Pentagon’s War on Terror: Smokescreen for ambitious geopolitical projects

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Global Research, November 22, 2015

Sputnik News 17 November 2015

US Military © AFP 2015/ Noorullah Shirzada / FILES

The US’ “war on terror” is a covert geopolitical project carried out under a fake counter-terrorism agenda, Canadian author Professor Michel Chossudovsky believes.

According to renowned Canadian economist and author Michel Chossudovsky, Washington’s widely-discussed “war on terror” is nothing less than a series of military and covert intelligence operations being undertaken simultaneously on different geographic locations.

“Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states,” Professor Chossudovsky writes in his article for Global Research.

The Canadian author elaborates that the operations are carried out by the Western military alliance, while all the actions are coordinated “at the highest level of the military hierarchy.”

To illustrate his views, the Canadian author calls attention to the fact that the US-backed military actions in Ukraine coincided with the “onslaught of the attack” on Gaza, Syria and Iraq.

The Western alliance is waging a hybrid warfare which includes military attacks, economic sanctions and deliberate acts of destabilization of the financial and currency markets.

As a result of this “economic conquest”, powerful foreign investors are taking over “national economies” worldwide.

“The Global War on Terrorism has become a consensus. It is part of war propaganda. It is also used by Western governments to justify and implement ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation. It is the cornerstone of the West’s demonization campaign directed against Muslims. It should also be understood that the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ supports a process of ‘economic conquest,’ whereby countries forego their sovereignty,” the professor explains, adding that the campaign against the Islamic State is in fact a smokescreen used by Washington and its NATO allies to maintain control over the Middle East and North Africa.

Washington’s anti-ISIL air campaign has evidently proved ineffective. Obama’s critics have repeatedly slammed the US president for his inconsistent strategy in the Middle East.

Why was the Pentagon incapable of wiping out the Islamic State?

The answer is obvious, Chossudovsky notes: “from the very outset, this air campaign has NOT been directed against ISIS [ISIL].”

“The air raids are intended to destroy the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria,” the professor writes.

According to the Canadian academic, the ISIL caliphate project could be a part of Washington’s longstanding foreign policy plan to split Iraq and Syria into a Sunni Islamist caliphate, an Arab Shiite Republic and a Republic of Kurdistan.

In order to accomplish this task, the US-backed extremists are destabilizing Middle Eastern sovereign states by creating factional divisions within the countries.

Remarkably, although the US State Department has issued an official prohibition against providing material support and financial assistance to al-Qaeda affiliates, it continues to turn a blind eye to the flow of money and supplies to ISIL and al-Nusra from private Gulf and Turkish donors.

It is not the first time Washington has supported Islamists, the Canadian academic notes, referring to the US assistance to the radical Islamist guerrillas in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which resulted in the emergence of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

“The ISIS brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al-Assad. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and al-Nusra mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011,” Professor Chossudovsky suggests.

The original source of this article is Sputnik News

http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagons-war-on-terror-smokescreen-for-ambitious-geopolitical-projects/5490692

Video: 500 ISIS fuel tankers smuggling oil destroyed by Russian Air Force

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Go, Russia!

By South Front
Global Research, November 20, 2015
South Front 19 November 2015

About 500 ISIS fuel tanker vehicles transporting illegal oil from Syria to Iraq for processing have been destroyed by the Russia’s Air Forces, Russian General Staff spokesman Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov said.

This week, Russia has dramatically increased its military operations in Syria. Russia is using long-range aviation bombers – Tu-22M3, Tu-95MC and Tu-160 – to target terrorist positions. Also, on Tuesday, the Russian cruiser Moskva fired a number of cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea and the militants’ positions at the ISIS Syrian capital, Raqqa.

This was just the start. Russian army Gen. Valery Gerasimov has announced that Russia is allocating 25 strategic bombers for the Syrian mission. Separately, Russian Air Forces will be strengthened with advanced 37 aircraft, including eight Su-34 bomber jets and four Su-27 fighter jets. Thus, Moscow is more than doubling the strike potential of the Russian Air Force in the region.

Moreover, the Russian Armed Forces will organize joint military operations with the French Navy to combat terrorists in Syria. According to chief of the main operations directorate of Russian army’s General Staff Andrey Kartapolov, it becomes possible with the arrival of the Charles de Gaulle warship to the Syrian shore. The sides are working on a draft plan for joint action on the sea and in the air.

France has also ramped up their air campaign against ISIS over the past days. Francois Hollande will meet Putin in Moscow on Nov. 26. A public idea of the event is to discuss how the countries’ militaries might work together.

The joint fight against ISIS may cause Russia and the West, as a first step France, to collaborate more closely in Syria. There are still limits to that cooperation because too many sides have different interests in the region. But it will become a step on the way to find a diplomatic solution of the crisis.

The original source of this article is South Front

http://www.globalresearch.ca/video-500-isis-fuel-tankers-smuggling-oil-destroyed-by-russian-air-force/5490030

French say Assad must go, President Assad responds “No thanks, Get serious”

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By Brandon Turbeville

Global Research, November 20, 2015

Activist Post 19 November 2015

Even after the Paris attacks, an elaborate false flag operation that saw well over a hundred innocent civilians brutally murdered by the hands of ISIS-linked NATO patsies (and apparently unwilling patsies), the French government is holding to the nonsensical line that Bashar al-Assad, the number one enemy of ISIS, must step down and relinquish power.

France’s President Francois Hollande recently stated that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could never be part of the solution because he was part of the problem, despite the fact that the problem was one that was created by the hands of NATO countries, notably France itself.

Indeed, before the crisis even got fully underway in Syria in 2011, France and the rest of NATO were already deeply engaged in divvying up the spoils of war in Libya, a country that NATO and France helped destroy and return to the living standards of a time before civilization.

Thus, Assad was quite right when he responded to a question about Hollande’s statement by asking, “was Hollande assigned by the Syrian population to speak on their behalf?” Of course he wasn’t. And neither was Obama or Merkel or Cameron. Nor was anyone else (although Putin seems to be doing a pretty good job of doing so at the moment).

Regardless, as Assad points out, it is an act of unmitigated arrogance to suggest that the government of France, which is not even popular at home, has the moral or legal right to deem and determine the government of the Syrian people, particularly when the Syrian people have demonstrated time and time again that Bashar al-Assad is their preferred leader.

Assad was also quite right to call out France and Hollande, as well as the entire Western world, on their crocodile tears being shed over the “Syrian people” and their “human rights” when these same nations are allies with some of the most brutal, autocratic, and un-democratic nations on the face of the earth such as the Gulf State Feudal monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Furthermore, it is entirely hypocritical and intentionally deceptive for France to ever complain about anyone being part of the problem when it comes to the acts committed by ISIS since France itself has played a major role in the funding, arming, training, and directing of ISIS fighters on the ground in Syria under a myriad of names and guises.

It is this very reason that Assad responded to the question of what message he may have for Hollande and Foreign Minister Fabius by saying “My message to Hollande and Fabius – be serious when you talk about fighting terrorists.”

But, of course, Holland and Fabius are not serious about fighting terrorists and they never have been. If they were, they would never have funded them in Syria and they would never have demanded that Assad, the mortal enemy of ISIS, step down. Indeed, they would never have allowed ISIS terrorists to run rampant with their plans at Charlie Hebdo or the Bataclan when it was clearly within the power of French intelligence to stop the attacks. France would have long ago demanded that the Jarablus corridor in Northern Syria on the Turkish border be closed. But France, Hollande, and Fabius never did any of those things. In fact, they have consistently done the opposite, proving that France is serious about imperialism, not fighting terror.

Below is the transcript of Assad’s interview with the French Magazine Valeurs Actuelles, so that readers may understand the position of the Syrian President and the cognitively dissonant nature of the propaganda coming from the West regarding both ISIS and Assad.

Interview with Bashar Al-Assad of Syria with Valeurs Actuelles:

Question 1: I want to have your comment on this: when our President Mr. Hollande, said that President Assad couldn’t be the solution because he was part of the problem. Does this represent a general view for you, and how you see this? What’s your reaction?

President Assad: First, the first part of my reaction is: was Hollande assigned by the Syrian population to speak on their behalf? That is the first question. Would you as a French citizen accept a similar comment from any other politician in this world, to say that President Hollande shouldn’t be the French President? Isn’t it a humiliation to the French people? We look at it the same way. It’s a humiliation to the Syrian people when he says such a thing. Doesn’t it mean that he doesn’t recognize them?

Second, for France as a country that’s always proud of its traditions and the principles of the French Revolution and maybe democracy and human rights, the first principle of that democracy is that peoples have the right to decide who leads them. So, it’s a shame on him, for somebody who represents the French population, to do and say something which is against the principles of the French republic and the French people. Second, it’s a shame on him to try to humiliate a population with a civilized, long, deep history for thousands of years like the Syrian people. So, that’s my reaction, and I think it will not affect the facts in Syria, because the facts will not be affected by certain statements.

Question 2: If you had a message, one message, for Mr. Hollande and Mr. Fabius, especially after what happened yesterday in Paris? Is it “please cut your relations urgently with Qatar and Saudi Arabia?”

President Assad: My message to Hollande and Fabius.. be serious when you talk about fighting terrorists

First of all, this message has many aspects. The first part of this message is a question: are they independent to send them a message they can implement? Actually, the French policy these days is not independent of the American one. This is first. So, sending a message will lead nowhere. In spite of that, if I have a hope that there will be some political change in France, the first one is go back to the real, independent, friendly politics of France toward the Middle East and toward Syria. Second, be away from the American, how to say, methodology, of double standards. So, if you want to support the Syrian people – allegedly – regarding democracy and freedom, it’s better to support the Saudi people first.

If you have a problem about democracy with the Syrian state, how could you have good relations and friendship with the worst states in the world, the most underdeveloped states in the world which are the Saudi and Qatari states? So, this contradiction doesn’t give credibility.

Third, it’s natural for any official to work for the sake and interest of his people. The question that I ask in any message is: did the French policy during the past five years bring any good to the French people? What is the benefit? I’m sure the answer is no, and the proof of that answer is what I said a few years ago, that messing with the fault line in Syria is messing with an earthquake that will reverberate in the rest of the world, first of all in Europe because we are the backyard of Europe, geographically and geopolitically, so that time they said “are you threatening?” I didn’t, and Charlie Hebdo happened at the beginning of this year, and I said after that incident that this is only the tip of the iceberg, and what happened yesterday is another proof. So, they need to change their policy toward the interests of their people, and this is where we’re going to have the same interests with the French population, mainly fighting terrorism. So, the final message is: be serious when you talk about fighting terrorists. That’s my message.

Question 3: French experts say that terrorists are certainly being trained in the Middle East, and we have a lack of information. What would be necessary to have that kind of cooperation between Paris and Damascus?

President Assad: You need first of all seriousness. If the French government is not serious about fighting terrorism, we wouldn’t waste our time cooperating with a country, or a government, let’s say, with an institution that is supporting terrorism. First of all, you need to change your policy, to have one standard regarding this and not multiple standards, and to have that country be part of an alliance with countries that only fight terrorism, not countries that support terrorism and are fighting terrorism. This is a contradiction. So, these are the first basics of having any cooperation. We would like to have this kind of cooperation, not only with France, but with any country, but this cooperation needs an atmosphere. It needs certain criteria, and needs certain conditions.

Question 4: And in the future, if the government changes, would it be possible?

President Assad: In politics you don’t have friendship and emotions, you have interests. That’s my role as a politician, and that’s their role as politicians in your country. It’s not whether they like Assad or don’t like him, it’s not whether I like Hollande or not. It’s not about that. My job is about what is best for the Syrians, and what is best for the French, that’s our job. So, in the future we don’t have a problem. The problem is the policies, not the emotions.

Question 5: You just met President Putin. I mean, I don’t want to ask you what he said to you, but I want to ask you; when somebody said that Putin is the last guy who defends the West, would you say that? That Putin is the last head of state who defends the Christian-Western civilization?

President Assad: So he defends Western Europe?

Question 6: Exactly.

President Assad: When you talk about terrorism, it’s one arena; it’s not the Syrian, Libyan, Yemeni and French arenas. It’s one arena. So, the incentive behind the Russian coalition that they announced a few months ago before they sent their military to Syria, is that if we don’t fight terrorism in Syria, or maybe in other parts of the world, it will be hitting everywhere including Russia, so that’s correct. When you fight terrorism in Syria, you’re defending Russia and defending Europe and defending other continents. That’s correct. This has been our view for decades now, since we have been fighting against the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s and 1990s. We had that impression, we always asked for an international coalition for fighting terrorism because terrorism doesn’t recognize political borders, doesn’t care about procedures. No matter what procedure you took in France after Charlie Hebdo, what happened yesterday proves that theory. So, that’s correct and that’s very precise; whoever fights terrorism, not only Putin, whoever fights terrorism somewhere, will protect the rest of the world.

Question 7: There is a conference in Vienna about Syria, and also tomorrow in Ankara with the G20, and at several times different presidents have said “the solution is Bashar Assad has to leave Syria.” Are you ready, personally, to leave power if it could be the best solution to protect Syria?

President Assad: This is a two-part question. The first part, is there anything I have to do in response to any foreign request? My answer is no. I will not do it, no matter what that request is; small, big, important, not important, because they have nothing to do with the Syrian decision. The only thing they did so far is to support terrorists in different ways, by [providing an] umbrella and by direct support. They could only create problems; they are not part of the solution. Those countries, whoever supports terrorists, are not part of the solution in Syria. So, whatever they say, we don’t respond because we don’t care about them, to be frank.

Second, for me, as a Syrian, I have to respond to any Syrian will. Of course, when I talk about Syrian will, there must be a kind of consensus, the majority of the Syrians, and the only way to know what the Syrians want is through the ballot box. This is second. Third, for any president, to come and go, in any state that respects itself, respects its civilization and respects its people, is through a political process that reflects the constitution. The constitution will bring the president and the constitution will make him leave, through the parliament, through elections, through referendum, and so on. This is the only way for the president to come and go.

Question 8: What are all these talks about that the only solution not only for Syria; Iraq and Lebanon: partition? We hear much, you know, this is what you talk about, secular and sectarian. But there is a lot of talk everywhere, you know that better than us, about Syria with the coast, and Iraq too, and Lebanon. What is you feeling about that?

President Assad: The impression that they try to give in the Western media is that the problem in this region is a civil war between different components, religions, and ethnicities that don’t want to live with each other. So, why don’t they divide their country? This is where they can stay. Actually, the problem is not like this, because now, under the government’s control in Syria, you can see that all these components live with each other a normal life, a natural life. So, if you want to make division, you have to create clear lines between the components, whether between sects, or between ethnicities. In that case, if you’re going to have that situation, if the region reaches that situation, I will tell you that the situation is going to be small states fighting with each other, never-ending wars for maybe centuries. Any situation like this means constant wars. For the rest of the world it means more sources of exporting instability and terrorism around the world. That’s the situation. So, this is a very dangerous way of thinking. We don’t have the incubator now, the social incubator for such partition. Actually, if you ask any Syrian now, whether they are with the government or against the government, they will tell you that we are supporting the unity of Syria.

Question 9: You spoke about the constitution. In several months, you will have elections inside Syria. Are you ready to have international observers for these elections?

President Assad: Yes, but we said international observation doesn’t mean UN organizations that have no credibility, to be frank, because they are under the control of the Americans and the West in general. So, when you talk about international observation or participation or cooperation, it means certain countries around the world that were not biased during the crisis, that didn’t support the terrorists, didn’t try to politicize their position toward what’s happening in Syria. Those are the countries that can participate in such coordination or observation, but we don’t have a problem with the principle.

Question 10: We talked about Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but we didn’t talk about Turkey, and they let go in Europe hundreds of thousands of refugees, and it seems that they let go in Syria jihadists. So, what is the role of Turkey?

President Assad: The most dangerous role, in the whole situation, because Turkey offered all kinds of support to those terrorists, and all the spectrums of the terrorists. Some countries support al-Nusra Front, which is Al Qaeda, some other countries support ISIS, while Turkey supports both, and other groups at the same time. They support them with, how to say, human resources, they recruit. They support them with money, logistics, armaments, surveillance, information, and even the maneuvers of their military through their borders during the fights in Syria. Even the money that’s being collected from the rest of the world passes through Turkey, and the oil that ISIS sells is through Turkey, so Turkey is playing the worst part of our crisis.

Second, that’s related directly to Erdogan himself and Davutoglu, because they both reflect the real ideology that they carry in their hearts, which is the Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

Question 11: You think he is Muslim Brotherhood?

President Assad: Not necessarily to be organized, but the mentality, a hundred percent. He cares a lot about politicized Islam which is the opportunistic part of Islam which is not Islam actually. That’s how we look at it, because you shouldn’t politicize religion. So, it’s related directly to him, to his will to see the Muslim Brotherhood governing in the rest of the Arab world so that he can control them as a sultan, but actually more as an imam, not a sultan. That is what Turkey is playing.

Question 12: You know we are in a situation right now, yesterday night and before, Charlie Hebdo, and before and before. You said that, but I want your confirmation; you think that France cannot fight terrorism if it stays with its links with Qatar and Saudi Arabia?

President Assad: Yes. In addition, you cannot fight if you don’t have relations with the power that’s fighting ISIS or terrorism on the ground. You cannot fight terrorism while you follow or pursue the wrong politics that, at the end, in the end result, support terrorism directly or indirectly. If you don’t have all these things, no, you cannot, and we don’t think that they can, so far.

Journalists: Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this interview.

President Assad: Thank you for coming.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/french-say-assad-must-go-president-assad-responds-no-thanks-get-serious/5490262

The original source of this article is Activist Post

Links between Turkey and ISIS are now ‘undeniable’…but will the U.S. make Turkey the fall guy?

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By Natasha Bertrand

Global Research, November 19, 2015

Business Insider Australia 29 July 2015

A US-led raid on the compound housing the Islamic State’s ‘chief financial officer’ produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members, Martin Chulov ofthe Guardian reported recently.

Islamic State official Abu Sayyaf was responsible for directing the terror army’s oil and gas operations in Syria. Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) earns up to $US10 million per month selling oil on black markets.

Documents and flash drives seized during the Sayyaf raid reportedly revealed links “so clear” and “undeniable” between Turkey and ISIS “that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara,” a senior western official familiar with the captured intelligence told the Guardian.

NATO member Turkey has long been accused by experts, Kurds, and even Joe Biden of enabling ISIS by turning a blind eye to the vast smuggling networks of weapons and fighters during the ongoing Syrian war.

The move by the ruling AKP party was apparently part of ongoing attempts to trigger the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Ankara officially ended its loose border policy last year, but not before its southern frontier became a transit point for cheap oil, weapons, foreign fighters, and pillaged antiquities.

In November, a former ISIS member told Newsweek that the group was essentially given free reign by Turkey’s army.

“ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks,” the fighter said. “ISIS saw the Turkish army as its ally especially when it came to attacking the Kurds in Syria.”

But as the alleged arrangements progressed, Turkey allowed the group to establish a major presence within the country — and created a huge problem for itself.

“The longer this has persisted, the more difficult it has become for the Turks to crack down [on ISIS] because there is the risk of a counter strike, of blowback,” Jonathan Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, explained to Business Insider in November.

“You have a lot of people now that are invested in the business of extremism in Turkey,” Schanzer added. “If you start to challenge that, it raises significant questions of whether” the militants, their benefactors, and other war profiteers would tolerate the crackdown.

REUTERS/Osman Orsal
An armed man, believed to be an Islamic state militant, is seen near the northern Syrian town of Tal Abyad as he is pictured from the Turkish border town of Akcakale, southeastern Sanliurfa province January 29, 2015.

A Western diplomat, speaking to the Wall Street Journal in February, expressed a similar sentiment: “Turkey is trapped now — it created a monster and doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

Ankara had begun to address the problem in earnest — arresting 500 suspected extremists over the past six months as they crossed the border and raiding the homes of others — when an ISIS-affiliated suicide bomber killed 32 activists in Turkey’s southeast on July 20.

Turks subsequently took to the streets to protest the government policies they felt had enabled the attack.

REUTERS/Sertac Kayar
Demonstrators burn tyres to block a street during protests against Monday’s bomb attack in Suruc, in the Kurdish dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, July 21, 2015.

Amidst protestors’ chants of “Murderous ISIL, collaborator AKP,” Erdogan finally agreed last Thursday to enter the US-led campaign against ISIS, sending fighter jets into Syria and granting the US strategic use of a key airbase in the southeast to launch airstrikes.

At the same time, Turkey began bombing Kurdish PKK shelters and storage facilities in northern Iraq, the AP reported, indicating that the AKP still sees Kurdish advances as a major — if not the biggest — threat, despite the Kurds’ battlefield successes against ISIS in northern Syria.

“This isn’t an overhaul of their thinking,” a Western official in Ankara told the Guardian. “It’s more a reaction to what they have been confronted with by the Americans and others. There is at least a recognition now that ISIS isn’t leverage against Assad. They have to be dealt with.”

The original source of this article is Business Insider Australia

http://www.globalresearch.ca/links-between-turkey-and-isis-are-now-undeniable/5490056

Bashar Al-Assad Interview: “Al Qaeda was created by the Americans with the help of Saudi Wahhabi money”. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar support ISIS

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By SANA

Global Research, November 20, 2015

TV Channel RAI UNO 19 November 2015

Damascus, SANA-President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to Italian TV channel RAI UNO. Below you will find the full transcript of this interview:

Question 1: Mr. President, thanks for the opportunity of talking to you. Let’s start from Paris. How did you react to the news coming from Paris?

President Assad: We can start by saying it’s a horrible crime, and at the same time it’s a sad event when you hear about innocents being killed without any reason and for nothing, and we understand in Syria the meaning of losing a dear member of the family or a dear friend, or anyone you know, in such a horrible crime. We’ve been suffering from that for the past five years. We feel for the French as we feel for the Lebanese a few days before that, and for the Russians regarding the airplane that’s been shot down over Sinai, and for the Yemenis maybe, but does the world, especially the West, feel for those people, or only for the French? Do they feel for the Syrians that have been suffering for five years from the same kind of terrorism? We cannot politicize feeling, feeling is not about the nationality, it’s about the human in general.

Question 2: There’s Daesh behind that. But from here, from this point of view, from here from Damascus, how strong Daesh is? How do you think we can fight terrorists on the ground?

President al-Assad: ISIS has no incubator in Syria

President Assad: If you want to talk about the strength of Daesh, the first thing you have to ask is how much incubator, real incubator, natural incubator, you have in a certain society. Till this moment, I can tell you Daesh doesn’t have the natural incubator, social incubator, within Syria. This is something very good and very assuring, but at the same time, if it’s becoming chronic, this kind of ideology can change the society.

Question 3: Yes, but some of the terrorists were trained here, in Syria, just a few kilometers from here. What does it mean?

President Assad: That’s by the support of the Turks and the Saudi and Qatari and of course the Western policy that supported the terrorists in different ways since the beginning of the crisis, of course, but that’s not the issue. First of all, if you don’t have the incubator, you shouldn’t worry, but second, they can be strong as long as they have strong support from different states, whether Middle Eastern states or Western states.

Question 4: Mr. President, there are speculations in the West, that say that you were one of who supported Daesh in the beginning of the crisis, because of dividing the opposition, because of dividing the rebels. How do you react?

President al-Assad: Al Qaeda was created by the Americans

President Assad: Actually, according to what some American officials said, including Hillary Clinton, Al Qaeda was created by the Americans with the help of Saudi Wahabi money and ideology, and of course, many other officials said the same in the United States. And ISIS and al-Nusra, they are offshoots of Al Qaeda. Regarding ISIS, it started in Iraq, it was established in Iraq in 2006, and the leader was al-Zarqawi who was killed by the American forces then, so it was established under the American supervision in Iraq, and the leader of ISIS today, who is called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he was in the American prisons, and he was put in New York in their prisons, and he was released by them. So, it wasn’t in Syria, it didn’t start in Syria, it started in Iraq, and it started before that in Afghanistan according to what they said, and Tony Blair recently said that yes, the Iraqi war helped create ISIS. So, their confession is the most important evidence regarding your question.

Question 5: Mr. President, watching the map of Syria, it seems that Syrian-Iraqi borders doesn’t exist anymore. Which part of Syria do you really control at the moment?

President Assad: If you’re talking geographically, it’s changing every day, but the most important thing is how much of the population are under the government’s control. Actually, most of the area that’s being controlled by the terrorists has been evacuated either by the terrorists, or because the people fled to the government control. There’s the question of how much of the Syrian population still supports the government? Militarily, you can win ground, you can lose some area, but anyway the army cannot exist everywhere in Syria. But looking to the map that you described, and what I see from time to time in the Western media, when they show you that the government controls 50% or less of their ground, actually 50 or 60% of Syria is empty ground, where you don’t have anyone, so they put it under the control of the terrorists, while it’s empty, fully empty.

Question 6: Yes, I spoke about the borders between Syria and Iraq.

President Assad: Exactly. After Damascus toward Iraq, it’s empty space, it’s empty area, so you cannot talk about its control. But regarding the borders, it’s only related to the terrorists; it’s related to the governments that supported the terrorists like the Turkish government first of all, and the Jordanian government. Both governments support terrorists, that’s why you have loose borders, because when you want to have controlled borders, it needs to be controlled from both sides, not from one sides.

Question 7: Well, the last weekend there have been two very important meetings talking about the situation in Syria, in Vienna and in Antalya. Most countries are talking about the transition in Syria. There are different positions, but basically most of the countries agree with the idea of elections in 18 months. But they also say that in the meantime, basically, you should leave. What’s your position about that?

President al-Assad: The main part of Vienna statement is that everything regarding the political process is about what the Syrians are going to agree upon

President Assad: No, in the statement there is nothing regarding the president. The main part of Vienna is that everything that is going to happen regarding the political process is about what the Syrians are going to agree upon, so the most output of that phrase is about the constitution, and the president, any president, should come to his position and leave that position according to constitutional procedures, not to the opinion of any Western power or country. So, as long as you are talking about the consensus of the Syrians, forget about the rest of Vienna. Regarding the schedule, that depends on the agreement that we can reach as Syrians. If we don’t reach it in 18 months, so what? You have many things that I think are trivial now, or let’s say, not essential. The most important part is that we’re going to sit with each other then we’re going to put our schedule and our plan as Syrians.

Question 8: I understand, but do you consider it an option, the possibility to leave power? I mean, do you imagine an electoral process without you?

President Assad: It depends. What do you mean by electoral? Do you mean at the parliament or the president?

Question 9: At the parliament.

President Assad: At the parliament, of course, there’s going to be parliamentarian elections because the parliamentarian elections is going to show which power of the political powers in Syria has real weight among the Syrian people, which one has real grassroots. Now, anyone can say “I’m opposition.” What does it mean, how do you translate it? Through the elections, and the seat that they can get in the parliament will tell how much they can have in the coming government, for example. Of course, that will be after having a new constitution. I’m just putting a proposal, for example, now, I’m not giving you the thing that we have agreed upon yet.

Question 10: And about the presidential [elections]?

President Assad: The presidential… if the Syrians, in their dialogue, they wanted to have presidential elections, there’s nothing called a red line, for example, regarding this. But it’s not my decision. It should be about what the consensus is among the Syrians.

Question 11:But, there could be someone else that you trust, participating in the process of elections instead of you.

President Assad: Someone I trust? What do you mean by someone I trust?

Question 12: I mean someone else in which you trust that can make this job.

President Assad: [laughs] Yeah, but it looks like talking about my private property, so I can go and bring someone to put in my place. It’s not a private property; it’s a national issue. A national issue, only the Syrians can choose someone they trust. Doesn’t matter if I trust someone or not. Whoever the Syrians trust will be in that position.

President al-Assad: Terrorists are main obstacle of any real political advancement

Question 13: Let me see if I understood well. Which is the real timetable, which is exactly your timetable, I mean the realistic timetable to get out of this crisis?

President Assad: The timetable, if you want to talk about schedule, this timetable starts after starting defeating terrorism. Before that, there will be no point in deciding any timetable, because you cannot achieve anything politically while you have the terrorists taking over many areas in Syria, and they’re going to be – they are already they main obstacle of any real political advancement. If we talk after that, one year and a half to two years is enough for any transition. It’s enough. I mean if you want to talk about first of all having a new constitution, then referendum, then parliamentarian elections, then any kind of other procedure, whether presidential or any other thing, doesn’t matter. It won’t take more than two years.

Question 14: There’s something else about the opposition; in these years, you said that you couldn’t consider as an opposition those who are fighting. Did you change your mind?

President Assad: We can apply that to your country; you don’t accept any opposition that are holding machineguns in your country. That’s the case in every other country. Whoever holds a machinegun and terrorizes people and destroys private or public properties or kills innocents and whoever is a terrorist, he’s not opposition. Opposition is a political term. Opposition could be defined not through your own opinion; it could be defined only through the elections, through the ballot box.

Question 15: So what do you consider opposition at the moment? Political opposition?

President Assad: I mean, ask the Syrians who they consider opposition. If they elect them, they are the real opposition. So that’s why I said we can define, we can give definition to this after the elections. But if you want to talk about my own opinion, you can be opposition when you have Syrian grassroots, when you belong only to your country. You cannot be opposition while you are formed as person or as entity in the foreign ministry of another country or in the intelligence building of other countries. You cannot be a puppet, you cannot be a surrogate mercenary; you can only be a real Syrian.

President al-Assad: Every Syrian citizen who leaves this country, is a loss to Syria

Question 16:Now in Europe, in Italy, we see so many Syrians coming, Syrian refugees, they are refugees. What would you like to tell these fleeing people, to you escaping people?

President Assad: Of course I would say everyone who leaves this country, is a loss to Syria. That’s for sure, and we feel sad, we feel the suffering, because every refugee in Syria has a long story of suffering within Syria, and that’s what we should deal with by asking the question “why did they leave?” For many reasons. The first one, the direct threat by terrorists. The second one is the influence of terrorists in destroying many of the infrastructure and affecting the livelihood of those people. But the third one, which is as important as the influence of terrorists, is the Western embargo on Syria. Many of those, if you ask him “do you want to go back to Syria” he wants to go back right away, but how can he go back to Syria while the basics of his life, his livelihood, has been affected dramatically, so he cannot stay in Syria. The embargo influence of the West and the terrorist influence has put those people between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Question 17: But don’t you feel in any way responsible for what has happened to your people?

President Assad: You mean myself?

Question 18: Yes.

President Assad: The only thing that we did since the beginning of the crisis is fighting terrorism and supporting dialogue. What else can we do? Does anyone oppose the dialogue? Does anyone oppose fighting terrorism? If you want to talk about the details, and about propaganda in the West, we shouldn’t waste our time. It’s just propaganda, because the problem from the very beginning with the West is that they don’t need this president, they want this government to fail and collapse, so they can change it. Everybody knows that. The whole Western game is regime-change, regardless of the meaning of regime; we don’t have a regime, we have a state, but I’m talking about their concept and their principle. So, you can blame whoever you want, but the main blame is on the West who supported those terrorists who created ISIS in Syria and created al-Nusra because of the umbrella that they gave to those terrorist organizations.

Question 19: So no responsibility?

President Assad: Of course, as a Syrian, no, I’m not saying that we don’t do mistakes. You have mistakes on the tactical level that you do every day in your work, and you have strategies. And the strategies, we adopted these two approaches, but on the tactical level, you do many mistakes every day. Every Syrian is responsible for what happened. We are responsible as Syrians, when we allow these terrorists to come to Syria, because of some Syrians who have the same mentality, and some Syrians who accepted to be puppets to the Gulf states and to the West. Of course we’re taking responsibility, while if you want to talk about my responsibility, it’s something you talk about details. I mean it’s difficult to judge now.

Question 20: I would like to ask you: how was your trip to Moscow?

President Assad: It was a trip to discuss the military situation, because it happened nearly two weeks after the Russians started the airstrikes, and to discuss the political process, because it was, again, a few days before Vienna 1. It was very fruitful, because the Russians understand very well this region, because they have historical relations, they have embassies, they have all kinds of necessary relations and means to play a role. So, I can describe it by fruitful visit.

Question 21: From Rome, from the Vatican, the Pope said that killing in the name of God is a blasphemy. And the question, first of all, is this war really a war of religion?

President Assad: No, actually, no. It’s not a religious war. It’s between people who deviated from the real religion, mainly of course, Islam, towards extremism, which we don’t consider as part of our religion. It’s a war between the real Muslims and the other extremists. This is the core of the war today. Of course, they give it different titles; war against Christians, war about other sects. This is only headlines the extremists use to promote their war, but the real issue is the war between them and the rest of the Muslims, the majority who are mainly moderate.

Question 22: Even if they kill in the name of God? They kill saying Allah Akbar?

President Assad: Exactly, that’s how they can promote their war. That’s why they use these holy words or phrase, in order to convince the other simple people in this region that they are fighting for Allah, for God, which is not true. And some of them, they use it with knowing that this is not true, and some of them are ignorant and they believe that this is a war for God. That’s the deviation, that’s why I said it’s a deviation; they are people who deviated from real Islam with knowing or without knowing.

Question 23: And what about the future of Christian people in Syria, in your country?

President Assad: Actually, this region, I think most of the Italians and many in the West know that this is a moderate region, a moderate society, especially Syria, whether politically or socially and culturally, and the main reason why we have this moderation is because we have this diversity in sects and ethnicities. But one of the most important factors is the Christian factor in the history of Syria, especially after Islam came to this region14 centuries ago. So, without them, this region will move more toward extremism. So, their future is important, but you cannot separate it from the future of the Syrians, it’s not separated. I mean, if you have a good future for the Syrians, the future of every component of our society will be good, and vice versa.

Question 24: Okay, so there’s a future for them here, because there seems to be a target in this war on Christian people.

President Assad: Not really, actually the number of Muslims that have been killed in Syria is much, much more than the Christians, so you cannot say there’s a target. Again, it’s only used by the extremists in order to promote their war, that it’s against the “atheists” and it’s for God and so on, but in reality, no.

Question 25: Mr. President, before the end of this interview, let me ask you one more question. How do you see your future? Do you consider the more important the future of Syria, or you staying in power?

President Assad: It’s self-evident; the future of Syria is everything for us. I mean, even my future cannot be separate, as a citizen. As a citizen, if my country is not safe, I cannot be safe. If it’s not good, I cannot have a good future, so that’s self-evident. But again, if you want to put them against each other, it’s like saying “if the president is here, the future of Syria is bad. If the president leaves, the future of Syria is good.” That’s the Western propaganda. Actually, that’s not the case within Syria. Within Syria, you have people who support that president, you have people who don’t support that president, so when my future is good for Syria, if the Syrian people want me as president, the future will be good. If the Syrian people don’t want me, and I want to cling to power, this is where for me being as president is bad. So it’s very simple. So, we don’t have to follow the Western propaganda to answer according to that propaganda, because it’s disconnected from reality. I have to answer you according to our reality.

Journalist: Okay, thank you, Mr. President. Thank for this opportunity.

President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria.

The original source of this article is TV Channel RAI UNO

http://www.globalresearch.ca/bashar-al-assad-interview-al-qaeda-was-created-by-the-americans-with-the-help-of-saudi-wahhabi-money-turkey-saudi-arabia-qatar-support-isis/5490372

U.S., Turkey joint operation designed “to save ISIS”, not destroy it

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By Brandon Turbeville

Global Research, November 18, 2015

Activist Post

With Russia annihilating terrorist vermin all across Syria from the air and the SAA personally mopping up the remainders in village after village, it appears the West has shifted from utter panic to an attempt to launch a Hail Mary and save its jihadist pets as well as the plan to overthrow the secular government of Bashar al-Assad.

This Hail Mary appears to be coming in the form of an attempt to secure the “Safe Zone” area discussed and agreed upon by the Turks and the United States in the past under the guise of fighting ISIS and protecting “moderate rebels” and civilians. In reality, however, the “Safe Zone” is nothing but a trafficking corridor for ISIS and other related terrorist organizations supported by NATO, financed by the GCC, and funneled through Turkey into Syria.

It is for this reason that the U.S. and Turkey have announced an agreement to “shut off Turkey’s border with Syria as part of a joint military operation.” In an interview with CNN, U.S. Secretary of State and Skull and Bones member John Kerry stated, “The entire border of northern Syria – 75 percent of it has now been shut off. And we are entering an operation with the Turks to shut off the other remaining 98 kilometers.”

Kerry did not elaborate as to what form the operation would take or when it would take place. He also neglected to mention whether or not U.S. troops would be deployed in order to take part in the operation.

Turkish officials have hinted at the possibility of some type of imminent military operation occurring, with Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu stating that a “new military operation against Daesh” may take place “in a matter of days.” Deputy Minister Numan Kurtulmus, however, stated that no ground operation was planned.

Of course, the dimensions of the territory in the crosshairs of this “joint military operation” between Turkey and the United States are immensely important.

The Kurds have seized and now maintain control of an area that spans the Turkey-Syria border from its western to eastern extremities all except for one small pocket in the middle – from Jarablus in the East to Dabiq in the West. Others have described the zone in slightly different dimensions as being from Jarablus in the East to Afrin in the East. Regardless, this corridor, also known as a “safe zone,” is about the exact dimensions of the ISIS supply lines coming in from Turkey to Syria and, if either the Syrian military or the Kurds were able to capture this small section of land on the border, ISIS supply lines would be entirely cut from the North. With Assad’s forces tightening their grip in the South and Southwestern portions of the country and the SAA/Hezbollah forces cracking down on any ISIS movements on the Syria-Lebanon border, and most notably the Russian bombing campaign aiding the Syrian military in retaking full control of Aleppo and other parts of northern Syria, ISIS would essentially be cut off from most avenues of outside assistance.

It is thus important to note that the Syrian military had nearly reached the Euphrates river when the terror attacks in Paris took place.

It is for this reason – the threat the Kurds pose to ISIS – that Turkey has engaged in such a heavy bombing campaign against the Kurds, alongside an alleged campaign against ISIS, the latter campaign being one that is questionable to say the least. Remember, the American airstrikesagainst ISIS have largely targeted Syrian infrastructure and civilian areas. In those areas where ISIS has been struck, it has been nothing more than an exercise in death squad herding.

The “ISIL-Free Zone” should be renamed the “ISIL Free Range Zone” since it is nothing more than a hedge of protection set up over the terrorists with the United States and Turkey once again acting as the ISIS Air Force. This zone, now under the protection of NATO forces will then be used as aForward Operating Base for terrorism deeper inside the country as Turkey unilaterally bombs the Kurds away from territory they currently hold.

Earlier this month, the Kurds launched an assault on that corridor, threatening to close the last supply route for ISIS that exists in the north. Indeed, not only one of the last, it is the main lifeline for the terrorist organization supported by the West.

On November 7, Webster Tarpley and the Tax Wall Street party wrote in their Daily Briefing that “Resistance to this urgently needed policy will inevitably come from Erdogan of Turkey.” Tarpley and the TWSP cited a report by Aaron Stein of War on the Rocks, which stated,

Turkey has made one thing very clear: It will not tolerate a YPG presence west of the Euphrates,and will therefore not accept a Kurdish-led offensive on the ISIS-held city of Jarablus, or any YPG-led effort to unite its territory with the Kurdish-controlled enclave in Efrin in northwestern Syria. In the days before the election, the Turkish military fired upon YPG forces trying to cross the Euphrates, ostensibly to shore up their front line with the Islamic State.

Turkey has long feared the creation of a Kurdistan in Northern Syria, particularly because the creation of such an entity would not only inflame the tensions between the Turkish Kurds and the Turkish government but would essentially carve out a good portion of Turkish territory. With the establishment of a Kurdistan virtually anywhere in the region but especially on the Turkish border or in Turkey itself, Erdogan’s foolish dreams of being the new Ottoman emperor will fade away.

For that reason, the Turks are in no way going to assist in the sealing of Turkey’s border with Syria by the Kurds. Considering the reports coming from media outlets friendly to the Turkish government and the propaganda being spouted by Erdogan’s stooges in the Turkish ruling party, it is the Kurds who are considered the great enemy of Turkish “civilization” (meaning Erdogan’s delusions of grandeur) and not ISIS.

With the growing awareness of the importance of the Jarablus corridor amongst researchers, observers, and the interested national parties, the recent Turkish/U.S. joint military operation agreement stands as a last ditch effort to solidify the ISIS/NATO presence in Syria. By engaging troops and military hardware over the “safe zone” of the Jarablus corridor, NATO will be able to ensure that ISIS supplies and soldiers continue to pour into Syria unabated. By placing NATO interests in the midst of the corridor and declaring the zone a “safe zone” the hope is that the Russians will see the zone as off limits.

At that point, the real question becomes just how long the Russians and the SAA can avoid their own attacks on the Jarablus corridor before they realize that the inability to do so is merely prolonging the war and is ultimately a losing strategy. Once that realization is made, the question will become whether or not the Russians and the SAA will attack the zone despite the NATO presence.

The answer to that question is one that is deeply important to us all.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties.

The original source of this article is Activist Post

http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-turkey-joint-operation-designed-to-save-isis-not-destroy-it/5489887

From Pol Pot to ISIS: The blood never dried

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In 2013, the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas revealed that “two years before the Arab spring”, he was told in London that a war on Syria was planned. “I am going to tell you something,” he said in an interview with the French TV channel LPC, “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria… Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate… This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned.”

By John Pilger

Global Research, November 17, 2015

JohnPilger.com 16 November 2015

In transmitting President Richard Nixon’s orders for a “massive” bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, “Anything that flies on everything that moves”. As Barack Obama wages his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and Francois Hollande promises a “merciless” attack on that ruined country, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make one almost nostalgic for Kissinger’s murderous honesty.

As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery – including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and fields – I am not surprised by the disregard of memory and history, yet again. A telling example is the rise to power of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had much in common with today’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They, too, were ruthless medievalists who began as a small sect. They, too, were the product of an American-made apocalypse, this time in Asia.

According to Pol Pot, his movement had consisted of “fewer than 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty and leaders”. Once Nixon’s and Kissinger’s B-52 bombers had gone to work as part of “Operation Menu”, the west’s ultimate demon could not believe his luck. The Americans dropped the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on rural Cambodia during 1969-73. They leveled village after village, returning to bomb the rubble and corpses. The craters left giant necklaces of carnage, still visible from the air. The terror was unimaginable. A former Khmer Rouge official described how the survivors “froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days.

Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told… That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over.” A Finnish Government Commission of Inquiry estimated that 600,000 Cambodians died in the ensuing civil war and described the bombing as the “first stage in a decade of genocide”. What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot, their beneficiary, completed. Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.

ISIS has a similar past and present. By most scholarly measure, Bush and Blair’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the deaths of at least 700,000 people – in a country that had no history of jihadism. The Kurds had done territorial and political deals; Sunni and Shia had class and sectarian differences, but they were at peace; intermarriage was common. Three years before the invasion, I drove the length of Iraq without fear. On the way I met people proud, above all, to be Iraqis, the heirs of a civilization that seemed, for them, a presence.

Bush and Blair blew all this to bits. Iraq is now a nest of jihadism. Al-Qaeda – like Pol Pot’s “jihadists” – seized the opportunity provided by the onslaught of ‘Shock and Awe’ and the civil war that followed. “Rebel” Syria offered even greater rewards, with CIA and Gulf state ratlines of weapons, logistics and money running through Turkey. The arrival of foreign recruits was inevitable. A former British ambassador, Oliver Miles, wrote, “The [Cameron] government seems to be following the example of Tony Blair, who ignored consistent advice from the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6 that our Middle East policy – and in particular our Middle East wars – had been a principal driver in the recruitment of Muslims in Britain for terrorism here.”

ISIS is the progeny of those in Washington, London and Paris who, in conspiring to destroy Iraq, Syria and Libya, committed an epic crime against humanity. Like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, ISIS are the mutations of a western state terror dispensed by a venal imperial elite undeterred by the consequences of actions taken at great remove in distance and culture. Their culpability is unmentionable in “our” societies, making accomplices of those who suppress this critical truth.

It is 23 years since a holocaust enveloped Iraq, immediately after the first Gulf War, when the US and Britain hijacked the United Nations Security Council and imposed punitive “sanctions” on the Iraqi population – ironically, reinforcing the domestic authority of Saddam Hussein. It was like a medieval siege. Almost everything that sustained a modern state was, in the jargon, “blocked” – from chlorine for making the water supply safe to school pencils, parts for X-ray machines, common painkillers and drugs to combat previously unknown cancers carried in the dust from the southern battlefields contaminated with Depleted Uranium. Just before Christmas 1999, the Department of Trade and Industry in London restricted the export of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Kim Howells, parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Blair government, explained why. “The children’s vaccines”, he said, “were capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction”. The British Government could get away with such an outrage because media reporting of Iraq – much of it manipulated by the Foreign Office – blamed Saddam Hussein for everything.

Under a bogus “humanitarian” Oil for Food Programme, $100 was allotted for each Iraqi to live on for a year. This figure had to pay for the entire society’s infrastructure and essential services, such as power and water. “Imagine,” the UN Assistant Secretary General, Hans Von Sponeck, told me, “setting that pittance against the lack of clean water, and the fact that the majority of sick people cannot afford treatment, and the sheer trauma of getting from day to day, and you have a glimpse of the nightmare. And make no mistake, this is deliberate. I have not in the past wanted to use the word genocide, but now it is unavoidable.” Disgusted, Von Sponeck resigned as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq. His predecessor, Denis Halliday, an equally distinguished senior UN official, had also resigned. “I was instructed,” Halliday said, “to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.”

A study by the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, found that between 1991 and 1998, the height of the blockade, there were 500,000 “excess” deaths of Iraqi infants under the age of five. An American TV reporter put this to Madeleine Albright, US Ambassador to the United Nations, asking her, “Is the price worth it?” Albright replied, “We think the price is worth it.”

In 2007, the senior British official responsible for the sanctions, Carne Ross, known as “Mr. Iraq”, told a parliamentary selection committee, “[The US and UK governments] effectively denied the entire population a means to live.” When I interviewed Carne Ross three years later, he was consumed by regret and contrition. “I feel ashamed,” he said. He is today a rare truth-teller of how governments deceive and how a compliant media plays a critical role in disseminating and maintaining the deception. “We would feed [journalists] factoids of sanitised intelligence,” he said, “or we’d freeze them out.” Last year, a not untypical headline in the Guardian read: “Faced with the horror of Isis we must act.” The “we must act” is a ghost risen, a warning of the suppression of informed memory, facts, lessons learned and regrets or shame. The author of the article was Peter Hain, the former Foreign Office minister responsible for Iraq under Blair. In 1998, when Denis Halliday revealed the extent of the suffering in Iraq for which the Blair Government shared primary responsibility, Hain abused him on the BBC’s Newsnight as an “apologist for Saddam”. In 2003, Hain backed Blair’s invasion of stricken Iraq on the basis of transparent lies. At a subsequent Labour Party conference, he dismissed the invasion as a “fringe issue”.

Here was Hain demanding “air strikes, drones, military equipment and other support” for those “facing genocide” in Iraq and Syria. This will further “the imperative of a political solution”. The day Hain’s article appeared, Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck happened to be in London and came to visit me. They were not shocked by the lethal hypocrisy of a politician, but lamented the enduring, almost inexplicable absence of intelligent diplomacy in negotiating a semblance of truce. Across the world, from Northern Ireland to Nepal, those regarding each other as terrorists and heretics have faced each other across a table. Why not now in Iraq and Syria? Instead, there is a vapid, almost sociopathic verboseness from Cameron, Hollande, Obama and their “coalition of the willing” as they prescribe more violence delivered from 30,000 feet on places where the blood of previous adventures never dried. They seem to relish their own violence and stupidityso much they want it to overthrow their one potentially valuable ally, the government in Syria.

This is nothing new, as the following leaked UK-US intelligence file illustrates:

“In order to facilitate the action of liberative [sic] forces… a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals [and] to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria. CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main [sic] incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals… a necessary degree of fear… frontier and [staged] border clashes [will] provide a pretext for intervention… the CIA and SIS should use… capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”

That was written in 1957, although it could have been written yesterday. In the imperial world, nothing essentially changes. In 2013, the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas revealed that “two years before the Arab spring”, he was told in London that a war on Syria was planned. “I am going to tell you something,” he said in an interview with the French TV channel LPC, “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria… Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate… This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned.”

The only effective opponents of ISIS are accredited demons of the west – Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and now Russia. The obstacle is Turkey, an “ally” and a member of Nato, which has conspired with the CIA, MI6 and the Gulf medievalists to channel support to the Syrian “rebels”, including those now calling themselves ISIS. Supporting Turkey in its long-held ambition for regional dominance by overthrowing the Assad government beckons a major conventional war and the horrific dismemberment of the most ethnically diverse state in the Middle East.

A truce – however difficult to negotiate and achieve – is the only way out of this maze; otherwise, the atrocities in Paris and Beirut will be repeated. Together with a truce, the leading perpetrators and overseers of violence in the Middle East – the Americans and Europeans – must themselves “de-radicalise” and demonstrate a good faith to alienated Muslim communities everywhere, including those at home. There should be an immediate cessation of all shipments of war materials to Israel and recognition of the State of Palestine. The issue of Palestine is the region’s most festering open wound, and the oft-stated justification for the rise of Islamic extremism. Osama bin Laden made that clear. Palestine also offers hope. Give justice to the Palestinians and you begin to change the world around them.

More than 40 years ago, the Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia unleashed a torrent of suffering from which that country has never recovered. The same is true of the Blair-Bush crime in Iraq, and the Nato and “coalition” crimes in Libya and Syria.

With impeccable timing, Henry Kissinger’s latest self-serving tome has been released with its satirical title, “World Order”. In one fawning review, Kissinger is described as a “key shaper of a world order that remained stable for a quarter of a century”. Tell that to the people of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Chile, East Timor and all the other victims of his “statecraft”. Only when “we” recognise the war criminals in our midst and stop denying ourselves the truth will the blood begin to dry.

The original source of this article is JohnPilger.com

http://www.globalresearch.ca/from-pol-pot-to-isis-the-blood-never-dried/5489611

“Humanitarian retribution” against the Islamic State? Illegal French airstrikes on Syria hit stadium, equestrian center, museum, clinics

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By David Raven and Anna Dubius

Global Research, November 17, 2015

sott.net 16 November 2015

Anti-ISIS activists in Syria claim a stadium, a museum, medical clinics and a political building have been hit after France launched airstrikes in retaliation for the Paris terror attack.

Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, a group of anonymous activists inside the ISIS stronghold, wrote that heavy strikes had been taking place since this morning. The group began documented the airstrikes at around 8am and said it had increased to “30 airstrikes” this evening. No civilian casualties have been reported yet, according to the group.

A spokesperson for the group suggested it was France who were behind the bombs. They said water and electricity was cut due to the strikes. They added: “It’s sad how it always falls on our heads, god bless and safe [sic] the civilians of Raqqa.”

France retaliated to the Paris terror attack by launching deadly airstrikes on an Islamic State jihadi training camp in Syria tonight. Yesterday French president Francois Hollande vowed to crush the extremist group who massacred 129 people on Friday night. Less than 24 hours later, some 10 fighter jets pummeled the ISIS-held city of Raqqa with at least 20 bombs, according to the French defence ministry. The jets hit command and control center, jihadi recruitment center, munitions depot and a training camp.

Comment: The Guardian is saying the same:

The Raqqa strikes, 20 in total, targeted parts of the city that had not been hit before, including a sports stadium, a museum, an equestrian centre [how many horses were killed?] and several administration buildings.

Now, who is going to come out and state the obvious?

Regardless of what targets are hit or not, these airstrikes have no legal mandate. They are a violation of international law.

The original source of this article is sott.net

http://www.globalresearch.ca/humanitarian-retribution-against-the-islamic-state-illegal-french-airstrikes-on-syria-hit-stadium-museum-clinics/5489637

U.S. starts bombing ISIS oil convoys…after Putin’s G20 summit remarks

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As Russia Insider notes, the U.S. started bombing ISIS oil convoys only after President Putin showed G20 participants what Russia knows.

This very odd account by the NY Times says that the U.S. knew about these oil convoys but the U.S. has been “frustrated”. Why? The U.S. also claims that their military operation was in the works for quite awhile.

And then the oddest part, the U.S. wanted to avoid civilian casualties., even dropping leaflets so that oil truck drivers would abandon their vehicles.

What civilians?

These are ISIS members, unless these are coalition technicians and specialists helping with the ISIS operation. So, the U.S. knowingly and relentlessly bombs hospitals, schools, children, doctors, wedding parties, and vital civilian infrastructure, but tiptoes around ISIS members?

This truly is psychotic and very revealing.

“As many as 1000 trucks have been known to assemble there.”

On this day, the U.S. only managed to destroy 1/3 of the trucks — about 116. Recall that ISIS does not have any anti-aircraft missiles or MANPADs yet. Unless supplied by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the U.S., etc. So, U.S. forces could have destroyed all the trucks.

This is what is achieved with $9 million per day.

Finally,

The new campaign is called Tidal Wave II. It is named after the World War II effort to counter Nazi Germany by striking Romania’s oil industry. Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, who in September assumed command of the international coalition’s campaign in Iraq and Syria, suggested the name.

It was the Rockefellers’ Standard Oil Company that helped Nazi Germany with oil.

From the NY Times

U.S. Warplanes Strike ISIS Oil Trucks in Syria
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
NOV. 16, 2015

ISTANBUL — Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said.

According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State.

The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.

Plans for the strike were developed well before the terrorist attacks in and around Paris on Friday, officials familiar with the operation said, part of a broader operation to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to generate revenue to support its military operations and govern its territory.

American officials have long been frustrated by the ability of the Islamic State to generate tens of million of dollars a month by producing and exporting oil.

To disrupt that revenue source, American officials said last week that the United States had sharply stepped up its airstrikes against infrastructure that allows the Islamic State to pump oil in Syria.

Until Monday, the United States refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks, because of concerns about causing civilian casualties. As a result, the Islamic State’s distribution system for exporting oil had remained largely intact.

The new campaign is called Tidal Wave II. It is named after the World War II effort to counter Nazi Germany by striking Romania’s oil industry. Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, who in September assumed command of the international coalition’s campaign in Iraq and Syria, suggested the name.

To reduce the risk of harming civilians, two F-15 warplanes dropped leaflets about an hour before the attack warning drivers to abandon their vehicles, and strafing runs were conducted to reinforce the message.

How ISIS Expanded Its Threat

The Islamic State emerged from a group of militants in Iraq to take over large portions of Iraq and Syria, and now threatens other countries in Europe and elsewhere.

The area where the trucks assemble in Syria has been closely monitored by reconnaissance drones. As many as 1,000 trucks have been observed there, waiting to receive their cargo of illicit oil.

On Monday, 295 trucks were in the area, and more than a third of them were destroyed, United States officials said. The A-10s dropped two dozen 500-pound bombs and conducted strafing runs with 30-millimeter Gatling guns. The AC-130s attacked with 30-millimeter Gatling guns and 105-millimeter cannons.

The pilots saw several drivers running to a nearby tent and did not attack them, an American official said, and there were no immediate reports of civilian casualties.

Col. Steven H. Warren, the American-led coalition’s spokesman in Baghdad, confirmed that A-10s and AC-130s had been used in the attack and that 116 tanker trucks had been destroyed.

“This part of Tidal Wave II is designed to attack the distribution component of ISIL’s oil smuggling operation and degrade their capacity to fund their military operations,” Colonel Warren said.

The strike came just days after Kurdish and Yazidi fighters, backed by American airstrikes, cut an important road, Highway 47, that the Islamic State has used to move supplies and fighters between Syria and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which was captured by the militant group last year.

That road was cut on Thursday, and Kurdish and Yazidi fighters retook the Iraqi city of Sinjar the next day.

The American operation against the oil trucks followed a French raid on Sunday on two Islamic State targets in Raqqa, Syria, which allied officials identified as a headquarters building and a training camp.

More than 20 bombs were dropped by French planes in the attack, an allied official said. It is not clear how much damage was caused, and no secondary explosions were observed.

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G20 press conference of Vladimir Putin: ISIS oil convoys “stretching for dozens of kilometers”, ISIS funding from 40 countries including G20

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Vladimir Putin answered journalists’ questions after the G20 summit.

On ISIS funding:

We have established that financing is coming from 40 countries, including G20 countries. We discussed this issue.

On ISIS oil trade and how easy it is to strike ISIS:

I also showed our colleagues satellite images and aerial photographs that show very clearly the scale of this illegal trade in oil and petroleum products. You see columns of refuelling vehicles stretching for dozens of kilometres in lines so long that from a height of 4,000–5,000 metres they vanish over the horizon. It really looks more like an oil pipeline system.

On Ukraine’s $3 billion debt to Russia:

Our partners from the IMF have been convincing us that we could accept to restructure Ukraine’s debt of $3 billion, which was to have been paid by the end of next month, the end of this year… We were asked to defer this payment of $3 billion to next year. I said that we are ready to accept a deeper restructuring with no payment this year, a payment of $1 billion next year, $1 billion in 2017, and $1 billion in 2018. But our partners are sure that Ukraine’s solvency will grow and that we can be sure of receiving $3 billion next year. If this is the case, they see no risk in providing guarantees for this credit.

We have asked for such guarantees either from the United States government, the European Union, or one of the big international financial institutions. We hope that this matter will be settled by the start of December this year, given the International Monetary Fund’s work timetable.

If our partners are that certain that Ukraine’s solvency will improve, persuade us that this is so, and believe this themselves, let them provide guarantees. If they cannot provide guarantees, this means that they do not believe in the Ukrainian economy’s future. I think this would not be good for them if this is so, and if they are trying to convince us of something that is not in fact the case, this would not be good for our Ukrainian partners either.

We think that this proposal is a realistic possibility and we see no problems in sharing the risks with our partners.

On fighting ISIS, US-led coalition, and Syrian opposition groups:

Question: Mr President, we frequently hear your western partners accuse Russia’s Aerospace Forces of hitting targets in Syria that are not ISIS, but are so-called moderate opposition groups. Did their opinion change over the course of the summit? What were you feeling during the discussions?

And the second part of the question. The US-led anti-ISIS operation did not succeed in degrading ISIS. What difference do you see between Russia’s actions in Syria and those of the US-led coalition, from a military standpoint?

Vladimir Putin: In general, this criticism was practically not voiced. It’s hard to even criticise us. They tell us, “You’re hitting the wrong targets!” Then we say, “Tell us where we should strike, give us the targets!” But they don’t give them to us. “Then tell us where we shouldn’t hit.” And they don’t tell us that, either. How, then, can we be criticised?

You know, I don’t want to sneer at this. Strangely enough, they have their own reasons for it. And one of them, I will tell you point blank, is that they are afraid to give us a list of territories not to strike, because they fear that this is exactly where we will strike, that we will deceive them. It seems they judge us based on their own notions of decency.

But I can confirm that right now (on the battlefield, so to speak), we have established contacts with some (not all, of course) of the uncompromising, even armed Syrian opposition groups; they themselves asked us not to strike the territories they control. We have reached these agreements and are fulfilling them.

Moreover, this part of the armed opposition believes that it is possible to begin active operations against terrorist organisations – against ISIS first of all – with our support from the air. And we are prepared to provide that support. If this happens, it will mean that President al-Assad’s army on one side and the armed opposition on the other are fighting their common enemy. It seems to me that this can become a good foundation for subsequent work and a platform for political settlement.

…now is not the time to assess who is better or worse, or look for reasons why the previous steps have been more or less effective. Right now, we need to look forward and join forces in the fight against this common threat.

The full press conference on November 16 from Kremlin.ru:

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening, friends, ladies and gentlemen,

Before we start these questions and answers, I want to thank the President of Turkey, Mr Erdogan, and all of our Turkish colleagues for the very professional organisation of the G20 summit. They created a very good, trusting and open atmosphere in which to work and discuss the issues that were the whole point of our getting together.

I want to thank Turkey’s people for their welcoming attitude to our work and the help that we received at practically every step.

Question: It would seem that fighting terrorism was one of the summit’s main subjects of discussion. We know that there will be no resolving this problem unless we take more effective steps to prevent the financing of terrorism. Were any concrete measures discussed at the summit? What was the line of discussion on these measures, and did you reach any agreements?

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