Syria

Secret Meeting in London: Plotting to Wage War on Syria without UN

By Felicity Arbuthnot

GlobalResearch,

11 December, 2012

Somewhere between being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the consolidating farce of the presentation in Oslo yesterday, recipients were plotting another freedom and democracy bringing “humanitarian intervention”, illegal regime change and the destruction of a country in order to save it.

Remember Libya was “not going to be another Iraq” disaster, “lessons have been learned”? Libya’s ruined towns and social structure of course, chillingly resemble Iraq. Now, it is Syria’s turn, but Syria will “not be another Libya”, yes mistakes were made, but lessons have yet again been learned.

Today’s (London) Independent cover story reports the: “plan for (the) international coalition to provide air and naval support, plus military training for the opposition”, commenting that :“Western intervention is now deemed necessary as civil war has reached ‘tipping point’ “ and of course: “Britain, France and US agree ‘no boots on the ground.’ “

This is the outcome of a secret meeting in London recently, hosted by Sir David Richards, who heads Britain’s armed forces. Participants in the scheming were: “the military chiefs of France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and” (surprise) “a three star American General.” The paper records: “Strategy was discussed at length”, with other UK government Ministries “and their counterparts in allied states” also holding meetings – read plotting another overthrow of massive illegality, of a sovereign leader and government.

“L’Angleterre, ah, la perfide Angleterre …” is an expression regarding Britain believed to go back as far as the 13th century relating to acts of “duplicity, treachery and infidelity” in relations with other nation states, states Wiki neatly.

Prime Minister Cameron is determined to involve Britain in more bloodshed, having learned nothing from his disastrous involvement in Libya – sorry, he is: “ … determined that more should be done by Britain to bring an end to the strife …” That would be a first, and of course Foreign Secretary Hague (“I have been a Conservative Friend of Israel since I was sixteen”) has long been stating that Britain must arm the insurgents and pledging considerable sums to do so.

Seemingly it was blithely decided at the meeting that since “boots on the ground” ie., another illegal invasion is to be excluded (we’ll see) “training camps can be set up in Turkey” for the terrorists.

The use of air power and maritime forces, it was thought would be likely to lead to “charges that, as in Libya, the West is carrying out regime change by force.” Quite.

“Mission creep” is already writ large.

Further, a “senior Whitehall official” is quoted as saying: “If this is worth doing , then it is worth doing professionally; training the Free Syrian Army and providing them with air and maritime support.”

The conclusion is that another murderous intervention is: “now inevitable.” French military advisers have apparently met insurgent groups in Lebanon and: “The US is said to have stockpiled weapons retrieved in Libya for future supply” to the insurgents.

The action, as Iraq, is planned to go ahead without UN authorization, since that would in near certainty be blocked by China and Russia on the Security Council.

One multi-million dollar question remains, will Russia and China sit quietly on the sidelines and allow another bloodbath and overthrow, having been so comprehensively duped over Libya?

Oh, and will there be another hapless Ambassador Christopher Stevens type, landing with a contingency of US-armed thugs, from a cargo ship laden with weapons and equipment, or have America’s “diplomats” been overcome with a derring-do deficit after the terrible events of Benghazi on 11th September?

"Military Voyeurism” or Invasion of Syria? French Special Forces Team Up with Foreign Backed Terrorists

By Dr. Ismail Salami

Global Research,
8 December, 2012



As part of the sinister plan for Syria at work, French military agents have recently held face-to-face meetings with the foreign-backed militants inside the country in a bid to “assess the situation on the ground.”


A report carried by French paper Le Figaro on Friday indicates that “Their main task was to know who controls the battlegrounds around Damascus.”
It seems that a West-orchestrated plan to invade the country is under way and that they are teaming up and gearing up for united military action against the country.


The report adds that the meetings were held last month with the full knowledge of the French government and that the French government wants to know the “operational capacity of each group” and their “political colors.”


To make matters worse, NATO has agreed to deploy Patriot missiles on the Syria-Turkey border under the pretense of defending Turkey as Britain has warned Syria of ‘serious consequences’ if the regime used chemical weapons. All the pieces of the puzzle are being meticulously put together by the ‘foes of Syria’ to lend a cloak of legitimacy to an imminent invasion of the country: that Syria mulls using chemical weapons against its own people and the militants, that the war may spill over into Turkey and that Turkey should be able to defend herself against any potential attacks.


While in Brussels for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, William Hague, British foreign secretary, said that Britain had delivered a stark message to President Bashar al-Assad, echoing the words of the Obama administration on Monday.


“We are worried about chemical weapons,” said Mr. Hague. “We have become more concerned about them in recent days for the same reasons the US has. We have already sent our own, clear, private message directly to the Syrians about the serious consequences that would follow from the use of those weapons.”
Syria has blasted NATO’S decision to deploy Patriot missiles as “psychological warfare,” saying the new deployment would not deter it from seeking victory over the militants it views as terrorists.


Despite some western countries claiming that NATO’s decision to deploy the missiles shows a low appetite on their part for military intervention, it is to be seen as a strong naked message that the West is indeed gearing up for military intervention.


Syria said the NATO deployment shall not make Assad change course, calling the talk of chemical weapons part of a conspiracy to justify future intervention.


“The Turkish step and NATO’s support for it are provocative moves that constitute psychological warfare,” Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said in an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV. “But if they think this will affect our determination and work for a decisive victory in this fight against terrorism, they are very wrong.”


He added, “In the event that [foreign powers] actually considered an aggression, they should consider the consequences. I believe the cost will be high…. They need to understand that they are putting the entire region and its environs to danger, if they tried to commit such a folly.”


That Assad will use chemical weapons against his own population or even the militants is a threadbare claim and a feeble excuse concocted by the West to embark on their initial militaristic voyeurism and eventual military expedition. In fact, it is very much reminiscent of Washington’s claim that Iraq was in possession of Weapons of Mass destruction before it launched a military invasion of the country and brought about a human loss of inconceivable degree. Sadly some realities are soon forgotten. An opinion conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) on August 12–19, 2007, indicated a human loss of 1,033,000 in Iraq War. 


Although the range varies between 946,000 to 1,120,000 deaths, the sheer idea of such colossally disastrous human loss is beyond imagination. According to ORB, “48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance.”


Russia’s new ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, has de plano perceived some pernicious amount of threat in the move and said, “This is not a threat to us, but this is an indication that NATO is moving towards engagement and that’s it. We see a danger of further involvement of NATO into the situation in Syria as a result of provocation or some border incidents.”


It is cruel but highly likely that West may provide the militants with chemical weapons so they may use them against the Syrians and shift the blame on the Syria government so that they can carry on with their long-though-out plan of invading the country. This idea is further consolidated when we focus on the attention recently accorded to this issue by the US and some western countries. 


US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama have for their parts vowed to take action if Syria uses chemical weapons in the country. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned on Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria against gunmen would prompt an immediate military response.


The sad truth is that they have already formed their coalition against Syria with even Israel being part of this coalition. According to Hebrew-language Maariv newspaper, Tel Aviv is preparing for such a scenario amid increasing speculation that the US military will intervene in Syria “within days” if chemical weapons are used.


The ‘chemical weapons’ scenario seems to be the best cue for Washington and their western allies in order to gorge the international community on a tacit consent to another military adventurism in the Middle East.

Fabricating WMD “Evidence”: Israeli Covert Operation inside Syria to “Track Chemical Arsenal”

By Julie Lévesque

Global Research,
11 December, 2012



Israel is conducting a covert cross-border operation directed against Syria in liaison with NATO and the Pentagon.

After looking for a “smoking gun” in Iran earlier this year, Israeli special forces are now “tracking” Syria’s “stocks of chemical and biological weapons”, according to The Sunday Times.

“The cross-border operation is part of a secret war to trail Syria’s non-conventional armaments and sabotage their development. ‘For years we’ve known the exact location of Syria’s chemical and biological munitions,’ an Israeli source said, referring to the country’s spy satellites and drones. ‘But in the past week we’ve got signs that munitions have been moved to new locations.’” (Uzi Mahnaimi and Lucy Fisher Israel tracks Syria’s chemical arsenal, The Sunday Times 9 December 2012.)

Everyone recalls the WMD hype prior to launching the war on Iraq. It turned out that the Iraqi WMD threat was an outright fabrication.


Those involved in the Iraq WMD propaganda ploy are now applying their skills with a view to fabricating a WMD pretext to intervene in Syria. According to a report from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, “Israelis ‘misread’ the Iraqi threat”. In 2003, the BBC wrote on the report’s findings:

Israeli intelligence miscalculated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein […] This contributed to the “false” picture painted by US and British services […]

“Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the US and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction capability,” said the author of the report, retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom.

“It badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed.”

“From now on, when we present serious data on other countries, like Iran for example, who will treat us seriously?” Israel Radio quoted Israeli left-wing parliamentarian Yossi Sarid as saying. (Israelis ‘misread’ Iraqi threat, BBC,December 5, 2003)

In late March 2012 The Sunday Times reported that “Israel is using a permanent base in Iraqi Kurdistan to launch cross-border intelligence missions in an attempt to find ‘smoking gun’ evidence that Iran is building a nuclear warhead.” (Israeli spies scour Iran in nuclear hunt, The Sunday Times,March 25, 2012)


There is no evidence that Iran has nuclear weapons, even US intelligence agencies agree on that. Global Research ran a story on the Israeli covert op, potentially fabricating WMD evidence in relation to Iran. What is now unfolding in relation to Syria’s  alleged WMD is a rerun of previous attempts to funnel fabricated evidence into the news chain:

Western sources told the Times Israel was monitoring “radioactivity and magnitude of explosives tests” and that “special forces used Black Hawk helicopters to carry commandos disguised as members of the Iranian military and using Iranian military vehicles”. The sources believe “Iranians are trying to hide evidence of warhead tests in preparation for a possible IAEA visit”. (Cited in Report: Israeli soldiers scour Iran for nukes, Ynet, March 25, 2012)

The number of Israeli intelligence missions focussing on the Parchin military base in Iran has increased in the past few months, according to the article. During that period, Tehran has been negotiating with the IAEA which had requested to visit Parchin. According to Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, both parties had agreed in early February that the visit would take place in March. (Gareth Porter, Details of Talks with IAEA Belie Charge Iran Refused Cooperation, IPS,March 21, 2012)

The IAEA requested to visit Parchin in late January and late February, after having agreed to a visit in March. The IAEA thus requested to visit the military complex exactly at the same time Israel was intensifying its secret operations to allegedly search for a “smoking gun”. (Julie Lévesque, Fabricating a “Smoking Gun” to Attack Iran? Israeli Spies Disguised as Iranian Soldiers on Mission Inside Iran Global Research,March 27, 2012)

Israel’s covert operation in Syria is part of a longstanding intelligence agenda directed against the Damascus government.  According to intelNews:

[…]Israel’s covert activities against the Syrian government’s chemical and biological arsenal go back almost 30 years. Reputedly, some of the more recent such activities may have involved the targeting of Russian scientists.

Although Russia routinely denies it, it is believed that Syria’s non-conventional arsenal was significantly augmented in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the help of Russian retired general Anatoliy Kuntsevich [...]

Interestingly, Kuntsevich died suddenly in 2003 onboard a flight from the Syrian capital to Moscow. It was widely speculated at the time that the Mossad, Israel’s covert-action agency, may have played a role in the Russian general’s sudden death. In 2010, another retired Russian general, Yuri Ivanov, who had served as Deputy Director of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, died in unclear circumstances […]

According to reports in the Israeli press, the former GRU official was on his way to a meeting with Syrian intelligence officers when he went missing. Israel has never acknowledged having played a part in Ivanon’s death, but many suspect that Tel Aviv had been targeting the two Russians for quite some time. (Joseph Fitsanakis Israel special forces conducting cross-border operations in Syria, intelNews.org, December 10, 2012.)

This interpretation of events is plausible since targeted assassinations of foreign scientists by Israeli secret services have been acknowledged in the past:

The reduction [of Israel’s covert operations in Iran] runs across a wide spectrum of operations, cutting back not only alleged high-profile missions such as assassinations and detonations at Iranian missile bases, but also efforts to gather firsthand on-the-ground intelligence and recruit spies inside the Iranian program, according to the officials. (Karl Vick, Mossad Cutting Back on Covert Operations Inside Iran, Officials Say, TIME, March 30, 2012, quoted in Julie Lévesque, “Running Short of New Targets: Israel’s Secret Service is “Cutting Back on Assassinations” in Iran, Global Research, April 17, 2012.)

While Israel’s secret operation in Syria could conceivably also target Russian scientists, it should be understood that its ultimate objective is to reinforce the intense propaganda campaign pertaining to Syria’s chemical arsenal. This leak in The Sunday Times could be part of the ongoing psychological operation against Syria, with a view to building a pretext for waging a preemptive war on Syria.
Since the beginning of the armed insurrection in March 2011, the US  and its allies alongside the Western mainstream media have been blaming the Syrian government for committing atrocities directed against civilians, including the Houla massacre. According to independent media reports as well as the testimony of witnesses on the ground, these atrocities were committed  by the  US-NATO sponsored opposition forces.
The Syrian government has been demonized to such an extent by the mainstream media that if an attack were to occur, public opinion could easily be led to believe, without evidence, that the Syrian government is responsible for crimes against its own people.
This is a perfect context for a false flag operation or intensive propaganda involving chemical weapons. These allegations based on fake WMD evidence directed against the Syrian government could be used once again to pressure the UN Security Council to give NATO a “legal mandate” to intervene in Syria under the “responsibility to protect” doctrine.
CNN recently reported that the US and “some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria.” The Syrian government expressed its concerns in a letter to the UN:

What raises concerns about this news circulated by the media is our serious fear that some of the countries backing terrorism and terrorists might provide the armed terrorist groups with chemical weapons and claim that it was the Syrian government that used the weapons [...] (Quoted in John Glaser, US Defense Contractors Training Syrian Rebels to Handle Chemical Weapons, Antiwar.com, December 10, 2012.)