US Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk links Ankara to terror groups in Syria, Turkey angrily denies it

US Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk links Ankara to terror groups in Syria, Turkey angrily denies it

    Tuesday, August 01, 2017   No comments

Brett McGurk claimed the city of Idlib had turned into a "safe zone for al-Qaeda terrorists on the Turkish border".

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin on Monday criticized statements by the U.S. anti-Daesh coalition envoy that linked Turkey to terror groups operating in northwestern Syria.

Speaking Friday at a panel on U.S. President Donald Trump's fight against terrorism at the Middle East Institute in Washington, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter Daesh Brett McGurk claimed the city of Idlib had turned into a "safe zone for al-Qaeda terrorists on the Turkish border".

Kalin took exception to those remarks. "The terroristic structure in Idlib cannot be associated with Turkey," he said, speaking to Turkey’s TV Net. "Why? Because we do not control Idlib. There are Americans there, YPG there, [around Idlib]. There are Russians and regime forces," said Kalin... source

Hezbollah takes journalists in Lebanon on a tour to prove Trump wrong

Hezbollah takes journalists in Lebanon on a tour to prove Trump wrong

    Monday, July 31, 2017   No comments

...
On Saturday, Hezbollah took a party of journalists on a tour that helped explain, trumpeting the results of the militia’s recent fight against Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate in barren mountains near the northeastern Lebanese town of Arsal.

The arduous trek into the rocky terrain underscored the sway the Iran-backed Hezbollah exerts in Lebanon, where it remains the most effective and best-armed military force and retains the ability to strike at will almost anywhere in the country.

It also illuminated the complexity of the political and military landscape in Lebanon — a U.S. ally, whose government includes Hezbollah, which is in turn branded a terrorist organization by Washington. Whether the Trump administration can navigate the pitfalls of this complexity may determine if this tiny, relatively calm country can continue to escape the turmoil raging elsewhere in the Middle East.

Trump’s comment was made alongside Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who was on a visit to the United States to seek U.S. support. “Lebanon is on the front lines in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah,” Trump said, without apparently realizing that Hariri struck an alliance with Hezbollah late last year to secure his appointment as prime minister.

The comment coincided with the conclusion of a two-week offensive by Hezbollah in the Arsal area that drove out scores of al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters belonging to the group known as Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as well as several hundred former Free Syrian Army rebels — whose allies until recently had received support from the United States.

Hezbollah officials said they took journalists on the tour to demonstrate that Hezbollah, not the United States, is the one doing most of the fighting against terrorism.

“The current American president is ignorant of the region,” said Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif, speaking to reporters in a cave until recently occupied by Nusra. “We are the force that fights terrorism while the United States continues to support terrorism in many forms.”

Guided by a vanguard of Hezbollah officials in black-windowed armored vehicles, a convoy comprising over 40 journalists’ four-wheel-drive vehicles set out Saturday from the nearby Bekaa Valley and trundled slowly up a rocky mountain into the area where the battles took place... source
  

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President Macron: France is no longer insisting on the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad from power

President Macron: France is no longer insisting on the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad from power

    Friday, July 14, 2017   No comments

ISR comment: 

For the second time in a month, the French president reiterated his policy shift towards Syria. The emphatic statement, while bringing hope that the new approach will end the bloodshed, it confirms France's reckless policy in Syria for the past seven years. Indeed, Without France's (and its allies) insistence that Assad is removed, the war could not have lasted this long and 300,000 Syrians did not have to lose their lives.  This shift is an admission of failure and complicity in a war that should not have happened. Indeed, peaceful transition to representative rule could have been realized without the bloodshed. Now that goal may never be realized given that Syria is destroyed and its people will be focused on reconstruction, not on genuine political reform.
____

The News:


France is no longer insisting on the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, President Macron announced on Thursday During a joint press conference with US President Donald Trump, Macron said defeating terrorism and seeking political stability at home was now his top priority. Macron said. “I do not require Assad’s departure, that’s no longer a prerequisite for France President Assad’s departure is no longer as relevant for Paris, as fighting terrorism at home has now become the top priority, Macron stated. “Indeed, we now have a new approach in Syria, because we want results and we want to work closely together with all our partners including the United States. We have one main goal which is to eradicate terrorism, no matter who they are, we want to build an inclusive and sustainable political solution,” Macron said. “I do not require Assad’s departure, that’s no longer a prerequisite for France. For seven years, we did not have an embassy in Damascus - and still we have no solution.”

 

President Emmanuel Macron Reverses France's Syria Policy: No legitimate successor to Assad

President Emmanuel Macron Reverses France's Syria Policy: No legitimate successor to Assad

    Thursday, June 22, 2017   No comments

ISR comment: 

For six years, France's policy was one that prioritized the ouster of the Syrian president over all other goals. The French government offered the obscure groups calling themselves "Syrian Opposition" all forms of support, labeling it, the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people. After more than 300,000 Syrians died and nearly 5,000,000 were displaced, the French government shifts its Syria policy: the priority is now to fight terrorism and to preserve the institutions of a functioning Syrian government. Too little, too late.

The News:

President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday he saw no legitimate successor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and France no longer considered his departure a pre-condition to resolving the six-year-old conflict.

He said Assad was an enemy of the Syrian people, but not of France and that Paris' priority was fighting terrorist groups and ensuring Syria did not become a failed state.

His comments were in stark contrast to those of the previous French administration and echo Moscow's stance that there is no viable alternative to Assad.

"The new perspective that I have had on this subject is that I have not stated that Bashar al-Assad's departure is a pre-condition for everything because nobody has shown me a legitimate successor," Macron said in an interview with eight European newspapers.

"My lines are clear: Firstly, a complete fight against all the terrorist groups. They are our enemies," he said, adding attacks that killed 230 people in France had come from the region. "We need everybody's cooperation, especially Russia, to eradicate them."Source

Facts and Biases: "Mass shootings are terrorism when perpetrated by Muslims"

Facts and Biases: "Mass shootings are terrorism when perpetrated by Muslims"

    Sunday, June 18, 2017   No comments

...
Legally and morally, we see intent as the best way to distinguish terrorism from mass murder. Federal law defines terrorism as certain violent acts “that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government.”

But because Hodgkinson is dead and did not declare an aim to dethrone the House majority to which his victims belong, we can only speculate about his motives. Like so many other killers in recent years, it’s impossible to know what his specific goals were, because he didn’t tell anyone. We know that these people intended to commit murder, but not why. And if we assume we know — as in the case of Syed Rizwan Farook in San Bernadino or Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson — it’s probably because of our preexisting stereotypes or our partisanship. Mass killings look the most like terrorism when their perpetrators seem the most alien from the Judeo-Christian, white majority. That’s no way to judge a crime. We need a new way to classify these attacks.
...
This discrepancy poses two dangers. First, the assumption that mass shootings are terrorism when perpetrated by Muslims but not by others may lead law enforcement and the public to overlook threats posed by non-Muslims. For instance, civil rights lawyer and former FBI agent Mike German, who infiltrated white supremacist groups, has argued that the domestic threat posed by right-wing extremist groups is as great as, if not greater than, that posed by Arab or Muslim terrorists, and yet has been largely ignored by the FBI. A report by the Government Accountability Office tallied 106 killings perpetrated by right-wing extremists in the United States from Sept. 12, 2001, to the end of 2016, more or less equal to the 119 by Muslim extremists in that time. While the exact number in each category may change slightly depending on how we classify individual attacks, the point is that there’s close to parity in the danger posed by each group.

Second, it’s possible that law enforcement and other decision-makers will acknowledge and respond to this singular focus on Muslims by overcompensating in the opposite manner so as to appear nondiscriminatory. The Fort Hood shooter, for example, had repeatedly drawn complaints from fellow soldiers for appearing to justify terrorist attacks against Americans in the Middle East. The FBI was even aware that Hasan had been in email contact with al-Qaeda provocateur Anwar al-Awlaki. It is one thing to avoid racial or religious stereotyping but another to ignore red flags for fear of being perceived as bigoted, as appears to be the case with Hasan. Yet this tension is inherent in stereotype-based law enforcement.

One first step toward resolving the question of “what is terrorism?” — at least in the colloquial sense — is to stop focusing so much on the perpetrator’s perceived intent and to look more at the effects of the violent act. Today, attackers such as Hodgkinson, Hasan, Rizwan, Malik, Loughner and Roof have one thing clearly in common: Even if it’s not clear why, they want to kill as many people as possible. That should be enough to call them all terrorists.

source
James T. Hodgkinson, the man who shot five people at a Republican baseball practice Wednesday, including a member of Congress, harbored ill will toward President Trump and the GOP. So was Hodgkinson a terrorist?

Trump wants to defeat "radical Islamist extremism", he also wants Saudi Arabia, which "is destabilizing the world", to lead

Trump wants to defeat "radical Islamist extremism", he also wants Saudi Arabia, which "is destabilizing the world", to lead

    Wednesday, June 14, 2017   No comments

Just a few months ago, the governor of Indonesia’s largest city, Jakarta, seemed headed for easy re-election despite the fact that he is a Christian in a mostly Muslim country. Suddenly everything went violently wrong. Using the pretext of an offhand remark the governor made about the Koran, masses of enraged Muslims took to the streets to denounce him. In short order he lost the election, was arrested, charged with blasphemy, and sentenced to two years in prison.


This episode is especially alarming because Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has long been one of its most tolerant. Indonesian Islam, like most belief systems on that vast archipelago, is syncretic, gentle, and open-minded. The stunning fall of Jakarta’s governor reflects the opposite: intolerance, sectarian hatred, and contempt for democracy. Fundamentalism is surging in Indonesia. This did not happen naturally.

Saudi Arabia has been working for decades to pull Indonesia away from moderate Islam and toward the austere Wahhabi form that is state religion in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis’ campaign has been patient, multi-faceted, and lavishly financed. It mirrors others they have waged in Muslim countries across Asia and Africa.

Successive American presidents have assured us that Saudi Arabia is our friend and wishes us well. Yet we know that Osama bin Laden and most of his 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and that, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a diplomatic cable eight years ago, “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” ... source

UN: 'Staggering' civilian deaths from US-led air strikes in Raqqa

UN: 'Staggering' civilian deaths from US-led air strikes in Raqqa

    Wednesday, June 14, 2017   No comments

Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a "staggering loss of civilian life", United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa a week ago to take it from the jihadists. The SDF, supported by heavy coalition air strikes, have taken territory to the west, east and north of the city.

"We note in particular that the intensification of air strikes, which have paved the ground for an SDF advance in Raqqa, has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced," Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry told the Human Rights Council.

Pinheiro provided no figure for civilian casualties in Raqqa, where rival forces are racing to capture ground from Islamic State. The Syrian army is also advancing on the desert area west of the city.

Separately, Human Rights Watch expressed concern in a statement about the use of incendiary white phosphorous weapons by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, saying it endangered civilians when used in populated areas. source

 

 

 

Saudi Media publish photos of Erdogan with Hikmatyar from 1985; Is Turkey going to be punished for standing with Qatar?

Saudi Media publish photos of Erdogan with Hikmatyar from 1985; Is Turkey going to be punished for standing with Qatar?

    Sunday, June 11, 2017   No comments

Saudi media released pictures, from 1985, showing now Turkish president, Erdogan, sitting before Afghani leading figure of the U.S.-sponsored rebels who fought against the USSR supported government in Afghanistan, Gulbiddin Hikmatyar. Alarabiya-English accompanied the image with a comment, suggesting that the image shows the link between Islamists and wars.

The photos and reports by Saudi media came just days after Turkish lawmakers and the president authorized the deployment of troops to Qatar. Source

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia continued its campaign against Qatar. Alarabiya continued to broadcast reports about Qatari rulers and their connections to terrorist organizations.

 A sample of such reports is shown below:

   

   

Syrian and Iraqi forces reach the Syrian Iraqi Border, near al Tanf for the first time

Syrian and Iraqi forces reach the Syrian Iraqi Border, near al Tanf for the first time

    Friday, June 09, 2017   No comments

ISR comment:  The U.S. forces attacked Syrian government forces and its allies three times to prevent them from reaching the Iraqi border and clearing the highway that links Baghdad to Damascus. On Friday, the Russian defense ministering claimed that the Syrian army reached the border. This is an important development since US officials say that it is protecting  "moderate" rebels who are fighting ISIS. Now that these rebels have no open front with ISIS, it will be interesting to see what other justification for their continued operation in the region.

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Control map in Syria and Iraq on June 8, 2017

Control map in Syria and Iraq on June 9, 2017

 According to media reports, Russian Ministry of Defense claim pro-Assad forces reached the border of Iraq. The Ministry claims that the air forces of the US-led coalition are working to undermine the anti-terrorist efforts of the Syrian government, Colonel General Sergey Surovikin of the Russian ground forces has said.

“Despite promoting the aim of fighting international terrorism, the coalition is striking the Syrian military, allowing IS militants to leave encircled areas unhindered, thus strengthening the terrorist groupings near Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor,” Surovikin said.

“The coalition air forces and the strongholds of the forces of New Syrian Army [now known as the Revolutionary Commando Army] have blocked the way of the government forces, tasked with defeating IS [Islamic State] groups,” he said at a briefing on Friday.“This is a violation of the sovereign right of Syria to protect it borders,” he said.

The statement comes after US warplanes stuck pro-government forces near At Tanf on Thursday, the third such incident in the space of several weeks. source

Saudi minister says no evidence that Saudis behind Iran attack

Saudi minister says no evidence that Saudis behind Iran attack

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

...

Speaking in Berlin, Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said he condemned terrorist attacks wherever they occur, but said there was no evidence that Saudis were behind the attack in Tehran, adding he did not know who was responsible.

Jubeir also said there was no specific trigger for a decision to cut ties with Qatar, but said there was a long list of grievances.

Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2017/06/07/saudi-minister-says-no-evidence-that-saudis-behind-iran-attack/#iQ5yFO9H7FI4TZXf.99

  

Turkish parliament approves bill to deploy troops in Qatar

Turkish parliament approves bill to deploy troops in Qatar

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

Turkey's parliament on June 7 approved a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar.

The move appears to support the Gulf Arab country as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar and closed their airspace to commercial flights on Monday, charging it with financing militant groups.

Qatar vehemently denies the accusations. It is the worst split between powerful Arab states in decades.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized the Arab states' move, saying isolating Qatar and imposing sanctions will not resolve any problems and adding that Ankara will do everything in its power to help end the crisis. source

At least 12 killed in terrorist attack in Tehran, ISIL claims responsibility

At least 12 killed in terrorist attack in Tehran, ISIL claims responsibility

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Iran's parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials and media said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building and one body, apparently dead, on the floor. Source.

The terrorist attack, which was claimed by ISIL, came weeks after one of the Saudi rulers, Mohammed Bin Salman, threatened to take the battle inside Iran: "We will not wait until the battle is in Saudi Arabia but we will work so the battle is there in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia." See video:

Dissent is haram in Gulf Nations: Sympathizing with Qatar will cost people living in UAE up to 15 years in prison

Dissent is haram in Gulf Nations: Sympathizing with Qatar will cost people living in UAE up to 15 years in prison

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

The United Arab Emirates tightened the squeeze on fellow Gulf state Qatar on Wednesday, threatening anyone publishing expressions of sympathy towards Doha with up to 15 years in prison and barring entry to Qataris.
...
The UAE-based newspaper Gulf News and pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya reported the crackdown on expressions of sympathy with Qatar.

"Strict and firm action will be taken against anyone who shows sympathy or any form of bias towards Qatar, or against anyone who objects to the position of the United Arab Emirates, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form," Gulf News quoted UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi as saying.

On top of a possible jail term, offenders could also be hit with a fine of at least 500,000 dirhams ($136,000), the newspaper said, citing a statement to Arabic-language media.

Slogans against and in support of Qatar have dominated Twitter in Arabic. Newspapers and television channels in the region have also been engaged in a war of words.

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar-idUSKBN18Y0DH

Saudi Arabia and terrorism: more than 94 percent of deaths caused by Islamic terrorism since 2001 were perpetrated by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other Sunni (Wahhabi] jihadists

Saudi Arabia and terrorism: more than 94 percent of deaths caused by Islamic terrorism since 2001 were perpetrated by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other Sunni (Wahhabi] jihadists

    Friday, May 26, 2017   No comments

The Islamic State draws its beliefs from Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi version of Islam. As the former imam of the kingdom’s Grand Mosque said last year, the Islamic State “exploited our own principles, that can be found in our books. . . . We follow the same thought but apply it in a refined way.” Until the Islamic State could write its own textbooks for its schools, it adopted the Saudi curriculum as its own.

Saudi money is now transforming European Islam. Leaked German intelligence reports show that charities “closely connected with government offices” of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait are funding mosques, schools and imams to disseminate a fundamentalist, intolerant version of Islam throughout Germany.

source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/saudi-arabia-just-played-donald-trump/2017/05/25/d0932702-4184-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.82b970e26b22

 

Trump summoned authoritarian Arab and Muslim rulers for 3 summits in Riyadh

Trump's Sword dancing and saber rattling in Saudi Arabia, homeland of nearly all of the 9/11 attackers

Trump's Sword dancing and saber rattling in Saudi Arabia, homeland of nearly all of the 9/11 attackers

    Monday, May 22, 2017   No comments

The contrast couldn't be greater: In Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump joined in the sword dance - a dance of war, as King Salman explained to his American guest. And in Iran, the people were dancing in the streets to celebrate the landslide victory of moderate reformer Hassan Rouhani in the presidential election, and the rejection of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.

Despite, or maybe even because of the war dance, the mood in Saudi Arabia is also one of joy and celebration. Trump's speech on Sunday has been seen as turning the page on US relations with the Arab world generally, and Saudi Arabia in particular. It didn't just mark the end of the Obama administration's critical stance on the kingdom, it also declared its geostrategic adversary, Iran, to be the biggest villain in the region - one best left in isolation, as it was during the George W. Bush era. And because isolation alone might not have been enough, Trump arrived bearing arms contracts worth some $110 billion (98 billion euros) for his hosts - a deal of historic proportions.

No vision of peace

It's a bitter irony that, while visiting the homeland of nearly all of the 9/11 attackers, Trump singled out Iran alone for supporting terrorism. He made no mention of the fact that Riyadh has been supporting the so-called "Islamic State" and other jihadist groups with money and arms, as former US Vice President Joe Biden made clear in a speech he gave at Harvard University in the fall of 2014.
... source

*****
 

WaPo

Saudi Arabia working to impress Donald Trump on his first overseas visit

Saudi Arabia working to impress Donald Trump on his first overseas visit

    Thursday, May 18, 2017   No comments

Trump’s decision to make Saudi Arabia his first overseas stop sends a powerful message to the kingdom: the strained ties that marked U.S.-Saudi relations under President Barack Obama are over.

Saudi Arabia is making every effort to dazzle and impress President Donald Trump on his first overseas trip, seizing on the visit to cement itself as a major player on the world stage and shove aside rival Iran.

The kingdom has arranged a dizzying schedule of events for the two days Trump will be in town — inviting figures as varied as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, Bret Baier, a host on the Fox News Channel that is popular with Trump and his supporters, and American country singer Toby Keith who is to perform for a male-only crowd in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Trump’s decision to make Saudi Arabia his first overseas stop sends a powerful message to the kingdom: the strained ties that marked U.S.-Saudi relations under President Barack Obama are over.

The kingdom wants Trump to align U.S. interests with Saudi Arabia’s — and is literally counting down the seconds until Trump starts his meetings Saturday. A website for the visit was launched in English, Arabic and French, featuring a countdown clock under the banner: “Together We Prevail.”

“The foundation will be laid for a new beginning” to confront extremist ideology, the website declares, while also touting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 a wide-reaching reform plan launched by King Salman’s ambitious son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to overhaul the economy and restyle the country through greater openings for investment and entertainment. source

Trump: Saudi Arabia must pay for US protection... Saudi Arabia has not treated us fairly

Trump: Saudi Arabia must pay for US protection... Saudi Arabia has not treated us fairly

    Friday, April 28, 2017   No comments

Pro-regime propaganda in Saudi Arabia

President Donald Trump complained on Thursday that U.S. ally Saudi Arabia was not treating the United States fairly and Washington was losing a “tremendous amount of money” defending the kingdom.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump confirmed his administration was in talks about possible visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel in the second half of May. He is due to make his first trip abroad as president for a May 25 NATO summit in Brussels and could add other stops.

"Frankly, Saudi Arabia has not treated us fairly, because we are losing a tremendous amount of money in defending Saudi Arabia,” he said.

Trump’s criticism of Riyadh was a return to his 2016 election campaign rhetoric when he accused the kingdom of not pulling its weight in paying for the U.S. security umbrella.

"Nobody’s going to mess with Saudi Arabia because we’re watching them," Trump told a campaign rally in Wisconsin a year ago. “They’re not paying us a fair price. We’re losing our shirt.”  source

Trump keeps Syria-Sarin Evidence secret

Trump keeps Syria-Sarin Evidence secret

    Wednesday, April 19, 2017   No comments

Trump Withholds Syria-Sarin Evidence
Exclusive: Despite President Trump’s well-known trouble with the truth, his White House now says “trust us” on its Syrian-sarin charges while withholding the proof that it claims to have, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

After making the provocative and dangerous charge that Russia is covering up Syria’s use of chemical weapons, the Trump administration withheld key evidence to support its core charge that a Syrian warplane dropped sarin on a northern Syrian town on April 4.
A four-page white paper, prepared by President Trump’s National Security Council staff and released by the White House on Tuesday, claimed that U.S. intelligence has proof that the plane carrying the sarin gas left from the Syrian military airfield that Trump ordered hit by Tomahawk missiles on April 6.



The paper asserted that “we have signals intelligence and geospatial intelligence,” but then added that “we cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods.”

I’m told that the key evidence was satellite surveillance of the area, a body of material that U.S. intelligence analysts were reviewing late last week even after the Trump-ordered bombardment of 59 Tomahawk missiles that, according to Syrian media reports, killed seven or eight Syrian soldiers and nine civilians, including four children.

Yet, it is unclear why releasing these overhead videos would be so detrimental to “sources and methods” since everyone knows the U.S. has this capability and the issue at hand – if it gets further out of hand – could lead to a nuclear confrontation with Russia.

In similarly tense situations in the past, U.S. Presidents have released sensitive intelligence to buttress U.S. government assertions, including John F. Kennedy’s disclosure of U-2 spy flights in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Ronald Reagan revealing electronic intercepts after the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983.

Yet, in this current case, as U.S.-Russian relations spiral downward into what is potentially an extermination event for the human species, Trump’s White House insists that the world must trust it despite its record of consistently misstating facts.

source: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/12/trump-withholds-syria-sarin-evidence/

How Al Qaeda Played Donald Trump And The American Media

How Al Qaeda Played Donald Trump And The American Media

    Wednesday, April 12, 2017   No comments

Scott Ritter, Contributor

For the first time since President Obama, in August 2011, articulated regime change in Damascus as a precondition for the cessation of the civil conflict that had been raging since April 2011, American government officials articulated that this was no longer the case.  “You pick and choose your battles,” the American Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, told reporters on March 30, 2017.  “And when we’re looking at this, it’s about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out.”  Haley’s words were echoed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who observed that same day, while on an official visit to Turkey, “I think the… longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.”

This new policy direction lasted barely five days. Sometime in the early afternoon of April 4, 2017, troubling images and video clips began to be transmitted out of the Syrian province of Idlib by anti-government activists, including members of the so-called “White Helmets,” a volunteer rescue team whose work was captured in an eponymously-named Academy Award-winning documentary film. These images showed victims in various stages of symptomatic distress, including death, from what the activists said was exposure to chemical weapons dropped by the Syrian air force on the town of Khan Sheikhoun that very morning.

Images of these tragic deaths were immediately broadcast on American media outlets, with pundits decrying the horrific and heinous nature of the chemical attack, which was nearly unanimously attributed to the Syrian government, even though the only evidence provided was the imagery and testimony of the anti-Assad activists who, just days before, were decrying the shift in American policy regarding regime change in Syria. President Trump viewed these images, and was deeply troubled by what he saw, especially the depictions of dead and suffering children.

The images were used as exhibits in a passionate speech by Haley during a speech at the Security Council on April 5, 2017, where she confronted Russia and threatened unilateral American military action if the Council failed to respond to the alleged Syrian chemical attack. “Yesterday morning, we awoke to pictures, to children foaming at the mouth, suffering convulsions, being carried in the arms of desperate parents,” Haley said, holding up two examples of the images provided by the anti-Assad activists. “We saw rows of lifeless bodies, some still in diapers…we cannot close our eyes to those pictures.  We cannot close our minds of the responsibility to act.”  If the Security Council refused to take action against the Syrian government, Haley said, then “there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action.”

...

Al Nusra has a long history of manufacturing and employing crude chemical weapons; the 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta made use of low-grade Sarin nerve agent locally synthesized, while attacks in and around Aleppo in 2016 made use of a chlorine/white phosphorous blend.  If the Russians are correct, and the building bombed in Khan Sheikhoun on the morning of April 4, 2017 was producing and/or storing chemical weapons, the probability that viable agent and other toxic contaminants were dispersed into the surrounding neighborhood, and further disseminated by the prevailing wind, is high.

The counter-narrative offered by the Russians and Syrians, however, has been minimized, mocked and ignored by both the American media and the Trump administration. So, too, has the very illogic of the premise being put forward to answer the question of why President Assad would risk everything by using chemical weapons against a target of zero military value, at a time when the strategic balance of power had shifted strongly in his favor. Likewise, why would Russia, which had invested considerable political capital in the disarmament of Syria’s chemical weapons capability after 2013, stand by idly while the Syrian air force carried out such an attack, especially when their was such a heavy Russian military presence at the base in question at the time of the attack?
...
Source

How many alternative facts could the spokesperson for this White House, Sean Spicer, pack in 3 sentences? answer: 3

How many alternative facts could the spokesperson for this White House, Sean Spicer, pack in 3 sentences? answer: 3

    Tuesday, April 11, 2017   No comments

Alternative fact: “We didn't use chemical weapons in World War II."

Fact: the United States used two nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 250,000 civilians and disfigured more than 150,000, many of whom still live with illness caused by these weapons of mass destruction.

Alternative fact: "Someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons.”

Fact:  More than 250,000 Jews were killed between 1942 and 1943 in Hilter's gas chambers.


Alternative fact: “Hitler was not using the gas on his own people in the same way that Assad is doing.”

Fact: Just before the WW's, 300,000 and 500,000 Jews lived in Germany, they were German citizens. By the end of WWII, Nazis killed between 160,000 and 180,000 German Jews.

_____________

An administration with this kind of handle on historical facts can hardly be trusted when it claims that the Syrian government is behind the chemical attack/explosion and launch a military attack against a sovereign nation before any credible investigation and fact finding process.

 On that subject, Peter Ford's assessment of the attack on Syria is noteworthy: