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Syria

Former Top Pentagon Advisor Col. Doug Macgregor On Russia-Ukraine War

March 16, 2022 Max Blumenthal And Aaron Maté, The Grayzone. , , , , ,
Former senior advisor the Secretary of Defense Col. Doug Macgregor joins Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate for a candid, live discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war and his time in the Trump administration when an Afghan withdrawal was sabotaged and conflict with Iran and Syria continued.

Media Ignore Conflicts Around The World To Focus On Ukraine

March 4, 2022 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. , , , , , ,
Kiev, Ukraine - We are living in dangerous times. All around the world, intense military actions are taking place. Last week alone, Russia launched a huge military invasion of Ukraine; Saudi Arabia carried out dozens of strikes on Yemen; Israel launched a wave of deadly missile attacks against Syria; and the United States restarted its bombing campaign in Somalia. These four deadly incidents happened concurrently. Yet judging by media coverage, it is highly unlikely that many will even be aware of the final three. A MintPress News study of five leading Western media outlets found that overwhelming attention was paid to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while the others were barely mentioned, if at all.

Propagandist For Syria Terror Proxies Compromised Amnesty International

February 12, 2022 Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone. , , ,
This December, The Grayzone exposed how a shadowy communications firm, Valent Projects, enlisted a prominent YouTube influencer to front a covert state-sponsored influence operation designed to undermine critics of London’s pandemic policies. That company was founded by Amil Khan, a veteran of long-running and lavishly funded UK Foreign Office information warfare operations in Syria.

The Endless Failure Of The Syrian War

February 9, 2022 Andrew Hammond, Consortium News. , , ,
The recent rush of news reports about Balkan, Middle East and East European states scrambling to reestablish ties with Damascus would appear to signal the effective collapse of the decade-long Western policy of war, sanctions and isolation to end the rule of Bashar al-Assad’s Baath regime in Syria. Syria’s southern neighbor Jordan opened its land border to trade in September as a precursor to a gas pipeline project that will run through its territory from Egypt to Lebanon. King Abdullah even took a phone call from Assad, much to the chagrin of the pundits on Syria whose opinions have formed the background music to American policy since the conflict began. The Egyptian and Syrian foreign ministers held talks at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Algeria wants Syria to attend the next Arab summit and the UAE made a point of inviting Syria to take part in its World Expo that opened in October.

Yemen Conflict: Blowback Of Obama’s Botched Syria Policy

January 24, 2022 Nauman Sadiq, Popular Resistance. , , ,
After Arab Spring protests erupted in the Middle East in 2011, toppling longtime dictators of the Arab World, including Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Yemenis also gathered in the capital’s squares demanding removal of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Instead of conceding to protesters’ fervent demand of holding free and fair elections to ascertain democratic aspirations of demonstrators, however, the Obama administration adopted the convenient course of replacing Yemen’s longtime autocrat with a Saudi stooge Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Having the reputation of a “wily Arabian fox” and being a Houthi himself, Ali Abdullah Saleh wasn’t the one to sit idly by and retire from politics in ignominy.

Bases, Bases, Everywhere…

January 18, 2022 Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch. , , , ,
The U.S. military is finally withdrawing (or not) from its base at al-Tanf. You know, the place that the Syrian government long claimed was a training ground for Islamic State (ISIS) fighters; the land corridor just inside Syria, near both the Iraqi and Jordanian borders, that Russia has called a terrorist hotbed (while floating the idea of jointly administering it with the United States); the location of a camp where hundreds of U.S. Marines joined Special Operations forces last year; an outpost that U.S. officials claimed was the key not only to defeating ISIS, but also, according to General Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, to countering “the malign activities that Iran and their various proxies and surrogates would like to pursue.” You know, that al-Tanf.

Hundreds Of Reconstruction Projects Carried Out In Syria In 2021

January 5, 2022 Syria Times, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
The year 2021 has witnessed the implementation of hundreds of reconstruction projects in several sectors in Syria despite the challenges and obstacles that face the process, mainly the acute economic crisis  the country is going through  besides the western sanctions imposed on the people of Syria. These projects were mentioned in the annual report released on Thursday by the Ministry of Local Administration. The report said: “The ministry carried out 1262 rehabilitation projects and it now supervises the rehabilitation of 17 hospitals, 37 health centers and 19 cultural centers.” It added that 6502 houses, 109 hospitals and health centers, 20 bakeries, 406 shops, 10 public buildings, 21 citizen service centers, 19 cultural centers and 19 stations, which were destroyed by terrorism, were rehabilitated within the framework of humanitarian response plan.

Stopping The War Machine For One Day

December 29, 2021 James Bovard, Counter Punch. , , ,
I’ve attended most of the major antiwar protests in Washington since 9/11. At a 2005 protest, a cop tried to whack me on the head with a wooden pole. At a 2007 protest, I snapped a picture showing George W. Bush swinging by the U.S. Capitol. But my favorite protest was a potent little ruckus that I almost missed. On a sunny late summer day in 2013, I ambled to downtown Washington to hike with a bunch of friendly folks in a jaunt starting on the National Mall and heading towards the World War Two Monument and points beyond. But the hike was vexed from the start because someone invited along a “licensed tourist guide.” That short, pudgy fellow proceeded to bludgeon us with every known detail about the history, architecture, and rest room renovations of the Smithsonian Castle.

How The OPCW’s Syria Probe Censored Science

December 16, 2021 Aaron Maté, The Grayzone. , , ,
Senior OPCW officials doctored the original report; erased the conclusions of expert toxicologists who ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death; and thwarted the key investigate area of forensic pathology, which could have helped determine how the dozens of civilian victims in Douma lost their lives.  Instead of explaining the extensive suppression, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias has avoided questions; offered false excuses; and smeared the veteran scientists who challenged the cover-up from within. Guest: Dr. Piers Robinson. Co-Director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, and convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media. Working with the Berlin Group 21, led by veteran diplomats Hans von Sponeck and Jose Bustani to seek accountability for the OPCW cover-up.

Russia And Israel – A Double Standard In International Condemnation

December 15, 2021 Gavin O'Reilly, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
Over the past month, in a break from its usual focus on COVID-19, the Western mainstream media has dedicated a sizeable amount of coverage to unverified claims by unnamed US intelligence officials that the Russian Federation is planning an imminent military invasion of its western neighbour Ukraine – under the rule of the successive US-EU friendly governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky since 2014, when the CIA-orchestrated Euromaidan colour revolution toppled the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych, following his November 2013 decision to suspend an EU trade deal in favour of pursuing closer ties with Moscow. The coverage, which comes at a time of increased tensions in Eastern Europe amidst a build-up of refugees on the Belarus-Poland border being labelled as an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko to destabilise the European Union, has resulted in widespread condemnation of Moscow by the Western media and political establishment...

In Syria Probe, OPCW Erased Experts’ Inconvenient Findings

November 27, 2021 Aaron Maté, The Grayzone. , , ,
In the early days of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, expert toxicologists ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death for the more than 40 civilians reported at the scene. Instead of publishing this finding, senior OPCW officials concealed it, and then launched an investigation of a veteran inspector who questioned the censorship. The suppression of the toxicologists is among a series of deceptions by the OPCW leadership to corrupt the Douma probe’s scientific process, as detailed in this new multi-part investigation by The Grayzone. More than three years later, the high-level campaign of censorship and muzzling has mired the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog in scandal.

US Lawmakers Raise Questions Over Biden’s Reasoning For Syria Air Strike

November 21, 2021 Middle East Eye. , ,
More than 30 bipartisan US lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden questioning the administration's reasoning for bypassing Congress and launching a military strike in Syria earlier this year. Led by Democrats Jamaal Bowman, Peter DeFazio and Republican Nancy Mace, the lawmakers said that Biden appeared to be "acting in contravention of the Constitution". They also said that the administration has offered less of a basis for its strike than the previous Donald Trump administration did when conducting a strike in Syria.

Syria Massacre Coverup Shows Danger Of Assange Precedent

November 16, 2021 Caitlin Johnstone, Consortium News. , , ,
The report contains many significant revelations, including that the U.S. military has been grossly undercounting the numbers of civilians killed in its airstrikes and lying about it to Congress, that special ops forces in Syria have been consistently ordering airstrikes which kill noncombatants with no accountability by exploiting loopholes to get around rules meant to protect civilians, that units which call in such airstrikes are allowed to do their own assessments grading whether the strikes were justified, that the U.S. war machine attempted to obstruct scrutiny of the massacre “at nearly every step” of the way, and that the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations only investigates such incidents when there is “potential for high media attention, concern with outcry from local community/government, concern sensitive images may get out.”

Ex-CIA Analyst On Hidden Realities Of Syria War

November 15, 2021 Aaron Maté, The Grayzone. , , ,
As a CIA analyst, David McCloskey covered Syria from 2008 to 2014. He draws on his experience for his new spy thriller, “Damascus Station,” set during the early years of the Syrian war. David McCloskey joins Aaron Maté to discuss “Damascus Station”; the early years of the Syrian war; the role of foreign powers including the US; the US decision to support the insurgency despite knowing that Al Qaeda and other Salafi jihadist groups were its “primary engine”; allegations of chemical weapons attacks in Syria; and the direction of US policy in post-war Syria. Guest: David McCloskey. Former CIA analyst who covered Syria for six years, from 2008 to 2014. Wrote memos for the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), lived and worked in CIA field stations throughout the region, and briefed senior White House officials, members of Congress, and Arab royalty.

Bellingcat Funded By Contractors That Aided Extremists In Syria

October 10, 2021 Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone. , , ,
Since its launch in July 2014, the self-styled open-source investigations website Bellingcat has cemented itself as a darling of mainstream Western media, with its dives into alleged Syrian government chemical weapon attacks and Russian intelligence operations showered with praise, puff pieces, and glitzy awards. While vehemently insisting that it is independent of government influence, Bellingcat is funded by both the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy and the European Union. CIA officials have declared their “love” for Bellingcat, and there are unambiguous signs that the outlet has partnered closely with London and Washington to further the pair’s imperial objectives. Now that the media consortium has obtained access to high-tech satellites capable of capturing 50cm resolution imagery of any place on Earth, it is time to place these connections under the microscope.
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