By 2012 US openly supported Islamic butchers in Syria to achieve US political goal, added secret support as well-Reuters, 8/1/2012….Entire US political class has normalized Islamic terrorists, considers them partners-2016, 2019

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8/18/2011, US says Assad must step aside, enacts sweeping economic punishment of Syria: Obama: “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Also, “Obama signed an executive order that gives his administration authority to impose sweeping new sanctions on Syria.” AP…By 2012 US openly supported Islamic terrorists: “Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad’s [Islamic terrorist] opponents.” 

August 1, 2012, “Obama authorizes secret support for Syrian rebels [Islamic terrorists],” Reuters, Mark Hosenball, Washington

“President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for [Islamic terrorist] rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said. 

Obama’s order, approved earlier this year [2012] and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. 

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad’s armed opponents – a shift that intensified following last month’s failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government. 

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that. 

But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad’s opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble. 

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined. 

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear. 

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment. 

‘NERVE CENTER’ 

A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies. 

Last week [July 2012], Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad’s [Islamic terrorist] opponents. 

This “nerve center” is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence. 

Turkey’s [so-called] moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment. 

European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad’s departure. 

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad’s helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Syrian government armed forces have employed such air power more extensively in recent days. 

NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey. 

On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had “not obtained any such weapons at all.” U.S. government sources said they could not confirm the MANPADs deliveries, but could not rule them out either. 

Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas. 

Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad’s opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a “memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding. 

Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels. 

Reuters first reported last week that the White House had crafted a directive authorizing greater U.S. covert assistance to Syrian rebels. It was unclear at that time whether Obama had signed it. 

OVERT SUPPORT 

Separately from the president’s secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad’s opponents. 

The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for “non-lethal” assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios. 

The State Department also says the United States has set aside $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies. 

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury confirmed it had granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, Washington representative of one of the most active rebel factions, the [Al Qaeda group] Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group’s behalf. The authorization was first reported on Friday by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website. 

Last year [2011], when [Islamic terrorists] rebels began organizing themselves to challenge the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama also signed an initial “finding” broadly authorizing secret U.S. backing for them. But the president moved cautiously in authorizing specific measures to support them. 

Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad’s opponents. 

Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups. 

Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad’s opponents. 

U.S. and European officials say that, so far, intelligence agencies do not believe the militants’ role in the anti-Assad opposition is dominant. 

While U.S. and allied government experts believe that the Syrian rebels have been making some progress against Assad’s forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years.”

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Added: US elites think it’s normal to partner with Islamic terrorists:  

Jan. 2016, “A Special Relationship: The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again,” Harpers.org, Andrew Cockburn

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Added:

 

6/9/19, “More Evidence US Armed Syria Terrorists as Trump Pleads Ceasefire,” Strategic Culture, Finian Cunningham

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[Image, 12/30/2018, “US flag flies in Syria’s Manbij despite pullout notice,” AFP, Delil Souleiman]…How would US like it if Syria bombed the US and planted its flag on US soil?]

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Added: US “boots on the ground” in Idlib:

Image: Abu Mohammad al-Jolai, leader of Salafist jihadist militant group HTS in Syria, US “boots on the ground” in Syria in US continuing unprovoked aggression against Syria. As of 2019 jihadist group HTS is in control of Syria’s Idlib province.…5/23/19

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Added: “Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other.” “In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA,” LA Times, 3/27/2016… CIA “side” was run out of town by Pentagon “side.”A supposedly vetted US backed group handed over its weapons and trucks to an Al Qaeda group that had ambushed them.

3/27/2016, “In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA," LA Times, Nabih Bulos, W.J. Hennigan and Brian Bennett
 

“Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war. 

The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east…. 

The attacks by one U.S.-backed group against another come amid continued heavy fighting in Syria and illustrate the difficulty facing U.S. efforts to coordinate among dozens of armed [Islamic terrorist] groups that are trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad, fight the Islamic State militant group and battle one another all at the same time. 

“It is an enormous challenge,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who described the clashes between U.S.-supported groups as “a fairly new phenomenon.” 

“It is part of the three-dimensional chess that is the Syrian battlefield,” he said….

President Obama this month [March 2016] authorized a new Pentagon plan to train and arm Syrian rebel fighters, relaunching a program that was suspended in the fall after a string of embarrassing setbacks which included recruits being ambushed and handing over much of their U.S.-issued ammunition and trucks to an Al Qaeda affiliate…. 

The CIA, meanwhile, has its own operations center inside Turkey from which it has been directing aid to [Islamic terrorist] rebel groups in Syria, providing them with TOW antitank missiles from Saudi Arabian weapons stockpiles. 

While the Pentagon’s actions are part of an overt effort by the U.S. and its allies against Islamic State, the CIA’s backing of militias is part of a separate covert U.S. effort aimed at keeping pressure on the Assad government in hopes of prodding the Syrian leader to the negotiating table…. 

“Fighting over territory in Aleppo demonstrates how difficult it is for the U.S. to manage these really localized and in some cases entrenched conflicts,” said Nicholas A. Heras, an expert on the Syrian civil war at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington. “Preventing clashes is one of the constant topics in the joint operations room with Turkey.”…

The clashes brought the U.S. and Turkish officials to “loggerheads,” he added. After diplomatic pressure from the U.S., the militia withdrew to the outskirts of the town as a sign of good faith, he said. 

But continued fighting among different U.S.-backed groups may be inevitable, experts on the region said. 

“Once they cross the border into Syria, you lose a substantial amount of control or ability to control their actions,” Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, said in a telephone interview. “You certainly have the potential for it becoming a larger problem as people fight for territory and control of the northern border area in Aleppo.”” map, LA Times Graphics

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Added: 9/9/2013: “Republican leadership class’ reflexive advocacy of entry into Syria’s civil war is cutting one of the few remaining ties that bind it to ordinary Americans.…By 2013 the Republican Establishment had proved itself so alien to the domestic concerns of that majority of Americans who dislike the direction in which the ruling class is pushing it, that the party was becoming irrelevant.”…[This may be true of both parties, but the author addresses the party that is supposed to reflect the wishes of Republican voters if not most Americans. With no opposition party to the Democrats, the US has no checks and balances, leaving the public with the same protection peasants have had against monarchies–none].

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9/9/2013, “Parting Ways With the American People,” Angelo M. Codevilla, Liberty Law site

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“Some three fourths of Americans oppose making war on Syria. Hence the Republican leadership class’ reflexive advocacy of entry into Syria’s civil war is cutting one of the few remaining ties that bind it to ordinary Americans.Since September 2008, when President George W. Bush, Congressman John Boehner, Senators Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Lindsay Graham and the entire Republican Congressional leadership plus Karl Rove and his big donors backed by The Wall Street Journal editorial pages were key to foisting the $816 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program on a country that opposed it three to one, the Republican Establishment has united with the Democratic Party again and again to legislate the ruling class’ domestic priorities. Before President Obama elevated the Syrian civil war onto the national agenda, the same cast of characters was chiefly occupied with gathering votes to secure funding for Obamacare against a popular movement to de-fund it. 

In short, by 2013 the Republican Establishment had proved itself so alien to the domestic concerns of that majority of Americans who dislike the direction in which the ruling class is pushing it, that the party was becoming irrelevant.… 

By urging war on Syria more vehemently than Obama, the Republican Establishment may have finished off the Republican Party, as we know it. Surely it has discredited itself.

President Obama and his followers say: “strike!” even while acknowledging that no military or political plans exist by which such strikes would make things better rather than worse. … 

We cannot be shocked that persons of the intellectual caliber of Obama and his officials would propose entering into a war without a notion of how they propose to leave it or of what they propose to get out of it for America. We dare not let ourselves take seriously their assertion that intervention in a struggle among fanatic sectarians can be either neutral about the substance of their hatreds or even favorable to moderation. Nor can we pretend surprise that persons of their moral caliber should use bloodshed abroad as a political weapon at home. 

But we have a right and duty to remark and to reprove the manner in which the Republican Establishment is impugning the character of Americans who oppose the war. That manner, Obama-like, eschews argument in favor of insult. To argue is to deal with the opposite position on its own terms. But the Republican Establishment attacks the American people for being “isolationist” – an epithet that no one applies to himself.

Thus Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal refuses to take seriously Senator Rand Paul’s point that the Constitution (and good sense) requires that war be waged only subsequent to careful deliberation about ends and means and vote by the people’s elected representatives. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 argued that point. But Stephens dismisses Rand Paul’s agreement with them as “faux constitutional assertions.” What valid constitutional concerns might be, he does not say. Rather, he smears the very idea of such concerns as “the isolationist worm eating its way through the GOP apple.” 

What is it that makes isolationist worms of the majority of Americans? The answer seems to be what Stephens and the Republican Establishment deem an excessive concern for the interest of the United States of America rather than of mankind in general. That is the reason for comparing Rand Paul to Robert A. Taft, the 1930s and 40s’ Mr. Republican. The comparison is well taken, since Taft wrote an excellent book, A Foreign Policy For Americans (1951), premised on the fact that US officials have only the legal and moral authority to act as the American people’s fiduciary agents. Rather than arguing the contrary, Stephens merely tells us that Rand Paul, like Robert Taft, is “already yesterday’s man.” 

In sum, then, the Republican Establishment wants the American people to lend ourselves to an un-serious military venturein order to prove that we are serious about America’s greatness, to show we are not isolated from the world’s troubles by mixing ourselves in them without a plan for improving them or to shield ourselves from them. 

This is from the same people who tell us that the best way to rid ourselves of the evils of Obamacare is to provide funds for it.

Like the Pharisee in the Temple, the Republican Establishment flaunt their differences from ordinary Americans. We should agree.”









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