THE TRUTH IS THAT AFTER ISRAEL’S AIR STRIKES, WE ARE INVOLVED

THE TRUTH IS THAT AFTER ISRAEL’S AIR STRIKES, WE ARE INVOLVED

By Robert Fisk
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34840.htm

May 06, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -"The Independent" -  Lights in the sky over Damascus. Another Israeli raid – “daring” of course, in the words of Israel’s supporters, and the second in two days – on Bashar al-Assad’s weaponry and military facilities and weapons stores. The story is already familiar: the Israelis wanted to prevent a shipment of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon;  they were being sent by the Syrian government. According, at least, to a ‘Western intelligence source’. Anonymous, of course. And it opens the old question: why when the Syrian regime is fighting for its life would it send advanced missiles out of Syria?

But the Syrians themselves have officially confirmed that military installations were hit by the Israelis. And not for the first time during the rebellion. The Fateh-110 – the new version, at least – has a range of perhaps 250km. And it could indeed reach Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon. If the Hezbollah has actually acquired any. But why would the Syrians send them, as US sources were also claiming last night, when the Americans themselves claimed only last December that the Syrians had used the same ground-to-ground missiles against rebel forces in Syria.

In other words, the Syrian regime was prepared to dispense with their rockets to Lebanon when they were already using them in the brutal war in Syria…  Now there are other questions to be asked. If the Syrian air force can use their MiGs so devastatingly – and at such civilian cost – against their enemies inside Syria, why couldn’t they have sent their jets to protect Damascus and attack the Israeli aircraft? Isn’t the Syrian air force supposed to be guarding Syria from Israel?  Or are the MiGs just not technically able to take on Israel’s state-of-the-art (American) hardware? Or would that just be a step too far?

Much more important, however, is the salient fact that Israel has now intervened in the Syrian war.  It may say it was only aiming at weapons destined for the Hezbollah – but these were weapons also being used against rebel forces in Syria.  By diminishing the regime’s supply of these weapons, it is therefore helping the rebels overthrow Bashar al-Assad. And since Israel regards itself as a Western nation – best friend and best US military ally in the Middle East, etc, etc – this means that “we” are now involved in the war, directly and from the air. 

Let’s see if the US and the EU condemn Israel’s air attacks. I doubt it. Which would mean, if we are silent, that we approve of them. Silence, to quote Sir Thomas More, gives consent.

So now the Iranians and Hizballah are accused of intervening in Syria – true, though not to quite extent we are led to believe – and Qatar and Saudi Arabia funnel weapons to the rebels – true, but not quite enough weapons, as the Syrian rebels will tell you – and the Israelis have joined in. We are now militarily involved. 

TURKISH DOCTORS SAY NO NERVE GAS IN SYRIAN VICTIMS' BLOOD

TURKISH DOCTORS SAY NO NERVE GAS IN SYRIAN VICTIMS' BLOOD: 

Doctors in Turkey say initial tests of blood samples from victims of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria last month are negative for sarin gas. May 5-13

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/130505/syria-chemical-weapons-obama-red-line-turkey-idlib-aleppo-sarin-israel

The samples from the victims of a suspected chemical weapons attack on April 29 have been sent to the Turkish capital, Ankara, for further testing.

REYHANLI, Turkey — Doctors in Turkey say initial tests of blood samples from victims of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria last month are negative for sarin gas. 

Medics tested the blood samples — which were taken from some 13 victims of an attack that included white powder in the northern village of Saraqeb on April 29 — at the Reyhanli hospital on the same day, but did not find anything unusual, they said. 

They tested the blood specifically for sarin gas — a nerve agent — and also ran regular bloodwork. 

The samples from the victims, who suffered from dizziness, vomiting and respiratory difficulties, have since been sent to the Turkish capital, Ankara, for further testing.

The development comes as Israeli fighter jets are reported to have carried out at least several airstrikes on weapons convoys near Damascus over the weekend. 

Employees at the Istanbul headquarters of the Council of Forensic Medicine, the institute testing the blood in Ankara, were unable to answer GlobalPost inquiries on the status of the additional tests. 

Doctors in Reyhanli, in Turkey’s Hatay province, say they believe the Turkish government will keep the final results a secret due to the potential global political consequences of either negative or positive results. 

US President Barack Obama had previously said chemical weapons use in the now two-year-long civil war would be a “red line”, and potentially provoke a US-led intervention against the government forces of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Both Israeli and US officials have in recent weeks said they believe that chemical weapons, including sarin gas, have been used in the fighting in Syria but it is unclear in what capacity and from where the chemicals originated.

MORE FROM GLOBALPOST: SYRIA: The horrific chemical weapons attack that probably wasn’t a chemical weapons attack (Graphic video)

 http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/130430/syria-chemical-weapons-attack-aleppo-sheikh-maqsoud-april-13-assad-obama-fsa

 

But while some Syrians say chemical weapons have been used on civilian neighborhoods in several locations throughout the country, they remain difficult to identify.

"The symptoms were consistent with those caused by a chemical, and the effects of this chemical were very serious and potentially fatal,” said Dr. Ubada Alabrash, who treated the victims at Reyhanli hospital. “But we couldn’t identify what the chemical was.”

In Saraqeb and in an earlier attack on April 13 where white powder was dispersed in a Kurdish suburb of Aleppo, the civilian victims were displaying similar symptoms: dizziness, vomiting, headaches and breathing problems.

Also, based on photos and videos uploaded to YouTube — and catalogued by independent blogger and weapons monitor, Eliot Higgins — the spent munitions or canisters witnesses said disseminated the chemicals appeared to be virtually identical.

MORE FROM GLOBALPOST: Complete Coverage from Inside Syria.  http://www.globalpost.com/series/inside-syria

 

“It appears to be a very strong match to the remnants of devices that were supposedly used in an earlier attack in Sheikh Maghsoud, Aleppo,” Higgins writes of the canisters left behind in Saraqeb on his blog, “Brown Moses.” His work tracking and identifying weapons used in the Syrian conflict is cited widely by both rights groups and international media.

“This leads me to believe the same devices and chemical were used in both attacks,” he writes.

However, both weapons and medical experts are urging caution.

While the same agent could have been used in both attacks, it could have been tear gas or some other kind of generated smoke, normally used for riot control, some weapons experts said.

The telltale sign of a sarin gas attack is myosis, or constricting of the pupils, and fasciculations, the medical term for tremors. While GlobalPost confirmed that some of the victims in the April 13 attack suffered from tremors, it was unable to confirm any of them had myosis.

MORE FROM GLOBALPOST: UN clarifies statement, says 'no conclusive findings' on chemical weapons in Syria .  http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/130506/un-investigating-commission-says-no-conclusive-findin

While three people were killed in the attack in Aleppo and another person died from the attack on Saraqeb, the majority of victims recovered after just several days.

In Aleppo, the doctors who treated the patients also later suffered similar symptoms to the victims. In Reyahanli, the medics reportedly wore protective suits.

“My effects were mild, but one doctor had to be admitted to the ICU,” said Dr. Kawa Hassan of the Avreen Hospital that admitted the 22 victims of the attack in Aleppo.

When the patients began to arrive on April 13, Dr. Hassan said he was scared not only for himself but for the entire country.

“If he begins a chemical war, he will kill us all,” he said.

UN HAS TESTIMONY THAT SYRIAN REBELS USED SARIN GAS - INVESTIGATOR

UN HAS TESTIMONY THAT SYRIAN REBELS USED SARIN GAS - INVESTIGATOR

By Reuters  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/05/us-syria-crisis-un-idUSBRE94409Z20130505.  GENEVA | Sun May 5, 2013

DID REBELS CROSS RED LINE?.    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34834.htm

May 06, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -"Reuters" - May 5 (Reuters) –

U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

"Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.

Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gave no details as to when or where sarin may have been used.

The Geneva-based inquiry into war crimes and other human rights violations is separate from an investigation of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria instigated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which has since stalled.

President Bashar al-Assad's government and the rebels accuse each another of carrying out three chemical weapon attacks, one near Aleppo and another near Damascus, both in March, and another in Homs in December.

The civil war began with anti-government protests in March 2011. The conflict has now claimed an estimated 70,000 lives and forced 1.2 million Syrian refugees to flee.

The United States has said it has "varying degrees of confidence" that sarin has been used by Syria's government on its people.

President Barack Obama last year declared that the use or deployment of chemical weapons by Assad would cross a "red line". 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

HOW THE BOSTON BOMBINGS MAY CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE WORSE

HOW THE BOSTON BOMBINGS MAY CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE WORSE!

By James Petras

The relation between the suspected Boston Marathon bombers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) and the Boston Police (BP) is a point of contention and controversy. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34784.htm

May 02, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The FBI, at first, claimed no knowledge of the bombing suspects but later was forced to admit having received at least two sets of intelligence reports, one from Russian officials and another from the CIA, identifying one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as a potential security threat linked to a Chechen terrorist organization. Testimony from Tsarnaev’s mother and father indicates that the FBI was active in following, harassing and interrogating the suspect before the bombing. Despite general directives from the US Departments of Justice and Homeland Security mandating US security to aggressively pursue ‘Islamist terrorists’, the FBI claims to have made no effort to follow-up on the Russian and CIA security alerts, especially after Tamerlan Tsarnaev returned from Russian state of Dagestan last year where he allegedly met six times with a known Chechen terrorist, Gadzhimurad Dolgatov, in a fundamentalist Salafi mosque.

The official government and corporate media versions claim the FBI may have ‘over-looked’ the security risk posed by Tsarnaev. Congressional critics argue that the FBI was ‘negligent’ in following up leads provided by the Russians and the CIA. A more likely explanation is that the FBI was actively engaged with Tsarnaev and deliberately encouraged the conspiracy for self-serving purposes.

The most benign hypothesis is that the FBI was using Tsarnaev as a means of infiltrating and securing intelligence on other possible ‘terrorists’. A more plausible hypothesis is that the Boston office of the FBI had set the pair of brothers up for a sting operation in order to enhance their anti-terrorist credentials – and that the ‘operation’ got out of hand – with Tamarlan having his own agenda. The most likely hypothesis is that the FBI facilitated the bombing in order to revive the flagging fortunes of the ‘war on terror’ foisted on a war-weary and economically depressed American public.

The FBI in Boston has a long and notorious history of working with and protecting certain leaders of organized crime in return for information about targeted rivals: The most notorious example is the FBI’s 20-year ‘partnership’ with one of Boston’s most feared gangland killers, James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, where the mobster was provided with protection and collaboration in return for his information about a rival crime family and other competitors. In 2012, Bulger was finally indicted for 19 murders mostly committed under FBI ‘protection’ – although one of his closest mob-partners claims he murdered 40 people in his lifetime.

The Boston Bombings served as a detonator to mobilize the entire US security apparatus; it has led to the suspension of constitutional guaranties. It has been accompanied by an intense mass media campaign glorifying police state operations and the imposition of virtual martial law in the Boston metropolitan area of over 4.5 million inhabitants. The military police operation and media campaign aroused fear and terror among the public. Instant psychodrama produced mass worship of the ‘heroic’ police: they were portrayed as having saved the public from unknown numbers of armed terrorists lurking in their neighborhoods. The police, the FBI and the entire Security Apparatus – were repeatedly ‘honored’ at public spectacles, sports and civic events, lauded as ‘guardians’ and ‘saviors’. 

The sordid role of FBI in organizing entrapment operations was never mentioned. The hundreds of billions wasted in futile overseas ‘wars against terror’ went down the memory hole. The opposition to Washington’s cuts in social programs was diverted almost overnight to support new funding for US military intervention in Syria and North Korea, a greater arms build-up in Israel and domestic security.

The Boston Bombings coincided with the White House dictating a new round of domestic police state measures and launching a series of aggressive military moves in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The Pentagon has organized its biggest and most threatening air, sea and land military exercises right on the borders of North Korea. The White House has encouraged and promoted Japan’s belligerent military posture toward China regarding disputed islands in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Kerry has increased military aid to the Syrian terrorists by at least $130 million and dispatched hundreds of Special Forces to Jordan to train the jihadi-mercenaries against the Syrian government. 

The White House concocted charges that Damascus deployed chemical weapons against the rebels to justify direct US military intervention in Syria. Closer to home, the White House has given unconditional support to the violent Venezuelan opposition’s post-election campaign designed to provoke a civil war– while refusing to recognize the internationally certified election victory of President Maduro.

It is very clear the Obama regime wants to turn the clock back a decade to recreate the terrible political climate of 2001-02. He seeks to fabricate a sense of an imminent terrorist threat based on the ‘Boston Bombings’ in order to re-launch another global military campaign. Instead of Iraq – the ‘threat’ is now Syria, Iran and Lebanon. Today, the threat is North Korea – tomorrow it could be China. Today, it is Venezuela – next it could be Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador, and the entire edifice of Latin American regional integration.

The civilian casualties and deaths resulting from the Boston Bombings, linked to the US backing and sheltering of Chechen terrorists, are a small price for Washington to pay if it results in escalating global wars and greater impunity for the National Police State.

Re-launching a new and more virulent version of militarized global empire building is of the highest priority. The targeted countries have global significance: Venezuela and Iran are oil producing giants, the backbone of OPEC and adversaries of Israel. China is the second biggest economy in the world and the principle challenger to US economic dominance. Cowering and confusing millions of downwardly mobile Americans weakens the principle domestic obstacle to bigger and more comprehensive cuts in social programs in order to finance global wars.

Indeed, the Boston Bombings have larger political and economic consequences; they set the stage for a new round of wars abroad and regressive (and repressive) changes at home.

----------------   

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).