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Confused Over Syria? It’s No Wonder

Phil Butler, October 21

3453452322Whatever news on Syria you wake up to this morning, don’t believe it. The only certainty in the Middle East right now, is that America has created one hell of a mess in the region. For me, I awoke from a restless sleep this morning, a high pitched whirring sound pervading my mind. At first I thought some giant earthquake might have gripped my country, then after reading all the headlines I realized the sound was from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John Wayne spinning like high speed turbines in their graves. We are, collectively, deer in the headlight beams of an semi-truck driven by Barack Obama. “Look out!” or you too may be run over.

Last month I talked to my brother in the United States. A retired air traffic controller, veteran, and all around “All American boy”, he’s paid all his dues to our country like so many have. I’ll not burden you with the whole history here, but learning that such an exemplary fellow has turned off all his TVs, cancelled all his magazine subscriptions, and even turned away the paper boy, the concept of isolationist patriots in my country, it just hammers me folks. Then this morning I finally realized, there must be 50 million Americans “exactly” where my dear brother is. “They’re feeling SCREWED!” That is the only term I can think of to relay to the reader, just how serious the lie has become. Stop right here for 15 seconds and imagine, when the most faithful of any nation totally lose all hope…..

After your done reading my story today, I hope you’ll identify with my brother the retired civil servant and “Middle American.” So let’s begin.

In Saudi Arabia the “truth” in Syria is that 2,000 Iranians have joined Assad in the battle for Aleppo, Gulf News says so with horrid images of kids with their legs blown clean off. And when Gulf News speaks, the paper speaks for H.E. Obaid Humaid Al Tayer is Minister of State for Financial Affairs of the UAE.

In Los Angeles the Los Angeles Daily News says Syrian refugees are headed to California, so move over Hispanic America, there is a new punching bag ethnic group headed to town to take up your pain. It has to be true because Alden Global Capital LLC, and the man in charge of that hedge fund, Heath Bradford Freeman, they would never lie about such an important and inflammatory subject. I won’t get into the fund’s history, or the positions the firm holds today. Not here, anyway.

The Associated Press, via the Miami Herald, frames in an instant what has gone all wrong with our information conduits. When a key al-Qaeda henchman is killed in an air assault in Syria, the biggest press syndicate on Earth helps Barack Obama take credit for it. To quote the AP:

“An airstrike has killed a top al-Qaida commander and two other fighters in Syria, activists said Saturday, but it was not immediately clear whether it was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition or Russian warplanes.”

It is fair to say Mr. Obama is in dire need of some dead al-Qaida operatives these days, given the CIA is arming the terror organization against Assad. Good Americans cannot stomach paying the same people that killed off thousands of their countrymen – only presidents can do that. Still, the report only cements our feet firmly in the middle of the tow lane blacktop, awaiting the transfer truck to run us over. For those of you not standing in the highway, eyes agape, it might have come to your attention al-Qaida and Al-Nusra have merged interests, and that only the Russian’s are flying support for an Assad offensive near Aleppo.

The Guardian tells us Russia is paving the way for Assad’s forces to bowl over resistance in Aleppo. But wait! Isn’t it possible Obama’s coalition air forces are helping too? No, the Pentagon is dropping weapons to the jihadist! Or are those moderates, Kurds, or aged Mujahedeen warriors out there in the desert? In the cries we hear from Assad’s foes in the Free Syrian Army, yet another betrayal by American politicians seems evident. A poignant quote from the Guardian piece speaks of this better than I. Abdur Rahman, a long-term member of an Islamist unit, told reporters:

“We used to dream about the sound of F-16s. But for us it’s just the Syrian planes, and the deeper roar of the Russian jets. That’s our fate.”

Dreaming is a poignant concept to embellish fanatical jihadists with, but maybe it is appropriate. These peoples in the far off deserts of our world, they’ve truly been sold a bill of goods over the decades. Take Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city as an example. The city is is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, having been populated continuously for some 8,000 years. The city that won Islamic Capital of Culture 2006, it is now a veritable ghost town, a symbol perhaps of the determined deconstruction of Islam period, by well known perpetrators, I might add. Aleppo’s true name (Halab) is supposed to mean “gave out milk”, coming from the ancient tradition that Abraham of Bible fame gave milk to travelers as they passed through the region. Lying in a key spot along the original “Silk Road,” the city has been occupied by some of history’s most noted conquerors including; Alexander the Great, Hulagu Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan), the great Saladin, Tamerlane, as well as by Byzantium, the Ottoman Turks, the French, and finally a plethora of dictators installed via a series of West versus East strategies. Aleppo, in each instance of control, represents since centuries – being a key to this region. There’s no need of a history lesson here – the current crisis is a modern one too, one in the works since World War I.

Returning to our news chaos call now, let me point the reader to a news story from this morning. from the independent press agency, ARA News:

“The radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) pounded Saturday the Kurdish-populated town of Tel Aran in the countryside of al-Bab city in Aleppo province, northern Syria.”

Confused yet? Lost hope much? Well Syria Direct’s recent story pretty much pits America (with the newly created, so-called Levant Front) and al-Qaida/Al-Nusra VERSUS Assad/Russia/ISIL /Iran. You read that correctly – alliances are now created on in the minds of writers (or their controllers) and distributed to you and me. But there’s more, a lot more confusion to be had.

Maybe NPR (National Public Radio) helps galvanize my argument for civil surrender here best with, “We Ask Experts: Has The Situation In Syria Become A Proxy War?” At least the yes, maybe, or no answers to this question bear out my “deer in the headlights” metaphor earlier on. Forgetting for a moment NPR was one cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, the organizations support of Israel is also well known.

So we find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of the same quandary my brothers everywhere face. There’s simply no one left to believe, and sketchy bits of digital information to go on. Israel, characteristically silent as in all Middle Eastern chaos cases, has only stepped in to further torture the Palestinians, and to offer some oil leases in the disputed (with Syria) Golan Heights area. It might interest the resilient reader (believer) to know media mogul Rupert Murdoch (News Corp, the Wall Street Journal, etc.) and his longtime pal Lord Jacob Rothschild are major shareholders in Genie Energy, one company with big ideas about Syrian oil and gas.

Now imagine this writer, occasionally waggling his head back and forth like a cartoon character, attempting to recreate for you an absolute Humpty Dumpty informative about Syria. Please send donations to the editors at New Eastern Outlook, this is going to take a lot more time and resources folks! Syria has become a centrifuge in a foreign policy experiment that could blast our eyebrows off at any moment. Here I am using metaphors again, but I’m sure no living reporter or author can do more than offer opinion at this point. Proof has become a “Tweet” from someone pretending to be your president, a “share” by an angry teenage lunatic, or part of a devious plan by some red eyed Washington think tank god (Zbigniew Brzezinski maybe?) who’s convince the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth never was dissolved. (Insert severe had wagging here)

This all begs the answer to the question; “Who should we believe?” Well my friends, I wish I had the complete answer for you. The tens of millions of you out there losing hope, stressed as to what is going to happen, those searching for some truth in this whacky world deserve the facts. I can only offer one piece of advice at this stage of the game. Associations, who wins and who loses, and the players you see operating – these are the only variables anyone can count on right now. Look at Genie Energy, as a good example of how conflicts of interest no longer exist for our leadership.

The board of advisers of this company include; former VP of the United States Dick Cheney, the aforementioned Rupert Murdoch, Clinton’s Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, Lord Rothschild as I stated, former CIA director R. James Woolsey (key person – see Iraq), one sponsor of the so-called US-Israel Energy Cooperation bill (Marry Landrieu), and noted neoconservative and Israel backer Michael Steinhardt. A deep scrutiny of any of the people I just mentioned should be enough to give you a chill. If not, you are hopelessly lost in propaganda land. For the rest of you, your truth lies in the realization that the misinformation itself is a strategy. What would you do, being all powerful, and wanting to eliminate freedom of the press? Isn’t free speech the fundamental principle of democracy? I leave you with something from a great philosopher emulated by many we speak of today, Nicollo Machiavelli, explains why our longing for peace is never satisfied:

“War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.”

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.