Quote:Russia warns UK against sending weapons to militants in Syria

"Arming the opposition is in breach of international law," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his British counterpart William Hague in London on Wednesday.

The conference was also attended by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his British counterpart Philip Hammond.

"International law does not allow, does not permit supplies of arms to non-governmental actors and in our point of view it is a violation of international law," Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister reiterated that it is only up to Syrians to decide the future of their nation.

He also rejected any chance of Moscow pressuring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad into stepping down.

Lavrov made the remarks one day after British Prime Minister David Cameron said London would mull ignoring a European Union arms embargo on Syria in order to pave the way for sending weapons to the militants fighting against the government.

On March 8, the Russian diplomat said Moscow is opposed to any preconditions to halt the ongoing turmoil in Syria since his country's top priority is to save lives.

Lavrov said those who say Assad must disappear before the start of any talks have a different priority than the lives of the Syrian people.

On March 11, a member of Syria's opposition bloc, known as the National Coalition, held talks with Lavrov in Moscow in an effort to persuade Russia to back calls for Assad's resignation.

Many people, including large numbers of security personnel, have lost their lives in the foreign-backed unrest that erupted in Syria in March 2011.

Quote:

FIRST ON CNN: US intel not seeing signs chemical weapons were used in Syria

By Barbara Starr
Initial U.S. intelligence suggests Syria did not use chemical weapons in a strike earlier this week, CNN has been told by U.S. officials.
The officials emphasized this is a preliminary conclusion and the investigation continues.
U.S. analysts are "leaning hard away" from the notion that Syria used chemical weapons against its own people, a military official directly familiar with the preliminary analysis tells CNN.
There are "multiple indicators" for this emerging conclusion, a second official said.
That official told CNN, "there are strong indications now that chemical weapons were not used by the regime in recent days."
The official would not specify what those indications are, but said it points to the emerging U.S. conclusion that "weaponized chemical agents" were not used.
Analysis of a video of hospitalized Syrians suggests that it does not appear people are suffering from a chemical weapons attack or being treated as though they were in such an attack, according to the military official.
"The actions in the video don't match up to a chemical weapons response," the first official said.
Though the official noted that Syrian hospitals may have a shortage of the supplies that would be expected to be used in such an attack.
Analysts believe its possible the people in the video were deliberately exposed to, or in some fashion hit with "'caustic"' agent such as chlorine. But that would not be the same as using a chemical weapons, as defined by international treaties, such as a nerve or blister agent that cause hideous suffering and often death.
There is also no NATO or U.S. radar or satellite intelligence indicating the launch of a SCUD missile at the time of the attack, according to the military official
"The fact that it's not a weapon doesn't mean it's not some creative use of a caustic agent," the first official said.
Officials say this is an emerging conclusion and there still may be more intelligence that will come to light.
They are specifically noting, however, that the regime may have deliberately exposed people to large quantities of chemicals such chlorine that could cause symptoms and illness, but that is technically different that the weapons that President Barack Obama has called a "red line'" if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were to use them in a mass casualty attack.
CNN's Richard Roth, Chelsea Carter, Amir Ahmed, Joe Sterling, Hamdi Alkhshali and Barbara Starr contrib
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/21/preliminary-results-show-chemical-weapons-not-used-in-syria/

Magda Hassan Wrote:All the witnesses that I saw interviewed in the hospitals all said the chemical weapons came from the 'rebels' and not the government.

IDF Builds Field Hospital for Syrians in Golan Heights

Quote:'Phoenix jihadist's' dad claims son worked in Syria for CIA

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Published time: March 29, 2013 18:51
Edited time: March 29, 2013 19:26

As US Army veteran Eric Harroun awaits trial in Virginia for allegedly fighting alongside al-Qaeda supporters, the man's father claims he was working for the CIA and was reporting back to the agency from Syria.
Harroun, a 30-year-old American from Phoenix, Arizona, has been charged by the US government for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely a rocket propelled grenade launcher) to conduct an attack against the Syrian government. The US Army veteran dubbed by media 'Phoenix jihadist' appeared in numerous videos alongside members of the al-Nusra Front, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization in December, but which has also been fighting alongside the Syrian opposition to take down the Assad regime. To date, 29 US-backed Syrian opposition groups have linked with al-Nusra, and have signed a petition calling for the support of the Islamist group that the White House believes is a branch of al-Qaeda.

According to FBI documents, Harroun traveled to Turkey last November and joined the fight led by the Free Syrian Army shortly thereafter. His father, Darryl Harroun, on Thursday told reporters that he doesn't understand why the US government arrested his son, who he says was working for the Central Intelligence Agency.
He referred to his son as a patriotic' American who would never get involved with al-Qaeda, and claims he was gathering information for the US government.
"I know he was doing some work for the CIA over there," the man's father said. "I know for a fact that he was passing information onto the CIA."
After seeing the documents regarding his son's charges, Harroun told a CBS News reporter that it is all inaccurate and misleading and that the truth will eventually come out, since his son was simply gathering intelligence.
"About 99 percent of that stuff that you read on there is a bunch of bull," he said. "I don't think there's any truth in any of this he's very patriotic"
The CIA is known to have contributed to the opposition fighters' initiatives in Syria. Last week, the New York Times published an article describing how the agency has allegedly been helping foreign governments contribute to the Free Syrian Army. Unnamed US officials told the paper that the CIA has been secretly airlifting arms and other military equipment to Arab governments and Turkey, who provided them to the country's opposition fighters.
With the agency's alleged involvement in the conflict, some believe it is very possible for the CIA to also have sent their own agents into Syria. Paul Joseph Watson suggests on InfoWars that Harroun's arrest may have something to do with the lack of communication and rivalry between the FBI and the CIA.
The FBI affidavit makes no mention of Harroun having any sort of connection to the CIA, but includes transcripts of interviews in which the man describes being treated like a prisoner in the al-Nusra camp and eventually being accepted by the members. Soon thereafter, he was helping them conduct several attacks on the Syrian regime. He also recalled being questioned about why the US government designated the group as a terrorist organization.

But the FBI is worried that while he may have gone into Syria with good intentions, he may also have become radicalized. A main component of the affidavit focuses on a Facebook status Harroun allegedly posted, in which he states that "the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist."
But the man did not seem to try to hide any of his acitivities in Syria. He frequently uploaded pictures of himself in the conflict zone and made opinionated statements regarding the Assad regime. He allowed journalists to interview him over Skype and labeled himself as a "freedom fighter", working on behalf of the opposition movement that the US supports.
His alleged CIA involvement has so far only been mentioned by the man's father, but could play a major part in the case as Harroun awaits trial. He faces a maximum of life imprisonment.

A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War's Casualty Count

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: April 9, 2013

West's Syrian Narrative Based on "Guy in British Apartment"

David Guyatt Wrote:More of the usual, eh.

We can't really award marks for originality can we.

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:More on George HW Bush and his PR machine's own Gleiwitz incident:

Quote:December 28, 2002

"What We Say, Goes!"
How Bush Sr. Sold the Bombing of Iraq
by MITCHEL COHEN

"The U.S. has a new credibility. What we say goes."

President George Bush, NBC Nightly News, Feb. 2, 1991

In October, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only as Nayirah, appeared in Washington before the House of Representatives' Human Rights Caucus. She testified that Iraqi soldiers who had invaded Kuwait on August 2nd tore hundreds of babies from hospital incubators and killed them.

Television flashed her testimony around the world. It electrified opposition to Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, who was now portrayed by U.S. president George Bush not only as "the Butcher of Baghdad" but -- so much for old friends -- "a tyrant worse than Hitler."

Bush quoted Nayirah at every opportunity. Six times in one month he referred to "312 premature babies at Kuwait City's maternity hospital who died after Iraqi soldiers stole their incubators and left the infants on the floor,"(1) and of "babies pulled from incubators and scattered like firewood across the floor." Bush used Nayirah's testimony to lambaste Senate Democrats still supporting "only" sanctions against Iraq -- the blockade of trade which alone would cause hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to die of hunger and disease -- but who waffled on endorsing the policy Bush wanted to implement: outright bombardment. Republicans and pro-war Democrats used Nayirah's tale to hammer their fellow politicians into line behind Bush's war in the Persian Gulf.(2)

Nayirah, though, was no impartial eyewitness, a fact carefully concealed by her handlers. She was the daughter of one Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the United States. A few key Congressional leaders and reporters knew who Nayirah was, but none of them thought of sharing that minor detail with Congress, let alone the American people.

Everything Nayirah said, as it turned out, was a lie. There were, in actuality, only a handful of incubators in all of Kuwait, certainly not the "hundreds" she claimed. According to Dr. Mohammed Matar, director of Kuwait's primary care system, and his wife, Dr. Fayeza Youssef, who ran the obstetrics unit at the maternity hospital, there were few if any babies in the incubators at the time of the Iraqi invasion. Nayirah's charges, they said, were totally false. "I think it was just something for propaganda," Dr. Matar said. In an ABC-TV News account after the war, John Martin reported that although "patients, including premature babies, did die," this occurred "when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors stopped working or fled the country" -- a far cry from Bush's original assertion that hundreds of babies were murdered by Iraqi troops.(3) Subsequent investigations, including one by Amnesty International, found no evidence for the incubator claims.

It is likely that Nayirah was not even in Kuwait, let alone at the hospital, at that time; the Kuwaiti aristocracy and their families had fled the country weeks before the anticipated invasion. Some defended their country at the gaming tables in Monte Carlo, where at least one member of the ruling family was reported to have gambled away more than $10 million as his fellow rulers called for economic and military assistance from abroad.

As invasions go, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was relatively -- I stress the word "relatively" -- bloodless. Despite the heart-rending testimonies TV viewers in the U.S. were subjected to night after night, fewer than 200 Kuwaitis were killed. Compare that to such "peaceful" ventures as the U.S. invasion of Panama the year before, which killed an estimated 7,500 Panamanians; or, a year after the Gulf war, the 10,000 Somalis killed by <U.S./U.N>. troops in what was portrayed as a "peace mission" to bring food aid to the allegedly starving region.(4)

How did Nayirah first come to the attention of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which put her before the world's cameras? It was arranged by Hill & Knowlton, a public relations firm hired to rally the U.S. populace behind Bush's policy of going to war. And it worked!

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S.

"When Hill & Knowlton masterminded the Kuwaiti campaign to sell the Gulf War to the American public, the owners of this highly effective propaganda machine were residing in another country" -- the United Kingdom -- writes Sharon Beder and Richard Gosden in PR Watch. "Should this give pause for thought? Does it demonstrate a certain potential for the future exercise of global political power -- the power to manipulate democratic political processes through managing public opinion," which Hill and Knowlton demonstrated 10 years ago?(5)

All of this is concealed in a new HBO "behind-the-scenes true story" of the Gulf War, which is being released at this crucial political moment. As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting writes, "HBO's version of history never makes clear that the incubator story was fraudulent, and in fact had been managed by an American PR firm, not Iraq. Curiously, however, the truth seems to have been clear to Robert Wiener, the former CNN producer who co-wrote 'Live from Baghdad.'As he explained to CNN's Wolf Blitzer (11/21/02), 'that story turned out to be false because those accusations were made by the daughter of the Kuwaiti minister of information and were never proven.' Unfortunately, HBO viewers won't know that when they see the film."(6)

In 1998, Hill and Knowlton found a new client -- President Clinton -- who hired them to advise him and to polish his image. The last time they were involved, by the time their lies were exposed TV newscasters were waxing ecstatic over the rockets' red glare, computerized "smart-bombs" bursting in air, and 250,000 people were dead.

Mitchel Cohen is the co-editor of Green Politix, the national newspaper of the Greens/Green Party USA. He can be reached at: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com



NOTES

1. Doug Ireland, Village Voice, March 26, 1991.

2. The use of the Big Lie to manipulate public opinion and neutralize opposition to a particular war was not invented by Bush. See, for instance, James Laxer, "Iraq: US has match, seeks kindle: American leaders have often falsified reasons to attack other countries," (ActionGreens, Mar. 31, 2001). Laxer is a Political Science Professor at York University, Toronto.

3. ABC World News Tonight, 3/15/91.

4. In actuality, people in only certain areas of Somalia were starving -- those that had been subjected to IMF structural adjustment programs. See, Mitchel Cohen, "Somalia & the Cynical Manipulation of Hunger," Red Balloon Collective, 1994.

5. Sharon Beder and Richard Gosden, "PR Watch," Volume 8, No. 2, 2nd Quarter 2001. The PR firm has since been working at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry to ban over-the-counter vitamin and nutritional supplement sales in Europe.

6. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, "HBO Recycling Gulf War Hoax?" December 4, 2002.

Mitchel Cohen is the co-editor of Green Politix, the national newspaper of the Greens/Green Party USA. He can be reached at: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen1228.html

US Aid Falls into Al Qaeda's Hands in Syria by Design, Not Chance

April 16, 2013 (IOGSD-Tony Cartalucci) - Huge amounts of US-provided flour smuggled into northern Syria have formed the foundation of Al Qaeda's public relations strategy, the Washington Post and London Telegraph reveal. Together with huge amounts of US-provided weapons, the aid is fueling Al Qaeda's continued operations and atrocities inside Syria.

Recently it was revealed that the US, UK, and France, through Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and other regional allies, have been funneling cash and thousands of tons of weapons into Syria - the vast majority of which have ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.

The New York Times in their article titled, "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid," admits that:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria's opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

While the West attempts to claim these weapons are being sent to "moderates," the US State Department itself admits that Al Qaeda is operating in every major city in Syria, carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks, and is by far the mosthighly organized, most prominent militant front in the conflict. If the West via Saudi Arabia and Qatar is sending thousands of tons of weapons to "moderates," who is sending more weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra?
The obvious answer is there are no moderates, and the West has been intentionally arming Al Qaeda from the beginning. In fact, this is a documented conspiracy first revealed as early as 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker article titled, ""The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" which stated specifically:

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 coöperated 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.

Now, further evidence that the summation of US aid has fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda in Syria, comes to us from Washington Post propagandist Liz Sly who reported in her article, "U.S. feeds Syrians, but secretly," that:

In the heart of rebel-held territory in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, a small group of intrepid Westerners is undertaking a mission of great stealth. Living anonymously in a small rural community, they travel daily in unmarked cars, braving airstrikes, shelling and the threat of kidnapping to deliver food and other aid to needy Syrians all of it paid for by the U.S. government.

Sly then claims that most Syrians credit Al Qaeda's al-Nusra with providing the aid:

"America has done nothing for us. Nothing at all," said Mohammed Fouad Waisi, 50, spitting out the words for emphasis in his small Aleppo grocery store, which adjoins a bakery where he buys bread every day. The bakery is fully supplied with flour paid for by the United States. But Waisi credited Jabhat al-Nusra a rebel group the United States has designated a terrorist organization because of its ties to al-Qaeda with providing flour to the region, though he admitted he wasn't sure where it comes from.

And while Sly attempts to spin the story as merely misdirected anger and ignorance on the part of Syrians receiving the aid, it is well documented that bakeries in terrorist-held territory are in fact manned by Al Qaeda militants. In fact, while Sly maintains that "security concerns" are owed for America's opaque aid distribution operation, it appears more likely the US is attempting to insidiously obfuscate its use of humanitarian aid to help its militant proxies win "hearts and minds" amid a humanitarian catastrophe the West itself engineered and perpetuated intentionally.

The London Telegraph revealed in their February 2013 article, "Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria's revolution," that taking over bakeries was a key strategy used by Al Qaeda's al-Nusra front to "win over" the population:

Then, in the past weeks, Jabhat al-Nusra which is outside the FSA pushed other rebel groups out of the stores and established a system to distribute bread throughout rebel areas.

In a small office attached to a bakery in the Miesseh district of Aleppo, Abu Yayha studied a map pinned on the wall. Numbers were scrawled in pencil against streets.

"We counted the population of every street to assess the need for the area," explained Mr Yahya. "We provide 23,593 bags of bread every two days for this area. This is just in one district. We are calculating the population in other districts and doing the same there.

"In shops the cost is now 125 Syrian pounds (£1.12) for one pack. Here we sell it at 50 Syrian pounds (45p) for two bags. We distribute some for free for those who cannot pay."

The bakery works constantly. Inside, barrows filled with dough were heaved onto a conveyor belt that chopped it into round and flat segments, before pushing the dough into a giant oven. Workers packed the steaming flatbread in bags.

"I am from Jabhat al Nusra. All the managers of all the bakeries are," said Abu Fattah, the manager. "This makes sure that nobody steals."

In essence, Al Qaeda is taking over neighborhoods upon a mountain of US-provided flour, in bakeries overrun and held at the barrels of US-provided guns. Humanitarian aid is being used as a political weapon to carve out territory for the West's heavily armed proxies and extort cooperation from the subjugated people who find themselves inside Al Qaeda-occupied territory.
http://iogsd.blogspot.mx/2013/04/us-aid-falls-into-al-qaedas-hands-in.html