Chemical " Fog Of War " for Syrian chemical weapon use continues as the Us slouches toward supplying arms an soldiers to take down Assad .....

http://www.larsschall.com/2013/04/29/poison-gas-attack-in-syria-by-insurgents/

Poison gas attack in Syria by insurgents?

April 29th, 2013 No Comments

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Who can benefit from the use of chemical weapons in Syria? One of Europe’s most outstanding experts on the Middle East, Professor Guenter Meyer, takes a look into this essential question in a counter-position to the completely one-sided press comments on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

By Prof. Guenter Meyer, Translation Lars Schall

In addition to the following article we also would like to recommend to read an exclusive in-depth interview with Prof Guenter Meyer for Asia Times Online related to the Syrian civil war and its international dimensions, “On Syria and way beyond“.

Professor Dr Guenter Meyer has for almost 40 years carried out empirical research on the social, economic and political development in Arab countries and has published more than 150 books and articles, especially on Syria, Egypt, Yemen and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. He directs the Center for Research on the Arab World at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, which is one of the world’s leading information centers for the dissemination of news and research on the Middle East. Professor Meyer is chairman of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), president of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies (EURAMES), and chairman of the International Advisory Council of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES).

Poison gas attack in Syria by insurgents?

by Prof. Dr. Guenter Meyer

The intelligence services of the United States, Britain, France and Israel are in agreement that small amounts of the nerve agent sarin have been used in the Syrian civil war. And most of the Western media are also in agreement that the Syrian regime must be responsible for it because it has extensive stocks of chemical weapons.

But who can benefit from the use of chemical weapons? Certainly not the Syrian government! It is highly unlikely that the regime would in the present situation take such a measure, which is irrelevant for the achievement of military objectives and with the crossing of the “red line” set by President Obama would only provoke a massive intervention by Western states. The use of lethal nerve gas is exactly the signal for which the insurgents have been waiting to reinforce their demands for weapons supplies from abroad. Thus, it is obvious that a chemical attack solely benefits the insurgents, while the position of the Syrian regime deteriorates seriously.

Already in June 2012, there were detailed press reports in the Arab media, whereupon poison gas attacks were prepared by the rebels in Syria, for which then the Assad government should be held responsible. Therefore, the arguments are quite convincing that the recent poison gas inserts were staged by opposition forces. This is intended to put pressure on the Obama administration and NATO so that finally even officially weapons can be delivered to the insurgents.

The reference to the arsenal of chemical weapons that the Syrian government possesses is not an argument against nerve gas used by the insurgents. Given the extremely limited local use, the probability is high that it was the opposition who has carried out the poison gas attack on the village of Khan al-Assal north of Aleppo, in order to make the government responsible. An attack by government forces would be completely absurd, because this settlement was on the side of the regime. The vast majority of the local population are Shiites who are strong supporters of the Syrian government and are threatened by the Sunni insurgent. It has also not even been disputed by the rebels that soldiers of the regular Syrian army were among the victims of the chemical attack. What sense would it make for the regime to attack a settlement with nerve gas which is hold by government forces and inhabited by supporters of Bashar al-Assad?

Therefore, the recent statement by the Syrian information minister is quite credible that the sarin grenade that was used in the attack was brought from nearby Turkey to the area occupied by opposition forces and fired from there to the village. A direct involvement of Turkish forces – and thus of NATO troops – cannot be ruled out. Media reports have suggested that Turkish troops are fighting in the same region together with the Free Syrian Army and the jihadists of the Nusrah Front in order to take over the strategic Ming airfield, which is so far still held by government troops.

The poison gas attack would precisely match the strategy of the “massacre marketing” that was practiced by the rebels during the civil war over and over. By doing this, oppositional sources spread information that the government forces, in particular the Shabiha, are responsible for the gruesome killings of civilians, including women and children. It is obvious that in many cases opposition forces committed brutal crimes against civilians only to blame the government for those massacres. With this strategy, they tried to manipulate public opinion and influence political decisions against the Syrian regime. It is likely that the use of poison gas revives exactly this familiar pattern again.

It is very important to keep in mind that the Assad government has called for the immediate deployment of a UN Commission of Experts, in order to prove that the insurgents are responsible for this crime. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, however, the UN Secretariat was only willing to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria if the regime in Damascus would accept a permanent mechanism of inspection of the entire Syrian territory – from the Syrian point of view a completely exaggerated and under present conditions unrealizable demand. So it’s reasonable to assume that the so-called “Friends of Syria”, which stand for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, used their influence in the UN Secretariat to prevent this way that opposition forces are held responsible for the dead and injured of the poison gas attack.

Against this background, the hesitant attitude of President Obama is legitimate, who refuses yet to comply with the particular requirements of the Republicans and the Syrian opposition to supply arms and to establish a no-fly zone. After the invasion of Iraq was based on false claims of a threat of weapons of mass destruction, the international reputation of the United States would be damaged even more if it turns out that a tougher crackdown on the Syrian government is also based on false accusations.

For now, it just seems proven that poison gas was used on a small scale in Syria. However, there’s no clear evidence whether the government or the insurgents are responsible. All rational considerations, however, indicate that this crime can be attributed to the opposition.

http://www.infowars.com/former-chief-of-staff-syrian-chemical-weapon-narrative-could-be-an-israeli-false-flag/

Former Chief of Staff: Syrian Chemical Weapon Narrative Could Be An Israeli False Flag

Jurriaan Maessen
Infowars.com
May 3, 2013

Former chief of staff to Colin Powell, Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, told the Young Turks the early “indications” of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime could point to “an Israeli false flag operation”. Wilkerson:

“We don’t know what the chain of custody is. This could’ve been an Israeli false flag operation, it could’ve been an opposition in Syria… or it could’ve been an actual use by [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, but we certainly don’t know with the evidence we’ve been given.”

This statement is revealing not only in the fact that the information is at best dubious, but also that false flag operations are by no means considered unthinkable or outlandish by the former Bush administration official as a much-used geopolitical tool. As former chief of staff to Colin Powell,Wilkerson would know.

On April 30, Kurt Nimmo wrote an article about Foreign Policy writer John Hudson, portraying Dennis Kucinich as a conspiracy theorist for suggesting that allegations Syria used chemical weapons are part of a manufactured pretext for war.

“John Hudson”, Nimmo points out, “who writes on national security issues for the magazine, believes Kucinich may have been influenced by Infowars.com and Wikileaks.”

If Hudson is correct, not only the former Ohio congressman is being influenced by Infowars. Colin Powell’s former chief of staff appears to get his information exclusively from Infowars, never mind his insider knowledge in regards to covert warfare techniques employed by intelligence agencies. Another person who probably doesn’t exclusively rely on Inforwars.com for his information on the reality of false flag ops is 30 year CIA veteran and current Brookings senior fellow, Bruce Riedel. In his articleAlgeria a Complex Ally in War Against al Qaeda, Riedel gives a description of the Algerian counter-terrorism unit DRS and its methods, including the use of false flag operations:

“(The) DRS is (…) known for its tactic of infiltrating terrorist groups, creating “false flag” terrorists and trying to control them. Rumors have associated the DRS in the past with the Malian warlord Iyad Ag Ghali, head of Ansar al Dine AQIM’s ally in Mali, and even with Mukhtar Belmukhtar, the al-Qaeda terrorist who engineered the attack on the natural gas plant.”

In my original June 29, 2009 article titled Brookings Publication mentions possibility of ‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion I cover false flag proposals made by the Brookings Institute in Iranian context, again, as a pretext to further a geopolitical agenda by the West. In their Which Path To Persia document the Brookings people openly considered a “provocation” to escalate things to the point of armed conflict:

“(…) it is not impossible”, they write, “that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocation move (…), the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.”

The Brookings document also contemplates “something on the order of an Iranian-backed 9/11, in which the plane wore Iranian markings and Tehran boasted about its sponsorship.(…). The entire question of “options” become irrelevant at that point: what American president could refrain from an invasion after the Iranians had just killed several thousand American civilians in an attack in the United States itself?”

In September of 2012, a member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) think tank also proposed a false flag operation to kick off a military conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The think tank’s director of research Patrick Clawson stated:

“(…) if (…) the Iranians aren’t going to compromise, it would be best if somebody else started the war.”

Jurriaan Maessen’s article first appeared at ExplosiveReports.Com.

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/05/02/hagel-us-considering-arming-syria-rebels/

Hagel: US Considering Arming Syria Rebels

Insists This Is Only One Option Being Considered

by Jason Ditz, May 02, 2013

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Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel became the first US official to admit that the administration is “rethinking” its previous decision not to arm Syria’s rebels directly, though he insisted that no decision had been made and this was just one option being considered.

This follows days of much less official commentson the matter, with anonymous officials doing most of the talking, capped off with yesterday’s comments from White House spokesman Jay Carney that he “declined to deny” that the rethink was taking place, at the time the only on-record comment.

In the past the US has refused to directly send “lethal aid” to the rebels, but has sent a lot of other gear and facilitated weapons shipments from other (mostly Saudi Arabia and the GCC) nations.

The shift reportedly reflects President Obama’s desire to get more “aggressive” in backing regime change in Syria, but comes as other nations that were more gung-ho originally are backing off the stance, fearing the large al-Qaeda-backed portions of the rebel force can’t be trusted with better weapons.

Israel Warns US: Don’t Arm Syrian Rebels Without Proper Vetting

Reflects Similar Statements Given to Britain

by Jason Ditz, May 02, 2013

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With the news that the Obama Administration is seriously considering reversing its position and directly arming Syria’s rebels, Israeli officials are cautioning them to onlydo so after they’ve vetted the rebels they’re arming.

“We ask that those groups be carefully vetted,” said IsraeliAmbassador Michael Oren, and while that seemingly would go without saying, the US has a long history of arming dubious groups and Syria’s situation is so complex that even nations previously on board with the arming thing, like Britain, havebacked off because they think it’s just too dangerous.

Oren’s comments reflect similar warnings to Britain last month, before their change of heart, and it’s not hard to see why, with the more Islamist rebel factions openly talking about spreading their jihad across the region, with Israel one of many neighbors that has a big target on its back.

Though in theory the US is already vetting these rebels before it trains them in Jordan, that has worked out poorly and left Islamist factions in control over most of theJordanian border. A decision to say, provide the rebels with anti-aircraft weapons and then watch them attack civilian airliners from neighboring countries, something even the “moderate” FSA has pledged to do, is going to be much harder to take back, and while Israel may be more public in its warnings, it is something that all of Syria’s neighbors are clearly worried about.

A Terrible Idea: Arming the Syrian Rebels

John Glaser, May 02, 2013

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There are rumors going around that President Obama “is preparing to send lethal weaponry to the Syrian opposition,” although he has said no such thing publicly.

Nevertheless, the rumors are sparking a new debate on the wisdom of directly arming the Syrian rebels. I say “directly” because Washington has been arming the rebels through proxies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar for a very long time as it is. In fact, just acknowledging this should pull the rug out from under those who think arming the rebels directly is even remotely a good idea.

Simply increasing the amount of weapons the Syrian rebels receive will prolong the conflict and probably make things a lot worse before they get better. Indeed, foreign meddling is a big reason the conflict has gone on so long in the first place.

“A continuous supply of weapons to both sides—whether from Russia, Iran or the Gulf States—only maintains the parties’ perception that fighting is a better option than negotiating,” Dr. Florence Gaub, a researcher at the NATO Defense College, writes at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This explains why, in terms of statistical probability, an external supply of weapons lengthens a civil war.”

“Syria indeed has become an arena for outside meddling, but the meddling has been far more effective at sustaining the fighting than ending it,” said a report last year from the International Crisis Group.

So if rebels get more of the same kinds of weapons from the US that they’ve been getting from the Gulf states, no positive appreciable change will come because the facts on the ground will not change. But what if the Obama administration sends what policy wonks call “decisive” aid, like antitank weapons and surface-to-air missiles? Will that tip the balance in favor of the rebels and against the Assad regime?

Probably not. As Wired‘s Spencer Ackerman reports “few strategists consider that realistic. Assad has a variety of advantages — an adaptive military estimated at over 50,000; complete air superiority; chemical weapons — that he will retain even if Obama opens a new arms pipeline.” The rebels can’t overcome those advantages with newer and better weapons, according to Ackerman.

Beyond making interventionists feel better, boosting arms to the rebels won’t do anything but make the situation worse. And history bears this out. As Prof. Eva Bellin and Prof. Peter Krause in the Middle East Brief from Brandeis University found in their study of the Syria situation, “The distillation of historical experience with civil war and insurgency, along with a sober reckoning of conditions on the ground in Syria, make clear that limited intervention of this sort will not serve the moral impulse that animates it. To the contrary, it is more likely to amplify the harm that it seeks to eliminate by prolonging a hurting stalemate.”

These are the strategic reasons not to directly arm the rebels. But there are other reasons, like, for example, that the rebels can’t be trusted.

It’s no secret that the strongest fighting force in the rebel opposition is Jabhat al-Nusra, an off-shoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Do we want to help bring them to power? Beyond the ties to officially designated terrorist organizations, many of the rebels have committed  war crimes. Is Washington prepared to back these people?

Advocates of intervention like to claim that there are at least some rebels of an acceptable caliber, who haven’t committed crimes, don’t have ties to terrorist groups, and want a secular political transition post-Assad. But realists don’t buy it.

“Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of,” The New York Times reported last week.

For those of us trying to look beyond the basest, most immediate policy satisfaction, what happens after we arm the rebels is important. Who would come to power after Assad? Where will the weapons go if and when the fighting dies down? In Libya, an influx of weapons and fighters had repercussions across the region, destabilizing neighboring states and bolstering jihadists across north Africa. Are the interventionists really so sure similar unintended consequences won’t happen in Syria – which, by the way, is far more complicated than Libya?

The most immediate consequences of directly arming the rebels are all bad. But what’s worse is that there is little chance, once Obama takes this escalatory step, of avoiding a deeper involvement in the conflict. Mission creep will come and the advocates for “limited intervention” will soon become advocates for boots on the ground or an all-out bombing campaign that will take considerable resources in blood and treasure. A new US war would precipitate a descent into sectarian conflict on the order of post-Saddam Iraq and would spark a new jihadist cause in the broader Middle East, and potentially a regional war between states.