Syria – Cui bono? Part 1

Once again the current rulers of the USA have decided some little dusky-brown skinned people need to be saved from some other dusky-brown skinned people. Once again they’ll be saving them by bombing. Carefully, of course, and with every effort made to kill only the bad brown ones and not the good brown ones, and in a strictly limited numbers. It’s going to be another one of those Shock, Awe and Mutilate humanitarian gestures by a regime which specializes in them. Never, I think, has any regime been so consistently ‘called upon by history’ and its own ‘moral beliefs’ to save so many people so often in such an explosive manner.

A NOTE ON REGIME v GOVERNMENT –  I have noticed that when our leaders approve of the people running a country those people get called ‘the government’ while those they do not approve of seem to get called ‘the regime’ instead. And of course our ever compliant and rarely questioning media always obligingly use whichever term is fed to them allowing the manipulation to go unchallenged. The regime/government difference has nothing to do with democratic or not – Saudi is not democratic but is always either ‘the rulers of’ or ‘the government of’, but never ‘the regime’. So I thought I would simply reverse the manipulation for a while to see how it feels.

The run up to the Iraq war was based on telling lies. This time the run up to war is based on trying to ensure no one asks ‘Why’, ‘What for’ and ‘Cui Bono’ (Who benefits)?

The use of limited questions

The regimes in America, Britain and France want you to fixate on a simple question – did the Assad regime use chemical weapons? And they want to convince you that the answer to this question is of purely moral importance to them. As deeply moral and caring people – and a nobel peace prize winner himself – Mr Obama wants to establish that unlike other people, other ‘regimes’, he and his democratic government, his “Shining City on the Hill” to quote President Reagan’s famous speech, have no grubbier motives, no hidden agenda or real politik policy objectives. Our enemies, the ‘evil doers’ may have ulterior motives – in fact they always do. We don’t. We are simple moral crusaders – sorry, not crusdaers,err.. liberators! Yes, that’s it.

To this end Mr Obama declared in August 2012, that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a ‘Red Line’. The Red Line idea caught on. A month later Mr Netanyahu used it and drew his own Red Line in a speech at the UN about Iran’s quest for nuclear technology. ‘Red Lines’, ‘Lines in the Sand’, plus ca change. “Change you can believe in”?  Kiss my arse!

Why are lines in the sand and red lines so popular? They make the world a simple place. If you can accept them they enclose you in a world where there are no complex criss-crossing of motives and policies, no need to wonder ‘who benefits?’ There are just clear lines, with right on one side and wrong on the other. They are easy to get into a sound bite, visually memorable and easy for a compliant media to sell to the hard-of-thinking. What is not to like, when you want to have people forget to ask any questions?

And our media have talked about virtually nothing else but these red lines and whether we have proof or not that they have been crossed. They have been so focused on this quest for proof they have offered nearly no deeper analysis. A simple cover has been pulled over all the real complexities of who is after what.

Of course having proof sounds so right. Who could argue with it? The problem is that in the real world proof in human affairs is often so elusive that the  quest for it quickly degenerates into claim and counter-claim. What I belive we are in danger of losing sight of, as a result of this insistence on proof, is analysis. Proof that some action or event took place does not guarantee that you understand WHY it happened. For that you need analysis. But I have begun to feel that our governments don’t like analysis because anyone can do it. It is democratic. Whereas insisting on proof is a convenient thing for those who claim to have it but cannot show it to us because it is too…secret.

It seems ot me that those same people who insist on proof have taken to dismissing any analysis they don’t like as ‘conspiracy theory’. In fact I wonder if analysis as a whole is being slowly demonized as conspiracy. I want to argue that proof is great where you can get it. But to make a fetish of it and forget analysis is to surrender to authority. It is not proof we need but understanding.

What is being covered over?

1) History

The US regime says it now has proof of chemical weapons use and who used them and therefore, according to Secretary of State- John Kerry, quoted in The Guardian,

“We can not accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale,..”

Which sticks in the throat a little. Formerly classified documents seen by Foreign Policy Magazine show very clearly that the American military and intelligence machine has been quite happy to see chemical weapons used when those using them were their allies – as was the case in the 1980’s when the US smiled upon Sadam Hussein’s use of gas against the Iranians.

From Foreign Policy’s excellent article,

Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian troops and possibly civilians.

Thousands of Iranian troops died. And when the same weapons were used again in 1988, this time to gas Iraqi civilians, there was not a murmur of moral concern in the regimes in America and Europe. A friend of mine was one of the scientists who did the work on those gas attacks and remembers the indifference and denial.

But of course today the gas attacks are by a someone our rulers no longer like and therefore, in Mr Kerry’s mind,

“History will judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turn a blind eye to a dictator’s wanton use of weapons of mass destruction,..”

Funny how history in America is always very closely aligned with American foreign policy. Anyway, Mr Kerry said he would present a compelling case, which was supposed to be in the document released along with his speach. Only the document is long on assertion of who was responsible and mostly devoid of actual proof.

Mr Kerry and the regime he serves are nevertheless quite certain. History, apparently is also certain. British intelligence is not. The document compiled by the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee said, there was only

 …some intelligence to suggest regime culpability in this attack,..a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks.

Perhaps I am missing it but nothing in that shouts ‘Proof’.

2) confusing proof of use with proof of perpetrator

Let’s be clear. Proof that chemical weapons were used is quite different from proof of who used them. The former is a questions of chemical residues. The latter requires eyewitnesses,  photographs or video showing who used them or a confesssion from those who used them. Nothing else is proof.

Falling short of actual proof you can offer a case based on showing who had the means, the opportunity and the motive. But of course all that pulls back the cover of the simple ‘ask no questions and  offer no analysis’ and opens up a real debate.

So what do we know?  Early on there were reports of chemical attacks. The US was quick to seize upon them. At the time the video evidence did not suggest organophosphates (Sarin and other modern gases are organophosphates). The most tell tale thing to look for is pin-point pupils. In the early attacks the videos showed lots of distressing frothing and choking but not pin-point pupils. There were reports from people in the affected areas saying they smelt Chlorine. So it seemed likely that someone got their hands on industrial chemicals including chlorine and perhaps other nasty chemicals such as insecticides and simply used them in home made mortars and rocket payloads.

More recently videos have shown adults and children dying and some of them did appear to have pin-point pupils. Obviously a less ambiguous proof would be an actual sample, which should be possible to get. When Sarin breaks down, one of the residues produced is  isopropyl methylphosphonic acid (IMPA), which is specific only to Sarin. Find it and you have proof Sarin was used. The French say they have such samples from as long ago as April. Brought to them, they say, by journalists working in Syria for the French newspaper Le Monde. The French claim they have a full audit trail of who had the samples and where and so can guarantee the samples were not tampered with. The French may be telling the truth or they could have tampered with the samples to get the result they wanted. The French have a very definite agenda and interest which I’ll come back to.

For what it’s worth the French let the UK Chemical Warfare group at Porton Down test the samples and they concurred the tests showed positive for IMPA.

The only reliable non-government agency on the ground in Syria that has spoken up is Medicins Sans Frontieres. They have by far the most people on the ground who see and treat the actual casualties and have the best relationships with local hospitals and doctors and are, in my opion a trustworthy oragnization.

In a press release on 24th August 2013 they said,

MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said Dr Janssens. “However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events—characterised by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers—strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent.

So some sort of neurotoxic agent has probably been used and if we believe the French it was Sarin. But no one has proof of WHO was responsable. That is what Mr Kerry and the Obama regime should have said but didn’t.

3) Various groups might have been responsible.

We don’t have proof so we should proceed carefully as a good detective would do – Means, Opportunity and Motive.

The Assad government.

They have the means. They are one of the few countries which have not signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Five countries have not signed at all, two have signed but never ratified. The two are Israel and Burma, the five are Syria, Egypt, South Sudan, North Korea and Angola.

Chemical weapons are far simpler to use than nuclear or biological. They are the poor man’s mass and indiscrimiate murder weapon. They can be delivered by most means, from mortar to missile. All you need to do is be careful not to break the container while you are still handling it, make sure the wind disperses it where you want it (simple enough if you fire it far enough away from your own side) and make sure the explosion disperses but does not destroy the chemical.

In Syria the delivery may have been by plane, missile/rocket or mortar. There have been several claims of unguided missile attacks in the past and the US document concentrates on a recent rocket attack which it thinks was carrying a chemical payload.

Motive is the troubling bit for the Assad regime. Various experts and commentators  (see second half of article) have pointed out that it made little or no sense for the Assad regime to use chemical weapons which would  not achieve any decisive military objective but would certainly bring down international condemnation upon their heads and would cross Mr Obama’s red line. Of course someone, senior or junior, still could have.

The Rebels

Back in May the US regime (gets to be insulting doesn’t it) was already claiming Assad’s forces were using chemical weapons. So it was an almighty embarrasment when a former Swiss Atorney-General, Carla Del Ponte, now a member of a UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria that had been working in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and people working in field hospitals, said they felt there was growing evidence of gas attacks but by rebel forces. Reuters quoted her and the Obama regime was in danger of looking like what it was.

Since then the US has just ignored the UN evidence.

Some time later RT reported that Assad’s forces had found a storehouse of rebel chemicals which it suggested was proof of rebel chemical use. In my opnion it was just a poor piece of propaganda. The report said there were “toxic substances” including Chlorine, “corrosive substances”, which, it quoted Syria’s UN ambassador as saying, were

“capable of destroying a whole city, if not the whole country.”

Capable of destroying the whole city? Unlikely. Among the bottles of chemicals the embedded video shows are bags of caustic soda. With which you could clean a whole city perhaps but not destroy it.  The article then gives the names of two other chemicals it says were found: monoethylene glycol and polyethylene glycol. The former is rated as moderately toxic. It is used as the coolant in fridges and air-conditioning. The latter is used, among other things, in laxatives and in hospitals for whole bowel irrigation. To destroy a whole city that way would be messy, smelly and traumatic, but difficult.

It seems to me that both Rebels and Assad, are aware of what a coup it would be if they had ‘proof’ showing the other side using gas. So far both sides have provided propaganda and asssertion rather than proof.

Do the rebels have the means to use chemical weapons? They might well do. They could have seized government stores or been supplied by others. There are plenty of claims that Saudi or Qatar have provided the rebels with chemical weapons. The most recent published on 29th August by MintPress News says the very attack the US regime blames on Assad and holds up as the atrocity over which the US will go to war, was in fact carried out by rebels who admit it was them.

The article begins,

As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last week’s chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit.

It then goes on,

…from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the deadly gas attack.

The article describes how chemical weapons were smuggled in through tunnels by rebels who did not understand what they were carrying and there was an accident.

The reporter who spoke to the rebels, families and victims on the ground in Ghouta in Syria was Yahya Ababneh. The article was written for MintPress News by Dale Gavlak, who is a freelance journalist who has in the past worked for AP. Is the report true? Or are the journalists lying or being fed lies? Sadly the endless lies of the Iraq War and the financial crisis have ensured that no one believes anyone.

I believe this means we cannot and should not hope that some report, some ‘proof’ is going to appear and be so conclusive that we will all accept it and all arguments will be over. I believe, therefore, our only hope for clarity is to try to understand the broader context in which all these conflicting claims and warring factions exist and focus not on ‘is this or that report or claim true, do we have proof?, because we won’t. Instead of looking for proof which is always elusive and always contested, we should look  for understanding.  And the key to understanding is motive, which is there just beneath the surface.

So back to Means, Opportunity and Motive.

If the rebels were given chemical weapons would they they have the means to deliver them? it’s not impossible. A mortar, small artillery shell or rocket will do.

Do they have the motive?  They certainly have a far stronger motive than the Assad side. The rebels know if they can make it look as if the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, then they have given Mr Obama the excuse he needs. So they have every motive. All that would stand in their way is common humanity and care for innocent victims. Both of which are commonly in short supply in war.

So far I have been using the term ‘rebels’ much as our media and governments use it – lazily. The use of the term ‘rebels’ suggests they are a uniform bunch. It suggests they are Syrians opposed to Assad. In fact the ‘rebels’ are not all Syrian and though they are united in opposition to Assad they are certainly not all on the same side. They have one common enemy but serve different masters who have different agendas. And this is where we begin to do what our rulers have been keen to prevent – look at the real complexities of who is working for whom and for what advantage.

 

I am sorry this has been so long but I felt if I jumped straight to offering my analysis without addressing what has been claimed and how the whole issue has been carefully framed as a quest for ‘proof’ then my analysis would founder because people would feel I had not addressed any of the questions our masters claim are the essential ones. I felt I had to show why I felt their approach was wrong before I offered the beginnings of what I hope is better.

 

79 thoughts on “Syria – Cui bono? Part 1”

  1. This has been planned for years – see General Wesley Clarke’s recollections going back to 1991

    http://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/wes_clark_and_the_neocon_dream/

    when he found out that the US planned “..to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

    The USA will use whatever means necessary to manufacture consent for its foreign policy objectives in the ME – including supplying chemical weapons to its proxies to create yet another false flag event.

    The level of cognitive dissonance within the US – and the UK – is staggering, given The American’s use of nuclear weapons on a defeated Japan, napalm and agent orange on civilians in SE Asia, and depleted uranium and white phosphorus in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Keep up the good work.

  2. Strikes me the really scary thing is that chemical weapons seem to be in the hands of very dubious arms merchants – are we taking appropriate steps to protect ourselves from home soil attack given this stuff can be used from small mortars.

    We can do more forensics than just breakdown products – impurities can identify batches and shell casings can be pretty specific. On motivation I’m afraid all sorts of hatred are in action and not a little lunacy. There may even be idiots wanting to drag the US into direct action – both American and others.

    The actual use of the weapons seem to have been ineffective militarily and hideous for civilians. None of us would have used them after a US president drew a line in the sand, but we just wouldn’t have used them and probably can’t imagine the mind of those who did.

    Proof may lie in satellite pictures and comms traffic we can’t trust not to be doctored and is very likely only to be briefed to our politicians and not subject to our scrutiny.

    We have high temperature bombs that will destroy CW, but how could we really determine where they are held or restrict any strikes to them? Much more likely will be a take out of Syrian airpower on the excuse it might be the delivery system, and the air defence system before that to protect our own. That would make Syrian armour utterly vulnerable if it masses anywhere

    I agree with the spirit and substance of David’s argument. I’m just not sure CW is the issue given the last 100 years of imperialist (including Russian and Turk) goings on in the area. Why would ‘we’ be so keen to engage given potential of modern Russian kit there?

    Even as we suspect Prince Bandar and Qatar they may be pawns being sucked in to use of the weaponry received in exchange for oil and gas. Once we start on this geopolitical muck we may as well pen a new episode of Blackadder.

  3. Can I also add some my own ‘digging’ on the veracity of alleged sarin use by Assad.

    AFP reports:
    “At the moment, I am not totally convinced because the people that are helping them are without any protective clothing and without any respirators,” said Paula Vanninen, director of Verifin, the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

    “In a real case, they would also be contaminated and would also be having symptoms.”

    John Hart, head of the Chemical and Biological Security Project at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said he had not seen the telltale evidence in the eyes of the victims that would be compelling evidence of chemical weapons use.

    “Of the videos that I’ve seen for the last few hours, none of them show pinpoint pupils… this would indicate exposure to organophosphorus nerve agents,” he said.

    Gwyn Winfield, editor of CBRNe World magazine, which specialises in chemical weapons issues, said the evidence did not suggest that the chemicals used were of the weapons-grade that the Syrian army possesses in its stockpiles.

    “We’re not seeing reports that doctors and nurses… are becoming fatalities, so that would suggest that the toxicity of it isn’t what we would consider military sarin. It may well be that it is a lower-grade,” Winfield told AFP

    Haaretz reports: “Western experts on chemical warfare who have examined at least part of the footage are skeptical that weapons-grade chemical substances were used, although they all emphasize that serious conclusions cannot be reached without thorough on-site examination”.

    Dan Kaszeta, a former officer of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps and a leading private consultant, pointed out a number of details absent from the footage so far: “None of the people treating the casualties or photographing them are wearing any sort of chemical-warfare protective gear,” he says, “and despite that, none of them seem to be harmed.”

    “This would seem to rule out most types of military-grade chemical weapons, including the vast majority of nerve gases, since these substances would not evaporate immediately, especially if they were used in sufficient quantities to kill hundreds of people, but rather leave a level of contamination on clothes and bodies which would harm anyone coming in unprotected contact with them in the hours after an attack”.

    In addition, he says that “there are none of the other signs you would expect to see in the aftermath of a chemical attack, such as intermediate levels of casualties, severe visual problems, vomiting and loss of bowel control.”

    Steve Johnson, a leading researcher on the effects of hazardous material exposure at England’s Cranfield University who has worked with Britain’s Ministry of Defense on chemical warfare issues, agrees that “from the details we have seen so far, a large number of casualties over a wide area would mean quite a pervasive dispersal. With that level of chemical agent, you would expect to see a lot of contamination on the casualties coming in, and it would affect those treating them who are not properly protected. We are not seeing that here.”

    Additional questions also remain unanswered, especially regarding the timing of the attack, being that it occurred on the exact same day that a team of UN inspectors was in Damascus to investigate earlier claims of chemical weapons use.

    It is also unclear what tactical goal the Syrian army would have been trying to achieve, when over the last few weeks it has managed to push back the rebels who were encroaching on central areas of the capital. But if this was not a chemical weapons attack, what then caused the deaths of so many people without any external signs of trauma?

    Stephen Johnson continues that the video footage looked suspect:
    “There are, within some of the videos, examples which seem a little hyper-real, and almost as if they’ve been set up. Which is not to say that they are fake but it does cause some concern. Some of the people with foaming, the foam seems to be too white, too pure, and not consistent with the sort of internal injury you might expect to see, which you’d expect to be bloodier or yellower”.

    Chemical and biological weapons researcher Jean Pascal Zanders said that the footage appears to show victims of asphyxiation, which is not consistent with the use of mustard gas or the nerve agents VX or sarin:

    “I’m deliberately not using the term chemical weapons here,” he said, adding that the use of “industrial toxicants” was a more likely explanation.

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/08/is-u-s-launching-a-war-in-syria-to-distract-from-spying-and-other-scandals.html

    As for an overall motive, I advance the idea that this conflict is part of a wider geo-political struggle between major powers for global hegemony, drawing on ideas already explored in this and other forums:

    https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/01/a-new-reserve-currency-to-challenge-the-dollar-whats-really-going-on-in-the-straits-of-hormuz/

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/is-war-with-iran-inevitable.html

    I suspect that Syria and Iran want no part in the ‘Washington Consensus’ along with a number of other countries. What they probably fear is that their banking system and their economy will become integrated into the IMF and OECD group of neoliberal capitalist countries where they will be at the mercy of the international money markets (think Greece now) who will eventually come to determine their government policies – There is a long history of the IMF and World Bank doing just this (see Harvey 2005)

    I’d say that our news media is massively letting us down.

    1. I am firmly in your camp with this line of reasoning Penny Bloater.

      In Libya the only rebel force in history that had taken the trouble to set up a new central bank? Ellen Brown wrote on that at the time.
      I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

      Alex Newman wrote in the New American:

      In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”
      http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/libya.php

      I am no friend of the Euro either,but it was a stepping stone threat to Dollar Hegemony and the Glee at its troubles from across the pond is too great to be concealed.

      Syria is a significant stepping stone on the collision course with Iran that the American Regime seems bent on following. Regardless of other regional geo political strategic goals Syria as an Ally of Iran poses a difficulty for an attack on Iran.

  4. Some of the American rightwing nutjobs believe that the rebels might have CW from Libya and that the ambassador that was killed in bengazi was doing an arms deal on behalf of the Syrian rebels/CIA

    But as golem says, it’s irrelevant. What matters is why. Reading this post left me wondering if David has been reading my posts on another site. But of course David is much more fluid in his writing and more organised, I particularly like the bit about everyone else having grubby motives but not us, I’ve been arguing that point for days but folk don’t want to believe that our rulers would kill people just for money, power or prestige

    1. Hello Richard,

      Where have you been posting? I’d be interested to hear your take on this.

      I have the feeling that maybe I am only telling people what they already know in this article

      1. richard in norway

        David

        I’m a regular at UK polling report, I’ve being playing devils argument and saying we should become further involved(further cos I keep pointing out that we are already a big player in the so called civil war)because we need the gas pipeline from the gulf to reduce gas prices and break the Russian stranglehold on European gas supplies. I shocked the life out of them by saying that Britain stood to gain 10 million pounds for every dead Syrian if we were successful and asking who wouldn’t kill a stranger for 10 million pounds if the chances of being caught were almost nil. Sometimes I’m not a nice person!! But as I see it that one of the reasons we and the French have been so involved and is the reason that Germany has been strangely silent about the whole thing. Of course there are a whole other bunch of motives going on, in fact it’s a real tangled mess of motives

          1. richard in norway

            I presume you know about the other gas pipeline from Iran via Iraq and Syria, the so called Shiite pipeline. I know verylittle about it myself but I can see why it might provoke war. And the Israelis have water as their main motivation, which is why they have been so keen to get control of southern Lebanon, about a year after the Syrian conflict is finished, assuming it plays out as the hope, I expect them to try and take control over southern Lebanon again, plus they will be looking to divert water from the big river whose name I can’t spell but it begins with ‘e’ for which they need a friendly/desperate govt in Damascus

          2. No room to reply under your comment Richard.

            Yes I know about that pipeline. Which Syria said ‘Yes’ to in 2012, after saying ‘no’ to the Qatari pipeline.

            As for water, I agree about it being of critical concern to Israel.

            Iran also built a huge WATER pipeline for supplying Kuwait.

  5. It was pointed out to me (as I shared a link to this around) that Regime is almost always used in conjunction with a person “Obama Regime, Assad Regime etc”.

    The differentiator, I think, is the semantic legitimacy of depersonaliization, Linguistically, we’ve been conditioned to conflate “government” with “Democratically elected, western, ‘liberal (product of the enlightenment)’ non-corrupt” And individuals in power as scary cult leaders, however true or false those concepts are. (As a useful check of this assertion, I wonder how well it compares to the press when referring to companies or the leaders of companies.)

    But yes, I agree that the various press releases do tend to use $person Regime to mean “Bad person’s power”.

  6. Speaking of analysis:

    Aug. 30, 2013
    Analysis: Shields and Brooks Debate Need for National Consensus Over Syria

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/politicalwrap_08-30.html

    There are those inside the beltway who believe that the discussion featured in the video above is what moved the US regime to re-consider its original position.

    On a separate note … I am wondering where that nasty little phrase national interest enters into this entire debacle. At least in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, most people who were looking could see that oil was the basis for all the non-sense. Well, what is it this time?… Natural gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean ?

  7. On Asking questions and analysis it struck me that the whole apparatus of the BBC was somewhat blindsided by the vote in Parliament and of Course the Emperor of the US ´´Regime”.

    A freind posted this piece from Nick Skelton of the Guardian last July 2012 regarding the ´Rebels´

    Roy Madron shared a link via iOS.
    20 hours ago
    Who are the string-pullers of ‘the Syrian Opposition’? This excellent review connects the dots, names the names, clarifies the alphabet soup, and, surprise, surprise, the trail leads back to Washington, London and Paris.

    The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking? | Charlie Skelton
    http://www.theguardian.com
    Charlie Skelton: The media have been too passive when it comes to Syrian opposition sources, without scrutinising their backgrounds and their political connections. Time for a closer look …
    Like · · Share
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talkingRoger Glyndwr Lewis Well done Nick Skelton its a very good piece.
    28 minutes ago · Like

    Roger Glyndwr Lewis It is barely concealed Roy, is it? It is truly breathtaking how stupid the Governments in the Washington consensus believe the general public has become. Maybe we are that gullible, although I prefer to think that most are just to Knackered and stressed to give it any real thought. Wolf has been cried once to often in the MENA region and perhaps tired as they are people will call out the warmongers this time. I hope so. The article is from July 2012. The BBC coverage on the UK parliamentary vote was clearly caught out , they already had the war story coverage planned out I think. It was like watching Eddie Waring covering the G8 summit , so surprised , they all were caught in un familiar territory. This article would have proven very embarrassing to all the Talk of ´´The Regime´´and so forth.

    1. Roger

      Your Charlie Skelton piece links aren’t correct. It’s a ‘must read’ background piece on Syria, so here’s the right link:

      http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking

      (And thanks for your post)

      The machinations reported are mind boggling & extend to organisations & people that should ring alarm bells for anyone concerned about the agenda of the (unelected) elites who really rule on this planet. Bilderberg, CFR, the Neocons, Israeli firsters, etc. etc. are all there. Connected with an organisation that began to be called the ‘Syrian National Council’ when the recent conflict kicked off a couple of years ago.

      Here is what I think is going on.

      The Assad regime (deserving the term) is a very unpleasant dictatorship, to put it mildly. A majority of ordinary Syrians, viewing events in Tunisia, Egypt etc. genuinely believed an opportunity for change had arisen. But they are being played – as ordinary citizens always are. They have been played in two ways. Played into believing that some entity actually representing their interests was orchestrating and assisting their rebellion. And played into believing that the US/UK etc. would follow thru’, could be persuaded to follow thru’ – and, if necessary, do a ‘Libya’ and enable a Free Syria Army to defeat Assad’s military. After all, they were getting arms already on the nod-and-a-wink thru’ US allies Saudia Arabia, Qatar etc. Surely after Iraq, Libya etc. they would commit whatever was required, wouldn’t they?

      But this whole play was based on the idea of the ratchet. The protests & rebellion getting an extreme reaction from Assad (were all those snipers Assad’s ?), thus inviting a more serious response from the opposition & a clear call to arms. So far, so good. But, the play has always depended on a continued ratcheting up to the point that US etc. forces are drawn in directly to remove Assad.

      But Syria is not Libya. Militarily, Assad is far more powerful. And determined to stay in power. The latter was always possible, but from the comfort of Tel Aviv & Washington (or where those who really rule sit), hey ho, worth a go eh? What to lose? A destabilised Syria is a much weaker ally of Iran. Israel’s expansionist/ethnic cleansing agenda can continue with less opposition. Who knows, getting shot of Assad may have worked? But do US/Israel want to gamble that a cornered Assad might not actually be able to deliver his Sarin etc. to Tel Aviv in a dying gesture? Hmm.. maybe not. The US would have a first strike advantage, but it’s potentially an all or nothing gamble that all the Syrian CW capability is removed.

      The important thing to realise tho’ is that for either Assad or any of the western backed or Islamic backed cheerleaders & arms suppliers of opposition, all have their own elite agenda & none could give a toss how many ordinary Syrians die, are maimed, or forced into permanent refugee camps.

      And the Charlie Skelton piece shows that US/Israeli ‘neocon’ elites, together with (as ever) some willing wannabe local elites, are responsible for what is a geo political gamble with the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Syrians.

      Have we reached a point where the play had to get some solid buy-in from western electorates? Yes, I think so. Has that failed? Yes, for now. The false flag operation wasn’t well executed and I think the opposition & sheer scepticism from ordinary people in UK especially (but elsewhere too) was enough to genuinely & unexpectedly rattle rank and file politicians. Too close to the ‘dodgy dossier’ and claims of ‘trust me’ regarding Iraq’s non-existent ‘WMD’.

      And….too much Internet & loosened control of the propaganda space. Regardless of likely some great effort to discredit or even plant far-fetched spurious ‘conspiracy theories’ and diminish the Internet, for a growing number of people the MSM spell is broken.

      It’s not just about Iraq or 9/11 etc. Just look at all the scandals regarding ‘authority’ of the last few years, notably in the UK. Public figures, TV celebrities involved in paedophilia. Newspapers illegally hacking private communications, bribing police for leaked info. Police conspiracies & cover ups finally revealed – Stephen Lawrence, Hillsborough.

      I think the public’s trust in authority, hitherto ably ‘managed’ by the limited information/propaganda of MSM, has really been broken. If not for a majority in every circumstance yet – witness the continuing public ignorance of ‘macro’ economics & ‘money’ – certainly enough to break the spell of auto approval for wars of aggression.

      Unfortunately, for Syrians, their country, as they knew it, is already gone. For a very long time to come, probably the best they can hope for is some low level sectarian/civil war, like Iraq.

      Yet again, there should be some Bilderbergers & others taken to the Hague in handcuffs.

  8. Penny’s point on lack of ‘chemical suits’ is well made. In my civil defence training we were taught to use dilute bleach or hydroxide to get rid of it. I don’t remember seeing any decontamination efforts. The stuff previously used by Iraq was thought to have partially broken down in storage due to impurities.

    The lack of much support for a second UK vote is interesting, suggesting the evidence just isn’t there. Adam Curtis puts forward an amusing case on our SIS as hapless – http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER – and any of us could have made up the evidence we have seen after an integrity suppresant. Worth a read to discover the ‘interrogation gerbil’.

    I still fear the CW stuff is a blind to prevent discussion of our dismal failures in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Syrian context and they have killer evidence on the CW up their sleeves and will release this in the US vote scenario. The case will thus be made without reference to the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is very difficult to believe any evil schemers in this could believe Middle East intervention was ever about other than the results we have – countries in turmoil, divided on sectarian lines. Does anyone know of a country not subject to the ‘resource curse’? Even in the UK and US it led to the finance curse, rather than a modern economy like Germany or the Scandinavian egalitarian model.

    1. Totally agree allcoppedout. The scheme is to drive muslim countries into turmoil, divided on sectarian lines. See:
      http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/31/321421/israel-and-client-states-want-nobody-to-rule-syria/

      Also, it can readily be conceived why gas attacks are used for the “red line” and not – for example – severing priest’s heads by sawing them off with a bread knife:
      http://pauleisen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-gas-cloud-of-western-intervention.html

      The whole business is sordid and I am not sure that looking for motive is even a worthwhile enterprise anymore.

    2. The Dork of Cork.

      @Allcoppedout
      I don’t buy it……….its Russian Dolls inside Russian dolls ,inside Russian dolls ,inside russian dolls until you get to the bank or perhaps its beyond the bank.
      England has been a very sophisticated hybrid bank state since the days of Christopher Marlowe at least.
      At the very highest levels I imagine there was very powerful (controlling) connections with the Soviets.
      England played and won against every superpower of the day , be it Spain ,France or whatever
      It never lost even when it appeared to lose.
      Therefore the test of its effectiveness is that it has survived.

      We today have sinister organizations such as Matrix Chambers projecting international legal power while also using the dark arts of behavior science with very little (public) violence.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jCV4f7HVE

      The only hope for us common man is if they splice dice and resurrect Richard the III and that’s not likely mate.
      The post war NWO order war wars have been very effective.
      They have both created scarcity (rentiers cannot make money without it) and created a successive army after army of Vietnamese boat people to throw into the debt vortex.
      The true purpose of the wars is to destroy the cooperative (non monetary) culture of the local village..its very plain to see now.

      The ultimate Orwellian phrase was left out it seems.
      “Foreign policy failure is success.”
      To the guild navigators at the tip of the apex its all about relative claims and not the real physical size of the claims as they are far removed from the bread and circuses of everyday life in the debt fishbowl.

  9. I also agree with the spirit of the piece. But we the indolent and manipulated legions, have in the past proven to have been most vulnerable to the enormous propaganda efforts of the BBC. We are fickle , already seriously compromised by past behaviour and are once again dancing around fabrications. We will become comatose and we will be led to slaughter since Israel is involved.
    Quaint notion this of a transparent parliamentary democracy . Why study history if its lessons are not learnt.
    Our hidden geopolitical chess masters are voracious predators. The military industrial complex can swallow prey the same length as themselves : theirs is the largest death industry that is. Also their “pravda” is well under their control : [ six of their companies own the world’s media] to the detriment of us all and The AngloAmericanZionist Establishment including Japan , Germany and France are all so thoroughly bankrupt now that the grand climax where all wealth will be vaporised has finally arrived : All hyper deflationary currencies have bolted. Their financial scams are so dire that there is not enough money nor could exist to cover the losses in their casino of derivatives. Why a war is needed. A really big one at that with Russia and China providing the antithesis. Not just Syria. Iran will have to go too: [ Which path to Persia , Brookings Institute] . That’s the way to do it ! And so the monstrous Al CIA Duh was created and today the resurrected prince capo Bandar Bush threatens Russia with terrorism.
    They must loot again because their oil dollar predicts it will become a memory and their imposition of a new world’s currency cannot be imposed quite yet. To carve the Middle East into a Greater israel they must divide and conquer first; without the honours of a world war they cannot join the dots.
    But behind all this lies a darker schema.
    Samuel “Clash of Civilisations” Huntington was very modest when he published his neo-conservative decoy. He knows but does not tell that only The Revealed Religions are the enemies of the masters of our global farms. These practitioners of Liciferianism will light up with these wars their sacrificial pyre and insure their destruction particularly of true Christianity on earth. It is their hatred of hatreds and focused on it by them from its beginning. Study Albert Pike’s letters who was one of their generals and who gives the reason why these so called “rebels” in Syria massacre entire Christian villages ,crucify and behead. These are early days yet. Gas lines are secondary
    and most yummy too.
    The banking aristocracy believes that they can aim their genocidal horrors[plenty more imported chemicals await in Saudi Arabia] to help induce supreme hatred worldwide and that morally and ethically all the defeated legions of the traumatised everywhere, will finally concur with their plans to re-introduce a one world government and a one world religion. Their global kingdom headed by their messiah who will fix all, whom they revere and who awaits in the proverbial wings as i write this.
    We live on borrowed time and look but do not see the horrors that approach.
    Evil self destructs always but only after the damage.
    The more you know the worse it gets.

  10. Finally someone who gets it. Great article Golem. Being in the chemical field myself for over 30 years, this was not a nerve agent attack. I have posted this on many sites. This could be a chlorine gas that you or I could make in our homes with everyday cleaning products.

    Military grade nerve agent is deadly. One drop can kill 40 people. As soon as the videos were being posted online I knew this was a bogus flag to try and get us back in yet another war. There are actually two types of agent, persistent and non-persistent. No matter the agent used a nerve agent in a residential area would need to be decontaminated. All fabrics collected, bagged and hauled off.

    As soon as I watched parents and medical personnel without chemical protective gear handling corpses and treating casualties, I knew this was not a nerve agent. You see just touching a contaminated corpse or casualty can indeed and will kill you if you happen to touch contaminated clothing. Decontamination would take weeks in the residential area. No decontamination stations set up, no decontamination going on at all. What a farce. Now the world is finally waking up to the scheme.

    Can you even imagine the scale of decontamination to clear up this mess? I am glad to see some people actually see through the rhetoric and use critical thinking skills.

    Salute Golem and the commenters here!

      1. Golem I was not on the ground there. I will tell you this after running mock up situations with chemical weapons. The easiest way to describe it is when you spray paint something. Notice how the overspray, even though you are spraying an object gets all over the place? You spray an item in a box and the surrounding areas are covered in overspray. Maybe you have noticed the overspray on your clothing especially your trousers and your shoes.

        Dispensing a chemical agent works in the same manner. Nerve agent is insidious as it is percutaneous (absorbed thru the skin). Anyone that became a casualty or dies from the agent will indeed have their clothing contaminated with the agent. No one in their right mind would even think of touching the contaminated people without protective clothing and a gas mask. Notice in the posted videos you see people in the same area where the so-called attack happened walking around as if nothing happened.

        Medical personnel treating casualties, parents hugging their dead children, People moving the dead, none of them had any protective gear. Many people would become a casualty or worse be killed touching the clothing. Remember military grade nerve agent one drop can kill 40 people, one drop!

        Lets look at the two types of agents. A persistent agent is gooey and waxy designed to stick to everything and you have to use a physical scraper to remove it from yourself and your clothing and then decontaminate yourself. A non-persistent agent is not sticky and gooey but it does indeed contaminate fabrics an any type of material that can indeed absorb liquids.

        How Nerve agent works. Pin pointed eyes is one symptom. Nerve agent when dispensed smells like new mowed grass not chlorine. What nerve agent does is block the muscles ability to absorb the chemical the body produces to control muscle functions. (I could add a long chemical term but trying to keep it simple stupid as I prefer the KISS method.) Every muscle in our body uses two chemical to contract and relax. Nerve agents block the muscle receptors to receive the chemicals to control your muscles. Real casualties if still alive would lose the ability to control their muscles and would be shaking all over as they lose control of muscle function. Sorta, kinda like having a high temperature and involuntarily shivering. Nerve agent is even worse.

        Decontamination is a real pain. Chemical specialists strip you of your clothing and bag and tag it. They look for any skin contamination and decontaminate that immediately. Once cleared your in for a cold shower. After the shower your in for another body inspection to make sure your clean. Your then issued new clean clothing and gas mask. Your old gas mask has its filters and harness removed and is then decontaminated, installed in a new mask carrier and made ready to issue another person or back to you. Most gas mask filters only last 12 hours or so. Depending on the protective suit. 8 to 12 hours and they must then go through decontamination and get issued another suit.

        All areas where the contamination or the weapons was used would indeed be cordoned off and no one would be allowed into the area. Has anyone even done that? NO.

        Now try to imagine going from house to house decontaminating them. Removing all fabrics and anything else that can absorb or have overspray and you will see this is a daunting task that no one seems to be doing.

        This appears to me to either be a mass poisoning or chlorine gas. Chlorine gas will kill you in the correct concentration as well but is not used in the military much anymore as it is pretty much useless on military. Read some cleaning supply labels sometime and it will tell you not to mix certain chemicals as it will indeed create the chlorine gas. People around the world have these accidents all the time as they do not read labels.

        1. backwardsevolution

          Ole Guy – that was very, very interesting information. Thank you so much for posting it.

          Golem – again, another great post! Thank you.

  11. I don’t think that middle east problems will be at the front on the minds of the powers that be at this moment in time. Their problems are the information that comes from the many web sites and the pressure that brings of people thinking things that the powers that be don’t want them thinking, truth has no part in their planning in what they want. The powers that be will be working on curbing the internet and access to web sites such as this one. As we know they are working on that at this moment in time, I think they will try and speed that up now.

  12. richard in norway

    Zerohedge was reporting some time ago that many nations were going to bring up the issue of a new Bretton woods and some kind of shared reserve currency at the G20, also we have several emerging market(I hate that phrase, anyone got a better one?) Currencies in crisis. If I was an Indian or a Brazilian or somewhere like that I would be very very passed off if the whole G20 was used to talk about Syria. I mean there are 1 billion people in India, a recession there will cause people to die, it isn’t the same as the western nations. The deaths so far in the Syrian conflict are 100,000 which is truly awful but I can’t help but think that a developing world(I hate that phrase as well) recession will kill many millions, of course it won’t be as dramatic but it would still be needless deaths. Ok we know that leaders don’t always care about their own people as much as you would expect, but if I was the Indian PM and the first order of business at the G20 was Syria, I would talk to my colleagues that were having the same problems and try to organize a walk out. Of course that won’t happen but I do wonder how long these countries will put up with be invited just to make up the numbers and add legitimacy

  13. The Dork of Cork.

    If we step back from the political correctness programme (this is the blocking software that can be used to identify the true owners) we can see the overall dynamic in all its glory.

    Oil is only valuable when you run this energy through people ( the ultimate banking assets)
    Less oil means each individual banking asset loses value , but one can maintain your yield simply by introducing more workers to the smaller oil pie within a urban setting.
    (Oil on its own is simply a black liquid thingy that burns.)
    The banking system always wishes to scale up and therefore centralize further.
    How does it achieve this ?
    Well one mechanism is to create a flux in society via the war button……this creates refuges ….they fly to the money sugar.

    As the banking system spins around faster and faster (it must) it destroys more and more former domestic people (banking assets)
    They must be replaced by people who are perhaps touched by war or economic destruction of their village but not yet burned by the softer hand of modernity.
    Their culture is more trusting then the resident urban population that has been burned over generations.
    The British Isles & other financial areas NEEDS to feed.
    It will turn itself inside out if needs be.
    With economic refugees from the Baltic states and war refugees from the Middle east providing the conduit assets.

    Banks make money by creating a constant flux in society.
    Its very plain to see now.
    Indeed the evidence is beyond the dramatic.
    Its in your face.

    http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_325310.pdf

    The British isles and Europe is now little more then a giant workhouse with little real work other then the need to engage in pointless “service” activities to earn a scarce company token.
    The Home , the hearth , the village , the market town , the provincial city and now even state capitals to some extent have been sacrificed to feed the financial cities.

    Its a super efficient but not very redundant way of living (kind of)

    1. Dork! dood, you’re on fire in this thread.

      as long as we choose to remain dependent for
      food/water/energy/waste removal (hi Steve!)
      The Song Remains the Same
      (even when remixed)

  14. This is off topic but can anyone help?

    Someone from Germany told me that they were unable to get to this site from Google in Germany. Each time they tried they were given access denied.

    Is there anyone in Gernamy who can tell me if there is any search engine block on the site? I find it hard to believe.

        1. Works fine from Germany also China, yahoo likes foxy proxy better on my computer using mozilla firefox as the browser, Foxy proxy works on Windows and Linux, my imac can triple boot into either operating system. The set up of FP is very straight forward, ideal for watching tv on line in different countries including all uk on line channels whilst traveling abroad.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQuzl-_2rQ8

    1. I’m in Germany and there’s no problem finding this site on google.de and it even shows up on auto-complete. I’ve been able to find the site from here a few times over the past few years as well when I forgot its web address.

  15. Dork – hard to disagree with anything you say about Britain mate. Evidence in these areas is very hard to marshal and this lets in conspiracy. My partner bought me ‘Babylon’s Banksters’ not long ago thinking it might explain a lot – sadly it was rot (Temples were radio stations). More sensible authors have produced pretty compelling stuff on Perfidious Albion – one I skimmed was ‘Conjuring Hitler’, which was a compelling yarn on the Nazis being an Anglo-American product designed to set up Germany as a foil on which to lay waste the USSR. I am struck that both the UK and US suffered relatively small casualties in world wars we were so ‘pivotal’ in – against, say, 50 million Russians and 40 million Chinese dead. I haven’t seen any evidence on the role of money though it is obvious those with a lot of it tend to do very well.

    We have already forgotten that a broke Britain and France intended to sweep through the Middle East in 1956 on the false flag of a policing action – it’s hard to believe now the US put an end to that for reasons of democracy!

    I expect that ‘new evidence’ on the CW attack will be presented and war will commence. I assume the grand strategy is ‘making money’. Real debate and action on what is really needed for a modern society will remain nowhere.

    1. The U.S. in the Suez crisis was a different sort of state than it is now not quite so focused on Empire. However, it that crisis did remove the French and British from the world stage. American policy-makers knew that the U.S. would be the New Rome and the other former colonial powers were just muddying the waters.

  16. Pleased to read this article, especially as I was getting annoyed at listening to the media giving us the US ‘interpretation’ of the evidence and presenting it as ‘the evidence’.

  17. The Dork of Cork.

    @All
    Read this – evil just pours off the page………….(and no bombs are dropped)
    http://eutopialaw.com/2013/06/24/what-if-anything-is-wrong-with-a-copenhagen-commission-the-idea-of-democracy-protection-in-the-eu-revisited/

    THEY WANT TO CONTROL EVERYTHING……….all local control , the village , the market town , the provincial city , and even state capitals is in their sights.
    Its a sort of all encompassing devastating blandness which the euro project excels at.

    That’s what standardization is all about , projecting power upwards.
    Cromwell tried to do it , these guys are even better.
    The UK & France is at the very center of the EU project…..its a larger even darker union then the one which destroyed the Gaelic peoples all those centuries ago.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTTeBRuxs1Q
    (PS his military understanding is weak but he does come up with good possible scenarios.)

    The most central act of the English civil war was what happened to the Royalists.
    They did not give a toss for their foot soldiers which is why they lost the war – as they did not consider those Baldric characters “assets” , they were just serfs in their eyes.

    The Royalists lost their lands to the state but the new hybrid banking state did not want their land – it wanted the Royalists to get into debt (get a mortgage).
    Cue the modern fucking world where debt destroys all core capital to get a yield off of human banking assets.
    I.e send the Irish to the west Indies to cut cane for some bastard and turn Ireland into a ranch so as to earn a yield. (cut down the last of the Irish forests)

    Lynton Crosby and the Matrix
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acN2PYMlC3w

    1. The Arabs themselves (according to an Iraqi mate living in Beirut) are full of talk on a Sunni – Shiite war. Hezbollah has dropped pretension to all-Arab resistance in recent rhetoric and, of course, was pitched in by Iran to bolster Assad. They are bombing each other. Assad is threatening a wider conflagration, but perhaps that’s part of ‘our’ plan.

      The French have released what appears more definitive intelligence and I think we’ll see more in the next few days to sway public opinion on CW and prevent any debate on what’s really going on.

      We can identify faction after faction, but I’m not sure this gets to David’s question and any benefit to “us” . in the sense of some financial cartel of “Western interests”. I don’t believe we have been policing anything, doing any state building, bringing democracy or fighting terrorism. I tend to think this is all neo-imperialism. The cop left in me wants to find the hidden books.

  18. Great job putting the pieces together, added to by informative comments. Looking forward to the grubby ‘ Cui Bono ‘.

    I was brought up to believe we were the good guys -When I was eight years old this was summed up for me through the glorious tale described in my ‘ Ladybird ‘ book of Richard the Lionheart.. It took a long time for those delusions to disappear. I find it heartening though that the turd ii N0.10 lost the vote & that public opinion appears to be against this latest Crusade to grab resources under a banner of `Freedom & Democracy ` rather than the previous one, ‘For Christ. & the Church’ that was used by the earlier robber barons.

    Apparently US cannon fodder are also getting fed up with their lot, as the MSM peddle the government issue black hat / white hat old Western movie style mythology.

    Another question – Did the US military use white phosphorous, depleted uranium & napalm in Iraq ?

    http://warisacrime.org/iraq#_edn25

  19. Who benefits? Earlier this year the Israeli government awarded Genie Energy the first drilling license for part of the Golan Heights, which is in Syria but occupied by Israel since 1967.

    Effie Eitam who oversees the Golan Heights exploration for Genie is a Brigadier General and a hardline right wing former government minister.
    http://genie.com/about-us/management/
    He has previously called for expelling most Palestinians from the West Bank:
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3302275,00.html

    Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild are shareholders in Genie Energy as well as members of its strategic advisory board. Dick Cheney is on the board as well.
    http://genieoilgas.com/about-us/strategic-advisory-board/

    1. Thanks for the link Brendan. All of the management seem to be Jews. Quell surpris. I’ve read in the US Geological Survey that Palestine has a lot of goodies under their land not to mention the gas offshore. I imagine it is necessary to keep them so poor they can’t benefit from them. Sickening

      1. The management in any company is there to make money, sometimes by questionable means like Murdoch and Cheney do in theirs, it’s nothing to do with whether or not they’re Jews.

        1. Nothing to do with it – just happens that they are! In Israeli conquered land! No coincidence there, just honest business men making an honest living. Sure: dream on.

          1. Who said anything about honest business men making an honest living?

            Israel will hire anyone from any background who can help them annexe and plunder the Golan Heights. The only requirements are the necessary skills and experience and a lack of any moral objections.

  20. It is always instructive to follow the money and in this instance it has a lot to do with the Petro-Dollar and the temerity of Middle East states to try to short circuit it by adopting gold-backed payments and cut out the US dollar. Iraq tried it…look what happened Kaboom !! Libya was going to sell oil for a Gold Dinar…Kaboom !! Iran has worked around sanctions by selling oil for gold to India and China ( their fate appears backed in the cake…but let’s shock and awe Syria first because they are mates) It appears to me that the US is heading toward the fate of Rome but what they have done in the Middle East is a last gasp gambit..

  21. There is a huge problem with discussing the latest – Aug 21 in the early hours of the morning – alleged CW attack.

    The media, Press and TV, as well as quoted experts are mixing up video evidence from all the attacks together. I believe they are doing that on purpose – there are many, 80, I would guess, at least.

    Some, imho, are clear fakes, staged. Others might be genuine. (The ones from the Aleppo attack are very convincing.) All this is muddled together.

    Only video that was posted 21 Aug or later and *was not posted before* – recycled, so to speak, as ‘new news’, should be considered. Only expert or pundit opinion that dates after 21 Aug. can refer to the the 21 Aug. attack. But as I said before, the experts muddle all together.

    Here is a v. brief time line, not exhaustive. Nos are reported dead. Note nos. are small.

    Dec 2012. >> Homs 7 (one or two attacks, unclear) “gas”, Agent 15? other? –

    March 19 2013. >> Aleppo 26 (and Damascus according to Israel, later the Brits as well) – disputed as CW by US. Much later, accepted as ‘CW attack’ by US

    March 19 2013. >> Ateibeh (near Damascus) none? some? > see previous entry.

    April >> Saraqib 2 or so – sarin – Blamed on rebels by UN Del Ponte – disputed as CW by the US – finally all parties state “no solid evidence.”

    April and uncertain dates >> Jobar, elsewhere – gas – only one print article from Le Monde. 27 May. Article also mentions Nashibiyya and Douma, March. Included only only because it had influence. English.

    http://tinyurl.com/oos3ejg

    ?? April >> Aleppo – 3 ??

    May 26 post on attacks of 27 May: Harasta (Damascus), gas, none or some? date? Note the mismatch in dates and the coincidence of the date of the May 27 article in Le Monde. Ex:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtSbTABQ0o

    June, Zamalka (Damascus) – 6

    I am not just being picky. It’s important to not fall into the various traps set by the media and Imperialist spokesmen. And there are some very serious questions about the 21 Aug attack.

  22. Amazing news!
    Two ballistic missiles have been launched by Israel. Surprise , surprise.
    A test. Apparently. So they said.
    ” The launch was detected at 10:16 Moscow time [06:16 GMT ]
    Russian RIA news agency reported and said some more.

    I think the axis of criminality, the Khazarian nest, began to salivate for eretz Israel and could not contain its itchy fingers. It had to press. …… Testing.

    ” We are going to do whatever the fuck we want” [Genghis Khan. ]

    ” We think the price is worth it. ” [ Madeleine Albright .]

    1. It important to remember why those missiles were fired Ambro. They were fired to get the Syrians to turn on their anti-air radar systems. Once they turn them on they are now located with pin point accuracy. If they cannot move them they will be taken out in the first waves of a cruse missile attack. That was all about killing radar systems to allow air superiority and freedom to operate aircraft In the area.

  23. Do you actually believe anything the media tells you? It’s all myth. Or a projection of the collectives unconscious. Read the papers and listen to the news to find out about what is NOT happening. Do as you tell your children not as you do.

    Why not be more concerned about the new business cycle starting last year rooted in mortgages:

    Mortgages are back! “I’m forever blowing bubbles”

    http://www.meltfund.com/2013/09/cheap-mortgages-im-forever-blowing.html

    Yes, I realise its very difficult for you to discuss such heresy here. Better to blame someone else or divert attention. No commitment required for that.

  24. One of the most interesting factor in this whole crisis is the pattern. When you post or talk in leftist U.S. circles and you mention patterns you are automatically called a “conspiracy theorist” which means you are someone whose POV is not to be considered credible and is in fact, a sign of mental illness (indeed dissent in the USSR was often considered a sign of insanity). Well, of course, then those of us who believe that conspiracy is the chief dynamic of politics can be dismissed–nothing we say can ever be considered.

    Having said that the pattern here has to be faced–it is the pattern of what some of us call the “deep state.” Actually the this deep state is nothing so esoteric or occult as some central universal conspiracy but what I like to call basic politics as described by classical historians and thinkers like Machiavelli. In a Constitutional Republic with democratic institutions when you seek power you are not going to announce that you and your posse are going to seize power–you go about it through surrogates who can be replaced.

    The cuid bono question is that those who are calling the shots benefit. And those calling the shots are the same people who have been in power since 1963 in a somewhat different configuration. These people are not monsters and are not evil–they are followers of Henry Luce’s affirmation, in 1941, of the “American Century” echoed later in 1998 but somewhat more sophisticated true-believers in the famous Project for a New American Century document asserting the need for the USG to take a dominant role in international affairs both for the benefit of the U.S. but for the benefit of the world. Their idea, clearly articulated and well-reasoned, was that without a sense of mission in the world the culture of the U.S. would devolve into hedonism and brutality. Only the civilizing effects of war (echoing Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments) would create a virtuous society. And echoing Luce, they believed that only the U.S. would be able to supply the world with a suitable multi-cultural framework base, of course, on Western Judeo-Christian-Humanistic values. What was required was a “new Pearl Harbor” which, as luck would have it when many of them were in power, happened merely by chance. Just as the chemical attacks on Syrian civilians happened by chance when inspectors were in Damascus 10 miles from where they were staying in their hotel and just as the rebels looked like their chances for victory were gone. Obama had chosen not to take up their cause with enthusiasm and had delayed aid to the rebels (let’s be clear here–he was dragging his feet because he was not convinced this was a good idea) and now the red line was crossed yet again (the first time was debunked but the MSM ingored that).

    The Syrian crisis is a typical false flag event either conducted by rebels or by elements within the Syrian armed forces who were paid off organized by assets of the deep state. The agenda of the deep state has been to make the entire Middle East a series of weak client states so that the highest quality oil is controlled completely. The goal: universal empire–not for evil purpose but for our own good.

  25. A post on today’s naked capitalism points out that Syria was in agricultural crisis before the demo against Assad. It is all ascribed to global warming – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/03/437051/syria-climate-change-drought-and-social-unrest/

    I can’t vouch for the climate model, but this one does show a very dry US in about 30 years. One can even imagine the mad strategists being concerned to grab what they can before the US is a fracked-out dust-bowl. The real point is that lack of rain, followed by over-stressing the aquifers had already screwed Syria and led to a mass exodus to the cities before the Arab Spring. Yields are down and much of the crop can’t be harvested for lack of fuel.

    1. Alcop most of the arab spring so touted by the media was two things actually.

      1. The increase in prices of staple goods, food prices in the industrial west we complain about going up. In other places people starve. I label this on governmental programs to convert food to fuel and it has nothing to with global warming.

      2. Unemployment of the young. Most of these regions really do not produce much. They are mostly agrarian societies that never left. With the exception of oil production nothing else much goes on.

      Some of you may remember the riots in Mexico two years ago when corn prices rose due to ethanol production.

  26. The masters of war need to do all they can to alter the map of the Middle East by any means necessary. The use of force is not to be constrained by popular opinion or by Congress-unless Congress decides to support the war but not authorize the expenditure. In my little life I worked the phones to communicate with Americans about the support of death squads in El Salvador, the illegal Contra War, and Gulf War I. I also worked for nuclear disarmament. After about ten years of this I decided that missionary work was not for me. The refusal of Americans to give a damn is the cornerstone of politics. If Americans gave a flying f-k about anything aside from leisure and recreation and getting ahead this conversation would not happen. As it is, the twin parties represent oligarchs and imperialists.

  27. Golem and commenters this is part rant and part observation. I do my best to keep comments small but I am just so sick of another war and for what? Even with guided munitions do you think less people will be killed? No more will most likely die including innocents in the name of teaching a country a lesson and the USA wonders why the Middle East hate us. How about leaving them alone and let the civil wars play out.

    There is no higher moral ground to be taken here except the US economy is flounder and muddling along depending on whose numbers you believe. Our government just changes the metrics a couple of weeks ago and wallah we have great growth. What a joke. Lets just rewrite history. Of course the victor always controls the pen or pencil.

    Taking the samples to some secret lab to test the samples. What a f**king joke. I could tell what type of chemical was used in 10 minutes without any lab at all. Oh wait we do not want to see actual test results on the area in question. That not the scenario being played out as most people do not know chemical agent detection kits are carried by squads and soldiers all the time. Very accurate tests by the way.

    Now our Congress is backing the president when less then 9% even support going into Syria. I prefer the online surveys myself that posts the results over any major media outlet. 365,000 votes is a lot more accurate then the MSM sampling of their friends to support their data. I am just sick and you know what is worse is the American people will re-elect these knuckleheads to office. At least initially the British parliament had the balls to say no.

    I imagine the president made a deal with the repubs. for a future deal. If there was a repub president in office the Dems would be all over it along with their media outlets crying foul. There are times I a glad to be old. I just worry about my children and grand children.

    I could go on and on but you all get the point. With all the Naval vessels rushing to this region, I am worried someone will sink one and a world war could ensue. Especially if it is a carrier or a Russian flagship.

    1. Must say I sympathise with you. I would hate to be living in the US & near drowning in MSM propaganda etc.

      BBC3’s ‘Free Speech’ had a one hour special tonight, mostly on Syria. The format is a panel with audience questions & comments with a Twitter vote for each panelist. An overwhelming victory for anti-war voices of reason. Not a main channel, & don’t know what their viewing figures are, but feels good to see the establishment ‘bastards’ being challenged & losing 🙂

      For those not in UK, it’s online repeat needs something like foxyproxy to disguise your foreign IP address.

      In other news, a nice concise article from an establishment (BoE) economist – Lord Adair Turner – highly critical of the last decades orthodoxy. Well worth a bookmark. (Not quite in full MMT paradigm – he still thinks bank reserves ratios have some effect – but close. And close also to Steve Keen’s (private sector) ‘debt’ meme. Nothing gets close to the transformational power of the (transition etc) Job Guarantee & Functional Finance approach.)

      http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lehman-brothers-and-the-failure-of-free-market-finance-by-adair-turner

      1. Mike

        In 2011 Adair Turner shared a platform with Richard Werner and NEF/Positive Money at the European Conference on Banking:

        http://the-free-lunch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ecobate-2011-european-conference-on_01.html

        Turner openly subscribes to the Minsky view of endogenous money and excessive credit creation driving instability:

        “The crucial factor at work is the interaction between credit creation and asset prices, an interaction which creates the potential for what Hyman Minsky called ‘speculative’ and eventually ‘ponzi’ finance.”

        http://www.mondovisione.com/_assets/files/Credit-Creation-Social-Optimality-Southampton-Uni-20110929.pdf

        Seems he was passed over for a number of key policy roles (including BoE Governor) with such heretic views, and I understand that he is now involved in INET, which does put him in company with the likes of Steve Keen, Dirk Bezemer, and Andy Haldane who have all presented heterodox views at INET conferences.

      1. @ Golem

        Thank you for your kind words. Actually I read your site once a week and have for two years. I do not comment much. The only reason I did this time is I know my chemicals and the equipment used to detect, decontamination, and the effects of the different agents used.

        I am an American and spent five years in Europe. Most Americans do not understand culture as they have never left the USA to live abroad. I am bless in my mind having lived all over the world.

        I was there when the EMU was introduced and even back then the dissenters were marginalized, demonized, and their character’s destroyed. A lot of them were correct and even back then a lot of what is happening now was foretold if someone would have actually listened.

        Prosperity was promised and the masses bought it lock, stock, and barrel. Now that some countries glutted themselves with debt it is time to pay. I feel for the people of Europe as they got and are getting screwed.

        A fiscal union was proposed during the original discussions along with tax standards and uniform standards across the EU. Soverign countries back then as is the dilemma today do not want to give up control to a larger form of government with legal immunity. I do not blame them.

        For the system to work in my mind you must have consistent standards for all. Retirement in France cannot be 60 when Germany’s retirement age is 68. I could go on but I think you get the gist of this.

        I indeed will continue to read this site. Intelligent comments are hard to come across as well. Most sites these days are loaded with finger pointing and pundits.

  28. Now that we know that Obama is to go for a 60 day window to ‘degrade’ Assad’s defences, we can seriously doubt that there was ever any intention to limit the strike to a mere ‘shot across the bow’ which was patently a futile gesture. It would have inevitably have escalated. Which leads on to what the covert intention might be.The US military suggest taking out his air power and air defences. That would of course be very useful to Israel in any future attempt to attack Iran. It feels like Iran is the ultimate target. The point for us is did our own PM know/suspect there was a hidden agenda?Are we to take sides in a religious war between the Sunnis and the Shias? Is it oil again?

  29. Great article and some excellent info in the comments above.

    My reading of events goes like this:

    1. The US economy is living on borrowed time. The US debt is about to explode – the baby boomer generation (1943 to 1960) have started to hit retirement age (67?) and their Social Security and Medicare bills will hit the economy hard.

    2. The PetroDollar is losing its primacy. How much longer will the Dollar be considered to be the world’s reserve currency? China and Russia are using their own currencies in bilateral trades, China has agreed currency swaps with Brazil, Australia and Japan (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18545978). India and Japan did something similar in 2011 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/28/us-india-japan-trade-idUSTRE7BR0N020111228). Iran is selling oil outside the US and EU sanctions (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/india-and-china-skirt-iran-sanctions-with-junk-for-oil-.html) and not trading in Dollars. Iran and Russia are also trading in their local currencies (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-07/iran-russia-replace-dollar-with-rial-ruble-in-trade-fars-says.html). This means the dollar will steadily weaken as demand for it lessens. So oil priced in dollars will go up leading to inflation (in the US and Europe). The US will have to pay more on its bonds as it continues to try to fund its ever increasing debt burden, leading to rising interest rates everywhere (What happens if China decide enough is enough and stop buying US bonds?). When interest rates rise in the US and Europe, interesting times will surely follow.

    3. I used to think that Peak Oil would come into the equation; I still wonder if that is not a factor at play in the background. The Canadian Tar Sands used to be all the rage as the next big source of oil, but they are not proving to be particularly efficient with regards to energy returned on investment (EROI) (http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130219/oil-sands-mining-tar-sands-alberta-canada-energy-return-on-investment-eroi-natural-gas-in-situ-dilbit-bitumen). But more recently, the focus has been all on Shale Gas and the gas reserves found in the Eastern Mediterranean (Cyprus, Syria) and the massive fields under Iran/Qatar. This switch to gas makes me wonder just how much oil the arabs have left.

    4. A Memorandum of Understanding for an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline was signed in Bushehr in June 2011 (just as the Syrian ‘uprising’ was getting going). (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/30/syria-chemical-attack-war-intervention-oil-gas-energy-pipelines) This pipeline would link to Turkey and in effect allow Iranian gas to be sold into the homes of Europe.

    5. Qatar (home of the 2022 World Cup, remember) have a proposed pipeline running through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to Turkey.

    6. The complexities of Arab societies – Shias, Sunnis, Salafists, Alawites etc are coming to the boil. These religious, sectarian and tribal conflicts cut across national borders. If Assad is toppled, it is not hard to see the Balkanisation of Syria, a break-up into much smaller provinces, at each other’s throats for years to come. Iraq is already heading in that direction. So is Libya, and what is to happen with Egypt?

    7. I also wonder that the US continue to fund Israel ($3.1bn in 2013 for Foreign Military Financing), whilst at the same time providing plenty of weapons to whichever Arab faction suits its current purposes. Arms dealers eh! Just a thought.

    The cabal that want to rule the world know all this. They need to play for time so they can reposition themselves to be the ones who will control the follow-up to the dollar, the one they intend to be the new world currency. To do this, they HAVE to reassert control over the supply of oil and other resources. They have planned these wars for many years. In 2007 General Wesley Clark (retired NATO Secretary General) revealed that the US had plans to attack and destroy the governments of 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha1rEhovONU) as far back as 2002.

    At best, I think the current Syria crisis will perpetuate regional instability that could last decades; at worst, a US strike on Syria will take us that much closer to a region-wide inferno. How will the US react if one of their ships is hit by retaliatory strikes from Syria or Iran? Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been able to throw its weight about unchecked because it believes that Russia and China would not risk a global confrontation. But Putin is not like the drunk Yeltsin. Is a third World War on the cards? We should bring back the Doomesday Clock and set it for 5 to midnight.

  30. Much of the radical argument can be found in video form here http://stormcloudsgathering.com/

    Going in deep, evidence is received in a world-view and we pretty much shatter the standard one and are pretty much talking about false consciousness. We heard our MPs talk of cui bono, but thinking of the techniques and evidence I would give in fraud cases, there is no investigative effort being made on the money trails or the network of the fraudsters. The criminal legal system is captured and this leaves us with ‘intelligence’ rather than evidence.

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