Protests in Syria

[ERGO]

US, Israeli and Saudi-funded Terrorists Destabilizing Syria Now Under Fire in Lebanon

Source link:http://orientalreview.org/2012/05/15/us-israeli-and-saudi-funded-terrorists-destabilizing-syria-now-under-fire-in-lebanon
/

According to a 2007 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection,” the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia had been assembling a region-wide army of extremist-mercenaries to battle Hezbollah in Lebanon, destabilize and overthrow Syria, and create a united front against Iran. The forces recruited for this effort would come from the ranks of the CIA-created “Arab foreign legion,” Al Qaeda itself extremist groups fresh back from fighting US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, including listed terror organizations like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) from Libya.

Hersh’s 2007 report exposed the groundwork for the very violence unfolding in Syria today, and now Lebanon. Forces to destabilize Syria were primarily to be staged in northern Lebanon, as explained in the article, and indeed the heaviest fighting over the last year has been seen in the Syrian city of Homs, just across the border from northern Lebanon. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his government have been, since the beginning of the violence, attempting to illustrate just this – explained in detail in 2007, and demonstratively being carried out today, with responsibility for deadly bombings being claimed by terrorists, the Pentagon itself admitting Al Qaeda is present in Syria, and reports indicating foreign fighters, weapons, and cash are flowing over Syria’s borders.

Seymour Hersh's article: Annals of National Security: The Redirection : The New Yorker

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzSdDFJpbUI&feature=related]Syria - The REAL Story -- MUST SEE - part 1 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_orfcGnaseE&feature=related]Syria - The REAL Story -- MUST SEE -- CIA & MOSSAD Death Squads Exposed - YouTube[/ame]

 

[rhodescholar]

According to a 2007 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh,

Re-posting the same garbage in multiple threads is a forum rules violation, along with the fact that seymour hersh is a piece of lying shit with ZERO journalistic credibility.

 

[ERGO]

According to a 2007 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh,

Re-posting the same garbage in multiple threads is a forum rules violation, along with the fact that seymour hersh is a piece of lying shit with ZERO journalistic credibility.

Would you care to cite example's of Seymour Hersh's "lies" that you claim gives him " ZERO credibilty".

Just because you say he's a " lying piece of shit with ZERO journalistic credibility" doesn't make it so. Give examples...show the proof that he's a Journalist with ZERO credibility otherwise you're just blowing smoke up people's arse's with your knee-jerk sophomoric reactions.

 

[rhodescholar]

Would you care to cite example's of Seymour Hersh's "lies" that you claim gives him " ZERO credibilty".

Stephens: Iran, Syria—and Seymour Hersh - WSJ.com

Iran, Syria—and Seymour Hersh
Why won't the New Yorker reporter debate me?

"When does a half-cooked notion, a conspiracy theory or a tissue of vaguely sourced and improbable claims become an item of journalistic "fact"? If you're a person of normal intelligence, the answer is: never. If, however, you're a faithful reader of the New Yorker, it happens roughly every time investigative reporter Seymour Hersh commits a word to print, presumably after having undergone the rigorous review of the magazine's world-famous fact-checking department.

So it was with some anticipation that I agreed last week to debate Mr. Hersh on CNN about his latest bequest to what the magazine likes to call its "Annals of National Security": Several thousand words in the June 6 edition on the subject of "Iran and the Bomb," along with the portentous subtitle, "How real is the nuclear threat?"

For readers who fail to grasp Mr. Hersh's point from the subtitle alone, his central contention is that there exists no "irrefutable evidence of an ongoing hidden nuclear-weapons program in Iran"—which is surely right, since the word "irrefutable" allows for no ambiguity. As for his subtext, this too was clear: By taking an increasingly hard line on Iran, the Obama administration risked blundering into another Iraq-style intelligence fiasco.

Might this be true? Who knows: Mr. Hersh loves to affect the air of a journalist who has been brought into the loop of the most sensitive national security secrets. His expectation of readers is that they will take him at his word that the typically anonymous sources for his most explosive claims—often concerning highly specific descriptions of CIA operations in enemy nations—are credible and sober government officials (or former officials) who would never compromise vital secrets to our enemies. Yet these same insiders, Mr. Hersh would have readers believe, would gladly see those secrets disclosed in the pages of the New Yorker.

To get a better sense of Mr. Hersh's record, I turned from the Iran article to some of his earlier work. In January 2005 he wrote that Donald Rumsfeld would play the starring role in President Bush's second term. In fact, Condoleezza Rice did. In April 2006 he suggested that President Bush had all but made up his mind to bomb Iran before it started enriching a single kilo of uranium. All Mr. Bush did was pursue sanctions at the U.N. and support European efforts to engage Tehran diplomatically.

In March 2007, Mr. Hersh reported that the U.S. had provided "clandestine support" to the Lebanese government, which in turn had aided a Sunni terrorist group called Fatah al-Islam. Shortly thereafter the Lebanese government went to war against Fatah al-Islam. In February 2008, Mr. Hersh claimed that the mysterious Syrian facility Israel bombed the previous September "apparently had little to do with . . . nuclear reactors." Last month, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano wrote that "the Agency concludes that the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor." In April 2009, he returned to Syria to write a hopeful piece about the prospects of a U.S.-Syria rapprochement, strongly hinting that Damascus could gradually be peeled away from Tehran. The evidence of the past two months suggests otherwise.

More recently, Mr. Hersh gave a speech in Qatar alleging that Gen. Stanley McChrystal was a member of a religious order known as the Knights of Malta, and that senior U.S. officers seek to "change mosques into cathedrals." The retired general denies the allegation categorically.

How, then, does this bear on Mr. Hersh's current reporting about Iran? The article makes much of a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that found that in 2003 Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program. And he hints that an as-yet unreleased 2011 NIE says much the same thing.

Yet what's mainly remarkable about Mr. Hersh's reporting is that it makes no mention of what the IAEA itself says about Iran's most recent nuclear progress. "As previously reported by the Director General," goes the May 24 report, "there are indications that certain of these [undisclosed nuclear related] activities may have continued beyond 2004."

Among those activities: "producing uranium metal . . . and its manufacture into components relevant to a nuclear device"; "testing of explosive components suitable for the initiation of high explosives in a converging spherical geometry"; "experiments involving the explosive compression of uranium deuteride to produce a short burst of neutrons"; "missile re-entry vehicle redesign activities for a new payload assessed as being nuclear in nature."

It is in the nature of the journalistic enterprise that most of what we think we know is subject to amendment and revision. In this sense, Mr. Hersh is no different from his peers. But it is also the invariable mark of a crackpot to believe that truth, by its very nature, must be hidden; and that the simplest explanation is always suspect. Through this device, Mr. Hersh has led generations of readers—and policy makers, too—to believe fantasies while missing dangers that stand in plain sight.

As for that TV appearance, Mr. Hersh, according to a CNN producer, backed out at the last minute on grounds that he would not debate me. Should he change his mind, I'm ready any time he is."

 

[rhodescholar]

« The Deceits of Seymour Hersh Commentary Magazine

"In no fewer than six feature-length New Yorker articles published during the Bush administration, Hersh claimed that the United States was going to launch a war against the Islamic Republic. The first such article appeared more than seven years ago. In “The Coming Wars,” published in January 2005, Hersh wrote: “In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran.” He quoted a “former high-level intelligence official” who said: “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign.” In April 2006, Hersh alleged that the Bush administration “increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack.” That piece made the stunning charge that the U.S. was contemplating a tactical nuclear first strike against Iran. Three months later, in an article entitled “Last Stand,” Hersh relayed the tale of how “senior commanders” in the military were heroically challenging Bush’s order that they prepare for a “major bombing campaign in Iran.”

In November 2006, after the midterm elections restored Democratic control of Congress, Hersh reported that the administration had decided to refocus its plans for an attack on Iran by throwing support to a Kurdish terrorist organization rather than prepare for an extensive bombing run. In March 2007, the “realists” within the administration must have weakened, because Hersh wrote that Bush had ordered a list of Iranian targets to be bombed, a decision that “brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran.” An attack could come as early as “this spring,” Hersh wrote, according to one of his innumerable “former senior intelligence officials.” When spring came and went, with no attack on Iran, Hersh returned with a piece in October, alleging now that “the emphasis is on ‘surgical’ strikes on Revolutionary Guard facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq.”

Needless to say, the United States never went to war against Iran during the Bush administration. And there is no evidence that the administration had ever prepared for a war—certainly less evidence than exists for the suspicion that Iran is working towards the ability to produce a nuclear weapon, which Hersh loudly warns anyone and everyone from concluding. Indeed, according to a 2009 report in the New York Times, President Bush rejected a request from Israel the previous year that it be allowed to attack Iran’s main nuclear facility, which would have required flying over Iraqi airspace. That Hersh’s reporting on Iran has repeatedly been exposed as inaccurate never once dissuaded him from repeating his same fantastical assertions over and over again.

Indeed, if there is one thing that Hersh—known to every aspiring journalist as the greatest investigative reporter of his generation— has been consistent on, it’s his uncanny ability to be utterly wrong."

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Massacre Victims In Houla Were Mostly Executed, Says UN

BEIRUT — The U.N.'s human rights office on Tuesday added grim new details about the massacre of more than 100 people in a rural area in Syria last week, saying that most of the dead were shot at close range, some of them women and children killed in their homes.

The brutality of the Houla killings, documented in gruesome amateur videos of scores of bodies laid out before burial, sparked widespread international outrage and raised new questions about the ability of an international plan to end 15-months of violence in Syria.

The U.N. said that at least 108 people, including 34 women and 49 children, were killed in an attack that began on Friday and continued through the night on Houla, a group of poor farming villages northwest of the central Syrian city of Homs.

On Tuesday, spokesman Rupert Colville of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said U.N. monitors who visited the area found that fewer than 20 of the dead were killed by artillery fire. The rest appeared to have been shot at close range.

"What is very clear is this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, women and children," he told reporters in Geneva. "At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses."

Colville said information from U.N. observers and other sources indicated that many of the victims were killed in the village of Taldaw in two separate incidents. Locals blamed the killings on pro-regime militias known as shabiha, which sometimes act "in concert" with government forces, he said.

He said a fuller investigation was needed before he could comment on that, and called on Syria to allow free access to U.N. investigators.

The killings have emerged as a potential turning point in Syria's conflict, prompting the strongest condemnation yet from Russia, a staunch Syrian ally.

International envoy Kofi Annan met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, Syria's state new agency reported without giving further details.

Annan is trying to salvage a peace plan for Syria based on a cease-fire that was supposed to begin on April 12 but has never really taken hold, casting doubt on the rest of the plan.

Anti-regime activist posted videos online of explosions in the villages of Houla, dismembered bodies lying in the streets, then row upon row of dead laid out before being buried in a mass grave. Some of the videos showed dozens of dead children, some with gaping wounds.

Syria Massacre Victims In Houla Were Mostly Executed, Says UN

 

[rhodescholar]

Syria Massacre Victims In Houla Were Mostly Executed, Says UN

Ass-ad has signed his and his family's death warrant, it's a matter of when, not if.

 

[Trajan]

US, Israeli and Saudi-funded Terrorists Destabilizing Syria Now Under Fire in Lebanon

Source link:http://orientalreview.org/2012/05/15/us-israeli-and-saudi-funded-terrorists-destabilizing-syria-now-under-fire-in-lebanon
/

According to a 2007 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection,” the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia had been assembling a region-wide army of extremist-mercenaries to battle Hezbollah in Lebanon, destabilize and overthrow Syria, and create a united front against Iran. The forces recruited for this effort would come from the ranks of the CIA-created “Arab foreign legion,” Al Qaeda itself extremist groups fresh back from fighting US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, including listed terror organizations like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) from Libya.

Hersh’s 2007 report exposed the groundwork for the very violence unfolding in Syria today, and now Lebanon. Forces to destabilize Syria were primarily to be staged in northern Lebanon, as explained in the article, and indeed the heaviest fighting over the last year has been seen in the Syrian city of Homs, just across the border from northern Lebanon. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his government have been, since the beginning of the violence, attempting to illustrate just this – explained in detail in 2007, and demonstratively being carried out today, with responsibility for deadly bombings being claimed by terrorists, the Pentagon itself admitting Al Qaeda is present in Syria, and reports indicating foreign fighters, weapons, and cash are flowing over Syria’s borders.

Seymour Hersh's article: Annals of National Security: The Redirection : The New Yorker

Syria - The REAL Story -- MUST SEE - part 1 - YouTube

Syria - The REAL Story -- MUST SEE -- CIA & MOSSAD Death Squads Exposed - YouTube

ole SeeMore had us bombing iran back inotr the stone age too, well its been what, 7 years since that revelation....and?

 

[Trajan]

the Obama way to manage Foreign affairs...
Leading from behind baby!!




Updated May 29, 2012, 8:57 a.m. ET

Western Nations Expel Syrian Diplomats

Several Western countries said they were expelling Syrian diplomats in protest at the killing of civilians, including the deaths of 108 people shot in their homes last week.

The move comes as Western powers attempt to press Russia, a strong backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to support a negotiated political change to force Mr. Assad from power.

Western Nations Expel Syrian Diplomats - WSJ.com

 

[High_Gravity]

You know the shits hitting the fan if Russia is condemning Syria.

Russia Condemns Syria Over Massacre Of 108 At Houla

BEIRUT -- A weekend massacre of more than 100 people emerged as a potential turning point in the Syrian crisis Monday, galvanizing even staunch ally Russia to take an unusually hard line against President Bashar Assad's government.

Analysts said Russia may be warning Assad that he needs to change course or lose Moscow's support, which has been a key layer of protection for the Syrian government during the uprising that began in March 2011.

Russia has grown increasingly critical of Damascus in recent months, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's latest comments were unusually strong. Although he said opposition forces have terrorists among them, he put the blame for 15 months of carnage primarily on Assad's government.

"The government bears the main responsibility for what is going on," Lavrov said in Moscow following a meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "Any government in any country bears responsibility for the security of its citizens."

Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Lavrov's comments suggest Russia may be backing away from its long-standing support for Damascus.

"Bashar Assad is driving himself and Russia into a corner," Malashenko said. "Bashar has definitely gotten the sense that he may lose Russia's sympathy, and he may step back a bit."

It is not clear whether Assad's forces were exclusively to blame for the slaughter of 108 people Friday in Houla, a collection of poor farming villages in Homs province. The United Nations said 49 children and 34 women were among the dead; some had bullet holes through their heads.

The U.N. Security Council blamed Syrian forces for artillery and tank shelling of residential areas, but it did not clearly state who was responsible for the close-range shooting deaths and "severe physical abuse" of civilians.

Activists from the area said the army pounded the villages with artillery and clashed with local rebels. They said pro-government gunmen later stormed the area, doing the bulk of the killing by gunning down men in the streets and stabbing women and children in their homes.

The Syrian government rejected that account entirely, saying soldiers were attacked in their bases and fought back in self-defense without leaving their bases.

Russia blamed both the government and the rebels for the Houla massacre.

"Both sides have obviously had a hand in the deaths of innocent people, including several dozen women and children," Lavrov said. "This area is controlled by the rebels, but it is also surrounded by the government troops."

He said Russia has no interest in propping up Assad but wants Syria to guide its own transition under a plan brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan.

"We don't support the Syrian government; we support Kofi Annan's plan," Lavrov said.

Russia Condemns Syria Over Massacre Of 108 At Houla

 

[Trajan]

wheres the left in this country on this? seriously?

if this were a Turkish bath house getting shut down in Plano Tx. due to some local morals code they'd be wearing out the keys on their KB's pounding out the outrage......

 

[Trajan]

You know the shits hitting the fan if Russia is condemning Syria.

yea but it won't mean squat. we fucked putin over the libyan gig, he'll throw a few bones like this but he will never sign on doing anything about it........

 

[High_Gravity]

wheres the left in this country on this? seriously?

if this were a Turkish bath house getting shut down in Plano Tx. due to some local morals code they'd be wearing out the keys on their KB's pounding out the outrage......

I don't think a diplomatic solution is going to work in this instance, Assad needs to fall like Gaddafi did but I don't think any country in the UN has the will to go in there.

 

[High_Gravity]

You know the shits hitting the fan if Russia is condemning Syria.

yea but it won't mean squat. we fucked putin over the libyan gig, he'll throw a few bones like this but he will never sign on doing anything about it........

I don't see anyone doing anything about this, nothings going to change unless some international involvement is put in.

 

[Trajan]

wheres the left in this country on this? seriously?

if this were a Turkish bath house getting shut down in Plano Tx. due to some local morals code they'd be wearing out the keys on their KB's pounding out the outrage......

I don't think a diplomatic solution is going to work in this instance, Assad needs to fall like Gaddafi did but I don't think any country in the UN has the will to go in there.

Obama is on it though, notice the coalition building going on, notice the aircraft carrier in place off the Lebanese coast that could with Turkish bases and air assets transferred from nato etc. easily enforce a no fly zone?

Nope, me neither....

 

[High_Gravity]

wheres the left in this country on this? seriously?

if this were a Turkish bath house getting shut down in Plano Tx. due to some local morals code they'd be wearing out the keys on their KB's pounding out the outrage......

I don't think a diplomatic solution is going to work in this instance, Assad needs to fall like Gaddafi did but I don't think any country in the UN has the will to go in there.

Obama is on it though, notice the coalition building going on, notice the aircraft carrier in place off the Lebanese coast that could with Turkish bases and air assets transferred from nato etc. easily enforce a no fly zone?

Nope, me neither....

Syria is a hot spot though, I don't know if I necessarily want our boys going in there, but I don't think anything short of international intervention will bring down Assad.

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Diplomats Expelled By Governments Around The World

PARIS -- Governments around the world expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats Tuesday, an unusual, coordinated blow to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime following a gruesome massacre that the United Nations said involved close-range shootings of scores of children and parents in their homes.

The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and the Netherlands took action Tuesday against Syrian diplomats. Britain's foreign secretary said the countries involved in Tuesday's expulsions would also push for tougher sanctions against Syria.

The moves came after the killings Friday in Houla, a collection of farming villages in Syria's Homs province – one of the deadliest single events in a 15-month-old uprising against Assad that has killed thousands.

A U.N. report Tuesday said 49 children and 34 women were among the 108 people who died, but it did not decisively say who carried out most of the killings.

"This is the most effective way we've got of sending a message of revulsion of what has happened in Syria," Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said in Canberra. In a statement, he called the Houla killings a "hideous and brutal crime" and said Australia would not engage with the Syrian government unless it abides by a U.N. cease-fire plan.

Diplomats at the U.N., the European Union and the Arab League have been working since the Houla massacre to coordinate new action against Syria's government, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

The expulsions up the pressure on Syrian allies such as Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to Germany and France this week and is likely to come under even greater criticism of his Syria-supportive stance.

"We have to continue our work with the Russians," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. "We will continue to discuss this with Russia. Russia has particular leverage on the regime and therefore has a particular role in this crisis."

Hague said that the situation in Syria is more complicated than what international powers faced in Libya last year, when the United Nations approved intervention against dictator Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that the charge d'affaires at the Syrian Embassy has been given 72 hours to leave the United States. Syria has not had an ambassador in the U.S. since the previous envoy left last year to take another post.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. holds "the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives."

Syria Diplomats Expelled By Governments Around The World

 

[rhodescholar]

wheres the left in this country on this? seriously?

if this were a Turkish bath house getting shut down in Plano Tx. due to some local morals code they'd be wearing out the keys on their KB's pounding out the outrage......

Forget the left, they're worthless, discredited trash. If an Israeli barber did an uneven bowl cut on a 6-year old arab kid - within 10 minutes ISM, AI, HRW, UN, EU, and the US State Dept. would issue condemnations, with Turkey threatening another flotilla.

The left in this country are fucking garbage, the syrian people were crying out for help and support ages ago, marching peacefully and chanting "peaceful, peaceful" - yet the anti-war/far left crowd of assholes in the US: code stink, international answer, CAIR, and all of the others did not utter a fucking peep.

The Left in the US is worth less than the piece of dogshit.

 

[rhodescholar]

Syria is a hot spot though, I don't know if I necessarily want our boys going in there, but I don't think anything short of international intervention will bring down Assad.

NATO will be in there after the next massacre, figure another 2-4 weeks' time.

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria is a hot spot though, I don't know if I necessarily want our boys going in there, but I don't think anything short of international intervention will bring down Assad.

NATO will be in there after the next massacre, figure another 2-4 weeks' time.

So far 0 countries have come forward with any kind of operations, to take out the air defense systems, establish a no fly zone, nothing, there is a Russian Naval Base in Syria also, you really think their just going to sit there if NATO starts bombing Assads troops?