Business Insider: Russia and Iran Supporting Syria 'To Push US Forces Out In a Coercive and Systematic Effort'
The US Propaganda Machine Wishes to Play the ISIS Card to Justify Its Continued Illegal Occupation of Syria, as it plunders oilfields and starves the Syrian people
On August 8th, Business Insider published "America’s Foes Are Teaming Up to Push the US Military Out of the Middle East, and It’s Messing Up Plans to Fight Terror”
Business Insider would introduce the article:
”Russia and Iran both have security interests in Syria and appear to be working together with the Syrian government to push US forces out of the country in a coercive and systematic effort that has expanded, war experts say.
The multifaceted campaign endangers American troops, threatens US interests in the region, and also directly interferes with the US-led fight against a growing ISIS threat, something that officials in Washington have increasingly raised concerns over.”
This is what American exceptionalism is - at its core.
The US is illegally occupying a third of Syria, the region which contains most of the country’s oil and much of its arable farmland, plundering the resources of the country, all the while imposing unilateral sanctions on Syria for the demented, twisted, psychopathic motive of preventing the reconstruction of the now impoverished nation.
Yet, Syria is interfering with American Interests? The Middle East Monitor reported in 2021 that the US “controls 90% of Syria’s Oil” .. Nonetheless, Business Insider has the audacity to write that Syria and its allies are coercive in their agenda to push out the US from *illegally occupying and pillaging Syria with the Force of the US military*.
Business Insider wrote that the agenda to drive US troops out of Syria “threatens US interests in the region, and also directly interferes with the US-led fight against a growing ISIS threat, something that officials in Washington have increasingly raised concerns over.”
Oh yeah, what officials? What’s next? Does ISIS have WMD’s? Ok, maybe the Iraq war joke is a bit ironic, given that Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons before, and were documented by the UN using them repeatedly before Assad was ever accused of such. And of course, Assad has been accused of using them as well.
The Business Insider article frames the US mission and priority in Syria to be in dealing with ISIS.
It is well documented that the US National Security Apparatus was intent on removing Assad before ISIS even existed.
A 2012 DOD intelligence report shows the intent to remove Assad before he was first accused of chemical weapons, which wouldn’t come until 2013 as I wrote in my 2019 article featured below.
The whole '“We have to be in Syria to fight ISIS” (and that is why we are plundering the country’s exhaustible natural resources as the people live in poverty the US has largely contributed to, and still does through sanctions) is a bit convenient given that a 2012 intelligence report from the DOD reveals that the US *checks notes* predicted that funding the US funding the opposition to Assad, whom the report acknowledged was largely composed of *checks notes* Jihadi extremists including Al-Qaeda, would likely lead to an Islamic state, which “the supporting powers to the opposition”, identifed as the US, Turkey, and the Gulf nations, WANT….
And why did the US, Turkey, and Gulf nations want an Islamic to rise? To “isolate the Assad regime”… You can’t make this shit up.
And of course, the US funding these “moderate rebels” and flooding them with weapons would later lead to ISIS.
2012 DOD Intelligence Report on Syria
I wrote about this in 2019, following the initial batch of OPCW leaks from the first whistleblower who we now know to be Ian Henderson. Contextualizing the leaks, which supported the thesis that the OPCW covered up evidence that the Douma chemical attacks were deployed by the “moderate” rebel forces, I had pointed to the DOD intelligence report written in 2012 that had been published by Judicial Watch in 2015.
May 19th, 2019 — ”Leaked OPCW Bombshell Report Shatters the Official Syria Narrative”
To understand the situation better, one should be aware of a formerly classified DOD intelligence report written in 2012 that acknowledges the support of the opposition by western powers.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190806091431/https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/…
The redacted report starts off outlining “the general situation” in a lettered format:
1. Internally, events are taking a clear sectarian turn
2. The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI(Al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.
3. The West, Gulf Countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the Regime.”
Right off the bat, the document highlights the fact that the main groups driving the insurgency are Islamic extremists. It goes on to acknowledge our(the US's) support for these extremists. Why would we be supporting groups of terrorists that include Al-Qaeda, the very enemy that had us still occupying Afghanistan to dismantle?!
The document gives a partial answer, stating in a later page that, “If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared salafist principality in eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Assad regime, which is considered the strategic depth is Shia expansion(Iraq and Iran),” going on to say “The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows: This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI(Al-Qaeda in Iraq) to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one common enemy, the dissenters. Isi could declare an Islamic state through a union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.”
The document shows not only that the US and allied powers helped create ISIS by knowingly supporting various terrorists groups, not only that they predicted an Islamic state would form as a consequence of their support, but that “that’s exactly what the supporting powers of the opposition want”— we were never funding “moderate rebels.” That was propaganda. It really is that simple. So on one hand we are fighting a “global war on terror,” while on the other we are supporting literal terror groups in order to stop “shia expansion?” We were funding jihadis from the start, as was Saudi Arabia and Qatar and other powers. Why?
..The US was supporting the opposition which the US had identified to mainly be composed of Islamic extremists, including an Al-Qaeda offshoot, AQI.
Later on, Al-Nusra, another literal Al-Qaeda offshoot, would be bolstered by the CIA flooding weapons into the hands of the so-called “moderate” rebels.
..All the while the US continued its decade-plus long occupation of Afghanistan …you know, that country we spent trillions on so we could “go after Al-Qaeda”, only to hand it back over to the Taliban with a shitton of American weaponry and military supplies left behind?
Whitney Webb wrote an article well worth reading titled Read “Ukraine and the new Al Qaeda”.
But moving back to Syria. The Guardian would report on the declassified DOD 2012 intelligence report published by Judicial Watch:
The report isn’t a policy document. It’s heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language. But the implications are clear enough. A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren’t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of “Islamic state” – despite the “grave danger” to Iraq’s unity – as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria.
That doesn’t mean the US created ISIS, of course, though some of its Gulf allies certainly played a role in it – as the US vice-president, Joe Biden, acknowledged last year. But there was no al-Qaida in Iraq until the US and Britain invaded. And the US has certainly exploited the existence of ISIS against other forces in the region as part of a wider drive to maintain western control.
I won’t keep rambling on about how the US not only incidentally, but deliberately, created ISIS….you get the point. But that’s the hard truth. Even if one wants to keep living in fairy tale land where it was grand incompetence and negligence that US weapons and supplies kept magically landing in ISIS’s lap for years, at the end of the day even in that optimistic, benefit-of-the-doubt, perspective - the US scaled the problem, not the solution. But of course, the US did knowingly fund and supply ISIS.
It is worth noting, not only did the rise of ISIS destabilize Syria and weaken the Assad government, it provides a perfect potential example of a problem-reaction-solution.
*creates problem*
*Offers solution*
*Solution is conveniently stealing all of Syria’s shit and starving the people to “help” them*
*whoopsie for funding terrorists that destroyed your government, we want to help you deal with them now, whether you like it or not*
So again, this Business Insider article, national security officials, and the rest of the warmongers asserting that the US needs to be in Syria to stop ISIS, and Russia and Syria are in the way of that. If the public was informed, this narrative would not stand.
Yet, now the US, who deliberately expedited the rise of ISIS, is accusing the Syria and Russia, who is largely credited by much of the world as being the bigger influence that actually stopped ISIS, of interfering with their operation to stop ISIS from spreading…an Islamic State that the US national security apparatus literally wanted to form a couple years before it conveniently did *equipped with a bunch of US military gear* so they would have an excuse to “isolate”(weaken) the Assad government.
Circling back to the propaganda piece published by the Business Insider today that motivated me to write this piece.. Jake Epstein, who previously worked for the Times of Israel, wrote:
Both Russia and Iran are allied with the… Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow helps support his years-long civil war, and Tehran backs several militias there. The US, meanwhile, has about 900 troops deployed to the country as part of an international coalition that works with the local Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to carry out counterterrorism missions against ISIS, missions that seem to be less of a priority for the other three players that are trying to kick the US off the field.
Given the US’s history in the region, and its current role there - blatantly stealing their oil and plundering their resources under the guise of “fighting ISIS” - many view “fight terror” of Jake Epstein’s headline “America’s Foes Are Teaming Up to Push the US Military Out of the Middle East, and It’s Messing up Plans to Fight Terror” to better translate to “create terror”.
7/23/23 — UN Expert Condemns ‘Snatching’ of Boys in US-Backed SDF-Run Camps
Forced conscriptions of young men by USfunded forces for a US-instigated war? Remind you of anything?
As reported by TeleSUREnglish, while the US plundered the raw fuel deposits of the country and sanctioned Syria’s economy, the US axis prevented Iran(or any country) from alleviating the country’s fuel shortages:
”The United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies control up to 90 percent of Syria’s oil-producing lands, depriving the war-torn country of its much-needed source of fuel and hard currency income. While Iran sends emergency fuel supplies to Syria to help deal with shortages, its ships have been regularly attacked by Israeli saboteurs en route.”
All of this was done under the guise of “caring about the Syrian people”, but that notion crumbles under any honest examination of the situation.
Do you really think a bunch of bureaucrats in DC give a flying fuck about the people in Syria? Perhaps if you count missiles as flying fucks, and US special interests as the Syrian people.
You’d think the US government wouldn’t starve the Syrian people to death and deprive them of medicine through sanctions if the altruistic motive was authentic. And if this was about the Syrian people and their well being, the US policy makers would probably not impose unilateral sanctions to prevent the impoverished country’s reconstruction like fucking psychopaths.
In the Guardian’s reporting on the leaked 2012 DOD intelligence report that showed the US to knowingly support terrorists with the potential aim of creating an Islamic state to topple Assad, The Guardian would appropriately conclude the article:
”What’s clear is that ISIS and its monstrosities won’t be defeated by the same powers that brought it to Iraq and Syria in the first place, or whose open and covert war-making has fostered it in the years since. Endless western military interventions in the Middle East have brought only destruction and division. It’s the people of the region who can cure this disease – not those who incubated the virus.”
So if we have established that the US had already intended to remove Assad before ISIS…. Why is the US in Syria stealing their oil again, if it isn’t to fight ISIS, if the intention was set before the use of chemical weapons?
I ended my article from 2019 by referencing an amazing article by RFK Jr that attempts to answer this question, or at least touch on it, and I think it is not only appropriate to conclude this article with it, but best to - as it is just as relevant than ever…and maybe more important than ever to discuss with war looming on the horizon on so many fronts, including Syria.
The rest of this article will be the tail end of that 2019 article, which was censored by Facebook within hours after being published by The Mind Unleashed
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (nephew of assassinated president JFK) wrote an article on Syria titled, “Why The Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria”, that hints at possible reasons.
It is an article every citizen of the western governments involved in the conflict should read. It begins by giving context for Syria, describing how the the CIA overthrew Syria’s first democratically elected president, Al-Quwatli’, in 1949 for hesitating to approve the Trans-Arabian pipeline, an American project that would have linked the ports of Lebanon to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. The CIA’s personal dictator, Al-Za’him “barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, four and a half months into his regime.”
In 1955 after a few years of counter-coups, The Syrian people re-elected Al-Quwatli, who survived numerous subsequent CIA coup d’etat attempts. He also mentions the noteworthy CIA coup d’etat in Iran in 1954, where the CIA overthrew the first democratically elected president of Iran, Mosaddegh, after he uncovered a British intelligence plot for a coup d’etat that was a result of him pushing to renegotiate oil contracts with British petroleum(colloquially known as BP). He expelled at British diplomats from the country, but let the CIA stay, despite is advisors warnings, because he trusted America not to destroy a democracy for economic interests.
The CIA overthrew him and installed the Shah, and now they are trying to overthrow Syria’s democracy to allegedly counter “shia expansion” according to the 2012 intelligence report, the theocratic government that they birthed from their calculated destruction of Iran’s democracy. But RFK Jr. has acknowledged another potential motive for why western nations started funding the rebels before Assad was accused of chemical weapons, summarizing:
“In their view, our war against Bashar Assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the Arab Spring in 2011. Instead it began in 2000, when Qatar proposed to construct a $10 billion, 1,500 kilometer pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. Qatar shares with Iran the South Pars/North Dome gas field, the world’s richest natural gas repository…Meanwhile, Qatar’s gas can reach European markets only if it is liquefied and shipped by sea, a route that restricts volume and dramatically raises costs. The proposed pipeline would have linked Qatar directly to European energy markets via distribution terminals in Turkey, which would pocket rich transit fees. The Qatar/Turkey pipeline would give the Sunni kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America’s closest ally in the Arab world. Qatar hosts two massive American military bases and the U.S. Central Command’s Mideast headquarters. The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline, which would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin’s stifling economic and political leverage. Turkey, Russia’s second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia’s conservative Sunni monarchy by giving it a foothold in Shia-dominated Syria.”
Russia, on the other hand, was economically threatened by the pipeline, being that Europe is responsible for 70% of Russian oil export. In 2009, Assad announced he would reject the pipeline “to support the interests of our Russian ally” before announcing an “Islamic pipeline” that would run from the oilfields in Iran through Syria to the ports in Lebanon.
RFK Jr. goes on to remind us that “Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria. It is important to note that this was well before the Arab Spring-engendered uprising against Assad.”
The official narrative that we are going after Assad for human rights violations is preposterous. As veteran journalist Bob Perry is quoted saying in RFK Jr.’s article,”No one in the region has clean hands, but in the realms of torture, mass killings, [suppressing] civil liberties and supporting terrorism, Assad is much better than the Saudis.” Not to mention continuous Israeli war crimes. Qatar certainly did not spend 3 billion dollars training and arming insurgents at a US base in their country for humanitarian reasons, given the context of their proposed pipeline. The CIA weapon shipment routes to the “moderate rebels” were financed by Turkey, Qatar, and the Saudis. A pentagon funded Rand report from 2008 titled “Unfolding the future of the long war” suggested that “The United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists to launch a proxy campaign” and “U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni conflict trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world … possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments” being that Persian oil- and gas deposits would remain a “strategic priority.”
RFK Jr. eloquently explains:
“As predicted, Assad’s overreaction to the foreign-made crisis—dropping barrel bombs onto Sunni strongholds and killing civilians—polarized Syria’s Shiite/Sunni divide and allowed U.S. policymakers to sell Americans the idea that the pipeline struggle was a humanitarian war.”
…Robert F. Kennedy concluded his essay so perfectly, anything but quoting it would be a downgrade.
“Let’s face it; what we call the “war on terror” is really just another oil war. We’ve squandered $6 trillion on three wars abroad and on constructing a national security warfare state at home since oilman Dick Cheney declared the “Long War” in 2001. The only winners have been the military contractors and oil companies that have pocketed historic profits, the intelligence agencies that have grown exponentially in power and influence to the detriment of our freedoms and the jihadists who invariably used our interventions as their most effective recruiting tool.
We have compromised our values, butchered our own youth, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, subverted our idealism and squandered our national treasures in fruitless and costly adventures abroad. In the process, we have helped our worst enemies and turned America, once the world’s beacon of freedom, into a national security surveillance state and an international moral pariah..
America’s founding fathers warned Americans against standing armies, foreign entanglements and, in John Quincy Adams’ words, “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Those wise men understood that imperialism abroad is incompatible with democracy and civil rights at home. The Atlantic Charter echoed their seminal American ideal that each nation should have the right to self-determination. Over the past seven decades, the Dulles brothers, the Cheney gang, the neocons and their ilk have hijacked that fundamental principle of American idealism and deployed our military and intelligence apparatus to serve the mercantile interests of large corporations and particularly, the petroleum companies and military contractors that have literally made a killing from these conflicts.
It’s time for Americans to turn America away from this new imperialism and back to the path of idealism and democracy. We should let the Arabs govern Arabia and turn our energies to the great endeavor of nation building at home. We need to begin this process, not by invading Syria, but by ending the ruinous addiction to oil that has warped U.S. foreign policy for half a century.”
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