Leah Cohen
Sep 5, 2018 · 12 min read

Caity, thank you, this is a great piece.

It all indeed started right after 9/11.

Brendan Devenney compiled the sources that provide the evidence that the “conflict” was planted and thousands of lives were taken to satisfy American-Israeli greed for Syria.

“The REAL story about the “Syrian revolution”: 2001: A classified plot is revealed to US Army General Wesley Clark that the US plans to attack and destroy the governments of 7 nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. https://youtu.be/TY2DKzastu8 2002: 2002: US Under Secretary of State John Bolton declares Syria a member of the “Axis of Evil” and warned that “the US would take action.” BBC: “US Expands ‘Axis of Evil’” May 6, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1971852.stm 2005: US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy organizes and implements the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon directly aimed at undermining Syrian-Iranian influence in Lebanon in favor of Western-backed proxies, most notably Saad Hariri’s political faction. Counterpunch: “Faking the Case Against Syria,” by Trish Schuh November 19–20, 2005. https://colorrevolutionsandgeopolitics.blogspot.com/2011/09/act-one-of-cias-arab-spring-lebanons.html Ziad Abdel Nour, an associate of Bush Administration advisers, policy makers, and media including Neo-Conservatives Paula Dobriansky, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Joseph Farah (World Net Daily), Clifford May, and Daniel Nassif of US State Department-funded Al Hurra and Radio Sawa, admits: “Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether they like it or not- whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else… and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration.” Counterpunch: “Faking the Case Against Syria,” by Trish Schuh November 19–20, 2005. https://colorrevolutionsandgeopolitics.blogspot.com/2011/09/act-one-of-cias-arab-spring-lebanons.html 2007: Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker reveals that US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Hariri in Lebanon as well as the Syrian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood were assembling, arming, training, and heavily funding a sectarian extremists front, many of whom had direct ties to Al Qaeda, to unleash in both Lebanon and Syria. The goal was to create and exploit a sectarian divide between Sunni and Shi’ia Muslims. Hersh interviewed intelligence officers who expressed concerns over the “cataclysmic conflict” that would result, and the need to protect ethnic minorities from sectarian atrocities. The report indicated that extremists would be logistically staged in northern Lebanon where they would be able to cross back and forth into Syria. New Yorker: “The Redirection,” by Seymour Hersh, March 5, 2007. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection 2009: The Brookings Institution published a report titled, “Which Path to Persia?” which states the importance of neutralizing Syrian influence before any attack on Iran can be carried out (p. 109). http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/brookings-institutions-which-path-to.html 2009–2010: In an April 2011 AFP report, Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, admitted 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 admit that the US (emphasis added) “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.” AFP: “US Trains Activists to Evade Security Forces,” April 8, 2011. https://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/us-trains-activists-to-evade-security.html 2009 (time period being discussed): ‘’ I’m going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate. Naturally, I refused, I said I’m French, that doesn’t interest me…. This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned… in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance. Consequently, everything that moves in the region- and I have this from the former Israeli prime minister who told me ‘we’ll try to get on with our neighbours but those who don’t agree with us will be destroyed.” — Former French minister for Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas on French TV station LCP https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz-s2AAh06I THE MAIN EVENT: 17th of January, 2011: Prior to the anti-government insurgency, and in response to popular pressure, the government “increased the heating oil allowance for public workers by 72 percent to the equivalent of $33 a month”. https://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE70F0DH20110116?sp=true Late January 2011: A page was created on Facebook called The Syrian Revolution 2011. It announced that a “Day of Rage” would be held on February 4 and 5. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2046426,00.html February 4th and 5th: These protests called for on Facebook were a damp squib http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2055713,00.html 9th of February, 2011: The government lifts its ban on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, which had been in place since 2007. https://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/02/media_freedom_syria 13th of February, 2011: The government, through its newly established National Social Aid Fund, begins offering transfer payments to help Syria’s 420,000 poorest families. http://www.irinnews.org/feature/2011/02/22/cash-payments-thousands-vulnerable-families 15th of February, 2011: The government “reduc[es] duties on a range of basic foodstuffs including rice, tea, powdered milk, coffee and bananas. It also lowered taxes on vegetable oil, margarine, unroasted coffee and sugar”. http://www.irinnews.org/feature/2011/02/22/cash-payments-thousands-vulnerable-families 11th March 2011: “Syria…security forces seized a large shipment of weapons and explosives and night-vision goggles [being smuggled by lorry from Iraq]” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-iraq/syria-says-seizes-weapons-smuggled-from-iraq-idUSTRE72A3MI20110311?hc_location=ufi 17–18th of March, 2011: Three protesters and a policeman are fatally wounded by gunshots (how did “peaceful protesters” shoot a policeman?) 20th of March, 2011: Courthouse torched in Daraa https://www.rt.com/op-ed/157412-syria-hidden-massacre-2011/#_blank “Protesters then forced their way through security barriers and headed toward the Baath Party headquarters and other government symbols. In addition to the party headquarters, protesters burned the town’s main courthouse and a branch of the SyriaTel phone company, which is owned by Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of the president.” http://www.nytimes.com/…/03/21/world/middleeast/21syria.html Video footage of arson: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Z1PfnTWBI The governor’s office and another SyriaTel office were burned. “a front-page story in the government-run Teshreen daily on Tuesday, Dara’a cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Sayasina was quoted as saying, “There were elements from outside Dara’a determined to burn and destroy public property … These unknown assailants want to harm the reputation of the sons of Hauran.” The cleric reportedly said, “The people of Dara’a affirm that recent events are not part of their tradition or custom.” “ 20th March 2011: 7 Syrian policemen killed http://yalibnan.com/2011/03/21/7-syrian-policemen-killed-in-sunday-clashes-report/ March — May 2011: “there were signs from the very start that armed groups were involved.” The journalist and author Robert Fisk recalled seeing a tape from “the very early days of the ‘rising’ showing men with pistols and Kalashnikovs in a Daraa demonstration.” He recalls another event, in May 2011, when “an Al Jazeera crew filmed armed men shooting at Syrian troops a few hundred metres from the northern border with Lebanon but the channel declined to air the footage.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-civil-war-five-years-on-2011-bashar-al-assad-isis-iran-conflict-a6929186.html “Even US officials, who were hostile to the Syrian government and might be expected to challenge Damascus’s view that it was embroiled in a fight with armed rebels “acknowledged that the demonstrations weren’t peaceful and that some protesters were armed.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/world/middleeast/09syria.html 23rd of March, 2011: After sending a delegation to Daraa to investigate events, President Assad sacks the unpopular Governor of Daraa, Faysal Kalthum, and orders the release of the fifteen teenagers who were detained for graffitying anti-government slogans. According to at least two dissident websites, protesters have given the Syrian government until the morning of March 25 to meet a list of demands that were relayed to the President by his delegation (that include lifting the 48-year-old emergency law and releasing all political prisoners). If the demands are not met, they threaten, March 25 will become the “Friday of the Martyrs” not just in Dara’a and its province, Hauran, which shares a border with Jordan, but throughout the country. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2060788,00.html 23rd March 2011: Weapons seized that were stored in Al-Omari Mosque in Dara’a. The following is an interview with “Anwar Al-Eshki”, a Saudi Ex-Military (Major General) and now president of “Center for Strategic studies” in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He reveals information about the first days in the Syrian crisis, and he even confirms his connections with the “protesters”. http://www.liveleak.com/view… Video evidence of weapons seized at al-Omari Mosque https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0mNc-jGd7xo 25 March 2011: Video of riots: https://www.facebook.com/basel.shaaban/videos/984419331637669/?autoplay_reason=ugc_default_allowed&video_container_type=1&video_creator_product_type=0&app_id=2392950137&live_video_guests=0 The above link contains testimony from the Latakia Fire Brigade/Syria Civil Defence of Latakia which claims that they were faced with “people dressed in foreign looking religious garb with long beards that reached their chests…all shops on the ‘Corniche’ had been destroyed…heard gunfire. It was aimed at us and the security forces. One security force member was fatally shot in the chest, he died immediately…they attacked the security forces and murdered four of them, causing others multiple injuries with their knives.” “From the start, the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.” — Letter published by Father Frans van der Lugt (murdered by extremists April 2014) in January 2012 https://mediawerkgroepsyrie.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/bij-defaitisme-is-niemand-gebaat/ March 2011: It will be revealed by Wikileaks through their release of (Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company) “Stratfor” emails that “protesters”, allegedly 500 of them, will receive payment to take up arms (sourced by Syrian news agency) https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/19/1940519_syria-4-26-member-of-extremist-terrorist-cell-arrested-in.html 28 March 2011: The head of the Syrian Brotherhood, Muhammad Riyad Al-Shaqfa, issues a statement — “It is time for us to come back and force all the other non-Muslim sects to shrink and step back. These sects are the infidel Christians, the criminal Alawites and the infidel Druzes.” https://truthsyria.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/muslim-brotherhood-statement-about-the-so-called-syrian-revolution/ 20th of April, 2011: The government repealed the forty-eight year old state of emergency that had given police sweeping powers to carry out pre-emptive arrests and detain suspects. Other demands (in the wake of this concession) include freeing thousands of political prisoners, many of whom are held without trial, and the removal of clause 8 in the constitution which enshrines the Baath Party as the leader of state and society. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria/syrias-assad-ends-state-of-emergency-idUSTRE72N2MC20110421 Beginning of April 2011: Massive demonstrations in support of Assad/rejection of extremists http://www.globalresearch.ca/flashback-to-march-29-2011-over-6-million-people-marched-across-syria-in-support-of-president-al-assad/5439442#_blank Rally videos: http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/demonstrations-in-support-of-syrian-government/ April to May 2011: Armed men crossing Lebanon-Syria border (witnessed and filmed by Ali Heshem, censored by his employer Al Jazeera) http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8106 April 10 2011: 9 Syrian soldiers ambushed on bus and shot to death http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/western-press-misled-who-shot-the-nine-soldiers-in-banyas-not-syrian-security-forces/ Syrian soldiers and policemen will be assassinated throughout April (“opposition” will claim that they were executed for desertion from the Syrian army but their funeral videos beg to differ) http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/4645 15 June 2011: 2.3 km long Syrian flag unfurled by thousands of supporters in Damascus https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=53_j9wa7QTQ 20th of June, 2011: President Assad announces a national dialogue to begin a process of constitutional reform. One of the major demands is for an end to the constitutional privileges afforded to the Baath party. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria/assad-blames-unrest-on-saboteurs-pledges-reforms-idUSTRE75J0AV20110620 November, 2011 (9 months into the chaos) “masses again held demonstrations supporting President al-Assad, notably in Homs (the so-called “capital of the ‘revolution’”), Dara’a (the so-called “birthplace of the ‘revolution’” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKr2mKe4f0s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VfUxb-RwsXw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DXOlfTxz9iM 26th of February, 2012: A constitutional referendum is held asking the electorate whether they approved the changes made to the constitution. 14.6 million Syrians were eligible and registered to vote out of a population of 23 million 8.4 million Syrians voted (57 percent participation rate) 7.5 million Syrians voted ‘yes’ for the new constitution (89 percent of the vote) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sudd.ch%2Fevent.php%3Flang%3Dde%26id%3Dsy012012 Note: The new constitution, which replaced the one adopted in 1973, embodied many of the parliamentary and presidential reforms demanded by the democratic opposition. It can be read in full here: http://www.voltairenet.org/article173033.html The Baath party no longer enjoys constitutional privilege. Presidential elections are contested between multiple candidates, and are no longer referendums seeking the electorate’s binary (yes or no) approval for the Baath party’s internally nominated candidate. The participation of political parties is based on an objective constitutional criteria, not on the arbitrary powers of the executive to permit or exclude them. Finally, the Supreme Constitutional Court is significantly more independent. http://www.handsoffsyriasydney.com/faqs/how-has-syrias-new-2012-constitution-changed/ The constitution…..“mandated that the government maintain a role in guiding the economy on behalf of Syrian interests, and that the Syrian government would not make Syrians work for the interests of Western banks, oil companies, and other corporations.” It also included: “security against sickness, disability and old age; access to health care; free education at all levels” a provision “requiring that at minimum half the members of the People’s Assembly are to be drawn from the ranks of peasants and workers.” https://gowans.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/what-the-syrian-constitution-says-about-assad-and-the-rebels/#_blank Rallies in March 2012: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rNEFfdTNaqk March 2011 — March 2012: “The Commission also received from the Government lists of victims from the ranks of police, military and security forces. According to these lists, a total of 478 police officers and 2,091 individuals from the military and security forces were killed between 29 March 2011 and 20 March 2012. Without access to the Syrian Arab Republic, the Commission is not in a position to confirm these figures.” http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/PeriodicUpdate24May2012.pdf 7th of May, 2012: Syria’s parliamentary elections are held according to the new constitution to determine the composition of the 250 seat People’s Council. 10.1 million Syrians were eligible and registered to vote out of a population of 23 million 5.2 million Syrians voted (51 percent participation rate) The National Progressive Front won 168 seats (of which the Baath party won 134 seats) The Popular Front for Change and Liberation won 5 seats Independent candidates won the remaining 77 seats Unlike the previous parliamentary elections, this time an opposition coalition of political parties, called the Popular Front for Change and Liberation, contested the elections against the Baath Party led National Progressive Front. http://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1630/?PageSpeed=noscript May-June 2012: CIA openly admits providing weapons and intel through Turkey http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=0 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-rebels-get-influx-of-arms-with-gulf-neighbors-money-us-coordination/2012/05/15/gIQAds2TSU_story.html?utm_term=.2eb56ecdebf6 August 2012: DOD document released by Judicial Watch That the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood played a key role in the uprising that erupted…was confirmed in 2012 by the US Defense Intelligence Agency. A leaked report from the agency said that the insurgency was sectarian and led by the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of Islamic State. The report went on to say that the insurgents were supported by the West, Arab Gulf oil monarchies and Turkey. The analysis correctly predicted the establishment of a “Salafist principality,” an Islamic state, in Eastern Syria, noting that this was desired by the insurgency’s foreign backers, who wanted to see the secular Arab nationalists isolated and cut-off from Iran. “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq, later ISIS] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria … AQI supported the Syrian Opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media” “…opposition forces are trying to control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Der Zor), adjacent to the western Iraqi provinces (Mosul and Anbar), in addition to neighboring Turkish borders. Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey are supporting these efforts….If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia Expansion (Iraq and Iran).” [Note: the “opposition” is described in the same document as being made up of Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda] http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf May 2013: “The data, relayed to NATO over the last month, asserted that 70 percent of Syrians support” the Assad government. At present, the number is now at least 80 percent. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35176.htm 3rd of June, 2014: The first multi-candidate election according to the new constitution is held. It is contested between three candidates, the incumbent President Bashar Al Assad, Hassan Al Nour, and Maher Al Hajjar. 15.8 million Syrians were eligible and registered to vote out of a population of 23 million 11.6 million Syrians voted for three Presidential candidates (73 percent participation) 10.3 million Syrians voted for the incumbent President Assad (88 percent of the vote) Various links: http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/2014-presidential-elections/#_blank Election observers report to UN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnFQd4wBXnk Sources: http://www.handsoffsyriasydney.com/faqs/what-has-the-syrian-government-done-to-address-the-demands-of-its-people/ Vanessa Beeley http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/11/06/syrias-peaceful-protests-and-freedom-bullets-testimony-from-the-real-syria-civil-defence/ Eva Bartlett http://www.globalresearch.ca/moderate-terrorists-deconstructing-the-nato-narrative-on-syria-leftists-keep-the-myth-alive/5481513 Tony Cartalucci http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.es/2013/09/us-planned-syrian-civilian-catastrophe.html#uds-search-results Stephen Gowans https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-revolutionary-distemper-in-syria-that-wasnt/

    Leah Cohen

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