US Gov’t Refused US Entry to Jihadist It Employs for Overthrowing Assad

Excellent article by Eric Zuesse

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/08/04/us-govt-refused-us-entry-jihadist-employs-overthrowing-assad.html

A four-minute video that was posted to YouTube on April 29th documents that the US government has been lying about an organization, the White Helmets, the US government hires to assist Syria’s al-Qaeda, called «al-Nusra», to dispose of corpses of persons al-Nusra executes. Al-Nusra kills Syrian government soldiers; and, according to Seymour Hersh and other investigative journalists, has, throughout the Syrian war, been supplied guns and other weapons by the governments of the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, for that purpose. This is part of America’s operation to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, whom even Western polling shows to be popular amongst the Syrian general population. That same polling shows Nusra and other jihadist organizations (and the US government, which arms them) to be extremely unpopular in Syria.

On April 19th, the US State Department had blocked entrance into the United States by Raed Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, and refused to say why. Saleh had been invited to receive in NYC an award by USAID and NGOs that the US government finances, but he was barred at the airport, apparently because the FBI had placed him onto its no-fly list as a known terrorist.

The White Helmets claim to receive no funds from any government, but the four-minute video shows a State Department official admitting «we supply through USAID about twenty-three million dollars in assistance to them» (which might be annually, but that question wasn’t addressed in the video). The White Helmets’ founder, James Le Mesurier, is himself funded by the governments of the UK, Japan, Denmark and the Netherlands, all of which are likewise trying to overthrow Assad.

Thus, US and other Western taxpayers are funding this allegedly ‘non-partisan’ and ‘humanitarian’ but actually jihadist, organization, whose leader was, on April 19th, prevented from receiving in the US, a ‘humanitarian’ award, for processing corpses that Nusra – which the US government also supports – is producing. The White Helmets also rescue jihadists (and their inevitable civilian hostages), who have been injured by Syrian government forces. That’s their ‘humanitarian’ work. This video shows jihadists cheering White Helmets. The anti-Assad ‘charities’ that were wanting to award Raed Saleh in the US, have said they’ll instead do it in Turkey, which is a US ally – even a member of NATO.

As regards what the Syrian people think, it’s highly favorable toward Assad and highly unfavorable toward the jihadist organizations that now infest their country from abroad, and also against the United States, which they view as being the main source of this ‘civil war’ (which is instead actually a foreign invasion of their country).

The video also shows the British agent (and Britain is yet another US ally) who founded and organized the ‘non-partisan humanitarian organization’, White Helmets, Mr Le Mesurier.

The Syrian government is an ally of Russia, and America’s policy is to overthrow and replace the leader of any nation who is friendly toward Russia, such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Manuel Zelaya, Viktor Yanukovych, or Bashar al-Assad. These governments then become failed states. When Zelaya was replaced in 2009, the country he led, Honduras, became a narco-state and has since had the world’s highest murder-rate. Jihadists weren’t even needed in the Honduran case. The US government didn’t perpetrate that particular coup, but only helped it succeed and enabled the installed new regime to remain in power. The Honduran coup was actually perpetrated by agents of that country’s twelve aristocratic families, who own almost all of the country. However, normally, the US government itself overthrows the leaders it doesn’t like, and doesn’t merely aid the regimes that a coup by the local aristocracy has already installed. Hillary Clinton, the US Presidential candidate, was the key person in the Obama Administration who worked, behind the scenes, to keep in power the coup regime that took over in Honduras on 28 June 2009. Without her assistance to the Honduran coup-regime, Zelaya, whom virtually all other governments supported as being still the legal leader of Honduras, would have been restored to power; the coup-regime would have had to bow out. By contrast, her – and President Obama’s – efforts to replace Syria’s secular but nominally Shiite President Assad, by using Saudi-funded foreign-imported Sunni jihadists, haven’t been nearly so successful, unless creating the highest degree of misery among the residents in any country in the world, is viewed by Obama and Clinton as ‘success’.

As I had reported on April 16th, headlining, «Why Obama Prioritizes Ousting Assad Over Defeating Syria’s Jihadists»: «The 2016 Global Emotions Report by Gallup, surveying over a thousand people in each one of 140 different nations, found that, by far, the people in Syria had ‘the lowest positive experiences worldwide,’ the people there were far more miserable than in any other nation. The score was 36 (on a scale to 100). Second and third worst were tied at 51: Turkey because of the tightening dictatorship there as Turkey has become one of Obama’s key allies in toppling Assad; Nepal, on account of the earthquake».

So, America certainly doesn’t give a damn about the sufferings of the Syrians, and of the Iraqis, sufferings that the US itself caused and which invasions by us (and by the jihadists we and our Saudi and other ‘friends’ have armed and assisted to get into Syria through our ‘friend’ Turkey) have produced the two nations with the most misery on this planet. Our Presidents mouth platitudes of ‘caring’, but, to judge by their actions, are merely lying psychopaths. But whatever they are, they’re causing the most misery of anyone. How much coverage of that fact is there in the American press? Hasn’t America’s press actually been complicit in this, all along?

So, this is the reason why the US government refuses entry to a terrorist it hires to create hell for the people in Syria: it doesn’t want individuals such as Raed Saleh inside the United States. America’s leaders know that, if something like this happens, and if word of it becomes well known, the American public could become even less supportive of their leaders than they already are. It’s not what America’s aristocracy want. They might not care about the American public, but they care very much about staying in power, regardless whether under the «Democratic» or under the «Republican» label.

Back on 26 June 2015, Raed Saleh had somehow been allowed into the United States, to address an «Arria» briefing (named after the far-right aristocratic military Venezuelan diplomat and member of the US aristocratic Council on Foreign Relations, Diego Arria) to the UN Security Council, where Saleh announced in his opening paragraph that his focus would be «to convey the message of the search and rescue teams in Syria about the suffering of the Syrian people due to the regime’s bombing with indiscriminate weapons, particularly barrel bombs». Those were the cheap, even amateurish, improvised bombs that the Syrian Army were using to kill as many of the jihadists as they could, but which also inevitably killed and maimed also many Syrian civilians in the occupied areas of the country – there’s no way to avoid it. Saleh’s speech didn’t mention any of the many foreign jihadist groups such as Nusra and ISIS that were and are killing far more of everybody than Assad’s forces were. His focus was instead totally against Assad and the government’s forces, not at all against the jihadist mercenaries who had entered the country and made hell there; and, Saleh said, «The Syrian people who are being killed every day, Ladies and Gentlemen, hold you responsible» for not helping those jihadists eliminate the existing Syrian government. He said this without at all referring to what even Western polling of Syrians had consistently shown to be the case, which was the exact opposite: they hold the US to blame and they loathe the jihadists and support the government. So, clearly, the United States did the correct thing when finally placing this jihadist of theirs onto America’s no-fly list. To the exact contrary of the US government’s propaganda which says that he’s a hero and that he and his organization are ‘nonpartisan’ and that he is, as he calls himself, «the head of Syrian Civil Defense», that appellation for him is like calling Hitler’s medics during his invasion of, say, France, «French Civil Defense». George Orwell’s allegorical novel 1984 has clearly been surpassed in today’s reality. The extent to which Western publics accept the arrant lies they’re fed is exceeding, perhaps, even Orwell’s expectations.

So: one typical piece of Republican propaganda about the White Helmets is the May 1st article in the Wall Street Journal, «White Helmets Are White Knights for Desperate Syrians», while a typical piece of Democratic propaganda about them is the New York Times eleven days earlier, on April 20th, which headlined «Leader of Syria Rescue Group, Arriving in US for Award, Is Refused Entry», and it reported there that «Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, called the denial of entry ‘a scandal’. ‘The White Helmets are one of the few organizations in Syria that have been above reproach,’ he said. ‘They have tried to observe strict neutrality in order to facilitate their humanitarian work and save lives. To do this they have worked alongside all sorts of militias in order to get to victims of the fighting’». He didn’t say that the «militias» are overwhelmingly foreign jihadist groups paid by America’s fundamentalist-Sunni allies the Sauds, and Qatar’s royal family the Thanis, to overthrow the secular Shiite Assad. But, after all, it’s only propaganda, anyway. Right?

Furthermore, the Syrian public might view that conception of ‘strict neutrality’ much the way Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps viewed the conception of ‘strict neutrality’ as between themselves and their oppressors, or the way Chinese in the Nanjing Massacre viewed that ‘strict neutrality’ between themselves and the Japanese invaders. And, polls in Syria do show they view the US and its allies as the invaders. Instead of ‘strict neutrality,’ the US and its allies are the foreign invaders, and not at all ‘neutral’. And, to state this documented fact (documented here by the links) isn’t propaganda at all; it’s news-reporting, in an entirely verified historical context (which is very different from propaganda).

What that four-minute video shows is news-reporting, in exactly this sense. That’s why it’s presented here: it brings all of this together, succinctly; and what I’ve done here is to document some of its important historical context, to help people who are skeptical of it (and, in such a lying world, everything should be viewed with a scientist’s skepticism) understand and evaluate it, at a deeper level than a mere four minutes can possibly present, even in a video.

US Warships in Iran's Waterways

Interview with RT international - Iran chases away American warships!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zXMHPvfno&feature=youtu.be

Was the Turkish coup orchestrated WITH Washington instead of BY Washington?

On June 30, 2016, I shared my concerns about Turkey in a private message on Facebook with a friend who reassured me by dismissing my apprehension.  

This was the conversation:

So did Turkey have motives when it kissed up to Russia BEFORE the airport attack (false flag?).

This is an interesting piece -- "Tuesday Changed Everything" by pro-Israel WINEP:

"But the last part that's missing is the deployment of Turkish troops in Syria. Until this incident there wasn't much support for Turkish intervention in Syria -- the public was against it. Now most Turks are so appalled and disgusted that there will be, not unanimous, but stronger public support for intervention. But the issue here is that Turkey cannot really send troops into Syria without Russia's blessing, especially after the plane incident in November, when Turkey shot down a Russian plane, which had violated Turkish airspace. Russia effectively made northern Syria its no fly zone, meaning a no fly zone for Turkish planes. Russia set up an air defense bubble, and the Russians are basically flying there looking for groups of planes to shoot down in retaliation for the November incident. So for Turkey to send in conventional troops, it needs Russia's blessings.". 

So for Turkey to send in conventional troops, it needs Russia's blessings."So did Turkey have motives when it kissed up to Russia BEFORE the airport attack.

End Conversation

Reading today's news about the Turkish military incursion into Syria with the blessings of the Russians and the air-cover of US to fight "ISIL" along with America's "good terrorists" to 'free' Jarablus has brought back those doubts with a rush.    Did the eagerness to embrace Turkey as a partner due to a 'Washington orchestrated failed coup' distract Russia (and Iran) away from focusing on Turkey as a culprit?  

What changed?  Erdogan became far more powerful, the United States agreed to keep the Kurds at bay, and Russia allowed the passage of the Turkish military into Syria while Turkey continued to demand that Assad must go - after the transition.

Is Assange for Real?

It is uncanny that Assange says what is very obvious, known, and undeniable, yet omits that which is not out in the open. Thus establishing 'credibility', he puts out there a message that we are to believe because it is from him.

In this 2015 interview, Assange refers to "oil" Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine (leaving out more important factors" and of course, asserting that 'cables show Israel created Hamas". Hogwash. Hamas makes some crazy moves, but the origin is not created by Israel but BECAUSE of Israel.

With the end of the Intifada and the initiation of the Oslo peace process, the resistance component of the Palestinian struggle-so critical to Hamas's political thinking and action-was undermined.  For Hamas, social and political action is inextricably linked.

However, the retreat from the political sphere was pragmatic and accompanied by a need to rediscover Islam and its relevance to society. This enabled Hamas to spread itself among the Palestinian people and organize itself.  In the two- to three-year period before the second Intifida in 2000, Hamas was no longer prominently or consistently calling for political or military action against the occupation, but was instead shifting its attention to
social works and the propagation of Islamic values and religious practice.

            The start of the second Palestinian Intifada on September 28, 2000, coupled
with the impact of September 11, dramatically changed the environment in the West Bank and Gaza.  Preexisting political arrangements had been severely disrupted, economic conditions have deteriorated, and key social structures and mediatory institutions had weakened. Within this context of desperation and hopelessness, the Islamist opposition, notably Hamas, had reasserted itself. 

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon continued the Israeli land expansions through land expropriations and economic dispossession.  It is unlikely that his agenda included a Palestinian state.  The United States uneven handling of the conflict encouraged Sharon’s plans.   With a weak Palestinian leadership in place, and the increasing significance of Hamas influence, the U.S. opens dialogue with a senior Hamas leader in early September of 2002.  Judging by the Israeli reaction, it seems that Israel does not want to have any Palestinian engaged in dialogue with the U.S. for fear that there may be a political solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

United States-Hamas contacts, of which Israel was fully aware, ended when
the Israeli army arrested a politically moderate Hamas official in Ramallah on September 9, which Hamas interpreted as a deliberate attempt by the Sharon government to undermine its exchange with the Americans. A few days later, Israel launched an attack in Rafah that killed nine Palestinians, including civilians. Predictably, a suicide bomber staged an attack on a bus in Tel Aviv on September 19, killing six people.

Other Hamas-Palestinian Authority (PA) cease-fires have been undermined by Israeli attacks. Alex Fishman, the security commentator for the right-of-center Yediot Achronot, Israel's largest mass-circulation newspaper, detailed in the November 25, 2001 issue of the newspaper how the assassination that November of Mahmud Abu Hanud, a key Hamas figure, shattered a Hamas promise not to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel: "Whoever gave the green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he was thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the PA; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line [Israel's pre-1967 borders] of the kind perpetrated at the Dolphinarium [a discotheque in Tel Aviv.

In effect, Israel’s actions led Hamas to play into their hands.  Having already marginalized the PLO and Yasir Arafat, by instigating Hamas suicide bombings Sharon would ensure that negotiations for a Palestinian state would not take place, no matter what the cost.   Although seemingly agreeing to the “road map” initiated by the U.S., Sharon’s underlying intentions were otherwise.   The Israeli prime minister actions led to a period of suicide bombings by Hamas, followed by negotiations while Israel expanded in to the West Bank, having found the perfect excuse to deal heavy handedly with Hamas and PLO and to build a barrier which it claimed was to stop the suicide bombings. 

On Aug 8, 2003 more than 40 protestors were arrested by the Israeli government
for attempting to interfere with construction of the security barrier separating Israel and the West Bank. In a raid by Israeli troops, one Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier and
two suspected Hamas bomb-makers were shot and killed. The raid took place in the “Askar” refugee camp next to the West Bank city of Nabilus.   On  August 12^th Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas claimed responsibility for separate suicide bombings near Rosh Haayin in Israel. Although the attacks were uncoordinated, they occurred a few miles and less than an hour, apart .

With the escalation of suicide bombings, the European Union imposed a sanction on Hamas and their assets were frozen.  Sharon started targeting top Hamas personnel, and in 2004 Israel’s extra judicial assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin was supported by the United States.  This gave Sharon the green light and he gave the orders to kill the man who replaced Yassin – Abdel Aziz Rantisi.  Again, without being reprimanded from Washington, and finding  that Hamas is being crushed, having found that the Middle East Peace Plan is moving in accordance to Sharon’s wishes, that is unilaterally and unacceptable not only to Palestinians, but to the whole Arab world, Sharon has now declared that he will target Arafat.  This will buy him the excuse to eliminate anyone to negotiate with for an independent Palestinian state.

The suicide bombing tactics served to advance Sharon’s goals and that of Israel.  They came across as the aggressors that created fear and mistrust who had to be dealt with brutally.  With the world super power backing every action of your opponent, it is hard to devise a plan to counter their aggression. It would have been fruitless for Hamas to have protested at the onset of the Israeli master plan.  It would have no doubt fallen on deaf ears.  It is clear that their unity with PLO and Arafat would have served Palestine.  As it stands, suicide bombings gave Sharon a carte blanche, did not further the cause of the Palestinian people, and depleted Hamas of funds, to say the least.

Shirin Ebadi at Edinburg Book Fest

Sadly, like every other country, Iran has her share of traitors.  Fortunately, the patriots outnumber them by a HUGE margin.  One such particular traitor is Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel P Laureate.  I was her interpret in 2006 and wrote this several years ago:

In 2006, I was living in Salt Lake City and attending the University of Utah's Middle East Center.  I had been recommended as an interpreter for Shirin Ebadi by someone who knew me at the University of Southern California.  At the time, I  felt proud to be assist a Nobel Laureate, especially one from my own native country. 

It was more than my language skills that were required.  It was thought that I shared the same political views - and I was also told by her agent over the phone that although 'Shirin is really quite funny, she comes across as very dry and humorless', and basically I understood that it was desirable for me to offset her shortcomings -- for lack of better words.  I cannot say if this was required of all interpreters

I was having butterflies waiting for her at the lobby of the Millennium Hotel in New York.  When she approached me, I noted that she would have been lost in a crowd.  On our first working day, we had a 'closed' meeting with the members of the press, including NYT, etc as she was promoting her book.  I could see why they needed someone who would convey humor as much of what she said was nonsense and I had to smile as if making a joke although she was serious.  For example:

When speaking about democracy and Iran, she made a point of mentioning Iran's nuclear program and said: "Nobody is afraid of a democracy having a bomb, who is afraid of France or India having a bomb". This Nobel Laureate had to be reminded that the only person who used the "bomb" was a democracy - that India was a nuclear-armed pariah state.  (Of course India had its appeal given its cooperation in illegally sending Iran's dossier o the UNSC).    She was also asked: "You have two daughters, what do you wish for your daughters?".  Her answer was for them to live in freedom like they do here, "so that they wont have any one eavesdrop on their telephone conversations".  The reporters could not restrain their laughs -- this was at the height of the Bush eavesdropping controversy.   

After the press conference, she gave a one-on-one to a representative from 'O' Magazine.  She told her that the Iranian people don't support the nuclear program and all this was a show put on by 'paid Basij'.   It was a real struggle for me to translate a lie versus doing a job I was asked to do.  The ''O' Representative looked very surprised and insisted on repeating the question, thinking the question or answer had been lost in translation.   Interestingly, the uniting factor in Iran is the nuclear program.  A 2004 poll showed that , 75-80% of the Iranians rallied behind the Islamic Republic of Iran in support of its nuclear program including the full fuel cycle (Takyeh, Ray.  Interview with Steve Inskeep. National Public Radio Morning. Morning Edition. 25 Nov. 2004) . A 2007 poll not only confirms this, but goes in detail and states that 2007 poll of the Iranian people conducted by the U.S. Institute of Peace, it was revealed that 84% of the Iranians thought it very important that Iran should have a  full fuel-cycle nuclear program,. Even with the crackdown on liberties, free press, and the increasing oppression in the country, the poll found that 64% of those polled said that US legislation repealing regime change in Iran would not be incentive enough to give up the nuclear program and full fuel-cycle.( downloaded December 5, 2007 http://www.usip.org/iran/iran_presentation.pdf)

Her distortion of facts, her behavior, left me so stunned that I called her agent and made some excuse that I could not continue to be her interpreter.  At William and Mary college she continued to play into the hands of 'Bush' policies.  This was pointed out to her by a Georgetown professor and since I do not have the liberty of mentioning her name, I will refrain from doing so. 

She claimed one million people came to greet her (not even Khomeini had that many come to greet him at the height of his popularity when he first arrived) and it soon became apparent that the more she exaggerated the difficulties she faced, and talked about  the 'dangers' surrounding her, real or not, the more she was admired and they likened her to Dr.  King and Nelson Mandela. 

Today, I wonder what the Islamic Republic has to gain by taking her 'medal' and what Ebadi has to gain with her claim since the IRI has denied it. 

I draw my conclusion from her track record.

I wonder if anyone has questioned how this woman who was awarded a Noble Prize managed to be a judge during the Shah's regime who was known for his brutality, his oppression, and his use of SAVAK -- known for their tortures?  Did she ever protest, defend the rights of the Iranians at that time?  No she became a judge.  What a wonderful and cushy job to have in the Shah's dictatorial regime. 

What had she has done that others in Iran have not done -- indeed, she was an unknown and many others in Iran work as hard for the  'liberties'  that the Western perspective can recognize and relate to - yet she was hand-picked.  I am not certain who nominated her.  There is a wonderful book by Tony Smith called "A Pact with the Devil; Washington's bid for world supremacy and the betrayal of the American promise" (Routledge, NY 2007) -- a must read for anyone who has not.   Citing Noah Feldman (from his book After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy) who was active with the occupation of Iraq as a law professor to help write the constitution for the country, Feldman argued that "democracy and Islam are both what might be called mobile ideas".    It does not surprise me that Ebadi received a Nobel Peace prize.  Iran was next on the agenda to be 'occupied' -- or "democratized'. 

Two short months after the invasion of Iraq, neocon William Kristol, cofounder of PNAC wrote:  “[T]he war in which we are presently engaged is a fundamental challenge for the United States and the civilized world ….The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East.  The creation of a free Iraq is now of fundamental importance…But the next battle ..will be for Iran.”(Weekly Standard, May 12, 2003).  

Smith cites many sources on neoliberal literature in promoting 'democracy' (which he refers to as "liberal imperialism")  in places of interest, i.e. Iraq and Iran. which is very interesting.    A new wave of neoliberal thinking  began to emerge that the way for 'democratizing' was to promote an individual.  "And even more important, one could point to the success of leaders like Kim Dae Jung, Nelson Mandela, ....." 

"Transition from  Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy" (Edited by Guillermo O'Donnell) proposes that focusing on "political strategies" and introducing "indeterminancy" and "uncertainty" into the process of political change was ground for cautious optimism that democracy could catch on (Smith).

Neocon William Kristol, cofounder of the Project for New American Century, wrote:  "Moral seriousness means political seriousness.. Make a real effort to destabilize Ahmadinejad in Iran.  Do what it takes to defeat Zarqawi and secure Iraq."  (source:  Weekly Standard, March 20, 2006).

It is also interesting to note that Ms. Ebadi, this devout Moslem (who loves her alcohol), has not once spoken up in defense of the Palestinians.  This would not help her ambitions, would it?