Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood: Syria, Egypt, and Beyond

[Len Colby]

Young Sunni men going to distant lands to 'defend Islam' is a tradition that dates back decades. // COLBY

AND IN THE LAST 8 years its THE USA STATE DEPARTMENT/NGOs/CIA leading said young men to selected destinations.

[...]

OK get back to us with documentation for this claim, there wasn't any in the text you cut n' pasted below it

COLBY

++++++++++++++++

HUH ? I WENT OVER THIS TOPIC WITH BILL KELLY A BILLION TIMES ???????????

============================================================

So your citation wasn't the swath of texted you posted (but not read presumably) but rather posts you'd made months/years ago on different threads? Oh yeah, that makes sense.

MIDDLE EAST: The CIA Operating behind a Web of “Pro-Democracy” NGOs

The only really relevant part was

Egypt played its role in bringing down Libya

During the fabled Arab Spring in 2011, Washington and London were under a very tight time table because of what was going on next door in Libya and needed a partner they could rely on. In order for NATO’s al-Qaida rebel forces, the Egyptian military junta obediently smuggled arms and al-Qaeda fighters over their western border into eastern Libya to help overthrow the regime of the late Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

The cited source was a long article from P.D. Scott, I only skimmed it but did not see rany eference to the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies sending Jihadists to Libya or elsewhere.

[Steven Gaal]

The cited source was a long article from P.D. Scott, I only skimmed it but did not see rany eference to the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies sending Jihadists to Libya or elsewhere. // cOLBY

========================

THE THRUST OF THE PRINTED OUT ARTICLE IS THAT NGOs are doing the work of the CIA IN A SEMI-OVERT FASHION THAT ONCE THE CIA DID COVERTLY.

By: Nesrine Hamedi Translated from As-Safir (Lebanon). اقرا المقال الأصلي باللغة العربية

The subject of foreign jihadists coming to fight in Syria is nothing new. But the issue of Tunisian fighters who have flocked by the dozens over Syria's borders, passing through a long process of enlistment and training, has garnered a great deal of attention in recent days. It has shed light on the events transpiring behind the scenes of the jihadist journey to Syria, and upon those forces driving it.

About This Article

Summary :

Many of the foreign fighters in Syria hail from Tunisia, while Tunisia struggles to deal with its own internal problems, writes Nesrine Hamedi. Publisher: As-Safir (Lebanon)

Original Title:

Tunisian Jihadists Voyage to Syria

Author: Nesrine Hamedi

First Published: March 18, 2013

Posted on: March 24 2013

Translated by: Al-Monitor

Categories : Syria TunisiaSecurity

At present, Tunisia estimates that around 40% of foreign jihadists in Syria hold Tunisian nationality. More than two-thirds of them are fighting in the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra. A number of their families have organized demonstrations demanding that the authorities return their sons to Tunisia. At the same time, the Guide of the Ennahda Party, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, took the occasion as an opportunity to stress that his movement was not responsible for the phenomenon.

For his part, President Moncef Marzouki minimized the gravity of the issue by noting that "their numbers don't amount to much" even as representatives in the Constituent Assembly demanded that the authorities identify the organizations now dispatching Tunisian youth to Syria. The Tunisian press has been occupied with exposing the extent of this phenomenon and its various aspects.

The details of the journey undertaken by Tunisian jihadists embarking for Syria say a great deal about a country where jihadist propaganda is spreading at an alarming pace and a grinding war for which foreign jihadists provide a continuing source of fuel. More important than either is the foreign hand moving events. According to this Tunisian narrative now circulating, this hand is that of Qatar.

On March 12, the Tunisian newspaper El-Shorouk released a detailed report, citing the Asia News Agency, stating that dozens of Tunisians had recently been killed in Syria. It included their names, their pictures, and their home provinces, as well as the places and dates of their deaths in Syria. It noted that most jihadists originated from the town of Ben Guerdane, south of Tunis.

The town of Ben Guerdane, located in the Medenine province near the Tunisian-Libyan border, is one of the largest exporters of jihadists to Syria. Former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is reputed to have said, "if Ben Guerdane had been located next to Fallujah, we would have liberated Iraq."

According to El-Shorouk, Qatar is funneling money to Tunisian NGOs to recruit jihadists and dispatch them to Syria. From Qatar, these networks obtain "a pledge of $3,000 in exchange for every Tunisian youth who enlists."

Al-Wasit, another Tunisian newspaper, printed another report detailing the isolation of these youths in military camps in the desert triangle between Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, and how they are subsequently transported to Turkey. There they are welcomed by other organizations who insert them into Syrian territory. They are given only a rushed period of training which, according to the paper, "facilitates their death or capture."

According to As-Safir's sources, jihadist groups in Libya have established training camps in the Ghadames province, which is no further than 70 km from the Tunisian border. These young men receive some military training and are then transferred to the Zawiyah province, where they complete their training in a period of 20 days. From there they are transferred to Brega port for the voyage to Istanbul and thence to the Syrian borders. At that point, they are handed over to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jabhat al-Nusrah.

According to these investigations, Lebanon might be another destination for Tunisian jihadists alongside Turkey. In the event a Tunisian jihadist seeks to join the FSA in Aleppo or other northern Syrian cities near to the border, they cross over from Turkey. If they wish to fight near Damascus, the surrounding countryside or other nearby areas, then they come through Lebanon.

If Qatar is the main suspect in this process, the sources of funding for these movements remain a subject of debate among observers. Some information indicates that the secrecy of Tunisian authorities indicates that some of their leaders may be complicit in funding, aiding and dispatching Tunisian young men to wage jihad in Mali and Syria.

According to El-Shorouk, "some members of the Constituent Assembly has a direct relationship with these associations and are fully aware of their activities". The paper promised to publish the complete details of officials' involvement soon.

But the associations —or even government officials, should their involvement be proven — lack any authority to compel these youths to wage jihad. They do so of their own free will. The phenomenon itself sheds light on the extent to which ideological extremism is spreading in the Tunisian street.

Before the revolution of Jan. 14, many organizations warned of jihadist cells emerging in Tunisia radicalizing unemployed youth with the intent of using them in jihad-related activities. These young men have been radicalized both through a proselytizing effort in the mosques and in more private settings.

In this context, the sister of Ahmad Al-Tuhami, one of the young men killed in Syria, told As-Safir: "After the revolution, Ahmed started to frequent a mosque in the province of Sousse. Then he told us that he was determined to head to Libya to find work in the construction sector. He never came back. After that, we didn't hear anything from him until the Al-Dunya Channel broadcast his confession of infiltrating Syrian soil by way of Turkey."

The families of these jihadists are also demanding that humanitarian organizations lend their weight to the cause of bringing their sons home. An official in the Tunisian League for Human Rights told As-Safir that "quite frankly, getting them back would be a very difficult process. Almost impossible for us, as a civil society organization. Even for the government it would be extremely difficult, since diplomatic ties between the two countries have been severed." She noted that it was possible for the Tunisian government to confront this phenomenon by tightening border security and undertaking a serious investigation to uncovering the identity of those behind luring the finest Tunisian youth to participate in these terrorist acts.

It is worth mentioning here that a number of those who have gone to Syria have fought in Libya against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. Tunisian press and observers are agreed that they are not acting as mercenaries, but rather seek to carry out the genuine convictions with which they have been indoctrinated by jihadist recruiters in their country.

The general climate in post-revolutionary Tunisia encourages the proliferation of this phenomenon, as does the laxness and disregard exhibited by the ruling Ennahda party in its dealings with Salafist Jihadist groups. Perhaps Tunisia's granting of political asylum to the Jordanian Abu Qitadah — who issued a fatwa permitting the killing of women and children in Algeria on the pretext that they failed to support the jihadists in that country of a million martyrs — is the best example of the Tunisian government's indulgent attitude.

On the other hand, the government's opposition believe that the reason for the government's behavior lies in Ennahda's need for Salafist votes in the coming elections.

Read more: http://www.al-monito...l#ixzz2Q9CL6oId

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

from post # 135

An April 2011 AFP report would confirm this, when US State Department’s Michael Posner stated that the “US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments.” The report went on to explain that the US “organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there.” Posner would add, “They went back and there’s a ripple effect.” That ripple effect of course, is the “Arab Spring.”

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

U.S. Steps up War on Syria: CIA is the Anchor of a Coordinated Secret Operation

http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-steps-up-war-on-syria-cia-is-the-anchor-of-a-coordinated-secret-operation/5328721

=====

...........One of the ridiculous fictions about the war against Syria is that the Obama administration publicly claims “caution” in arming the rebels, in contrast to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have openly acknowledged their role in fueling the civil war by sending arms and money to the enemies of the Assad government.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both absolute and hereditary monarchies whose existence is completely dependent on their role as clients of the United States. So too is the royal family in Jordan, which allows its territory to be a transfer pivot for the massive arms shipments into Syria.

Qatar, with its citizen population of only 250,000 people, does not derive its fighting posture toward Syria from a robust military capability. That is a joke. Rather, Qatar is the location of the Pentagon’s Central Command Forward Headquarters and its Combined Air Operation Center. Qatar is also home to Al Jazeera, which promotes the cause of the armed rebellion against the Assad government.

Qatar is not directing anything except that which the Pentagon approves......

Edited April 11, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Egypt, the Brotherhood and the Americans

see http://english.alara...-Americans.html

Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today.

###################

Muslim Brotherhood sows subversion in Gulf: Dubai police chief

Khalfan complained that the West "sympathizes, adopts and supports" the Brotherhood, saying he did not understand why.

(Gaal knows ,its Covert-op ,Gaal does not believe the offical pronouncements of STATE DEPT and MB)

see http://atlasshrugs20...mmmmmmmmmm.html

Edited April 11, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

The cited source was a long article from P.D. Scott, I only skimmed it but did not see rany eference to the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies sending Jihadists to Libya or elsewhere. // cOLBY

========================

THE THRUST OF THE PRINTED OUT ARTICLE IS THAT NGOs are doing the work of the CIA IN A SEMI-OVERT FASHION THAT ONCE THE CIA DID COVERTLY.

While that may well be the case youcited it in support of your claim "IN THE LAST 8 years its THE USA STATE DEPARTMENT/NGOs/CIA leading said young men [Jihadis] to selected destinations" and I pointed tothe only relevant passage. There also is also quite a gap between asserting and documenting.

[Len Colby]

Egypt, the Brotherhood and the Americans

see http://english.alara...-Americans.html

Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today.

###################

Yet another cited link Gaal seems not to have read, or read but didn't understand:

I am not claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood works with the U.S., even though this is a common conspiracy theory, but it is not true that the American government is against the Brotherhood and is working on toppling its rule. The opposite is closer to truth. Several American politics theorists argue that it is better for the United States to forge alliances with Islamist groups within the framework of political parties or to support Islamic governments like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda in Tunisia than do so with liberal or nationalist groups especially in the light of the Islamist tide that is preoccupying the West.

The Muslim Brotherhood, especially in Egypt, worked on convincing the U.S. that they are the best faction among Islamists and several American political writers were actually convinced and are now praising the Brotherhood and severely criticizing other Islamist factions like the Salafis

Muslim Brotherhood sows subversion in Gulf: Dubai police chief

Khalfan complained that the West "sympathizes, adopts and supports" the Brotherhood, saying he did not understand why.

(Gaal knows ,its Covert-op ,Gaal does not believe the offical pronouncements of STATE DEPT and MB)

see http://atlasshrugs20...mmmmmmmmmm.html

Not very surprising from Gaal's cited article:

UAE-Egyptian ties have been strained since the fall of Mubarak, an ally of Gulf Arab states and a foe of the Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in 1928.

Some UAE Islamists, inspired by the rise of religious groups in Egypt and Tunisia, have stepped up their activities, angering officials in a state where no political opposition is permitted.

And the MB supposedly trying to undermine yet another close US ally undermines the notion they are working tgether.

EDIT - Formating

Edited April 12, 2013 by Len Colby

[Steven Gaal]

BELOW is basically the same as what I pasted from your HOLY NYT said about ARAB spring. Said NYT quote silenced/quilted Bill Kelly on the issue of Arab Spring and USA involvement from the very beginning (ie prior to Arab Spring).(BTW YOU INTERJECTED ON THAT THREAD A FEW TIMES ,SO I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DIDNT REMEMBER THE ISSUE I COVERED BEFORE and in this thread you made this comment about said issue) but rather posts you'd made months/years ago on different threads? Oh yeah, that makes sense.//Colby

Golly USA NGO & MB work to same ends,Gheesh

I have documented NGOs in Syria and CIA. Both work for regime change as dictated by the State Dept. with the NGOs doing more of the work in most (not all) countries at this time.

from post # 135

An April 2011 AFP report would confirm this, when US State Department’s Michael Posner stated that the “US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments.” The report went on to explain that the US “organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there.” Posner would add, “They went back and there’s a ripple effect.” That ripple effect of course, is the “Arab Spring.”

Edited April 12, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

I am not claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood

works with the U.S.,

even though this is a common conspiracy theory, but it is not true that the American government is against the Brotherhood and is working on toppling its rule. The opposite is closer to truth. Several American politics theorists argue that it is better for the United States to forge alliances with Islamist groups within the framework of political parties or to support Islamic governments like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda in Tunisia than do so with liberal or nationalist groups especially in the light of the Islamist tide that is preoccupying the West.

forge alliances or works with TO ME ITS THE SAME

The Muslim Brotherhood, especially in Egypt, worked on convincing the U.S. that they are the best faction among Islamists and several American political writers were actually convinced and are now praising the Brotherhood and severely criticizing other Islamist factions like the Salafis BLAH BLAH BLAH

FORGET WRITTERS, USA STATE DEPARTMENT "forge alliances" with MB

MY POINT OF THREAD

Edited April 12, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

I am not claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood

works with the U.S.,

even though this is a common conspiracy theory, but it is not true that the American government is against the Brotherhood and is working on toppling its rule. The opposite is closer to truth. Several American politics theorists argue that it is better for the United States to forge alliances with Islamist groups within the framework of political parties or to support Islamic governments like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda in Tunisia than do so with liberal or nationalist groups especially in the light of the Islamist tide that is preoccupying the West.

forge alliances or works with TO ME ITS THE SAME

LOL but the author YOU cited makes a distinction.

The Muslim Brotherhood, especially in Egypt, worked on convincing the U.S. that they are the best faction among Islamists and several American political writers were actually convinced and are now praising the Brotherhood and severely criticizing other Islamist factions like the Salafis BLAH BLAH BLAH

FORGET WRITTERS, USA STATE DEPARTMENT "forge alliances" with MB MY POINT OF THREAD

LOL speak “moving the goal posts”!! But you are doing so in reverse. The thesis of the article which you posted into the OP and got the title of the thread from was that, “the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most powerful weapons of the Western ruling class in the Muslim world.” the author repeatedly claimed that the MB was “a tool of”, is “controlled by”, does “the bidding of” etc. “the West”. Al-Rasheed's beliefs are quite different from Draitser's (and yours). The former believes in a realpolitik alliance forged after the Islamists came to power.

[Steven Gaal]

LOL speak “moving the goal posts”!! But you are doing so in reverse. The thesis of the article which you posted into the OP and got the title of the thread from was that, “the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most powerful weapons of the Western ruling class in the Muslim world.” the author repeatedly claimed that the MB was “a tool of”, is “controlled by”, does “the bidding of” etc. “the West”. Al-Rasheed's beliefs are quite different from Draitser's (and yours). The former believes in a realpolitik alliance forged after the Islamists came to power. // end COLBY

++++++++++++++++++++++

TOOL OF WEST . THE MB IS NOT CONTROLLED BY WEST , BUT ARE USEFUL IDIOTS THAT CREATE CHAOS>

THE CHAOS CREATED IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE STRATEGY OF TENSION OF GLADIO FAME. THE ELITES KNEW THEY WOULD COME TO POWER IN EGYPT . WHO ELSE COULD ?? (they deny this obvious truth) THE WEAK MB HAS BEEN DEPENDENT ON WESTS HELP FROM THE BEGINNING ( the MB came on my radar via SUEZ Canal Company finnacing first MB mosque and Dallas Murchisons in business deals with said company) ,MIDDLE (NAZI/CIA) , AND NOW (STATE DEPT APPROVAL).MB ARE

IDEOLOGICALLY AUTHORITARIAN ANTI COMMUNISTS......gee the WEST'S ELITES CAN USE/WORK WITH THAT AND DO.THE MB ARE MORE INTERESTED IN GETTING POWER THAN ATTACKING ISRAEL. THE MB'S DRIVE TO POWER CREATES CHAOS THAT FITS INTO ELITES PLANS.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

LOL speak “moving the goal posts”!! But you are doing so in reverse. The thesis of the article which you posted into the OP and got the title of the thread from was that, “the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most powerful weapons of the Western ruling class in the Muslim world.” the author repeatedly claimed that the MB was “a tool of”, is “controlled by”, does “the bidding of” etc. “the West”. Al-Rasheed's beliefs are quite different from Draitser's (and yours). The former believes in a realpolitik alliance forged after the Islamists came to power. // end COLBY

++++++++++++++++++++++

TOOL OF WEST . THE MB IS NOT CONTROLLED BY WEST , BUT ARE USEFUL IDIOTS THAT CREATE CHAOS>

THE CHAOS CREATED IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE STRATEGY OF TENSION OF GLADIO FAME. THE ELITES KNEW THEY WOULD COME TO POWER IN EGYPT . WHO ELSE COULD ?? (they deny this obvious truth) THE WEAK MB HAS BEEN DEPENDENT ON WESTS HELP FROM THE BEGINNING ( the MB came on my radar via SUEZ Canal Company finnacing first MB mosque and Dallas Murchisons in business deals with said company) ,MIDDLE (NAZI/CIA) , AND NOW (STATE DEPT APPROVAL).MB ARE

IDEOLOGICALLY AUTHORITARIAN ANTI COMMUNISTS......gee the WEST'S ELITES CAN USE/WORK WITH THAT AND DO.THE MB ARE MORE INTERESTED IN GETTING POWER THAN ATTACKING ISRAEL. THE MB'S DRIVE TO POWER CREATES CHAOS THAT FITS INTO ELITES PLANS.

Nice to see you retreating. Our views now aren't that different by mine is essentially the same as Al-Rasheed's

[Steven Gaal]

CREATE CHAOS,Gaal

Are Drone Strikes Creating More Terrorist Than They're Killing (That's THE PLAN Isn't It?)

http://xrepublic.tv/node/2914

========================================

NGO's phoney baloney covert operatives,Gaal

EXPOSED: Syrian Human Rights Front is EU-Funded Fraud

NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based "one-man band" funded by EU and one other "European country."

April 12, 2013 (LD) - In reality, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has long ago been exposed as an absurd propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England's countryside. According to a December 2011 Reuters article titled, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called "Syrian opposition" and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad:

After three short spells in prison in Syria for pro-democracy activism, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term.

"I came to Britain the day Hafez al-Assad died, and I'll return when Bashar al-Assad goes," Abdulrahman said, referring to Bashar's father and predecessor Hafez, also an autocrat.

One could not fathom a more unreliable, compromised, biased source of information, yet for the past two years, his "Observatory" has served as the sole source of information for the endless torrent of propaganda emanating from the Western media. Perhaps worst of all, is that the United Nations uses this compromised, absurdly overt source of propaganda as the basis for its various reports - at least, that is what the New York Times now claims in their recent article, "A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War’s Casualty Count."

The NYT piece admits:

Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.

Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city [Coventry, England].

The New York Times also for the first time reveals that Abdul Rahman's operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a "European country" he refuses to identify:

Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.

######################

hijacked real oposition ( for what/why ? =NWO),Gaal

US Conducts False Flag Operation in Syria: Randy Short

Press TV

April 13, 2013

This is while the United States has updated its military options for a direct intervention in Syria to aid the militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Randy Short, human rights activist, to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What exactly are the so-called Friends of Syria after? I mean are they really concerned about the plight of people in Syria?

Short: Of course they are not concerned. If you ask me the FSA or the Free Syrian Army or whatever, they are a subsidiary of the CIA. Some people call the CIA the cocaine importing agency in terms of its relationship to drugs coming into the United States from Afghanistan and other places.

There they are to destroy a strong secular Muslim society that has shown itself a leader to fighting against the excesses of Zionism as well they want to punish the people of Syria who quietly helped resist the American invasion of Iraq and as well have preserved Lebanon, preventing it from becoming a colony of Israel.

This is a crime of the Assad dynasty, they can’t be forgiven as if they dare to want to have their own path, their own chart and the FSA and the others who they are to hide behind Saudi Arabian Wahabi Islam which is basically working with Zionism and European and American imperialism, racism and Islamophobia in the world.

They want to destroy Syria. It is obvious they do not care anything for the people. And most of the fighters, 95 percent according to German Intelligence are not even Syrians.

So I mean how can people who come into a country invade and destroy infrastructures, kill children and desecrate Masjids and profane the [Prophet] Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) and kill Imams, how can they really before anything other than covert Zionistic attack on the people of Syria?

Press TV: Mr. Short, I’d like to pick up on your mention of Israel there. You know, none of the so-called Friends of Syria have any problems with Israel, indeed some of them are allies and supporters of Tel Aviv. So what then is the role of Israel in this war on Syria?

Short: Of course, to throw rocks and hide their hands, to do things like have a role in assassination of leaders in other countries and try to attribute it to a third source, black flag operations or false flag operations seem to be the hallmark of not just Israel but the United States and Europe, the European Union with Operation Gladio or for that matter many people here suspect 9/11 and somehow is some sort of false flag operation.

And so there is a false flag that people care about the freedom of Syrian people. If they did, they wouldn’t be killing them, executing people and marking their bodies on YouTube, I cannot even watch it. How can such people care about Syrians?

And caring about Syrians you can’t just care about the Sunni majority. You have to think about the Bedouin, the Shia, the Kurds, the Christians, I mean Syria is a complex society, you cannot really care about a nation and only like some of the people.(YUP,Gaal agrees)

That is the problem we have in United States as you know, I am an expert on that.

[Len Colby]

OK Gaal, point to where the NYT said this guy is a "fraud" and Press-TV as an objective source LOL

Edited April 14, 2013 by Len Colby

[Steven Gaal]

OK Gaal, point to where the NYT said this guy is a "fraud" and Press-TV as an objective source LOL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OH !! THE NYT >>>>> OH !!!!

IMHO NYT EDITORIAL HEADS WHO WORKED IRAQ WAR SHOULD BE PUT ON TRAIL FOR CIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.

I SUPPORT FREE SPEECH 24/7 BUT EVEN GOEBBELS PUT ON TRIAL. TO ME SOME EQUVIALENCE.

SOME TYPE OF PENALTY SHOULD BE PAID BY THEM.......

COLBY DEEP WORSHIP NYT....HOLY HOLY THE PRINT ALMIGHTY !!!

see http://mgx.com/blogs/2005/10/19/ny-times-culpable-for-starting-a-war/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EVIDENCE FROM WHERE ?? OH !! THAT WOULD BE INFORMATION FROM COLBY'S BELOVED MSM

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The New York Times and "Liberal Media" Helped Sell the Iraq War

Wednesday, 20 March 2013 11:32 By Paul Jay, The Real News Network |

==========================================================

Michael Ratner: The NYT and other "liberal" commentators led the way in selling the WMD myth and justified the Iraq war; their mea culpas ring hollow.

TRANSCRIPT:

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to this week's edition of The Ratner Report with Michael Ratner, who joins us now from New York City.

Michael's president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin, and a board member of The Real News.

Thanks for joining us again, Michael.

MICHEAL RATNER, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: Good to be with you, Paul.

So we're coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, March 20, 2003, when it began. In a few days it'll be March 20, 2013. And I think it's really important for everybody out there to know how many people we murdered in Iraq, how we got into that war, and who were some of the liberals, supposed liberals, who led us into that war, so that we don't depend on--we don't make that mistake again.

And, of course, people should know how many people were killed. Nobody knows the real figure. There's numbers that go from 170,000 people killed, including combatants, maybe 120,000 civilians, up to 1 million. The Lancet reports 600,000 people killed with some kind of violence, whether that includes starvation or just plain old murders, but it's a huge number.

And when you think about that number, you have to think: how did we get into this war, which I considered at the time an illegal and unnecessary war, in which I was not alone? It was the biggest demonstrations ever in the world against a war. In fact, they called the demonstration in Rome against the war in February 2003--it was 3 million people in Rome, 36 million people worldwide, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions in the United States as well. And yet we went to war in the United States, or on behalf of the United States, despite this.

And, of course, many of us called it Bush's war, but as I'll explain, it's not just Bush's war. It was The New York Times' war, it was Bill Keller's war, Tom Friedman's war, and a number of other people who I will mention.

The way they sold the war to the American people were two primary things. One was that Iraq was somehow developing weapons of mass destruction, of which they have literally no evidence, none at all. There were weapons inspectors who kept going there, came back with no evidence. The weapons inspectors group said there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Yet they sold us to war based in part on weapons of mass destruction.

The other way--and it's an important lesson going forward--they sold us the war: by claiming that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein, who led Iraq at the time, and al-Qaeda. And of course al-Qaeda was on everyone's minds, because this was just two years after 9/11. And how did they go about getting and achieving and establishing that relationship, which even Colin Powell spoke about when he spoke to the UN in a speech that convinced many people that we had to go to war with Iraq? They did it through torture.

And in particular there was a man named al-Libbi who was waterboarded. And when he was waterboarded, as he said later, I would have said anything to stop being waterboarded. And what he said and what actually Cheney, our vice president at the time, was looking for and why he was actually torturing people--or directing them to be tortured was because he wanted to prove a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. And what al-Libbi said was that members of al-Qaeda were sent to Iraq for training in how to use weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, it was an utterly false story. It was actually a story, in some way, you could say was manufactured, because they tortured people to try and get that story. But it also shows you how bad torture is, in the sense that people will say anything to stop it. And whatever people say about the ticking time bomb scenario and torture and saving a life of someone's here or there, in the end, this torture was a key element in proving something, allegedly proving something that led us into a war that killed well over, probably, a half a million people. So that's one lesson you ought to take out of this, or we ought to all take, is torture is one of the worst things you can use for gaining actual intelligence.

A second thing which has always bothered me is the role of the so-called liberal media, whether that's The New York Times, The New Yorker, New Republic, and the key people who ran all of that media. This is called the liberal media. You know, I don't think, Paul, that there's a war that The New York Times has not supported. But it was a particularly nasty piece of business on the Iraq War.

You had, first of all, Bill Keller--I'm not sure he was executive editor during the beginning, but right around that period the head of The Times, a major reporter, major person at The New York Times. He wrote earlier, after 9/11, a 8,000-word article in The New York Times Magazine about what the effect of one kiloton bomb would be if it went into Times Square, in other words, getting everybody totally fearful of what would happen if Iraq had a weapon of mass destruction. Then The Times published column after column by Judy Miller and others pushing the idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, columns that The Times ultimately had to apologize for.

So we have Bill Keller, The New York Times; Tom Friedman, columnist for The New York Times; George Packer, New Yorker writer; Zakaria, Newsweek reporter; Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic; Peter Beinart; Hitchens; Paul Berman; a whole host of what I would have to call almost neoliberal liberals going for this war, going for it either because they thought we were in a war of civilizations or because they accepted [incompr.] there were weapons of mass destruction, etc.

I asked myself at the time, how can these people believe this stuff? Any rational person can see that this is a BS story. This is a Bush war. This is a war in which they want to slap around a country that they can easily topple. This is about continuing U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, continuing our hegemony over oil, etc., making sure China and Russia are out there, whatever reasons. But how did these guys buy it?

You know, I came--it's not that they just made a mistake. What I really have come to is that they are part and parcel of a belief in who this country--they really believe that this country is exceptional, it has to rule the world, and they buy into that fact. And therefore they're willing to really suspend their judgment and their reason and go for a war that was just completely fictitious.

Now, I should say, when I have talked to some of these people about it, they say, well, we've done our mea culpas. We agree we were wrong about this war. This was a huge mistake. It's one of the worst wars we could have ever gone into. But when you read their explanations for it, their mea culpas, it's not that they thought the war itself was bad--or most of them didn't think the war itself was bad or that it was a bad idea; they thought it was executed badly, that we went into Iraq expecting or overestimating that the people would welcome us when they didn't, we botched up the post-war, we made lots of mistakes, we allowed the counterinsurgency to move forward, etc., etc. So they don't actually get at what I'm saying, which is they actually believed in this war. And I find mea culpas just completely insufficient, because at the core what these people did was believe in an American aggressive, illegal foreign policy that wound up killing half a million people. And in my view, there's no apologies for that.

The best writer on this, and wrote an incredibly good article, was an intellectual who died, a writer, Professor Tony Judt. He died within the last couple of years. He wrote an article, and what he said in that about all of these so-called liberals who supported the war, what he said was today America's liberal armchair warriors are the, quote, "useful idiots," end quote, of the war on terror. And what he titled his article was "Bush's Useful Idiots".

Now, I wish I could say that things have gotten better among this crowd--maybe a few of them a little better. You know. But a lot of them are still very, very aggressive about supporting the so-called war on terror, what was Bush's policy. Their mea culpas are just not very good.

Bill Keller I want to single out because he still has these incredibly bloated, you know, superficial columns in The New York Times. And they had one recently that was related to my clients, particularly WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, and it was in the context of talking about Bradley Manning. And again he shows his stripes as completely biased and irrelevant.

What he says is--first of all, he says that, well, had Bradley Manning given the documents directly to The New York Times, there probably wouldn't have been as much anger at either Bradley Manning or Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. And I must say that's the one thing he got right in the article, because Bill Keller is right, because Bill Keller, like he did in the case of the warrantless wiretap story, he ran to the White House and said, should I expose the warrantless wiretapping story, and they said, no, hold it up, don't do it, and he only did it when James Risen was going to go forward with it in a book. So Bill Keller, this man who brought us into the war in many ways, at least paved the way, is still writing the kind of bunk he was writing in 2001, '02, and '03.

I mean, he did the same thing with Bradley Manning's motives. He said about Bradley Manning's motives, well, I don't think they were necessarily that political; his talk that he gave pleading guilty, which said they were all political, seems to be made up after the fact. And in fact that's not true. In fact, if you go to the early Bradley Manning statements that he made way before he was actually indicted, you would find that he was making political reasons.

So this same core of so-called liberals is still out there. They're still controlling--I mean, another one is David Remnick at The New Yorker. He supported the war. So they just go on and on.

And the question is, for all of us--I mean, just in some way it's an advertisement for you, Paul. But, you know, how do we get an accurate picture out there and how do we get journalists out there who are not just going to lead us into the next war? One of the stories I think you plan on doing is the Pentagon links to the Iraq torture centers. That's, of course, another story about the Iraq War and a story in 2004 and 2005 in which the U.S. sent two people there, a guy named Steele and Kaufmann, to essentially oversee what were set up as many, many detention and torture centers, in which literally tens of thousands of people were tortured.

As a close to that, 'cause I know you're going to cover the story, I just want to point out that it again brings out the importance of WikiLeaks documents. When I talk to the people who did that story, what they did was they combed through the Iraq War Logs, which were revealed by Bradley Manning to WikiLeaks. Those war logs had reports in it of soldiers from the U.S., their daily logs, telling about that they had perceived or seen that there was torture going on at these torture centers, or illegal activity, etc. And those are in the War Logs. And as a result of that, this important story, Guardian-BBC story, came out about the U.S. link to these detention and torture centers, and the link ultimately up the chain of command to Petraeus, and even to Rumsfeld. So, again, it's again about Iraq, it's about WikiLeaks, and it's about really great reporting.

JAY: There's one other thing, I think, one other piece to this, because not all the liberals were in favor of this war--and by liberals, using your terminology, I'm talking about Democrats--and some Republicans, if you want--who believe in projecting American power but thought the Iraq War was stupid and opposed it on that basis 'cause it actually wasn't useful for projecting American power. And one of those people was Barack Obama, who came out against the war not 'cause he's against projecting American power any--this is back pre-Iraq War, and clearly we can see as president he's very gung-ho about projecting American power. But he and a lot of other foreign policy professionals thought this was just a completely dumb move in Iraq. And The New York Times should have known that. You'd think The New York Times would have reflected that.

So there's something--I think there's something else going on other than being useful idiots, which is also the case. There's something about the money that gets made in the lead-up to war. The newspapers it sells, the fervor, the bloodlust, the chauvinism that this section of this kind of supposed liberals, they get excited by all this. And then there was also direct, nefarious connections between Judith Miller and the Bush White House. But The New York Times in theory is at odds with that White House, one would think, politically. There's some interest here.

RATNER: You're making a very interesting point. You know, I talked to some people who were at the Barack Obama speech that he gave against the war--quote, against the war--in Chicago at the time. And what they said was he was careful, as you're sort of implying. What he said is he was against this particular thing, this war, but in fact he wasn't, like, just an antiwar person in general, that there were certain times that you would need to do war, I think. And that's what you're saying, that he'd still believe in the projection of American force.

JAY: Yeah, I watched that very carefully, that speech, and he says, I'm not a pacifist; I'm against this war. But he did a followup interview, more in-depth--I can't remember if it was with 60 Minutes or somewhere else--not too long after that interview. Maybe it was six months or a year. And he was very explicit. He said, I thought this would actually weaken our ability to project power around the world. He said, I'm for projecting American power, I believe in it.

RATNER: I think that's a good point, and I think he certainly illustrated that from the surge, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan and all the wars we're now carrying out in Somalia and Yemen.

One important person I left out of this--and I'd be interested in how you see how she fit in here--is Hillary Clinton. I mean, it's hard to forgive Hillary Clinton for her vote, really hard, because let's assume she's, like, a projection person like you're saying Obama was, a projection of American force. What it seems to is she clearly could never have believed that this war was necessary. You had to be, as Tony Judt said, a useful idiot to believe that this war was actually a weapons of mass destruction war or an al-Qaeda, you know, BS war. You had to be a dummy.

So the only thing I can think about Hillary is that she made a wrong judgment. Barack Obama must have felt this was going to help him be president. Hillary made a judgment that said, I need to vote for the war so I can be president. If I vote against the war, I won't be president. And it's actually what ultimately was her Achilles' heel. So I think she was an opportunist, which is to me almost the worst thing you could be is to actually kill people in the name of opportunism.

JAY: Yeah. I think actually this goes--what you're saying goes to the core of it, because for The New York Times--remember the days. This is post 9/11. This is when there's all this tremendous buildup that we have to defend America and you're a traitor if you even critique the White House. And the way the media succumbed to that, they were--you know, both from the point of view of being worried about being labeled traitors, and even from a straight--and maybe more from a straight business interest, you know, you'd lose some of your market share if you're seen as soft on this stuff.

RATNER: No, I think that's right. I agree. I mean, as I said, when I opened, I think I said, I don't think there's any war The New York Times has ever opposed. You know, I haven't looked back in history before probably the Second World War, but I think it's been right up there with the best of them.

JAY: Alright. Thanks very much, Michael.

RATNER: Thanks for having me, Paul, and I really appreciate what was a very useful discussion, particularly in the end.

JAY: Thank you.

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Pleased to be Shutting the Piehole Now: Charles P. Pierce on the NYT and the anniversary of the war

Pleased to be Shutting the Piehole Now

By Charles P. Pierce

Esquire

Tuesday 19 March 2013

The "public editor" of The New York Times tells us today that the paper's coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War is likely to be less of a hoot than back in the drum-banging days when Judy Miller was standing atop a great pile of stove-piped bullxxxx while Bill Keller threw roses at her feet.

I asked Dean Baquet, a managing editor, about the low-key approach. He said that while a few stories are planned, editors did not see a need for a major project or special section, as they did with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The war itself has been dissected to a tremendous degree," he told me. "You have to have something new or fresh to say." He would not provide specifics about the articles that are planned, but said there might be one or two that would make their way onto the front page this week...Is The Times's own role in the run-up to the war a part of this relative reticence, as some readers have suggested to me? Is there reluctance to revisit a painful period in the paper's history? Mr. Baquet said that's not a factor. "The Times has probably acknowledged its own mistakes from that period more than anyone," he said. "We certainly haven't been shy about doing that. We're doing the stories that make sense to us and that offer our readers something worthwhile."

That is, of course, all bollocks. Keller still writes a column. The Times is playing this on the downlow precisely because it never truly has atoned for its role in a fiasco. The op-ed page still welcomes submissions from people whose work on this most grotesque foreign-policy blunder should have been as definitive a career-killer as were Joe Hazlewood's navigational abilities.

(snip)

Shut up, all of you. Go away. You are complicit in one way or another in a giant crime containing many great crimes. Atone in secret. Wash the blood off your hands in private. Because there were people who got it right. Anthony Zinni. David Shiseki. Hans Blix. Mohamed ElBaradei. The McClatchy Washington bureau guys. Dozens of liberal academics who got called fifth-columnists and worse. Professional military men whose careers suffered as a result. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets around the world. The governments of Canada and France. Those people, I will listen to this week. Go to hell, the rest of you, and go there in silence and in shame.

The rest: http://www.esquire.c...ppy_Anniversary

A tour de force. Read it.

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ALSO

http://rinf.com/alt-...hypocrisy/30591

Edited April 14, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

OK Gaal, point to where the NYT said this guy is a "fraud" and Press-TV as an objective source LOL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OH !! THE NYT >>>>> OH !!!!

[...]

If you'd bothered to have read the stuff you spamed here you'd have known that your source claimed 'NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based "one-man band"' I was asking to substantiate that claim.

[Steven Gaal]

OK Gaal, point to where the NYT said this guy is a "fraud" and Press-TV as an objective source LOL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OH !! THE NYT >>>>> OH !!!!

[...]

If you'd bothered to have read the stuff you spamed here you'd have known that your source claimed 'NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based "one-man band"' I was asking to substantiate that claim.

#######################

Search Results

1. 
   News for Syrian Observatory for Human Rights New ...
   
   
   

   
   A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War's Casualty Count
   New York Times ‎- 4 days ago
   Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band.
   

3 seconds at Google

Edited April 14, 2013 by Steven Gaal