilians, as well as mislabeling dead government soldiers as FSA fighters.”
One example he cited was the listing of a Jaysh al-Islam militant, ‘Hisham Al-Sheikh Bakri’, killed by the SAA in Douma (infested with Jaysh al-Islam terrorists), in February 2015, which al-Masdar News reported. The VDC also listed ‘Hisham Abd al-Aziz al-Shaikh Bakri’, “however this one is listed as an adult male civilian and not a Jaish Al-Islam fighter,” Tharappel wrote.
Even embedded war reporter Nir Rosen, Tharappel recalled, in 2012 wrote:
Every day the opposition gives a death toll, usually without any explanation of the cause of the deaths. Many of those reported killed are in fact dead opposition fighters, but the cause of their death is hidden and they are described in reports as innocent civilians killed by security forces, as if they were all merely protesting or sitting in their homes.
It would be an understatement to say there are considerable, and intentional, inaccuracies in the lists of these groups. In fact, most of the aforementioned groups fail to note what commentators like Paul Larudee did:
The UN estimates 220,000 deaths thus far in the Syrian war. But almost half are Syrian army soldiers or allied local militia fighters, and two thirds are combatants if we count opposition fighters. Either way, the ratio of civilian to military casualties is roughly 1:2, given that the opposition is also inflicting civilian casualties. Compare that to the roughly 3:1 ratio in the US war in Iraq and 4:1 in the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2008-9. (The rate of Palestinian to Israeli casualties was an astronomical 100:1.)
“Leftists” Keeping the Myths Alive
Public figures like Owen Jones, and pro-Palestinian sites like the Middle East Eyeand the Electronic Intifada, have a following for their more palatable (and safe) solidarity stance on Palestine, but routinely spew rhetoric against Syria, which is then echoed by their well-intentioned, if very misinformed, followers.
Much of grassroots “Leftists”’ anti-Syria propaganda is as poisonous as corporate media. Routinely, at ostensibly anti-war/anti-Imperialist gatherings, the anti-Syria narrative is predominant.
For example, at the March 2015 World Social Forum in Tunis, some Syria-specific panels spun the fairy tale of “revolutionaries” in Syria, one panel alleging: “The protests in Syria were peaceful for almost six or seven months; 6-7000 unarmed people were killed; only then did ‘rebels’ eventually take up arms.”
Yet, it is known that from the beginning, in Dara’a  and throughout Syria, armed protesters were firing upon, and butchering, security forces and civilians. Tim Anderson’s “Syria: how the violence began, in Daraa” pointed out that police were killed by snipers in the March 17/18 protests; the Syrian army was only brought to Dara’a following the murder of the policemen. Additionally, a storage of protesters’ weapons was found in Dara’a’s al-Omari mosque.
Prem Shankar Jha’s, “Who Fired The First Shot?” described the slaughter of 20 Syrian soldiers outside Dara’a a month later, “by cutting their throats, and cutting off the head of one of the soldiers.” A very “moderate”-rebel practice.
In “Syria: The Hidden Massacre” Sharmine Narwani investigated the early massacres of Syrian soldiers, noting that many of the murders occurred even after the Syrian government had abolished the state security courts, lifted the state of emergency, granted general amnesties, and recognized the right to peaceful protest.
The April 10, 2011 murder of Banyas farmer Nidal Janoud was one of the first horrific murders of Syrian civilians by so-called “unarmed protesters.” Face gashed open, mutilated and bleeding, Janoud was paraded by an armed mob, who then hacked him to death.
Father Frans Van der Ludt—the Dutch priest living in Syria for nearly 5 decades prior to his April 7, 2014 assassination by militants occupying the old city of Homs—wrote (repeatedly) of the “armed demonstrators” he saw in early protests, “who began to shoot at the police first.”
May 2011 video footage of later-resigned Al Jazeera journalist Ali Hashem shows fighters entering Syria from Lebanon, carrying guns and RPGs (Hashem stated he’d likewise seen fighters entering in April). Al Jazeera refused to air the May footage, telling Hashem to ‘forget there are armed men.’ [See: Sharmine Narwani’s “Surprise Video Changes Syria “Timeline””] Unarmed protesters?
The Sectarian Card: Slogans and Massacres
What sectarianism we see in Syria today was delivered primarily by the Wahabi and Muslim Brotherhood (MB) regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and by Turkey, with NATO’s blessing and backing. The cross-sect make-up of both the Syrian State and the Syrian army alone speaks of Syria’s intentional secularism, as well as the prevalent refusal of average Syrians to self-identify along sectarian lines.
On the other hand, from the beginning, the West’s “nonviolent protesters” were chanting sectarian slogans, notably, “Christians to Beirut, Alawis to the grave.” Other popular chants included: calling for the extermination of all Alawis; pledging allegiance to Saudi-based extremist Syrian Sheikh Adnan Arour and to extremist MB supporting Egyptian Sheikh, Yusuf al-Qardawi.
Qatar-based Qaradawi advocates killing Syrian civilians: “It is OK to kill one thirdof the Syrian population if it leads to the toppling of the heretical regime.” The inflammatory Arour said about Syria’s Alawis: “By Allah we shall mince them in meat grinders and feed their flesh to the dogs.”
The NATO alliance’s terrorists have committed numerous massacres of Syrian civilians and soldiers, many of which were intended to sow sectarianism, including:
  • The June 2011 Jisr al Shugour, Idlib, massacre of up to 120 people (soldiers and civilians) by between 500-600 so-called FSA terrorists; blamed on the SAA as having killed “military deserters”. [see Prem Shankar Jha’s  article “Syria – Who fired the first shot?”]
  • The Houla massacre of over 100 civilians on May 25, 2012, which only 2 days later the UN claimed—without an investigation— had been committed by the Syrian Army. [See Tim Anderson’s detailed rebuttal, “The Houla Massacre Revisited: “Official Truth” in the Dirty War on Syria” In the same article, Anderson also looked at the August 2012 Daraya massacre of 245 people and the December 2012 Aqrab massacre of up to 150 villagers.
  • The August 2013 massacre of at least 220 civilians (including a fetus, many children, women, elderly) and kidnapping of at least 100 (mostly women and children) in villages in the Latakia countryside.
  • The December 2013 massacre of at least 80 residents (many “slaughtered like sheep”, decapitated, burned in bakery ovens) in Adra industrial village.
  • The continued terrorist-mortaring of civilian areas and schools; the repeated terrorist-car-bombing of civilian areas and schools. [see: “The Terrorism We Support in Syria: A First-hand Account of the Use of Mortars against Civilians”]
Yet, in spite of outside forces attempts to sow sectarianism in Syria, the vast majority of Syrian people refuse it. Re-visiting Syria in July 2015, Professor Tim Anderson recounted that Latakia alone “has grown from 1.3 million to around 3 million people – they come from all parts, not just Aleppo, also Hama, Deir eZorr, and other areas.” He also visited Sweida, a mainly Druze region, which has accommodated “135,000 families, mainly from Daraa – others from other parts”. Mainly Sunni families.
The Syrian “Civil War”?!
Given that:
  • At least 80,000 terrorists from over 80 countries are fighting as mercenaries in Syria;
  • Israel has repeatedly bombed Syria [examples herehere and here];
  • Israel is treating al-Qaeda terrorists in their hospitals and enabling their transit back and forth into Syria, as well as arming them—even Israeli media have reported that Israel is providing aid to al-Qaeda terrorists; even the UN has reported on Israeli soldiers interacting with Jebhat al-Nusra in the occupied Syrian Golan;
  • Turkey is not only arming and funneling terrorists into Syria but also repeatedly co-attacks Syria;
  • the whole crisis was manufactured in imperialist think tanks years before the 2011 events;
…“Civil war” is the absolute last term that could be used to describe the war on Syria.
In 2002, then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton added Syria (and Libya, Cuba) to the “rogue states” of George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil,”…meaning Syria was on the list of countries to “bring democracy to” (aka destroy) even back then.
Anthony Cartalucci’s “US Planned Syrian Civilian Catastrophe Since 2007” laid out a number of pivotal statements and events regarding not only the war on Syria but also the events which would be falsely-dubbed the “Arab Spring.” Points include:
  • General Wesley Clark’s revelation of US plans to destroy the governments of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
  • Seymour Hersh’s 2007 “The Redirection” on NATO and allies’ arming and training of sectarian extremists to create sectarian divide in Lebanon, Syria and beyond.
The 2009 Brookings Institution report, “Which Path to Persia?”, on plans to weaken Syria and Lebanon, to later attack Iran.
Further, Stephen Gowans reported:
  • U.S. funding to the Syrian opposition began flowing under the Bush administration in 2005.
  • Since its founding in October 2011, the Syrian National Council has received $20.4 million from Libya, $15 million from Qatar, $5 million from the UAE.
Former French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Roland Dumas, in a June 2013 TV interview spoke of his meeting (two years prior) with British officials who confessed that:
Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned.
More recent evidence of the NATO-alliance plot against Syria includes a June 2012 NY Times article noting the CIA support for “rebels” in Syria, including providing and funneling “automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons” from Turkey to Syria. The article said:
A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
In October 2014, Serena Shim, a US journalist working for Press TV, was killed in a highly suspicious car crash near Turkey’s border with Syria shortly after reporting she had been threatened by Turkish intelligence. Shim had previously reported she had photos of “militants going in through the Turkish border…I’ve got images of them in World Food Organization trucks.”
Similar statements have been made. For example, testimony of a Turkish driver explaining “how vehicles would be accompanied by MİT agents during the trip, which would start from the Atme camp in Syria and end at the border town of Akçakale in Şanlıurfa Province, where the militants and cargo would reenter Syria.”
In July, 2015, Press TV reported that terrorists caught in Aleppo confessed to receiving training by US and Gulf personnel in Turkey.
As I wrote, “in a November 2014 report, the Secretary-General mentioned the presence of al-Nusra and other terrorists in the ceasefire area ‘unloading weapons from a truck,’ as well as a ‘vehicle with a mounted anti-aircraft gun’ and Israeli ‘interactions’ with ‘armed gangs.’”
Given all of this, and America’s plan to train up to 15,000 more “rebels” over the next three years, it is beyond ridiculous that the inappropriate term “civil war” continues to be propagated.
DA’ESH and Other Moderates
In June, 2015, Anthony Cartalucci wrote about a recently-released 2012 Department of Defense document which admitted that the US foresaw ISIS’ establishing a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want….”
He outlined the flow of weapons and terrorists from Libya to Syria, via Turkey, “coordinated by US State Department officials and intelligence agencies in Benghazi – a terrorist hotbed for decades,” as well as weapons from Eastern Europe.
Earlier “moderates” include the Farouq Brigades‘ (of the so-called “FSA”) organ-eating terrorist “Abu Sakkar,” and those numerous “FSA” and al-Nusra militants who committed the massacres listed above, to name but a portion.
“Human Rights” Front Groups Promoting War Rhetoric
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Avaaz, Moveon, and lesser-known, newly-created groups like The Syria Campaign, The White Helmets, and Action Group for Palestinians in Syria, are complicit in war-propagandizing and even calling for a (Libya 2.0) no-fly-zone bombing campaign of Syria.
On HRW, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser noted:
Human Rights Watch is undeniably an appendage of US foreign policy. It is in many ways part of the ‘soft power’ arm of US power projection, a means of delegitimizing, demonizing, and otherwise destabilizing countries that do not play ball with the US…
Vigilant Twitter users have called out HRW’s lying Ken Roth for tweeting a photo he claimed to be Aleppo’s destruction from “barrel bombs” but which was, in fact, Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) post-Da’esh attacks and US-coalition bombs. In another outrageous case, Roth tweeted a video of the flattened al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza, devastated by Israeli bombing in 2014, purporting it to be Aleppo.
Again, he was called out, forcing a weak retraction. Post-retraction, he tweeted yet another image of destruction, again claiming it to be from “Assad’s barrel bombs” but which was according to the photo byline Hamidiyeh, Aleppo, where “local popular committee fighters, who support the Syrian government forces, try to defend the traditionally Christian district” against ISIS.
On Amnesty International, Anthony Cartalucci wrote:
Amnesty does take money from both governments and corporate-financier interests, one of the most notorious of which, Open Society, is headed by convicted financial criminal George Soros (whose Open Society also funds Human Rights Watch and a myriad of other “human rights” advocates). Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, for instance, was drawn directly from the US State Department…
Highlighting just one instance of AI’s slick maneuvering, Rick Sterling, in his May 2015 “Eight Problems with Amnesty’s Report on Aleppo Syria” outed Amnesty for not only normalizing sending weapons to terrorists in Syria but suggesting how to do so in an underhand means. He emphasized:
This is an amazing statement, effectively sanctioning the supplying of arms to insurgents who agree to follow ‘humanitarian’ rules of war.
Sterling further noted that Amnesty:
  • relied on groups “either based in, or receiving funds from, Turkey, USA or one of the other countries heavily involved in seeking overthrow of the Damascus government.
  • did not seek testimonies from the “two-thirds of the displaced persons in Syria INSIDE Syria…people who fled Aleppo and are now living in Homs, Latakia, Damascus or in Aleppo under government control.”
In “Humanitarians for War on Syria” Sterling elaborated on the intervention campaign:
The goal is to prepare the public for a “No Fly Zone” enforced by US and other military powers. This is how the invasion of Iraqbegan. This is how the public was prepared for the US/NATO air attack on Libya.
The results of western ‘regime change’ in Iraq and Libya have been disastrous. …Avaaz is ramping up its campaign trying to reach 1 million people signing a petition for a “Safe Zone” in Syria.
Sterling wrote on the  “White Helmets”, “created by the UK and USA in 2013. Civilians from rebel controlled territory were paid to go to Turkey to receive some training in rescue operations. The program was managed by James Le Mesurier, a former British soldier and private contractor…” He noted the ties between WH and anti-Syria actors, including Jabat al-Nusra. One example of their propaganda: “Video of the recent alleged chlorine gas attacks starts with the White Helmet logo and continues with the logo of Nusra. In reality, White Helmets is a small rescue team for Nusra/Al Queda (sic).”
Vanessa Beeley’s “‘White Helmets’: New Breed of Mercenaries and Propagandists, Disguised as ‘Humanitarians’ in Syria” further flushed out the propaganda elements of the WH operation and their parroting of the MSM/HR industry anti-Syrian rhetoric.
The list of “humanitarian” actors is long, and the list of their war-propagating lies even longer. [see: “Human Rights” front groups (“Humanitarian Interventionalists”) warring on Syria]
The Yarmouk Card
A district of Damascus formerly housing over one million residents, of whom 160,000 were Palestinian refugees, according to the UN, the rest Syrians, the plight of Yarmouk neighbourhood has been used by “humanitarian” campaigners to pull at heartstrings and to further confuse supporters of Palestine on the subject of Syria and the State’s treatment of Palestinians. In fact, Syria has been one of Palestine’s greatest advocates and friends, providing Palestinian refugees in Syria with a quality of life equal to that of Syrians, including free education, health care and other social services. The same cannot even remotely be said of any of Palestine’s neighbouring countries, where Palestinian refugees languish in abysmal refugee camps and are denied the right to professional employment, and affordable and quality health care and education, much less dignity.
The United Nations, the HR industry, and the media obfuscate on Yarmouk, ignoring or whitewashing both the presence of various terrorist groups and the role of some Palestinian factions in enabling these groups entry, as well as fighting alongside them against the Syrian government. Talking heads also pointedly ignore the Syrian government-facilitated evacuations of Yarmouk residents to government, community, and UN provided shelters. They likewise ignore the documented repeated and continuous terrorists attacks on government and other aid distribution within the neighbourhood, as well as on anti-terrorist demonstrations held by Yarmouk residents.
One such demonstration occurred in May 2013, with UK-media Sky News’ Tim Marshall present as demonstrators came under so-called “rebel” fire. He reported:
…Some screamed at us: “Please tell the world the truth! We don’t want the fighters here, we want the army to kill them!”… About 1,000 people were in the demonstration. …The shooting began almost immediately. A man went down, followed by others. …As they passed us a man stopped and shouted that he was sure the fighters were not Syrians but men paid to come to Damascus and kill people…
In his April 2015 “Who Are the Starving and Besieged Residents of Yarmouk and Why Are They There?” Paul Larudee asked:
Who are the remaining civilians and why are they refusing to evacuate to outside shelter like so many others? Local humanitarian relief supervisors report (personal communication) that some of them are not from Yarmouk and some are not Palestinian. They include the families of Syrian and foreign fighters that are trying to overthrow the Syrian government by force of arms, and some of them came from districts adjacent to Yarmouk, such as the Daesh stronghold of Hajar al-Aswad.
Larudee’s article further addressed the issues of:
  • the Syrian government allowing food aid into the district: “…it has allowed the stockpiling of supplies on the edge of the camp and it has permitted civilians from inside to collect and distribute the aid….”
  • the Syrian military’s siege tactic (combined with evacuation of civilians): “The objective is to remove the civilians from the area as much as possible and then attack the enemy or provoke surrender…”
Analyst Sharmine Narwani observed:
The Syrian government has every right to blockade the border areas between Yarmouk and Damascus to prevent extremist gunmen from entering the capital. I have been in Yarmouk several times, including last year, and have talked to aid workers inside the camp, including UNRWA. The Syrian government, in their view, assists in getting aid and food to refugee populations inside the camp – contrary to western narratives and those activists like the EI activists…most of whom appear not to have set foot inside Yarmouk since the early days of the conflict.
Although the figure of 18,000 remaining Palestinians in Yarmouk may have been accurate in October 2013, today, after the evacuation of thousands, anti-Syria publications continue to cite 18,000. Journalist Lizzie Phelan, who visited Yarmouk in September 2015, says the number remaining is around 4,000.
Most media and HR groups are not reporting that there are Palestinian fightersfighting alongside the SAA, in Yarmouk and other parts of Syria, against the NATO-alliance’s fighters. Al Masdar News reported in June 2015:
…ISIS originally launched a successful offensive at the Yarmouk Camp District in the month of March; however, after a joint counter-assault by the PFLP-GC, Fatah Al-Intifada, the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), and members of Aknef Al-Maqdis; ISIS was forced to withdrawal to the southern sector of the district, leaving only the southern axis under their control.
Sharmine Narwani’s “Stealing Palestine: Who dragged Palestinians into Syria’s conflict?” is essential reading, to understand the current situation in Syria vis-a-visits Palestinian refugees. As for Palestinians themselves, the Syria Solidarity Movement published a statement which emphasized that “more than 1101 Palestinian groups and individuals declare their solidarity with the Syrian people and the Syrian state.” Signatories include Jerusalem’s Archbishop Atallah Hanna, the Palestinian Popular Forum, Yarmouk, and other Palestinian Yarmouk residents.
Serial Chemical Offenders Remain at Large
Israel has on more than one occasion used prohibited chemical and other weapons on the locked-down nearly 2 million Palestinians of Gaza. During the 2008/2009 Israeli massacre of Gaza, the Israeli army rained white phosphorouson schools sheltering displaced Palestinian families, on homes, and on hospitals(of which I gathered video, photo and witness evidence at the time). Israel also used DIME on the Palestinians of Gaza. Yet, Israel remains unpunished, and receives ever increasing billions of dollars and new weaponry every year. Nor has the US ever been held accountable for its widespread criminal use of CW, such as on the people of Vietnam, of Iraq.
The US and HR actors have repeatedly—and without evidence—accused Syria of using Sarin gas, then Chlorine, accusations which have been amply refuted. Seymour Hersh’s probe on the sarin attacks was so damning US mainstream media wouldn’t print it.
In rebuttal to the May 2015 accusation of chlorine attacks — as always followed with human rights groups’ calls for a No-Fly Zone —Stephen Gowans wrote:
As a weapon, chlorine gas is exceedingly ineffective. It is lethal only in highly concentrated doses and where medical treatment is not immediately available. It is far less effective than conventional weapons. Why, then, would the Syrian army use a highly ineffective weapon, which is deplored by world public opinion, and whose use would provide the United States a pretext to directly intervene militarily in Syria, when it has far more effective conventional weapons, which are not deplored by world public opinion, and whose use does not deliver a pretext to Washington to intervene? (See also Gowans’ “New York Times Complicit in Spreading False Syria Allegations”)
Tim Anderson investigated the August 2013 Ghouta attacks, pointing out:
  • UN investigator Carla del Ponte had testimony from victims that ‘rebels’ had used sarin gas in a prior attack
  • Turkish security forces sarin in the homes of Jabhat al Nusra fighters.
  • Evidence of video manipulation in the Ghouta attacks.
  • “Parents identified children in photos as those kidnapped in Latakia, two weeks earlier.”
  • “CW had been supplied by Saudis to ‘rebel’ groups, some locals had died due to mishandling.”
  • “Three of five CW attacks were ‘against soldiers’ or ‘against soldiers and civilians’.”
The Interventionalists have tried repeatedly to accuse the Syrian government of CWs usage; yet the real criminals remain at large.
Against Incitement, For Peace
Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari, in May, 2015, said that spreading incitement and lies on Syria is a blatant violation of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution No. 1624 for 2005 and of journalism ethics if any, SANA reported.
Syrian media, which attempts to report the reality of Syria under attack, has been repeatedly targeted, something the MSM refuses to acknowledge (See: Media Black-Out on Arab Journalists and Civilians Beheaded in Syria by Western-Backed Mercenaries).
As the NATO-alliance pushes for a “safe zone”…meaning a “no-fly zone” for the purpose of bombing Syria, anti-war activists and journalists must denounce the lies of anti-Syria governments and “human rights” groups, and must share the truth of Syria’s war against terrorism.
Since drafting this lengthy Syria-101 overview, there have been major shifts in Syria’s war against foreign-backed terrorism, namely Russia’s recent airstrikes against Da’esh and co. This increase in Russian support for Syria—with Russian planes destroying more Da’esh and other western-backed terrorists and their training camps in just a few days than the US coalition has over the past year—is a turning point in the war on Syria. Predictably, corporate media are pulling all the stops to demonize Russia‘s involvement, although Russia was invited by the Syrian government to do precisely what it is doing.
Those following Syria closely have echoed what Syrian leadership has said for years and continues to say: the way to stop ISIS and all its brethren terrorist factions, and to bring security to the region, is to cease arming, financing, training and funneling terrorists and weapons into Syria, silence the sectarian indoctrination coming from Gulf extremist sheikhs, and support the Syrian army and allies in their fight for security and stability in Syria.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian freelance journalist and activist who has lived in and written from the Gaza Strip, Syria, and Lebanon. Read other articles by Eva, or visit Eva's website.
This article was posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2015 at 4:13pm and is filed under AssassinationsCrimes against HumanityIsrael/PalestineMediaMercenariesMilitarismNATOPropagandaQatarRefugeesRussiaSaudi ArabiaSyriaTerrorism (state and retail)TurkeyWar Crimes.

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