(James Howard Kunstler) There are times in the course of events when a society cannot tell what
the fuck is going on, or what to do about it, and this is one of those
moments in history here in the USA. The quandaries of life on the home
front — how to make a living, how to care for ourselves and loved ones —
get shoved aside by misadventures in foreign lands with their own
quandaries. One delusion leads to another until you enter a zero gravity
of the mind. Case in point du jour: Syria.
Related FBI Anon Speaks Out About Syria as it Relates to Pedogate
Source – Deus Nexus
by James Howard Kunstler, April 11th, 2017
The persistent hyperRussomania of the US Dem-Prog alliance and its sob-sisters in the media seeks to make a bad situation worse in Syria and probably for the worst reasons. How many Americans have even the dimmest idea what’s going on in Syria, who the cast of characters there represent, and where the USA fits into all of it?
There is the head of government, one Bashar al Assad (son of the previous president, Hafez al Assad). The Assads had run Syria as a mostly secular Arab state until the civil war within Islam, Sunni against Shia, spilled out of Iraq. The Assads belonged to the tiny Alawite sect of the Shia. They comprise only 13 percent of the Syrian population, which has a Sunni majority. Under the Assads, Syria has tilted toward Iran, the Shia home state, and away from the Sunni Arabs elsewhere in the neighborhood. Russia has cultivated Iran and support its “friends,” the Assads.
A mash-up of Sunni jihad armies fights the Assad government in Syria’s civil war. These are Isis, al Qaeda, and Jabhat al Nusra. The US government had made official noise about supporting the more “moderate rebels” in the Syrian conflict. Who are they exactly? Do you have a clue? Which army among those three rebel groups are “moderates?” And what is their moderate goal under jihad? To topple Assad. And then what? To set up a new theocratic government perhaps? How is it in America’s interests to promote Islamic jihadi theocracy?
One hypothesis is that the struggle is over who gets to run gas and oil pipelines through Syria to get easier access to the Mediterranean Sea and the European energy market. Iran would very badly like to do that. But they are in competition with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the little giant emirate of natural gas. So, you have the Iran/Shia gang on one side and the KSA/Qatar/Sunni on the other side. Anybody who had scanned the news since 1979 can probably tell whose side the US is on. By the way, this hypothesis has had no airing among the mainstream media triumvirate: The New York Times, CNN, and The WashPo. These news orgs won’t even entertain that angle of the story… but as I said, it’s only a hypothesis.
It was not so many weeks ago that President Trump met with the crown prince of KSA at the White House to give assurances of American friendship and support. KSA is supposedly America’s chief ally against Isis in Syria. Yet, KSA and the USA are dedicated to getting rid of the Assad government as well as Isis. That is, we are against both sides in the Syrian civil war. Still wondering why the American public is confused by all this? Do you know who our choice is to replace Assad? Can you name an opposition figure? Of course you can’t. There is nobody. What the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the NSA seem to have in mind is the familiar failed state policy that has worked so well in the past (not).
Which brings us to the curious case of Bashar Assad’s recent supposed poison gas bombing of civilians in Khan Sheikhoun. The media triumvirate was avid to play along with the story. I don’t know about you, but I have to ask myself: what would Assad’s strategic goal be in gas bombing women and children? To gin up worldwide positive PR? To get the Syrian people on his side against Isis and other jihadis? What advantage could Assad possibly gain? In warfare generally, the tacticians strike against military targets. There’s a hypothesis that Assad’s air force sought to strike a rebel arms depot in Idlib province — a military target. The hypothesis goes further, saying that the depot contained phosgene and chlorine gas, but not Sarin. The wind carried these released gases among civilian homes and streets in Khan Sheikhoun. People suffered and died. Evidence for the absence of Sarin gas is that the gassing victims were handled manually by doctors and aid workers in street clothes. Sarin can kill on skin contact and doctors have to treat it in protective gear. So, maybe the gas wasn’t Sarin and maybe it wasn’t dropped in bombs from Assad’s planes. But, like the pipeline angle of the story, this hypothesis is missing in the media triumvirate’s pages.
President Trump was lauded mostly for the missile strike against the Syrian air force base that followed. The Dem/Progs and The New York Times gave him brownie points, if only for it being a swipe against Russia. It seemed so clever, what with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Mar-a-Lago dinner table where, presumably, the subject of the maniac in North Korea came up. Days later, a US aircraft carrier group steamed to the waters off Kim Jong Un’s fortress state. Which brings forth another hypothesis: that the Syria missile strike was solely a demonstration of US military will vis-a-vis the more ominous threat over in Asia — an attempt to get Xi to do something about the Kim Jong Un before we do.
It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. The big fear is that in the event of a rumble, Kim will turn Seoul into an ashtray. The South Korean capital is only a few miles from the DMZ between the two states. The US couldn’t find a jucier enemy than Kim Jong Un, a character so improbable he might have been dreamed up in a Batman comic. Hence, he’s comprehensible to an American public that more and more looks like the ever-present crowd of perplexed bystanders in a Batman movie.
About the Author
James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation. His novels include World Made By Hand, The Witch of Hebron, Maggie Darling — A Modern Romance, The Halloween Ball, an Embarrassment of Riches, and many others. He has published three novellas with Water Street Press: Manhattan Gothic, A Christmas Orphan, and The Flight of Mehetabel.
1983 CIA Document Reveals Plan To Destroy Syria, Foreshadows Current Crisis
Source: Zero Hedge
Prophetically foreshadowing the current crisis (and
apparent action plan), leaked CIA documents from the reign of Bashar
al-Assad’s father in the 1980s show a Washington Deep State plan
coalescing to “bring real muscle to bear against Syria,” toppling its leader (in favor of one amenable to US demands) , severing ties with Russia (its primary arms dealer), and paving the way for an oil and gas pipeline of Washington’s choosing.
As ActivistPost.com’s Brandon Turbeville detailed
(just a day before Trump unleashed his Tomahawks), as the Syrian crisis
enters its sixth year, the Donald Trump administration is looking more
and more like the Obama administration every day. With the Trump regime
refusing to open useful dialogue with Russia regarding Syria, its
obvious anti-Iran and pro-Israel positioning, and support for a very
questionable “safe zone” plan for Syria, the odds of a rational U.S.
policy in regards to Syria has lower and lower odds of existence as time
progresses.
Related BREAKING: Putin Declares Syria Gas Attack a ‘False Flag,’ Says More Are Coming
Yet, despite the fact that the Trump administration is apparently
poised to continue the Obama regime’s proxy war of aggression against
the people of Syria, an example of seamless transition, it should also be remembered that the plan to destroy Syria did not begin with Obama but with the Bush administration.
Even now, as the world awaits the continuation of the Syrian war
through a Democratic and Republican administration, the genesis of that
war goes back to the Republican Bush administration, demonstrating that
there is indeed an overarching agenda and an overarching infrastructure
of an oligarchical deep state intent on moving forward regardless of
which party is seemingly in power.
As journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his article, “The Redirection,”
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite,
the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its
priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration
has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in
clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite
organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in
clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of
these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that
espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and
sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
“Extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam”
who are “hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda” are the
definition of the so-called “rebels” turned loose on Syria in 2011.
Likewise, the fact that both Iran and Hezbollah, who are natural
enemies of al-Qaeda and such radical Sunni groups, are involved in the
battle against ISIS and other related terrorist organizations in Syria
proves the accuracy of the article on another level.
Hersh also wrote,
The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been
discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that
there is “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,” separating
“reformers” and “extremists”; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers
of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the
other side of that divide.” (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the
Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, “have made their choice and their
choice is to destabilize.”
Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however.
The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by
leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other
ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process,
current and former officials close to the Administration said.
. . . . . .
This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other
Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close
eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve
created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t
want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah,
Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with
Hezbollah and Iran.”
. . . . . .
Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval,
would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of
President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that
putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more
conciliatory and open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms
to Hezbollah.
. . . . .
In January, after an outburst of street violence in Beirut involving
supporters of both the Siniora government and Hezbollah, Prince Bandar
flew to Tehran to discuss the political impasse in Lebanon and to meet
with Ali Larijani, the Iranians’ negotiator on nuclear issues. According
to a Middle Eastern ambassador, Bandar’s mission—which the ambassador
said was endorsed by the White House—also aimed “to create problems
between the Iranians and Syria.” There had been tensions between the two
countries about Syrian talks with Israel, and the Saudis’ goal was to
encourage a breach. However, the ambassador said, “It did not work.
Syria and Iran are not going to betray each other. Bandar’s approach is
very unlikely to succeed.”
. . . . . .
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement
founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent
opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir’s father. In 1982, the
Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city
for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people.
Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The
Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel.
Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between
Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door
to effective Syrian opposition.”
. . . . .
There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has
already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front
is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a
faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who
defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A.
officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and
financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial
support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who
now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the
knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s
members met with officials from the National Security Council, according
to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the
Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
Hersh also spoke with Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shi’ite
Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. In relation to the Western strategy against
Syria, he reported,
Nasrallah said he believed that America also
wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria,
he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and
internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni
state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But,
he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.” Nasrallah
told me that he suspected that one aim of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon
last summer was “the destruction of Shiite areas and the displacement
of Shiites from Lebanon. The idea was to have the Shiites of Lebanon and
Syria flee to southern Iraq,” which is dominated by Shiites. “I am not
sure, but I smell this,” he told me.
Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,”
he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided,
and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small
ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will
be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been
partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement
with each other. This is the new Middle East.”
Yet, while even the connections between the plans to destroy
Syria and the Bush administration are generally unknown, what is even
less well-known is the fact that there existed a plan to destroy Syria
as far back as 1983.
Documents contained in the U.S. National Archives and drawn up by the
CIA reveal a plan to destroy the Syrian government going back decades. One such document entitled, “Bringing Real Muscle To Bear In Syria,” written by CIA officer Graham Fuller, is particularly illuminating. In this document, Fuller wrote,
Syria at present has a hammerlock on US
interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s
pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the
[Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply
escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly
orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three
border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.
Even as far back as 1983, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s
father, Hafez Assad, was viewed as a gadfly to the plans of Western
imperialists seeking to weaken both the Iraqis and the Iranians and
extend hegemony over the Middle East and Persia. The document
shows that Assad and hence Syria represented a resistance to Western
imperialism, a threat to Israel, and that Assad himself was well aware
of the game the United States, Israel, and other members of the Western
imperialist coalition were trying to play against him. The report reads,
Syria continues to maintain a hammerlock on two key U.S. interests in the Middle East:
— Syrian refusal to withdraw its troops from Lebanon ensures Israeli occupation in the south;
— Syrian closure of the Iraqi pipeline has been a key factor
in bringing Iraq to its financial knees, impelling it towards dangerous
internationalization of the war in the Gulf
Diplomatic initiatives to date have had little effect on Assad who
has so far correctly calculated the play of forces in the area and
concluded that they are only weakly arrayed against him. If the U.S. is
to rein in Syria’s spoiling role, it can only do so through exertion of
real muscle which will pose a vital threat to Assad’s position and
power.
The author then presents a plan that sounds eerily similar to
those now being discussed publicly by Western and specifically American
corporate-financier think tanks and private non-governmental
organizations who unofficially craft American policy. Fuller writes,
The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures
against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military
threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq,
Israel and Turkey. Iraq, perceived to be increasingly desperate in the
Gulf war, would undertake limited military (air) operations against
Syria with the sole goal of opening the pipeline. Although opening war
on a second front against Syria poses considerable risk to Iraq, Syria
would also face a two-front war since it is already heavily engaged in
the Bekaa, on the Golan and in maintaining control over a hostile and
restive population inside Syria.
Israel would simultaneously raise tensions along Syria’s Lebanon
front without actually going to war. Turkey, angered by Syrian support
to Armenian terrorism, to Iraqi Kurds on Turkey’s Kurdish border areas
and to Turkish terrorists operating out of northern Syria, has often
considered launching unilateral military operations against terrorist
camps in northern Syria. Virtually all Arab states would have sympathy
for Iraq.
Faced with three belligerent fronts, Assad would probably be
forced to abandon his policy of closure of the pipeline. Such a
concession would relieve the economic pressure on Iraq, and perhaps
force Iran to reconsider bringing the war to an end. It would be a
sharpening blow to Syria’s prestige and could effect the equation of
forces in Lebanon.
Thus, Fuller outlines that not only would Syria be forced to reopen
the pipeline of interest at the time, but that it would be a regional
shockwave effecting the makeup of forces in and around Lebanon,
weakening the prestige of the Syrian state and, presumably, the
psychological state of the Syrian President and the Syrian people, as
well as a message to Iran.
The document continues,
Such a threat must be primarily military in nature. At
present there are three relatively hostile elements around Syria’s
borders: Israel, Iraq and Turkey. Consideration must be given to
orchestrating a credible military threat against Syria in order to
induce at least some moderate change in its policies.
This paper proposes serious examination of the use of all three
states – acting independently – to exert the necessary threat. Use of
any one state in isolation cannot create such a credible threat.
The strategy proposed here by the CIA is virtually identical to the
one being discussed by deep state establishment think tanks like the
Brookings Institution today. For instance, in the Brookings document “Middle East Memo #21: Saving Syria: Assessing Options For Regime Change,” it says,
Turkey’s participation would be vital for success, and
Washington would have to encourage the Turks to play a more helpful role
than they have so far. While Ankara has lost all patience with
Damascus, it has taken few concrete steps that would increase the
pressure on Asad (and thereby antagonize Tehran). Turkish policy toward
the Syrian opposition has actually worked at cross-purposes with
American efforts to foster a broad, unified national organization. With
an eye to its own domestic Kurdish dilemmas, Ankara has frustrated
efforts to integrate the Syrian Kurds into a broader opposition
framework. In addition, it has overtly favored the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood over all other opposition groups. Washington must impress
upon Turkey the need to be more accommodating of legitimate Kurdish
political and cultural demands in a post-Asad Syria, and to be less
insistent on the primacy of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Some voices in Washington and Jerusalem are exploring whether Israel
could contribute to coercing Syrian elites to remove Asad. The Israelis
have the region’s most formidable military, impressive intelligence
services, and keen interests in Syria. In addition, Israel’s
intelligence services have a strong knowledge of Syria, as well as
assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to subvert the
regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel could posture
forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert
regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure
fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is
willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is
being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could
perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to
preserve itself. Advocates argue this additional pressure could tip the
balance against Asad inside Syria, if other forces were aligned
properly.
While Syria is not in conflict with Iraq today, after being destroyed
by the United States in 2003, Western Iraq now houses the
mysteriously-funded Islamic State on the border between Iraq and Syria.
That being said, this plan is not merely being discussed, it
is being implemented as one can clearly see by the fact that Israel
routinely launches airstrikes against the Syrian military, Turkey
continues to funnel ISIS and related terrorists into Syria through its
own territory, and ISIS continues to present itself as an Eastern front
militarily. As a result, the “multi-front” war envisioned and written
about by the CIA in 1983 and discussed by Brookings in 2012 has come to
fruition and is in full swing today.
* * *
Full Document on Scribd:
https://www.scribd.com/document/344768700/CIA-Syria-Pipelines#from_embed
* * *
Then three years later, another CIA report (found recently in CREST database by Wikileaks) confirms much of the above, raising
once again the goal of reducing Russian influence, and toppling any
Syrian leadership that was inclined to escalate tensions with Israel…
Under most circumstances Moscow’s position in Syria should remain strong, but should
Syria suffer another devastating military defeat at the hands of Israel
new leaders might decide to look elsewhere for military equipment.
A shift to a Western arms supplier also could prompt parallel efforts to seek Western financial advice and support.
Best case scenario for Washington…
We judge that US interests in Syria probably
would be best served by a Sunni regime as it might well include relative
moderates interested in securing Western aid and investment.
Such a regime probably would be less inclined to escalate tensions with Israel.
Russian relations…
Syria is the centerpiece of Moscow’s influence in the Middle East.Moscow
thus has a vested interest in major policy shifts or changes in Syrian
leadership. The Soviet Union and its East European allies provide
virtually all of Syria’s arms, and the Soviets deliver more weapons to
Syria than to any other Third World client.
We believe Moscow’s interests would be seriously jeopardized if Sunnis came to power through a civil war. Many
Sunnis resent the Soviets because they are closely identified with
Alawi dominance, and Sunnis would be especially hostile toward the
Soviets if they had supported Alawis with military equipment and
advisors in a civil war.
SCENARIOS OF DRAMATIC POLITICAL CHANGE
US biggest fear was series of coups over succession of Bashar al-Assad’s father… That did not come to be.
Civil war (similar to what is very evident now)…
Sunni dissidence has been minimal since Assad crushed the
Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, but deep-seated tensions
remain–keeping alive the potential for minor incidents to grow into
major flareups of communal violence. For example, disgruntlement over
price hikes, altercations between Sunni citizens and security forces, or
anger at privileges accorded to Alawis at the expense of Sunnis could
foster small-scale protests. Excessive government force in quelling such
disturbances might be seen by Sunnis as evidence of a government
vendetta against all Sunnis, precipitating even larger protests by other
Sunni groups.
Best case scenario…
In our view, US interests would be best served by a Sunni regime controlled by business-oriented moderates. Business moderates would see a strong need for Western aid and investment to build Syria’s private economy, thus opening the way for stronger ties to Western governments.
Although we believe such a government would give some support–or at
least pay strong lipservice–to Arab causes, this group’s preoccupation
with economic development and its desire to limit the role of the
military would give Sunnis an incentive to avoid a war with Israel.
However…
We believe Washington’s gains would be mitigated, however, if Sunni fundamentalists assumed power. Although Syria’s secular traditions would make it extremely difficult for religious zealots to establish an Islamic Republic, should they succeed they would likely deepen hostilities with Israel and provide support and sanctuary to terrorist groups.
It’s a little late for that Islamic State genie to go back in the bottle now.
As Brandon Turbeville concludes, the trail of
documentation and the manner in which the overarching agenda of world
hegemony on the behalf of corporate-financier interests have continued
apace regardless of party and seamlessly through Republican and Democrat
administrations serves to prove that changing parties and personalities
do nothing to stop the onslaught of imperialism, war, and destruction
being waged across the world today and in earnest ever since 2001.
Indeed, such changes only make adjustments to the appearance and
presentation of a much larger Communo-Fascist system that is entrenching
itself by the day.
_________________________
Stillness in the Storm Editor’s note: Did you find a spelling error or grammar mistake? Do you think this article needs a correction or update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at [email protected] with the error, headline and url. Thank you for reading.
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