Obama wist van bewapenen en ondersteunen terroristen in Syrië.......

Ben Rhodes, adviseur van Obama tijdens diens presidentschap, gaf in een interview schoorvoetend toe dat Obama en hijzelf wisten dat terreurgroepen als IS door de VS werden bewapend en ondersteund en zelfs vochten onder leiding van de VS......

Niets nieuws zou je zeggen, immers dat de VS de zogenaamde gematigde rebellen (psychopathische moordenaars, verkrachters en martelbeulen) steunden met o.a. wapens en transportmiddelen was al lang geen geheim meer, althans voor mensen die verder kijken dan wat de reguliere westerse (massa-) media aan 'nieuws' brengen.

Het nieuwe is wel het toegegeven van deze zaken door de rechterhand van Obama, ten tijde van diens presidentschap, al moet daar onmiddellijk aan toegevoegd worden dat zoals gezegd een aantal zaken al lang bekend waren, zoals het onder leiding van de VS vechten van het Vrije Syrische Leger (FSA) in combinatie met IS.... Zaken die door de reguliere westerse media en het grootste deel van de westerse politici worden afgedaan als samenzweringstheorieën en 'fake news....' (nogmaals dit wordt gezegd over feitelijke berichtgeving in de sociale media en Wikileaks, terwijl wat betreft op de laatste site, die van Wikileaks, officiële documenten van de VS overheid zijn te vinden die e.e.a. bevestigen....)

In 2013 werkte VS ambassadeur in Syrië, Robert Ford, nauw samen met een bekende IS commandant, zo heeft Ford zelf toegegeven......

Lees het volgende ontluisterende artikel van Tyler Durden over deze zaak (eerder gepubliceerd op Zero Hedge), het steunen door de VS van jihadistische terreurgroepen, die liefkozend 'gematigde rebellen' worden genoemd en waartoe, zoals nogmaals blijkt, zelfs een tijdlang IS behoorde...... Het lullige is wel dat gezien de feiten je niet anders kan dan de volgende conclusie trekken: de VS heeft zelfs aan 'de wieg van IS' gestaan........ (en ook dat is al veel langer bekend >> zie de links onder dit bericht.....)

Oh ja, mocht je het vergeten zijn: Obama kreeg de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede.... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Obama Adviser: We Knew We Were Arming and Funding Terrorists in Syria

June 24, 2018 at 10:00 pm

Written by Tyler Durden

(ZHE Op-ed) — Someone finally asked Obama administration officials to own up to the rise of ISIS and arming jihadists in Syria.

In a wide ranging interview titled “Confronting the Consequences of Obama’s Foreign Policy” The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan put the question to Ben Rhodes, who served as longtime deputy national security adviser at the White House under Obama and is now promoting his newly published book, The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House.

Rhodes has been described as being so trusted and close to Obama that he was “in the room” for almost every foreign policy decision of significance that Obama made during his eight years in office. While the Intercept interview is worth listening to in full, it’s the segment on Syria that caught our attention.

In spite of Rhodes trying to dance around the issue, he sheepishly answers in the affirmative when Mehdi Hasan asks the following question about supporting jihadists in Syria:

Did you intervene too much in Syria? Because the CIA spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding and arming anti-Assad rebels, a lot of those arms, as you know, ended up in the hands of jihadist groups, some even in the hands of ISIS.

Your critics would say you exacerbated that proxy war in Syria; you prolonged the conflict in Syria; you ended up bolstering jihadists.

Rhodes initially rambles about his book and “second guessing” Syria policy in avoidance of the question. But Hasan pulls him back with the following: “Oh, come on, but you were coordinating a lot of their arms.” 

The two spar over Hasan’s charge of “bolstering jihadists” in the following key section of the interview, at the end of which Rhodes reluctantly answers “yeah…” — but while trying to pass ultimate blame onto US allies Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia (similar to what Vice President Biden did in a 2014 speech):

MH: Oh, come on, but you were coordinating a lot of their arms. You know, the U.S. was heavily involved in that war with the Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks.

BR: Well, I was going to say:Turkey, Qatar, Saudi.

MH: You were in there as well.

BR: Yeah, but, the fact of the matter is that once it kind of devolved into kind of a sectarian-based civil war with different sides fighting for their perceived survival, I think we, the ability to bring that type of situation to close, and part of what I wrestled with in the book is the limits of our ability to pull a lever and make killing like that stop once it’s underway.

Deputy National Security adviser Ben Rhodes and President Obama. Image source: AP via Commentary Magazine

To our knowledge this is the only time a major media organization has directly asked a high ranking foreign policy adviser from the Obama administration to own up to the years long White House support to jihadists in Syria.

Though the interview was published Friday, its significance went without notice or comment in the mainstream media over the weekend (perhaps predictably). Instead, what did circulate was a Newsweek article mocking “conspiracy theories” surrounding the rapid rise of ISIS, including the following:

President Donald Trump has done little to dispel the myth of direct American support for ISIS since he took office. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump claimed—without providing any evidence—that President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-founded the group and that ISIS “honors” the former president.

Of course, the truth is a bit more nuanced than that, as Trump himself elsewhere seemed to acknowledge, and which ultimately led to the president reportedly shutting down the CIA’s covert Syrian regime change program in the summer of 2017 while complaining to aides about the shocking brutality of the CIA-trained “rebels”.

Meanwhile, mainstream media has been content to float the falsehood that President Obama’s legacy is that he “stayed out” of Syria, instead merely approving some negligible level of aid to so-called “moderate” rebels who were fighting both Assad and (supposedly) the Islamic State. Rhodes has himself in prior interviews attempted to portray Obama as wisely staying “on the sidelines” in Syria.

But as we’ve pointed out many times over the years, this narrative ignores and seeks to whitewash possibly the largest CIA covert program in history, started by Obama, which armed and funded a jihadist insurgency bent of overthrowing Assad to the tune of $1 billion a year (one-fifteenth of the CIA’s publicly known budget according to leaked Edward Snowden documents revealed by the Washington Post).

It also ignores the well established fact, documented in both US intelligence reports and authenticated battlefield footage, that ISIS and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) jointly fought under a single US-backed command structure during the early years of the war in Syria, even as late as throughout 2013 — something confirmed by University of Oklahoma professor Joshua Landis, widely considered to be the world’s foremost expert on Syria.

Joshua Landis

✔@joshua_landis

Important “Islamic State Leader Omar al-Shishani Fought Under U.S. Umbrella as Late as 2013” by @BradRHoff https://medium.com/@BradRHoff/islamic-state-leader-omar-al-shishani-fought-under-u-s-umbrella-as-late-as-2013-147354ea1b7f#.ijw5mms9t …

4:37 PM - Mar 10, 2016 · Norman, OK

Islamic State Leader Omar al-Shishani Fought Under U.S. Umbrella as Late as 2013

Omar the Chechen fought under U.S. command structure in Syria.

medium.com

• 84
• 165 people are talking about this

Syria experts, as well as a New York Times report which largely passed without notice, verified the below footage from 2013 showing then US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford working closely with a “rebel” leader who exercised operational command over known ISIS terrorists (Ambassador Ford has since acknowledged the relationship to McClatchy News): 

This latest Ben Rhodes non-denial-cum-sheepish-affirmation on the Obama White House’s arming jihadists in Syria follows previous bombshell reporting by Mehdi Hasan from 2015.

As host of Al Jazeera’s Head to Head, Hasan asked the former head of Pentagon intelligence under Obama, General Michael Flynn, who is to blame for the rise of ISIS? (the August 2015 interview was significantly prior to Flynn joining Trump’s campaign).

Hasan presented Flynn with the 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) declassified memo revealing Washington support to al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists in Syria in order to counter both Assad and Iran. Flynn affirmed Hasan’s charge that it was “a willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood…”.

Soon after, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald appeared on Democracy Now to discuss the shocking contents of the Flynn interview:

It will be interesting to see years from now which “narrative” concerning Obama’s legacy in the Syrian conflict future historians choose to emphasize.

…Obama the president who “stayed out” and “on the sidelines” in Syria? …Or Obama the president whose decisions fueled the rise of the most brutal terrorist organization the world has ever seen?

Below is the relevant excerpt covering Syria from the 26-minute Intercept interview with Obama deputy national-security adviser Ben Rhodes [bold emphasis ours].

The audio is available here — Mehdi Hasan begins questioning Rhodes about Syria and ISIS at the 19-minute mark.

Mehdi Hasan: My guest today was at President Obama’s side every step of the way over the course of those two terms in office. Ben Rhodes joined the Obama election campaign in 2007 as a foreign-policy speechwriter, when he was just 29, and rose to become a deputy national-security adviser at the White House, who was so intellectually and ideologically close to his boss that he was often described as having a mind-meld with Obama.

Ben, who currently works at the Obama Foundation, has written a new book, “The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.” And earlier this week I interviewed him about Obama’s rather contentious foreign policy record…

…

MH: But Ben, here’s what I don’t get, if you’re saying this about Afghanistan and prolonged conflict, all of which I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. How do you, then, explain Syria? Because you’ve been criticized a lot. I’ve been listening to your interviews on the book tour; you talk about in the book about how you were criticized for not doing enough on Syria. I remember being an event in D.C. a couple years ago where Syrian opposition members were berating you for not doing enough at an event, and you often were the public face who came out and defended Obama. I want to come to the other direction and say: Did you intervene too much in Syria? Because the CIA spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding and arming anti-Assad rebels, a lot of those arms, as you know, ended up in the hands of jihadist groups, some even in the hands of ISIS. Your critics would say you exacerbated that proxy war in Syria; you prolonged the conflict in Syria; you ended up bolstering jihadists.

Ben Rhodes: Well, what I try to do in the book is, you know, essentially raise — all the second guessing on Syria tends to be not what you expressed, Mehdi, but the notion that we should’ve taken military action.

MH: Yes.

BR: What I do in the book is I try to look back at 2011 and 2012, was there a diplomatic window that we missed or that we, in some ways, escalated its closure by pivoting to the call for Assad to go — which obviously I believe should happen, I believe Assad has been a terrible leader for Syria and has brutalized his people — but, you know, was there a diplomatic initiative that could have been taken to try to avert or at least minimize the extent of the civil war. Because, you know, what ended up happening essentially there is, you know, we were probably too optimistic that, you know, after Mubarak went and Ben Ali and eventually Saleh and Gaddafi, that you would have a situation where Assad would go. And, you know, not factoring in enough the assistance he was going to get from Russia and Iran, combined with his own nihilism, and how that could lead him to survive. So I do look back at that potentially missed diplomatic opportunity.

On the support of the opposition, you know, I don’t know that I would give us that much agency.

There are a lot of people putting arms into Syria, funding all sorts of —

MH: Oh, come on, but you were coordinating a lot of their arms. You know, the U.S. was heavily involved in that warwith the Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks.

BR: Well, I was going to say: Turkey, Qatar, Saudi.

MH: You were in there as well.

BR: Yeah, but, the fact of the matter is that once it kind of devolved into kind of a sectarian-based civil war with different sides fighting for their perceived survival, I think we, the ability to bring that type of situation to close, and part of what I wrestled with in the book is the limits of our ability to pull a lever and make killing like that stop once it’s underway.

So that’s why I still look to that initial opening window. I also describe, there was a slight absurdity in the fact that we were debating options to provide military support to the opposition at the same time that we were deciding to designate al-Nusra, a big chunk of that opposition, as a terrorist organization. So there was kind of a schizophrenia that’s inherent in a lot of U.S. foreign policy that came to a head in Syria.

MH: That’s a very good word, especially to describe Syria policy…

Op-ed by Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo

============================
Zie ook:

'The United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia Created and Funded ISIS'

'CIA valt nogmaals door de mand als wapenleverancier van IS.......'

'VS steunt terreurgroepen als ISIS in Syrië...........'

US weapons supplied to Syrian rebels ended up with Islamic State: report

Tracing ISIS’ Weapons Supply Chain—Back to the US

'VS centraal commando werkt in Syrië samen met IS en verklaarde Rusland de oorlog.........'

ISIL weapons traced to US and Saudi Arabia

'U.S Caught Red Handed Selling Arms to ISIS/AL-Qaeda (Part 1 of 2)'

'US TRAINED REBELS GIVE WEAPONS TO TERROR GROUP'

'Made in America: US-Trained 'Moderate' Rebels, With Blessing Of Americans, Seling US Weapons to ISIS'

'Exactly how the US trained and armed ISIS'

'Lt. General McInerney says Obama helped build ISIS with Weapons from Benghazi'

'Syrië, de prijs van westerse terreur (die onmiddellijk gestopt moet worden >> tijd voor actie!)......'

'Syrië: verslaggever Bartlett prikt leugens reguliere media door'

 'VS en GB brengen propaganda die moet verdoezelen wat er echt gebeurt in Syrië........ Door VS gebombardeerde 'gifgasfabriek' niet bestaand....'

'Syrian ‘Rebels’ Used Sarin Nerve Gas Sold By Britain'

''False flag terror' bestaat wel degelijk: bekentenissen en feiten over heel smerige zaken..........'

'Syrië: Vlaamse pater roept op niet langer de westerse anti-Syrië propaganda te geloven!'

'Syrië: nieuwe gifgasaanval als 'false flag' operatie tegen Syrisch bewind in voorbereiding........'

'Assad heeft geen gifgas gebruikt tegen de Syrische bevolking!'

'VS geeft toe dat er geen bewijs is voor het gebruik van gifgas 'door Assad', ofwel: alweer 'fake news' van de massamedia doorgeprikt!'

'Syrische nonnen spreken zich uit tegen de oorlogspropaganda van westerse mogendheden en de reguliere westerse (massa-) media'

'Israël bewapent minstens 7 terreurgroepen in Syrië.......'

'VS trainingsnetwerk voor terroristen in Syrië.......'

Mijn excuus voor de belabberde vormgeving, krijg het niet op orde.

Syrië: VS en Israëlische agressie dreigt de wereld in een oorlog te storten......

De door de VS geleidde coalitie heeft met haar aanval op strijders voor het legitieme Syrische leger een grens overschreden die het risico op een oorlog tussen de VS en Rusland een heel stuk dichterbij brengt...... Je zal begrijpen dat wanneer dit gebeurd er sprake zal zijn van de Derde Weredloorlog, immers China zal zich zonder meer achter Rusland scharen tegen de ongebreidelde VS agressie (of zeg maar gerust; terreur)....

De VS heeft intussen 2.000 militairen op Syrisch grondgebied en is daarmee illegaal aanwezig in dit land, het lamme excuus voor de hiervoor genoemde aanval dat het hier om zelfverdediging gaat, is zo bezien al helemaal een gotspe!!

Israël heeft intussen laten zien het niet eens te zijn met de huidige status quo en heeft zich nu volledig in de Syrische oorlog gemengd, dit zogenaamd na een aanval met een drone op 'Israëlisch grondgebied', een duidelijke false flag operatie met de bedoeling de eigen terreur in Syrië te rechtvaardigen...... Eerdere bombardementen voerde Israël zogenaamd uit, om Iraanse wapentransporten richting Libanon te voorkomen, echter de grootste schade schijnt toch te zijn toegebracht aan het Syrische leger en groepen die samen met dit leger tegen IS hebben gestreden en strijden........

De corrupte Israëlische premier Netanyahu heeft de afgelopen tijd wekelijks minstens één keer Syrië en Iran gewaarschuwd voor aanvallen van Israël als men niet zou inbinden en bijvoorbeeld zou proberen gebieden aan de Golanhoogten te heroveren, hetzelfde gebied dat Israël NB aan de andere kant van de grens illegaal heeft bezet ...... Eerder lapte Israël IS strijders op in hetzelfde gebied, zodat ze daarna verder konden vechten tegen het reguliere Syrische leger, ook voerde Israël op verzoek van IS bombardementen uit op stellingen van het Syrische leger......

Nu is nog de vraag hoelang Rusland zal blijven toezien, voordat het Israëlische en/of VS jagers zal aanvallen........

Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel van Darius Shahtahmasebi, zoals weergegeven op Anti-Media:

The World Is on the Brink of War Once Again as All Hell Breaks Loose in Syria

February 8, 2018 at 11:53 am

Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — The U.S.-led coalition conducted air and artillery strikes against pro-regime forces in Syria on Wednesday, killing over 100 pro-government fighters, CNN reports.

According to the coalition’s statement, the strikes were carried out after forces allied with the Syrian government “initiated an unprovoked attack” against what CNN termed “a well-established Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters where coalition advisers were working with US-backed Syrian fighters.”

CNN dubbed the U.S.-led strike “defensive” even though U.S. forces have no legal authority to be in Syria in the first place, something the New York Times was forced to admit a few weeks ago. According to official numbers, there are some 2,000 U.S. troops embedded with SDF forces in Syria, and Syria has deemed these U.S. troops to be an invading force. Technically, the act of violating Syria’s sovereignty and killing over 100 of its troops in a flagrant act of war makes the U.S. the aggressor — not the defender — in this scenario. (If you are having trouble understanding this, try reversing the U.S. and Syria in the scenario and seeing how you would feel if the shoe were on the other foot).

According to the Marine Corps Times, the coalition service members were acting in an “advise, assist and accompany capacity” when the attack occurred, eight kilometers east of the current Euphrates River deconfliction line. However, U.S. troops in Syria have been doing a lot more than advising and assisting on the ground. According to Army Sgt. Major. John Wayne Troxell, one particular Marine battalion “fired more rounds in five months in Raqqa, Syria, than any other Marine artillery battalion, or any Marine or Army battalion, since the Vietnam war.”

“In five months they fired 35,000 artillery rounds on ISIS targets, killing ISIS fighters by the dozens,” Troxell told Marine Corps Times in January.

The Marine Corps Times called it an “explosive revelation” that shed light on the “immense level of lethal force brought to Raqqa and northern Syria,” noting that in comparison, only 34,000 artillery rounds had been fired in the invasion of Iraq.

Moving back to the matter at hand, CNN reported that the attack on the U.S. base in Syria involved some 500 pro-Assad forces using artillery, mortar fire, and Russian-made tanks. According to the military official CNN quoted, no U.S. or SDF forces were killed in the attack, but the coalition still saw it fit to retaliate by killing at least 100 Syrian government forces. It is indisputably and particularly hypocritical that there is no international outrage over this act of aggression when one compares the media hysteria over a country like North Korea, which is currently bombing no one.

The official also stated that the coalition suspected the pro-government forces attacked because they have their sights set on seizing the lucrative oil fields in the area, which the SDF had previously taken after ISIS’ control over the area collapsed.

Despite the fact that this territory belongs to Syria, the U.S. is providing air cover for the SDF to take hold of this oil-rich region. The SDF doesn’t have an air force of its own, but if it can start generating substantial revenue from these oil fields, then it may be able to start buying more and more military equipment from the U.S.

The other option, of course, is that the U.S. can provide air cover for the SDF in the region indefinitely, something that could pose a problem in the distant future if the U.S. military presence has no determined end in sight. As it stands, the U.S. is proposing it stay in Syria until a political resolution sees the Assad government unseated.

The official also explained that Russia had been informed of the presence of pro-regime forces in the area before the attack and that Russia assured the coalition they would not engage with coalition forces. Russia responded to the attack almost immediately, condemning the U.S. military presence in Syria as “illegal” and accusing the U.S. of trying to steal Syrian oil.

“The recent incident once again shows that the United States’ illegal military presence in Syria is actually aimed at taking control of the country’s economic assets and not at fighting against the ISIS international terror group,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, as quoted by the Washington Post (WaPo). It should also be noted that these incidents of aggression do nothing to aid Russia’s current and ongoing attempt to establish a peace process of its own.

At around the same time, Turkish media reported that Turkey’s Prime Minister and its Foreign Minister had been in contact with both Iran and Russia. This is remarkable because these communications have preceded a scheduled visit to Turkey this weekend by U.S. national security advisor H.R. McMaster. Iran and Russia were also reportedly in contact with each other at around the same time, as well. Could it be that this triangle of emerging power brokers in Syria deciding the fate of Syria without the involvement of the U.S. has prompted the American military to take drastic measures to disrupt this developing alliance? Even with opposing aims in Syria — and even with Turkey’s recent invasion of Syrian territory — Iran, Turkey, and Russia have all managed to find some common ground without resorting to a confrontation with one another.

Accusing the U.S. of “mission-creep,” former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said “[t]he Americans have managed through their diplomatic strategy to isolate themselves to the point where Turkey, Iran and Syria all agree that what the U.S. is doing in Syria is bad.”

Further, before the American-led air attack took place, Russia accused the U.S. of attempting to partition Syria, an accusation that appears to be grounded in reality. CNN has acknowledged that the U.S. did not strike pro-regime forces that crossed back to their assigned territory of the Euphrates River even though all of the territory technically belongs to the government under international law. In other words, the U.S. is happy to leave Syrian troops to their own devices provided they stay within the areas the U.S. has assigned to them. How else could this be described, if not a partition?

Further, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG), an international NGO whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, Iran and Israel are only one “miscalculation” away from war as both sides have been seen to escalate their military interventions in Syria. The ICG identified Russia as the only real mediator between the two countries and urged Russia to play a more active role in averting a potential escalation.

Further, also on Wednesday, the BBC reported that Israeli warplanes had attacked a military complex in Damascus. A Syrian military statement reportedly said its air defense systems had blocked most of the missiles, but it is not clear if there were any significant casualties. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also reportedly visited the disputed Golan Heights territory at the same time, warning his enemies not to test Israel’s resolve. This was a clear reference to Iran and Hezbollah, which is prominent in both Lebanon and Syria.

In what can be described as an amazing coincidence, these air attacks by both Israel and the U.S. have taken place off the back of a joint military exercise between the United States and Israel, which simulated a joint U.S.-Israeli response to a rocket attack by Hezbollah.

Were these recent attacks by Israel and the U.S. a one-time incident in response to the threats allegedly posed by pro-Assad forces, including Hezbollah? Or are both these countries building up to something more confrontational?

All things considered, it seems likely we will find out where this conflict is headed in the not too distant future, especially given the potential for one miscalculated move to lead to something extremely volatile. As it stands, it should be noted that in the meantime, it is not Syria that is attacking any other state or launching a war against any other country.

With the assistance of the media, the U.S. and Israel continue to bomb Syrian territory in direct contravention of international law, now killing and wounding significant numbers of the Syrian government’s armed forces without any significant journalistic or international opposition.

One can only hope that someone heeds the advice of the ICG and attempts to de-escalate this conflict before it transforms itself into a regional powder keg involving at least three or more nuclear powers.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Zie ook: 'VS coalitie valt Syrische troepen aan......... Ofwel de strijd van de VS tegen IS, is in feite een strijd tegen de democratisch gekozen regering Assad........'

        en:  'VS bewandelt dezelfde weg richting Iran, als die voor de illegale oorlog tegen Irak in 2003, aldus één van de verantwoordelijken voor die oorlog........'  

        en: 'Rusland heeft geen aanval uitgevoerd op VS troepen in Syrië.....'

        en: 'Syrië: nieuwe gifgasaanval als 'false flag' operatie tegen Syrisch bewind in voorbereiding........'

        en: 'Hondsdolle VS valt Russische tank aan in poging de Russen te provoceren......'

        en: 'VS geeft toe dat er geen bewijs is voor het gebruik van gifgas 'door Assad', ofwel: alweer 'fake news' van de massamedia doorgeprikt!'