(LIVE SYRIA BLOG): NATO Carrying out Vast Syria Disinformation Campaign

Updates on Syria conflict + VoltaireNet's June 2012 warning of vast NATO disinformation campaign now seemingly underway. (Latest updates at top)

UPDATED July 22, 2012 -This LIVE SYRIA BLOG is now closed. For the latest information on developments in Syria, please view Land Destroyer's "Syria" news section.

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UPDATED July 22, 2012 - "The Free Syrian Army ruined our lives," reports BBC in their article, "Syria crisis: Iraqis flee 'sectarian violence' in Damascus." Refugees returning to Iraq from Syria inundated a BBC reporter with accounts of why they've fled, citing sectarian violence perpetrated by the Western backed, armed, and funded so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA). Accounts reaffirm that indeed foreign fighters are amongst the FSA's ranks, including Iraqi sectarian extremists serving as commanders.

Reports from Libya earlier this year confirmed that hundreds of Libyan fighters as well as NATO-supplied weapons and cash were pledged to the FSA by Al Qaeda's Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) commander, Abdul Hakim Belhaj.

These accounts of sectarian violence are by no means the first. Bloomberg conceded recently that "the sectarian civil war between Syria’s Sunnis and Alawites that the world had long feared has begun," the manifestation of warnings by international geopolitical analysts signaled as early as 2007.

Image: Christians in Syria have been particularly hit hard by what is being described as "ethnic cleansing," not by Syrian security forces, but by NATO-backed death squads under the banner of the "Free Syrian Army." The LA Times has been quietly reporting on the tragedy of Syria's minorities at the hands of the Syrian rebels for months - and indicates that wider genocide will take place, just as it is now in Libya, should Syria's government collapse under foreign pressure. 
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It is admittedly under the current Syrian government that Syria's large populations of ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Shi'ia Muslims, moderate Sunnis, Christians, and Druze have been protected from the inevitable sectarian onslaught by extremists cultivated by the West. In 2007, in Hersh's "The Redirection," the following foreshadowing to Bloomberg's "sectarian civil war" was given:


"Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites" -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
Now, demonstrably, we see exactly this feared onslaught manifesting itself in Syria, in particular against Christians as indicated in LA Times' "Church fears 'ethnic cleansing' of Christians in Homs, Syria," and more recently in USA Today's distorted, but still telling, "Christians in Syria live in uneasy alliance with Assad, Alawites." Even the massacre in Houla, seems to echo of this 2007 warning, bearing all the hallmarks of sectarian extremists like Al Qaeda.

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UPDATED July 21, 2012 - BREAKING: US WRITING NEW SYRIAN CONSTITUTION - "TUTORING" SNC FOR SYRIA TAKE OVER - The US State Department, via the "US Institute of Peace" is working directly with Syrian "opposition" groups to formulate a "government" to put into place, if and when NATO covert military operations succeed in collapsing the Syrian state. 

The report written by Foreign Policy magazine titled, "Inside the quiet effort to plan for a post-Assad Syria," indicates that the US State Department-funded USIP plans on releasing a report soon, detailing the US-crafted government being planned. The USIP, which already publishes details of how it has crafted, created, and is continuing to manage and facilitate the NATO-installed client regime now running Libya, constitutes nothing less than implementation of modern-day imperialism.

The USIP claims that it is involved in not only "advising" the Western-backed Libyan government, but that it is also involved in, "constitution making, transitional justice, women rights" and "education." The USIP, US government-funded, will also be writing Syria's "constitution" as well - which they are now calling a "transition strategy document." 

Foreign Policy magazine, in an attempt to water down the implications of the US government literally crafting the client regime they plan on placing into the vacuum their US-Israeli-Saudi-Qatari mercenaries (FSA) are attempting to create, by claiming:

The absence of Obama administration officials at these meetings, even as observers, was deliberate.
"This is a situation where too visible a U.S. role would have been deeply counterproductive. It would have given the Assad regime and elements of the opposition an excuse to delegitimize the process," [Steven] Heydemann said.
Steven Heydemann is heading the USIP Syrian project.

Unfortunately for this line of thinking, the USIP is in fact a direct functionary of the US government, and more specifically the US State Department, with acting members of the US State Department, including Michael Posner and members of the US Department of Defense, including James Miller, serving on the USIP board of directors. Other compromising BoD members include Amnesty International chairmen and policy makers drawn from Fortune 500-funded think tanks like the Hoover Institution and big-oil's Belfer Center.

To complicate matters further for the so-called "Syrian opposition," prominent members of the movement, including Radwan Ziadeh, is actually a "senior fellow" of the US-funded institution - meaning the opposition leaders were drawn from US institutions, not Syria. The Guardian's article, "The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking?" has covered this in depth, illustrating that Ziadeh's background is the rule, not the exception.   


Readers should recall that US State Department's Michael Posner, also serving on the USIP BoD, conceded in an AFP report in 2011 that the US had been funding, equipping, and training "activists" from across the Arab World 2 years in advance for the allegedly "spontaneous" "Arab Spring." These included activists from Syria who created the rhetorical predication for the violence now unfolding across Syria.

This admission by the US State Department and the head of USIP's Syrian project indicates the absolute illegitimacy of the so-called "Syrian opposition," - a complete contrivance of the US government, a manifestation of its foreign policy toward Syria - and in no way representative of the Syrian people. The opposition is literally directed by the US government who is forming for them a government to replace the one they are purposefully destroying through a series of mutually supported economic sanctions, military attacks, and diplomatic undermining.

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UPDATE July 21, 2012 - Thierry Meyssan of VoltaireNet updates us on the latest, from Damascus, Syria.

Video: Thierry Meyssan in Damascus, Syria. Please choose from "choose language" to see English subtitles.

Thierry Meyssan describes Syria's latest unrest as the result of a coordinated NATO-backed terrorist operation aimed at creating confusion and panic, coupled with Western propaganda - and warns that more operations are likely on the way. NATO hopes to break the will of Syrians as well as its military which is still clearly intact despite assassinations and widespread violence. By falsely portraying Syria as "collapsing," the so-called "Free Syrian Army's" foreign sponsors may be able to justify more overt intervention on behalf of their so-far ineffectual proxies.

More from VoltaireNet can be found here


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UPDATED July 21, 2012 - Guardian's article, "Syria: Assad regime starts to unravel," showcases a vast array of disinformation, outdated news, falsehoods, and unverified hearsay taken from the habitually unreliable "Free Syrian Army." It also illustrates what is known as a media "echo chamber" where it, along with other prominent Western media outlets cite "activists" on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, who then in turn cite Western news sources, thus amplifying the effects and reach of fabrications and propaganda.






Wikipedia has the following apt description regarding this propagandist tactic:

Observers of journalism in the mass media describe an echo chamber effect in media discourse. One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true. A media conglomerate that owns multiple media outlets can produce the same story among "different" outlets, creating an illusion that a media consumer is getting information from different sources.
It is important to follow sources, verify their authenticity, and sort out what is confirmed, what is likely, and what is an attempt to manipulate public opinion. A NATO disinformation campaign, as described in June by VoltaireNet, is being implemented against the Syria government.

Bombings, bandits, and border raids constitute relatively easy and cheap tactical maneuvers by NATO and its proxies to create the illusion of terror, disorder, and exponentially increasing chaos. However none of these tactics, even if combined, can break a disciplined, sizable fighting force, such as the Syrian military. And despite reporting tactical loses by the FSA in their article, the Guardian decided to run with the title "Syria: Assad regime starts to unravel" anyway, primarily for propagandizing.

FSA claims, as well as unfounded "expert" opinions by opposition-backers were also included in the article, to then be repeated and cited as "Guardian reports" by the very activist networks supplying Guardian with their information in the first place. The Guardian, of course, is just one of many Western outlets serving as a NATO propaganda "echo chamber."

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UPDATED July 20, 2012 - New York Times confirms in their article, "Assad Troops Force Rebels to Retreat in Damascus Battle," earlier Press TV reports that Syrian security forces had routed militants in Damascus and elsewhere, while other Western outlets are finally conceding that Syria's borders are being re-secured after cross-border assaults by militants from NATO sanctuaries.

NYT and other Western media outlets have been suspiciously preoccupied with pushing the narrative the use of "chemical weapons" by the Syrian government is imminent - bolstering instead earlier reports that NATO was planning to deploy chemical weapons pilfered from Libya as a means of justifying US, Israeli, and NATO air strikes. It is reported within US policy papers that without air strikes, NATO's proxy militants lack the ability to take and hold territory, let alone defeat Syrian forces in any tactical manner. Recent "gains" reported by the Western press have turned out to be "psychological" in nature, rooted in Western rhetoric, rather than by facts on the ground. 

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UPDATED July 20, 0212 - Press TV reports that the Syrian government has taken back border crossings along both its Turkish and Iraqi borders, as well as sections of Damascus and the city of Idlib. Reports out of Damascus by RT, one of the few news agencies who actually has reporters in the country reporting, also paints a vastly different picture than Western sources (which are based on "activist" hearsay) of what is unfolding at least in the city of Damascus.


Video: Dr. Webster Tarpley. NATO Activates Ben Rhodes Plan for Coup and Genocide in Syria; CIA Leads Assault Based on Orchestrated Media Lies, Terrorism

Reports of Syria's Internet being briefly taken down along with a week of systematic disruption to Syrian state media, indicates that the long warned-of disinformation campaign NATO planned, the "Ben Rhodes plan," is being attempted. Readers must again read and spread VoltaireNet's June 2012 warning, "NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign" here.

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UPDATED July 20, 2012 - AFP reports in their article, "Syria rebels control all Iraq-Syria border points: Iraq official," that "Iraqi border guards had witnessed the Free Syrian Army take control of a border outpost, detain a Syrian army lieutenant colonel, and then cut off his arms and legs. Then they executed 22 Syrian soldiers in front of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers."

These are tactics indicative of the United States' El Salvadorian and Nicaraguan death squads operated under John Negroponte, who would later reuse these tactics in Iraq to foment a sectarian war to drain what was initially an effective Sunni-Shi'ia insurgency. Negroponte was joined by Robert Ford, who later became US Ambassador to Syria. Ford was working closely with Syrian "opposition" members until he was recalled in October of 2011. 

Geopolitical analysts have noted much of the violence seen across Syria, admittedly funded, armed, and directed by foreign intelligence services, resembled what is called the "Salvador Option." That is, violence directed by foreign intelligence services to create the maximum level of terror and destabilization possible. Extreme acts of barbarism are meant to shock populations into fear and submission - but ultimately betray any narrative involving "freedom fighters" and "democracy," mentioning nothing of "human rights." 

That Syria's borders are being attacked should be no surprise. The US CIA, British SAS, and Israeli Mossad have been operating along Syria's borders for over a year, constructing camps, and coordinating weapons and funding. Along Iraq's borders in particular, exists primarily the Al Anbar province, where the FSA has many sympathizers and serves as the base of power of Iraq's current opposition.

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UPDATED July 19, 2012 - Russia and China, representing a collective population dwarfing that of the United States, the Gulf States, and the European Union combined, have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution aimed at imposing sanctions, backed with threats of military intervention on Syria.

The vote, originally scheduled for Wednesday, was preceded by suspiciously timed disinformation campaigns by Western media outlets - first falsely portraying a Syrian security operation in Tremseh in the Hama province as a "massacre," then attempting to portray Damascus as "falling to" NATO-backed "Free Syrian Army" militants after a bomb killed several high ranking Syrian officials. 

Both disinformation campaigns aimed at panicking Russian and Chinese stakeholders into pressuring their respective governments into a compromise.

Barring a UN mandate, NATO, Israel, and the Gulf States now face the decision to either continue an intentional slow burn of Syrian society, as planned in US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's "Middle East Memo #21," or unilateral military intervention based on yet another fabricated provocation.
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UPDATE July 19, 2012 - For those still skeptical about the West, Israel, and the Gulf State's willingness to subvert and destroy nations throughout the Middle East solely for self-serving purposes, using any guise or lie necessary to accomplish their goals - readers are encouraged to revisit this 2003 Guardian article titled, "Macmillan backed Syria assassination plot," where a fully detailed agenda of destabilizing and pitting nations against each other was fully formulated. In fact, many of the dynamics at play then, in 1956, can still be seen at work and being openly manipulated by Western powers today.





Details regarding the latest version of this plot against Syria, and by extension, Iran, can be seen fully documented in Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection," and US Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" report (.pdf found here).

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UPDATED July 19, 2012 - After over a year of suspicion and tacit confirmations that the US and Israel were behind the violence in Syria, Haaretz of Israel has now confirmed that US and Israeli officials are planning strikes against Syrian "weapon facilities," citing the unfounded threat of "chemical weapons."

This after a recent Washington Post article confirming both US and Israeli intelligence are on Syria's borders overseeing and directing the arming and funding of the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA). 

In reality, this week's violence was a premeditated, concerted campaign timed to pressure the UN Security Council and shake the support of Russia and China ahead of a highly anticipated vote on sanctions.

Syria has in fact suffered years of instability and violent terrorist campaigns in the past, including the Muslim Brotherhood's assassination of high ranking military officials, and still prevailed. It is unlikely that Syria has reached a "turning point" in favor of the FSA who has yet to gain a military victory on the battlefield and has been resigned to terrorist tactics. Instead, Syria has reached a point where it will be untenable for the West to continue portraying the FSA as "activists," "victims," or "pro-democracy."

This will play well into the now fully untied hands of the Syrian military, which is why both the US and Israel are eager to justify at least limited strikes on "weapons facilities," in an effort to balk the inevitable and merciless counter-stroke by the Syrian people against the West's campaign of armed subversion.

Readers should be aware of the prospect of a false flag chemical weapons attack carried out by FSA terrorists, or their Western backers, in order to justify an air campaign targeting Syrian military capabilities.

In Libya, after a similar psychological-operation against Tripoli unfolded, and despite NATO deploying daily air strikes, the government and people of Libya were able to hold out for months against NATO-armed terrorist proxies, highlighting the limitations of this strategy of convert subversion and warfare. Finding (or manufacturing) any excuse to bridge the rampant covert destabilization in Syria with a more conventional military operation is now NATO, Israel, and the Gulf States' top priority - and a prospect they are attempting to prepare the public for with articles like that found in Haaretz.  

For the latest updates, follow LD on Twitter @LandDestroyer .

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UPDATE July 19, 2012 - Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has now stated, "there is a US-Israeli project against Syria," and that “the US and Israel consider Syria as a problem, because Syria is a real supporter of resistance.” 



This echos Nasrallah's statements in 2007, as reported in Seymour Hersh's article "The Redirection," 

"Nasrallah accused the Bush Administration of working with Israel to deliberately instigate fitna, an Arabic word that is used to mean “insurrection and fragmentation within Islam.” “In my opinion, there is a huge campaign through the media throughout the world to put each side up against the other,” he said. “I believe that all this is being run by American and Israeli intelligence.” (He did not provide any specific evidence for this.) He said that the U.S. war in Iraq had increased sectarian tensions, but argued that Hezbollah had tried to prevent them from spreading into Lebanon. (Sunni-Shiite confrontations increased, along with violence, in the weeks after we talked.)" -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh 

Quite clearly the US and Israel are directly behind (and benefiting from) the violence now seen in Syria, with the Washington Post as recently as this week admitting both the CIA & Israeli intelligence are working with FSA rebels along Syria's borders. The summation of the FSA's weapons and funding, admittedly directed into terrorist hands by the CIA, are primarily sourced from Saudi Arabia and Qatar - exactly as described would happen in Hersh's 2007 article, "The Redirection."

Clearly the violence in Syria from 2007 until present, is the result of premeditated foreign subversion, betraying Western propaganda that a "popular uprising" is taking place. And because the violence is a creation and perpetuation of foreign powers - namely NATO, Israel, and the Gulf States, this casts serious suspicion on these very powers regarding the recent Damascus bombing targeting high level Syrian military and intelligence officers.

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UPDATE July 19, 2012 - After unconfirmed reports by nameless "US officials" that Syria was moving chemical weapons out of storage, and now in the midst of a massive media disinformation campaign, several leading "activist" Twitter accounts have been hysterically warning about an "imminent" chemical attack by a "desperate regime." The US has repeatedly insinuated that any use of chemical weapons would require either it, or Israel to militarily intervene.

In reality, it is NATO's militant front that has the means (chemical weapons brought in from Libya), the motivation (subsequently receiving military intervention on their behalf), and a demonstrated willingness to carry out indiscriminate, mass-casualty terrorist attacks as demonstrated by their months' long bombing campaign (and here).

For the latest updates, follow LD on Twitter @LandDestroyer .
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UPDATE July 19, 2012 - With confusion surrounding events in Syria, there is now news of a bombing in Bulgaria involving buses full of Israeli tourists. Before any investigation has been carried out, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already placed the blame on Iran. Netanyahu is quoted as saying Israel, "would respond with force to Iranian terror."

http://forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/w-2bulgaria-071812.jpg

Similar attacks, but on a smaller scale, were carried out in Georgia and Thailand with all signs pointing not to Iran, but Israeli and US trained, armed, funded, and directed MEK terrorists. Not only is the timing of the most recent attack in Bulgaria suspicious - corresponding with a major push to destabilize Syria, but the rush to judgement by Israeli officials seems all too conveniently assisting Western, not Iranian objectives.

Hezbollah, often cited by the West and Israel as a proxy of Iran, has already denied any responsibility for the bombings stating, "our movement does not fight against tourists." 

It has been reported as early as 2007 that efforts to destabilize Syria were aimed directly at undermining and inevitably attempting to overthrow the government of Iran. This was written about at length in Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection," and is a reoccurring theme throughout US policy papers.  Any move against Syria inevitably involves Iran as part of the calculation for the West which has been plotting regime change in both nations since at least 1991.

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UPDATE July 18, 2012 - Remember when NATO began "Operation Mermaid Dawn" in August of 2011 against Tripoli, Libya, the Western press initially reported Qaddafi's command structure either killed or captured. The initial effects of this propaganda devastated Libyans psychologically and the city of Tripoli fell almost overnight.



Photo: Qaddafi's son Saif Al-Islam "confirmed" to have been captured and ready to be transferred to the Hague by the illegitimate International Criminal Court, was actually very much free and leading efforts to drive out NATO backed Al Qaeda terrorists from Tripoli. After Western media sources attempted to portray Libya as "fallen," fighting would rage on for months, with NATO literally flattening cities in an effort to match tactical reality with their wartime propaganda.
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The next day it turned out that Qaddafi and his command structure was very much intact and still fighting. The battle for Libya would stretch on for many months more - with NATO forced to destroy entire cities with daily aerial bombardments to finally claim "victory." 

In Syria, NATO air support does not exist - and unless they can psychologically defeat Syrians, and panic the world into believing immediate foreign intervention is necessary, their latest "Mermaid Dawn" moment in Syria will fail. In addition to false reports of "massive defections" and "coups," readers must be aware of false flag chemical attacks (or mere reports of them) that will serve as impetus for NATO to militarily intervene.

For the latest updates, follow LD on Twitter @LandDestroyer .

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Editor's Note: NATO has failed categorically to sell UNSC mandated military intervention to an increasingly unreceptive global public. With fighting reported in Damascus and the Western media and the so-called "Free Syrian Army" hailing it as the "final battle" despite zero tactical victories in nearly a year and a half of fighting, the stage is being set instead for a massive psychological operation.

Such an operation was warned against in mid-June by Thierry Meyssan - and provides a somber warning more pertinent now than ever. Please re-read, re-post, and re-tweet this following article - ensure that NATO's "Mermaid Dawn" moment in Syria turns into a "Bay of Pigs" defeat instead.

Read Meyssan's article, "NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign" here