TEHRAN, YJC. -- Since 2007, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have been documented as conspiring to overthrow the Syrian government by way of sectarian extremists, including groups "sympathetic to al-Qaeda."
While the West has attempted to
portray the full-scale conflict beginning in Syria in 2011 as first, a
"pro-democracy uprising," to now a "sectarian conflict," recent
atrocities carried out by US-Saudi-Israeli proxies have shifted the
assault to include Sunni Muslims unable or unwilling to participate in
the destruction of the Syrian state.
Such attacks included a mortar bombardment of Damascus University,
killing 15 and injuring dozens more, as well as the brutal slaying of
two prominent Sunni Muslim clerics - the latest of which was beheaded,
his body paraded through the streets of Aleppo, and his head hung from
the mosque he preached in. While the West attempts to mitigate these
events by labeling the victims as "pro-government," the reality is that
the forces fighting inside Syria are funded, armed, directed, and
politically supported from abroad - and therefore do not represent any
of the Syrian people's interests, including those Syrians who do not
support the government.
It is abundantly clear that the West's goal is neither to institute
"democracy," nor even to take sides in a "sectarian conflict," but
rather carry out the complete and permanent destruction of Syria as a
nation-state, sparing no one, not even Sunnis.
Such a proxy war exists challenging any conceivable interpretation
of "international law." The world is left with a moral imperative to not
only denounce this insidious conflict brought upon the Syrian people,
compounded and perpetuated entirely by external interests, but demands
that concrete action is taken to ensure that this act of aggression is
brought to an end.
The US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have admitted to colluding
together, flooding Syria with thousands of tons of weapons via Jordan to
Syria's south, and NATO-member Turkey to Syria's north. And in an
otherwise inexplicable conundrum, while the likes of US Secretary of
State John Kerry insist this torrent of weapons is being directed to
"moderates," neither the US nor its allies are able to explain why
al-Qaeda terror front Jabhat al-Nusra has emerged as the most heavily
armed, best equipped militant organization in the conflict.
AP reported specifically in their article, "Officials: Arms shipments rise to Syrian rebels," that:
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian
opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in
the hands of secular groups. "I will tell you this: There is a very
clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what
goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them,
and the indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a
result of that," he said, without elaborating.
But even AP admits that:
Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different
brigades fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150
fighters. Many of them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white
Islamic flags or al-Qaeda-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is
also a presence of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic
terrorist groups fighting alongside the rebels.
The US State Department's own statement regarding the designation of al-Nusra as a listed al-Qaeda terror organization states:
Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly
600 attacks - ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms
and improvised explosive device operations - in major city centers
including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr.
According to the US State Department, al-Nusra is carrying out hundreds
of attacks with a wide array of weaponry, across the entire nation of
Syria, indicating a massive front and implying an equally massive
network of logistical support, including foreign sponsorship. What's
more is that the US State Department acknowledges al-Nusra's presence
even in cities close to Syria's borders where the CIA is admittedly
overseeing the distribution of weapons and cash.
The New York Times, in their June 2012 article, "CIA Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition," reported that:
A small number of CIA officers are operating secretly in southern
Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across
the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according
to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
And in New York Times' more recent March 2013 article, "Arms
Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From CIA," it is admitted that
weapons are being funneled into Syria across both its borders with
Turkey and Jordan:
With help from the CIA, 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 article would also state:
Although rebel commanders and the data indicate that
Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey
to the opposition since early and late 2012, respectively, a major
hurdle was removed late last fall after the Turkish government agreed to
allow the pace of air shipments to accelerate. Simultaneously, arms and
equipment were being purchased by Saudi Arabia in Croatia and flown to
Jordan on Jordanian cargo planes for rebels working in southern Syria
and for retransfer to Turkey for rebels groups operating from there.
The US State Department acknowledges that the well armed, prominent
terror front al-Nusra is operating in the very areas the CIA is feeding
weapons and cash into.
Such a reality directly contradicts the US State Department's
official position, and no explanation is given as to how "moderates" can
be provided with such extensive support, and still be eclipsed
militarily and logistically by terror-front al-Nusra. That is, unless of
course, the US, British, Saudi, and Qatari weapons aren't simply just
handing the weapons directly to terrorists, precisely as planned as
early as 2007.
The Destruction of Syria Began in 2007, Not 2011
While the West has attempted to reclaim Syria as part of its sphere
of influence for decades, concrete plans for the latest proxy war were
laid at least as early as 2007. It was admitted in 2007 that the US,
Saudi Arabia, and Israel conspired together to fund, arm, and direct
sectarian extremists including militants "sympathetic" to al-Qaeda
against the governments of Iran and Syria. In Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection:
Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on
terrorism?" the conspiracy was described as follows:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shia, 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 Shia resistance group that is
backed by Iran. The US 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 extremist groups that espouse a militant vision
of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda.
Hersh also cited US, Saudi, and Lebanese officials who indicated
that, "in the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush
Administration have developed a series of informal understandings about
their new strategic direction," and that, "the Saudi government, with
Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken
the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The report would
also state:
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.
Mention of the Muslim Brotherhood already receiving aid even in 2007 was also made:
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 extremist groups. 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. A former high-ranking CIA 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.
The Wall Street Journal in 2007 would also implicate the
so-called "National Salvation Front," in an article. It appears then
that the so-called "opposition" is a creation and perpetuation of the
West and its ambitions, not the aspirations of the "Syrian people."
It is clear that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel planned to use
sectarian extremists against the nation of Syria starting at least as
early as 2007, and it is clear that now these sectarian extremists are
carrying out the destruction of Syria with a massive torrent of weapons
and cash provided by the US and its regional allies, just as was
described by Hersh's report.
A Moral Imperative to Save Syria
Syria is under attack by an insidious, premeditated foreign assault,
intentionally using terrorist proxies in direct and complete violation
of any conceivable interpretation of both national and international
law. The world has a moral imperative to support the Syrian people and
their government as they fight this assault - both politically and
logistically. While US Secretary John Kerry is unable to account for how
his nation's support for moderates has left al-Qaeda's al-Nusra front
the premier militant faction in Syria, he has demanded that Iraq help
stem the flow of alleged aid Iran is providing the Syrian government as
it fights these terrorists.
Does US Secretary of State John Kerry deny that Syria is fighting a
significant (and continuously growing) al-Qaeda presence within their
borders, which according to the US State Department's own statement, is
operating in every major city in the country? What conceivable
explanation or excuse could be made to justify the blockading of aid
sent to Syria to fight al-Qaeda terrorists? In fact, why isn't the US
aiding the Syrian government itself in its fight against al-Qaeda - a
terrorist organization the US has used as an excuse to wage unending
global war since 2001 when al-Qaeda allegedly killed some 3,000 American
civilians?
Does Secretary Kerry believe that further arming "moderates" is a
legitimate strategy to counter al-Qaeda's growing presence in Syria when
these "moderates" openly defend al-Qaeda's al-Nusra? The US' own
hand-picked "Syrian opposition leader," Mouaz al Khatib, demanded the US
reconsider its designation of al Nusra as a terrorist organization.
Reuters reported in their article, "Syrian opposition urges US review of
al-Nusra blacklisting," that:
The leader of Syria's opposition coalition urged the United States
on Wednesday to review its decision to designate the militant Islamist
Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist group, saying religion was a legitimate
motive for Syrian rebels.
"The decision to consider a party that is fighting the regime as a
terrorist party needs to be reviewed," Mouaz Alkhatib told a "Friends of
Syria" meeting in Morocco, where Western and Arab states granted full
recognition to the coalition seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
The US is directly responsible for the emergence and
perpetuation of al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in Syria. The
statements of Secretary John Kerry are made merely to maintain an
increasingly tenuous "plausible deniability." The precedent being set by
the US and its allies is one of using full-scale proxy invasions, which
if successful in Syria, will be directed into Iran, up through the
Caucasus Mountains in Russia, and even onto China's doorstep via
extremists the West is cultivating amongst the Uighurs. It is also clear
that the West is directly responsible for the extremists within their
own borders, and that these extremists are being used as a political
tool against the people of the West, just as they are being used as a
mercenary force abroad.
A united front between nations against this wanton state sponsorship
of terrorism is needed - with nations pledging political and logistical
support to the Syrian people to defeat this open conspiracy.
Individually, we can identify, boycott, and permanently replace the
corporate-financier interests who conceived of and are driving this
agenda. Failure to stop such wide scale criminality against the Syrian
people now, will only invite greater criminality against us all in the
near future.