Al-Qaeda's air force still on stand-by

THE ROVING EYE Al-Qaeda's air force still on stand-by By Pepe Escobar It was 12 years ago today. Historians will register that, according to the official narrative, 19 Arabs armed with box cutters and minimal flying skills pledged to a transnational Terror Inc turned jets into missiles to attack the US homeland, fooling the most elaborate defense system on Earth. Fast forward to 2013. Here's a 15-second version of the President of the United States (POTUS) address on Syria, one day before the 12th anniversary of 9/11: Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake. The United States is "the anchor of global security". Although the United States military "doesn't do pin pricks", we still carry the burden to punish regimes that would flout long-held conventions banning the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. That's why I have decided to pursue an unlimited, targeted military strike against Washington DC. For countless global citizens, this alternative version predictably sounds as far-fetched as the official version of what happened 12 years ago. The fog of war obscures in mysterious ways. But the fact remains that the current, "reluctant" (farcical) Emperorcontinues to stake his - and his nation's - "credibility" on a "limited", "kinetic" operation to reinforce his self-defined red line against chemical weapons. Lose face, will travel  In theory, the Russian plan of having Damascus surrender its chemical weapons arsenal works because of its inbuilt Chinese wisdom; nobody loses face - from Obama and the US Congress to the European Union, the UN and the even more farcical "Arab" League, which is essentially a Saudi Arabian colony. Although Obama is on a media blitzkrieg stealing the credit for it, Asia Times Online has confirmed that the plan was elaborated by Damascus, Tehran and Moscow last week - after a visit to Damascus by the head of the national security committee of the Iranian Majlis (parliament), Alaeddin Boroujerdi. US Secretary of State John Kerry's now famous "slip" provided the opening. So, essentially, it's this "axis" - Damascus, Tehran and Moscow - that is helping Obama to crawl out of his self-inflicted abyss. Needless to say, that is absolutely unbearable for the plutocrats in charge of unleashing the new Syria (lethal) production. A brand new propaganda/manufactured hysteria campaign must be unfurled to justify war. And that's exactly what the Anglo-French-American axis is working on. No wonder the French proposal for a new UN Security Council resolution falls under the UN's Chapter 7 - which would explicitly allow the use of force against Damascus in case of non-compliance. As it is, this resolution will inevitably be vetoed by Russia and China. And that will be the new pretext for war. The (farcical) emperor may easily invoke plausible deniability, stress he made "every effort" to avoid a military conflict, and then convince skeptics in the US Congress this is the only way to go. And to think that a perfectly sound development of the Damascus-Tehran-Moscow plan is at hand. Syria's chemical weapons may be transferred to Russian - or European - supervision. Syria joins the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and ratifies the Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC). OPCW inspectors start working in coordination with the UN. Every expert knows the whole process will take years. Damascus has already declared it's ready to join the OPCW and abide by the CWC. So Damascus does not need a UN Security Council resolution forcing it to do what it wants to do. Any serious, comprehensive UN resolution on chemical weapons across the Middle East would have to include Israel's chemical weapons. Note that nobody, absolutely nobody, is talking about Israel's vast arsenal of chemical, not to mention nuclear weapons. The sound path, though, will not be followed - because Washington and its barking poodles afflicted with Sykes-Picot wet dreams, London and Paris, are already blocking it. Fly me to the (war) moon  There are no signs that the Obama administration is prepared to even reconsider the yo-yo "Obama doctrine" all across the Middle East. This would imply dumping the Saudi-Israeli axis and making a concerted effort for the success of the Geneva II conference, the only possible diplomatic solution for the Syrian tragedy. I have argued before that the (farcical) emperor is just a paperboy - a docile employee. Those who are paying for the upcoming lethal production, as in the House of Saud, or cheering in the sidelines, as in the Israel lobby, simply won't give up. The House of Saud wants regime change, now. The Israel lobby/AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and its masters in Tel Aviv want a massive spillover of the Syria war into Lebanon to entangle Hezbollah. Financial Masters of the Universe, significant sectors of the industrial-military-security Orwellian/Panopticon complex, and Western-propped petro-monarchies want an independent, secular Arab republic profitably integrated in their monopoly. The problem is the unilateral "kinetic" whatever may be too "limited" to satisfy the Saudi-Israeli axis and most of all the financial Masters of the Universe, and illegal enough to qualify as a war crime. At least there is a counter-power. Asia Times Online has confirmed that an outstanding meeting will take place later this week in Kyrgyzstan, during the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Picture Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani together, in the same room, discussing their common position on Syria. Iran is an SCO observer - and may soon be admitted as a full member. This is what the Anglo-French-American axis is up against. And that brings us back to 12 years ago - and the myth that aluminum jets are able to penetrate the thick steel perimeters of the Twin Towers and kerosene is capable of instantaneously melting steel perimeters and steel cores into fluffy steel dust.Check this out and draw the necessary conclusions. As for that "evil", transnational Terror Inc, it didn't even have a name when Jihad International hopefuls were being recruited in the early 1980s by assorted Islamic charities, and then trained and funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. One day the database was finally named - by the US - as "al-Qaeda". Or, more appropriately, "al-CIAeda". They were elevated to Ultimate Evil status. They did 9/11. They reproduced like rabbits from Mali to Indonesia. Now the CIA works side-by-side with them - as it did in Libya. And eagerly they await the US Air Force to clear their road to Damascus. Hey, it's just (war) business. Allahu Akbar. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Syrian Children Kidnapped By Rebels Identified As Gas Victims By Obama Administration (Video)

by Steve Foley on September 8, 2013

By Susan Duclos

The horrifying pictures of dead children being used by the Obama administration to justify an attack on Syria, with the claim that the Assad regime carried out the chemical attacks that killed those children, while emotionally heartbreaking, do not tell the story of those children and do not tell you the main point the Obama administration is trying to coverup.

Those children were kidnapped over a week earlier, before they were slaughtered……. by the Obama backed Syrian rebels.

August 11, 2013 a report discussed the rebels attacking the Latakia village and Sheikh Mohammed Reda Hatem, an Alawite religious leader in Latakia said  ”Until now 150 Alawites from the villages have been kidnapped. There are women and children among them. We have lost all contact with them.”

Some of those children were found less than two weeks later, in Ghouta, photos below:

The wide distribution of satellite channel images of victims allowed Alawite families near Latakia to recognize their children who had been abducted two weeks prior by the “rebels.” This identification was long in coming because there are few survivors of the massacre by the allies of the United States, the United Kingdom and France in loyalist villages where more than a thousand bodies of civilians were discovered in mass graves.

The children do not correspond to a sample of the population: they are all almost of the same age and have light hair. They are not accompanied by their grieving families.

They are in fact children who were abducted by jihadists two weeks before in Alawite villages in the surroundings of Latakia, 200km away from Ghouta.

Barack Obama’s narrative is unraveling as the truth of who murdered these children is being exposed.
The Obama backed Syrian rebels are slaughtering these children, pretending it was Assad that did it, so Obama can claim justification in attacking the Assad regime.

36 People Recommended This

Obama's CIA company routinely helped to overthrow foreign governments

Obama's CIA company routinely helped to overthrow foreign governments

Documents uncovered from CIA archives by WMR describe how Business International Corporation (BIC), the Central Intelligence Agency front company for whom Barack Obama worked from 1983 to 1985, routinely helped the CIA to overthrow foreign governments, including that of Australia in 1975.
Obama's early experience in working for a CIA front that identified governments ripe for ouster helps to explain his eagerness to overthrow Syria's President Bashar al Assad and his past enthusiasm for George Soros/Gene Sharp-inspired "themed" rebellions against Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. 

CIA archives contain a 1983 interview by the publication CounterSpy with Australian Labor Party politician Joan Coxsedge, co-author with Ken Coldicutt and Gerry Harant of the book "Rooted in Secrecy: the Clandestine Element in Australian Politics." 

Coxsedge maintains that the CIA, assisted by Business International Corporation, engineered the ouster of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975 by longtime CIA asset and extreme right-winger, Governor General John Kerr. 

Whitlam and his government had established close ties with communist and Arab nations but its questioning of the role of the National Security Agency (NSA) bases in Alice Springs and Nurunggar and its goal of returning control of Australian mineral resources from multinational corporations to the Australian people marked it for ouster by the CIA and Kerr. Coxsedge stated that Business International actually represented "20 of the most powerful multinationals" operating in Australia and it and the CIA coordinated their efforts to oust Whitlam and his government from office. In anticipation of a move against Whitlam, President Richard Nixon in 1973 appointed career diplomat and suspected CIA asset Marshall Green as ambassador to Canberra.

Kerr, the official representative of Queen Elizabeth, dismissed Whitlam's government on November 11, 1975 outside of the normal electoral process. The Australian armed forces and police were put on alert because Kerr, the Business International executives, and the CIA expected a strong reaction from the Australian people. The "constitutional coup" took place without one Molotov cocktail being thrown and not one labor strike taking place.

Kerr worked closely with U.S. intelligence during World War II and during the Cold War he was an important member of the CIA-connected Australian Association of Cultural Freedom, a branch of the CIA's global Congress for Cultural Freedom. Kerr was also the first president of Law Asia, founded by the CIA-linked Asia Foundation. The Asia Foundation funded many of the activities at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, including the guest house where Barack Obama, Sr. and Lolo Soetoro, Obama's father and step-father, respectively, stayed during their CIA-provided college education. The Asia Foundation also funded Ann Dunham Soetoro's clandestine activities in Indonesia after the CIA's ouster of President Sukarno.



Although Whitlam was replaced by conservative Malcolm Fraser, it was Labor Party Party politician Bob Hawke who had been groomed by Langley even before Hawke was elected to Parliament. Coxsedge reported on a speech in Melbourne in April 1981 given by Allan Carroll, Business International's Director of Client Services for Australia and Southeast Asia to an elite group of corporate executives. Carroll said he predicted accurately that Hawke would come to power as prime minister and that it was Carroll's
own actions that made that happen.

A CIA "National Intelligence Daily" dated March 10, 1976, stated that "Hawke is the best qualified candidate to succeed Whitlam" as leader of the Labor Party. The CIA document shows that Hawke was "talent spotted" at an early stage, likely while an operative and later as president of the Australian Confederation of Trade Unions (ACTU), where he would eventually purge from the leadership ranks known and suspected Communists.

Hawke ran for a seat in the Australian House in 1980 and won. After securing Labor Party leader Bill Hayden's resignation in a backroom Labor caucus coup in 1983, Hawke became Labor Party leader and defeated Fraser in the general election later that year, becoming Prime Minister. Hawke was always identified with the pro-Israeli wing of the Australian Labor Party and Whitlam's ouster as Labor Party leader in 1977, after his loss of the prime ministership in 1975, was blamed on a dirty trick engineered by Hawke and other pro-Israeli Laborites to spread the rumor that Whitlam had received campaign cash from Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

In 1983, while Coxsedge was in in the United States recounting the role of Business International Corporation in overthrowing Whitlam in 1975, Barack Obama, Jr. was not only working for the company in Manhattan but was reportedly in a two-year relationship with Genevieve Cook, an Australian diplomat's daughter who he met in Jakarta when the two lived there as children in the post-CIA coup years in the late 1960s. Obama's step-father, Lolo, served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Indonesian Army where he helped in clean-up operations against Communists and their sympathizers. Meanwhile, his wife and Obama's mother Ann was fingering suspected Communists in Javanese villages as part of the CIA's Operation PROSYMS. Most of the suspected Communists turned over to Lolo and his Army friends were executed by military and paramilitary teams advised by the CIA and U.S. Special Operations personnel.

Cook's father, Michael Cook, was appointed as the director general of Australia's Office of National Assessments (ONA) intelligence office by Fraser, the man who took over from Whitlam after his ouster by the CIA-Business International team. Cook later became Australian ambassador to Washington from 1989 to 1993. In 1983, Genevieve Cook was teaching at a Quaker school in Brooklyn while Obama was working across the East River for Business International at its office near United National headquarters. Genevieve Cook's mother, Helen Ibbitson, had divorced Michael Cook and re-married an American, Philip Jessup, Jr. the counsel of the National Gallery of Art. Ibbitson's exertise on Khmer culture in Cambodia mirrored that of Ann Dunham's knowledge of Javanese history and culture in Indonesia. Both countries were hotbeds for CIA and ASIO activity, especially in the 1960s.

The CIA's International Operations Division was active in using art specialists, jazz musicians, journalists, fiction writers, and animated filmmakers to penetrate foreign organizations with similar cultural interests. Although the program was viewed with skepticism by Presidents like Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, it gained ground with the more culture-minded John F. Kennedy.

Jessup, whose father was American diplomat Philip Jessup, Sr. and a key player in the post-war Bretton Woods conference that led to the establishment of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, had been in the "art business" in Indonesia during the Suharto regime. Such lines of business in Third World countries wracked by coups and revolutions were often CIA non-official cover (NOC) contrivances. Ann Dunham's career in Indonesia and Pakistan was closely linked to projects funded by the World Bank and IMF.

Green was the central point of contact for the CIA and Business International coup plotters in Australia. Coxsedge reported how a minister of Whitlam's government was threatened by Green in the minister's own office in Canberra. Green said that if the Whitlam government handed control of U.S. subsidiaries in Australia to Australians, "we would move in." Green was also the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia during the bloody CIA-engineered coup that ousted President Sukarno and replaced him with the fascist autocrat, General Suharto. For two years, 1967 and 1969, Green was Dunham's nominal boss at the U.S. embassy in Jakarta. Green would have also undoubtedly had contact with Cook at the Australian embassy in Jakarta since the two missions coordinated their coup planning activities through the respective CIA and ASIO stations in the Indonesian capital.

Ironically, in 1979 Green joined the board of the Population Crisis Committee, an NGO dedicated to halting overpopulation. While Green was the U.S. ambassador in Jakarta, it is estimated that between 800,000 to 1 million Indonesian Communists and ethnic Chinese were killed by Suharto's CIA-backed forces.

Obama appears to have crafted his predilection for ousting governments while serving as a CIA apprentice at Business International, the CIA's major partner is overthrowing governments. Gough Whitlam and Joan Coxsedge are still alive, Whitlam at the age of 97. Obama's urge to attack and oust governments from Libya and Tunisia and Egypt to Syria is nothing new to them. They've seen it all done before by individuals with whom Obama grew up and worked with from an early age.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals For Sanity Warn Obama On Syrian Intel

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) 

SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?

Precedence: IMMEDIATE

 We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”

 We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandum immediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.

The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond … the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today.

Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you.

We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.

Intelligence Summary or Political Ploy?

That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.”

This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”

Déjà Fraud: This brings a flashback to the famous Downing Street Minutes of July 23, 2002, on Iraq, The minutes record the Richard Dearlove, then head of British intelligence, reporting to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials that President Bush had decided to remove Saddam Hussein through military action that would be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” Dearlove had gotten the word from then-CIA Director George Tenet whom he visited at CIA headquarters on July 20.

The discussion that followed centered on the ephemeral nature of the evidence, prompting Dearlove to explain: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” We are concerned that this is precisely what has happened with the “intelligence” on Syria.

The Intelligence

There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.

According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.

We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.

In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.

Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.

At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government

The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.

Cui bono? 

That the various groups trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have ample incentive to get the U.S. more deeply involved in support of that effort is clear. Until now, it has not been quite as clear that the Netanyahu government in Israel has equally powerful incentive to get Washington more deeply engaged in yet another war in the area. But with outspoken urging coming from Israel and those Americans who lobby for Israeli interests, this priority Israeli objective is becoming crystal clear. 

Reporter Judi Rudoren, writing from Jerusalem in an important article in Friday’s New York Times addresses Israeli motivation in an uncommonly candid way. Her article, titled “Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria,” notes that the Israelis have argued, quietly, that the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome. Rudoren continues:

“For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.

“‘This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,’ said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. ‘Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.’”

We think this is the way Israel’s current leaders look at the situation in Syria, and that deeper U.S. involvement – albeit, initially, by “limited” military strikes – is likely to ensure that there is no early resolution of the conflict in Syria. The longer Sunni and Shia are at each other’s throats in Syria and in the wider region, the safer Israel calculates that it is.

That Syria’s main ally is Iran, with whom it has a mutual defense treaty, also plays a role in Israeli calculations. Iran’s leaders are not likely to be able to have much military impact in Syria, and Israel can highlight that as an embarrassment for Tehran.

Iran’s Role

Iran can readily be blamed by association and charged with all manner of provocation, real and imagined. Some have seen Israel’s hand in the provenance of the most damaging charges against Assad regarding chemical weapons and our experience suggests to us that such is supremely possible.

Possible also is a false-flag attack by an interested party resulting in the sinking or damaging, say, of one of the five U.S. destroyers now on patrol just west of Syria. Our mainstream media could be counted on to milk that for all it’s worth, and you would find yourself under still more pressure to widen U.S. military involvement in Syria – and perhaps beyond, against Iran.

Iran has joined those who blame the Syrian rebels for the August 21 chemical incident, and has been quick to warn the U.S. not to get more deeply involved. According to the Iranian English-channel Press TV, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif has claimed: “The Syria crisis is a trap set by Zionist pressure groups for [the United States].”

Actually, he may be not far off the mark. But we think your advisers may be chary of entertaining this notion. Thus, we see as our continuing responsibility to try to get word to you so as to ensure that you and other decision makers are given the full picture.

Inevitable Retaliation

We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. “Mission” in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled “Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria – Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.”

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Thomas Drake, Senior Executive, NSA (former)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan

Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)

W. Patrick Lang, Senior Executive and Defense Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)

Todd Pierce, US Army Judge Advocate General (ret.) 

Sam Provance, former Sgt., US Army, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, Division Council & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)