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By Brandon Turbeville

The immediate clamor from the Western mainstream press regarding the fall of Idlib to Western-backed al-Qaeda/ISIS forces revealed part of the NATO plan as much as it involved the simultaneous participation of a media campaign designed to weaken the morale of the Syrian people and present a sense of inevitability amongst Syrian and all other populations following the crisis that the Syrian government was on its way out.

Such media hysteria has been the norm in the West in regards to Syria. However, in terms of the recent media blitz over Idlib, the goal, which has been part of the NATO-Turkish plan since early on in the conflict was to enable the capture of a major Syrian city so as to provide a physical seat of what would then be presented as the “government in exile” in the form of an “interim” or “transitional” government.

While the GIE/interim government would be painted as a modern-day grouping of Founding Fathers and freedom lovers bravely standing up to a dictator, the reality would be a gaggle of terrorists and jihadists bent on imposing Sharia law and washing themselves in bathtubs full of Western money.

Such can be seen in the fact that, only a matter of days after taking the city, the death squads that can barely govern their interactions with one another announced that they were well on their way to establishing a “civilian government” in Idlib.

As the Wall Street Journal reported in its article, “Syrian Opposition Tries To Govern Newly Won Idlib City,”

The rebel groups that took over a provincial capital in northwest Syria over the weekend are now trying to consolidate control and establish civil governance.

After days spent tearing down the ubiquitous images of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the coalition of Islamist groups, which includes al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, say they will help form a civilian government to run Idlib, capital of Idlib province. For now the streets are full of armed fighters with little organizational direction.

[…]

The opposition has a lot to prove in terms of governance as much of the territory it controls is beset by crime, corruption and a lack of services— in addition to regular attacks by the Syrian regime. The political opposition in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, has provided funding for local councils but the money has often been scarce and unreliable.

Note how the WSJ refers to the “opposition,” “al-Qaeda,” “al-Nusra Front,” and “rebels” as they should rightly be described – as the same entity.

Still, as Tony Cartalucci of Land Destroyer Report and New Eastern Outlook wrote, the Turkish media also seized upon the jihadist victory and began calling for Idlib to be used as the Capital seat for an “interim” government. Of course, such an “interim” government would be presented as the legitimate government of Syria that finally found a physical seat of power after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

There is little doubt that such an interim government would not only consist of jihadists and the subsequent imposition of Sharia law, but also of the parasites and traitors that make up the Syrian National Coalition, a group of pathetic individuals who lap up the luxury of five star hotels paid for by Saudi and American money.

The forming of an “interim” (albeit illegitimate) government would follow the model of Libya, the NATO conquest that preceded Syria. Indeed, the goal of developing an “interim” government located inside Syria and protected by NATO bombing campaigns by virtue of the establishment of a “buffer zone” or “no-fly zone” has been one that NATO and the GCC have drooled over for quite some time.

Early on, it appeared that Aleppo was the preferred target for NATO in its bid to establish a “transitional” government but that attempt was ultimately defeated by the Syrian military, with Syrian control over Aleppo only growing in recent months. Damascus also seemed to have been a target if, for no other reason than the fact that it is the Syrian Capital city. However, those attempts have brought little favor to the death squads either.

Idlib, however, has been another story, with the jihadists sweeping in to take control of the territory in a manner so swift as to confuse many onlookers unfamiliar with the details of the Syrian crisis. For this reason, it is important to note that the city of Idlib lies only miles away from the Turkish border.

The location of Idlib in relation to Turkey is important because it is from Turkey that a steady supply of weapons and fighters are entering Syria. It is thus no coincidence that the presence of Jobhat al-Nusra is strongest in the areas bordering Turkey (as well as those bordering Jordan, another supporter of jihadist forces).

While the mainstream Western press is busy presenting Assad as having lost control of the overwhelming majority of the country and providing maps that are inconsistent with the realities on the ground, the truth is that the Syrian forces are on their way to returning Idlib to government control but are attempting to do so in a way that minimizes loss of civilian life. Indeed, the SAA is already in control of the Southern portion of Idlib, it is only a matter of time before the SAA is able to retake the city, providing there are no more mass injections of jihadists into the fray.

At the end of the day, it is important to remember that the U.S. airstrikes and its attempts to create a “buffer zone” inside Syria are nothing more than a farce. The death squads running amok in Syria are themselves entirely creatures of NATO and they remain under NATO’s command. The true enemy of ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and the cannibals of the Levant has always been and continues to be Bashar al-Assad.

There will be no “interim” government or “transitional phase” that will ever be legitimate in the context of the NATO, Anglo-American assault on Syria.

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By Joshua Krause

Have you ever wondered what NATO is up to when they’re not busy overthrowing pesky governments, absorbing post Soviet nations, drone striking terrified villagers, or funding false flag terror plots?

I mean, they’re human just like the rest of us right? Surely they need to take a break from their murderous campaigns from time to time. Sometimes they just need to take a step back from it all, put their arms around each other and just sing, you know?

While NATO foreign ministers met in Turkey earlier today, they did just that when they took a moment to open their black hearts and sing “We Are The World,” the nauseating benefit song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie in 1985. You can see this absurd display for yourself if you happen to have a few spare minutes to laugh, cry, and or vomit.

Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple, where this article first appeared. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshua’s reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshua’s website is Strange Danger.

By Brandon Turbeville

While the Western mainstream media and even independent gatekeepers like Noam Chomsky for years spread the lie that any suggestion that the United States and NATO were supporting ISIS was a “conspiracy theory,” recently uncovered and declassified documents from the Defense Intelligence Agency have proven the Western press and the likes of Chomsky wrong and, yet again, the so-called “conspiracy theorists” right.

This is because, on May 18, Judicial Watch published a selection of recently declassified documents that were obtained from the US Department of Defense and the US State Department as a result of a lawsuit filed against the US government. The lawsuit and most of the documents contained within the release revolved around the Benghazi scandal but a deeper look into the documents dating back to 2012 reveal an even bigger story – that the US and NATO have admitted in their own documents to supporting al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

Docs Show Al-Qaeda Involvement From Beginning – No Moderates

The documents demolish the “official story” of Western governments promoted from the beginning of the Syrian crisis until the present day – that the “rebellion” was organic, grassroots, and made up of moderates and freedom-loving democracy proponents. The document states unequivocally that “The Salafist [sic] the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” It points out that “The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.” Tellingly, the report then states that “AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media . . .”

Indeed, the documents clearly admit that the crisis unfolding in Syria was never a moderate rebellion fighting for democracy, it was made up of fighters from the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda (al-Qaeda In Iraq/Al-Nusra Front) from the very beginning.

US, Turkey, NATO Supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda – Supporting the Creation of Buffer Zones

The document continues in its revelations by stating that:

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. This hypothesis is most likely in accordance with the data from recent events, which will help prepare safe havens under international sheltering, similar to what transpired in Libya when Benghazi was chosen as the command center of the temporary government.

“Opposition forces,” of course, are al-Qaeda, al-Nusra Front, and ISIS, as mentioned and defined earlier by the DIA document. Thus, any questions of whether or not the US and its NATO/GCC allies have been supporting jihadists and terrorists, should be answered with the admissions made within these pages.

If al-Qaeda/ISIS = the “opposition,” then the US support for the “opposition” = US support for al-Qaeda/ISIS.

What is also well-known but now finally admitted to by the US government itself is the plan to establish “buffer zones” and “safe zones” on the Libyan model inside Syria. Such a plan has been covered extensively by myself and Tony Cartalucci (as well as many others in the alternative media) when the concept was considered a “conspiracy theory.”

Dividing Iraq and Syria – Fighting Iran and Shi’ite Expansion

In regards to geopolitical concerns and the breakup and destruction of the Syrian government as well as the Iraqi leadership, the document states:

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).

This “Salafist principality” is obviously the Islamic State, particularly when one visualizes the maps of territory claimed by the jihadist organization. As the DIA document admits, the expansion of the ISIS principality is taking place with the support and assistance of Western powers. This much is evidenced by the fact that the ISIS fighters running rampant across Iraq and especially Syria could never have been able to do so were it not for the support given to them by the GCC and NATO. These fighters certainly could never have held such territory if Western military assistance, Saudi money, and Turkish/Israeli logistics and intelligence had not been provided to them.

Note also the justification provided for such support: not only is the goal to “isolate the Syrian regime,” it is to prevent the “Shia expansion,” meaning the arc of influence held by Iran, growing daily largely due to Western imperialism, hypocrisy, tyranny, and double standards. Instead of attempting to combat Iran’s influence in a race for development and the raising of living standards, the West funds jihadist savages to behead and rape their away across civilized nations. This is because the goal is not merely to disrupt Iranian influence, it is to destroy Iran completely. Even Iran itself is a stepping stone to a greater confrontation with Russia and China.

Tony Cartalucci understands this concept well as he writes in his own article “America Admittedly Behind ISIS ‘Surge,’” when he says:

The Syrian war is not a localized conflict with limited goals. It is one leg of a much larger agenda to destroy Iran next, then move on to Russia and China. Combined with the Syrian campaign, the West has attempted to create arcs of destabilization across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and completely encircling China in Southeast Asia. 

What this constitutes is a World War executed through the use of 4th generation warfare. At the same time, the West attempts to seek temporary appeasement and accommodation for itself so that it can more effortlessly advance its plans. Attempts to portray itself as interested in “negotiations” with Iran while it wages a proxy war on its doorstep is a prime example of this. 

The corporate-financier special interests that have hijacked the United States and Europe have essentially declared war on all lands beyond their grasp, as well as on any and all among their own ranks who oppose their hegemonic aspirations. 

The vile conspiracy now openly unfolding in Syria, seeing to its destruction at the hands of terrorists the US is openly backing after claiming for over a decade to be “fighting” is a harbinger of the destruction that complacency and failure to resist will bring all other nations caught in the path of these special interests. Nations not immediately caught in the grip of chaos created by this conspiracy must use their time wisely, preparing the appropriate measures to resist. They must study carefully what has been done in Syria and learn from both the mistakes and accomplishments of the Syrian government and armed forces in fighting back.

Conclusion

While the Western mainstream press and other “independent” gatekeepers were attempting to paint the suggestion that the United States was supporting ISIS in Iraq and Syria as a “conspiracy theory,” the US government was indeed supporting ISIS in Iraq and Syria but hiding behind a narrative of democracy-loving freedom fighters and “moderate rebels” as it did so. This narrative was disseminated by the same Western press that labeled the alternative media as a collection of paranoid schizophrenics for reporting what has now been confirmed by the DIA document release a full four to ten years ago.

The truth is that the United States has been funding ISIS all along and that the terrorist organization would not exist were it not for its being created by American intelligence agencies as far back as the 1970s under the name Al-Qaeda and Mujahadeen.

While the DIA document release is only news in terms of the confirmation of US support for ISIS, it can be chalked up as one more reason the mainstream and traditional media outlets have become entirely irrelevant and overwhelmingly discredited.

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By Tony Cartalucci

Since ancient times an army required significant logistical support to carry out any kind of sustained military campaign. In ancient Rome, an extensive network of roads was constructed to facilitate not only trade, but to allow Roman legions to move quickly to where they were needed, and for the supplies needed to sustain military operations to follow them in turn.

In the late 1700s French general, expert strategist, and leader Napoleon Bonaparte would note that, “an army marches on its stomach,” referring to the extensive logistical network required to keep an army fed, and therefore able to maintain its fighting capacity. For the French, their inability to maintain a steady supply train to its forces fighting in Russia, and the Russians’ decision to burn their own land and infrastructure to deny it from the invading forces, ultimately defeated the French.

Nazi Germany would suffer a similar fate when it, too, overextended its logical capabilities during its invasion of Russia amid Operation Barbarossa. Once again, invading armies became stranded without limited resources before being either cut off and annihilated or forced to retreat.

And in modern times during the Gulf War in the 1990s an extended supply line trailing invading US forces coupled with an anticipated clash with the bulk of Saddam Hussein’s army halted what was otherwise a lighting advance many mistakenly believed could have reached Baghdad had there been the political will. The will to conquer was there, the logistics to implement it wasn’t.

The lessons of history, however clear they may be, appear to be entirely lost on an either supremely ignorant or incredibly deceitful troupe of policymakers and news agencies across the West.

ISIS’ Supply Lines

The current conflict consuming the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria where the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) is operating and simultaneously fighting and defeating the forces of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, we are told, is built upon a logistical network based on black market oil and ransom payments.

The fighting capacity of ISIS is that of a nation-state. It controls vast swaths of territory straddling both Syria and Iraq and not only is able to militarily defend and expand from this territory, but possesses the resources to occupy it, including the resources to administer the populations subjugated within it.

For military analysts, especially former members of Western armed forces, as well as members of the Western media who remember the convoys of trucks required for the invasions of Iraq in the 1990s and again in 2003, they surely must wonder where ISIS’ trucks are today. After all, if the resources to maintain the fighting capacity exhibited by ISIS were available within Syrian and Iraqi territory alone, then certainly Syrian and Iraqi forces would also posses an equal or greater fighting capacity but they simply do not.

And were ISIS’ supply lines solely confined within Syrian and Iraqi territory, then surely both Syrian and Iraqi forces would utilize their one advantage – air power – to cut front line ISIS fighters from the source of their supplies. But this is not happening and there is a good reason why.

Terrorists and weapons left over from NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 were promptly sent to Turkey and then onto Syria – coordinated by US State Department officials and intelligence agencies in Benghazi – a terrorist hotbed for decades. ISIS’ supply lines run precisely where Syrian and Iraqi air power cannot go. To the north and into NATO-member Turkey, and to the southwest into US allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Beyond these borders exists a logistical network that spans a region including both Eastern Europe and North Africa.

The London Telegraph would report in their 2013 article, “CIA ‘running arms smuggling team in Benghazi when consulate was attacked’,” that:

[CNN] said that a CIA team was working in an annex near the consulate on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armouries to Syrian rebels.

Weapons have also come from Eastern Europe, with the New York Times reporting in 2013 in their article, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” that:

From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

And while Western media sources continuously refer to ISIS and other factions operating under the banner of Al Qaeda as “rebels” or “moderates,” it is clear that if billions of dollars in weapons were truly going to “moderates,” they, not ISIS would be dominating the battlefield.

Recent revelations have revealed that as early as 2012 the United States Department of Defense not only anticipated the creation of a “Salafist Principality” straddling Syria and Iraq precisely where ISIS now exists, it welcomed it eagerly and contributed to the circumstances required to bring it about.

Just How Extensive Are ISIS’ Supply Lines?

While many across the West play willfully ignorant as to where ISIS truly gets their supplies from in order to maintain its impressive fighting capacity, some journalists have traveled to the region and have video taped and reported on the endless convoys of trucks supplying the terrorist army.

Were these trucks traveling to and from factories in seized ISIS territory deep within Syrian and Iraqi territory? No. They were traveling from deep within Turkey, crossing the Syrian border with absolute impunity, and headed on their way with the implicit protection of nearby Turkish military forces. Attempts by Syria to attack these convoys and the terrorists flowing in with them have been met by Turkish air defenses.

Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published the first video report from a major Western media outlet illustrating that ISIS is supplied not by “black market oil” or “hostage ransoms” but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey’s borders via hundreds of trucks a day.

The report titled, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” confirms what has been reported by geopolitical analysts since at least as early as 2011 – that ISIS subsides on immense, multi-national state sponsorship, including, obviously, Turkey itself.

Looking at maps of ISIS-held territory and reading action reports of its offensive maneuvers throughout the region and even beyond, one might imagine hundreds of trucks a day would be required to maintain this level of fighting capacity. One could imagine similar convoys crossing into Iraq from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Similar convoys are likely passing into Syria from Jordan.

In all, considering the realities of logistics and their timeless importance to military campaigns throughout human history, there is no other plausible explanation to ISIS’s ability to wage war within Syria and Iraq besides immense resources being channeled to it from abroad.

If an army marches on its stomach, and ISIS’ stomachs are full of NATO and Persian Gulf State supplies, ISIS will continue to march long and hard. The key to breaking the back of ISIS, is breaking the back of its supply lines. To do that, however (and precisely why the conflict has dragged on for so long) Syria, Iraq, Iran, and others would have to eventually secure the borders and force ISIS to fight within Turkish, Jordanian, and Saudi territory – a difficult scenario to implement as nations like Turkey have created de facto buffer zones within Syrian territory which would require a direct military confrontation with Turkey itself to eliminate.

With Iran joining the fray with an alleged deployment of thousands of troops to bolster Syrian military operations, overwhelming principles of deterrence may prevent Turkey enforcing its buffer zones.

What we are currently left with is NATO literally holding the region hostage with the prospect of a catastrophic regional war in a bid to defend and perpetuate the carnage perpetrated by ISIS within Syria, fully underwritten by an immense logistical network streaming out of NATO territory itself.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”, where this article first appeared.

By Tony Cartalucci

Late last year, Germany’s broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) investigated what turned out to be hundreds of trucks per day carrying billions of dollars in supplies, flowing across the Turkish border into Syria and directly into the hands of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS).

The border crossing near the Turkish city of Oncupinar, approximately 100km west of the Syrian city of Kobani is apparently only one of many such crossings where ISIS fighters, weapons, and materiel move directly under the watch and apparent assistance of NATO.

TIME in their recent article titled, “ISIS Fighters Kill 200 Civilians in Syrian Town,” reported that:

The attacks also came after the group [ISIS] suffered a series of setbacks over the past two weeks, including the loss last week of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad — one of the group’s main points for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies.

Tal Abyad, a Turkish-Syrian border crossing east of Kobani, is now a second, confirmed point of entry into Syria used by ISIS to supply its ongoing campaign within the country.

Reports of confirmed, extensive logistical networks passing through NATO and US-ally territory, into Syria, contradict the current prevailing narrative that ISIS is an “indigenous” terrorist organization, funded and self-sustaining within the territory it currently holds in both Syria and Iraq. The Western media has attempted to claim with little evidence that ISIS’ immense, global operations are somehow underwritten by “ransom payments” and “black market oil” it has seized in eastern Syria.

Clearly, not only are these reports as untenable as they are untrue, the Western media itself has reported precisely how ISIS has been sustaining its impressive fighting capacity – with billions of dollars of state-sponsored aid flowing through NATO territory, directly to their front lines.

Were the supplies flowing over the Syrian-Iraqi border, it may be possible to argue plausible deniability – with the governments of either nation unable to control either side of the border. However, Turkey, a NATO member since 1952 and host of the United States Air Force’s Incirlik Air Base, has full control of its borders meaning that ISIS-bound convoys not only pass over its borders with the apparent approval of Turkish border guards, but are assembled somewhere within Turkey itself before arriving at the edge of Syrian territory.

No effort has been made to stem the flow of supplies to ISIS from NATO territory, with the Turkish government officially denying the trucks DW videotaped and reported on even exist. This indicates clear NATO complicity in the arming and supplying of ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates who are in fact invading Syria from NATO-territory, as well as from US-ally Jordan.

For the West, which feigns indignation in the wake of recent ISIS attacks on France, Tunisia, and Kuwait, while posing as the primary force engaged in war with ISIS directly, it would be a simple matter to close the Turkish-Syrian border with NATO troops to ensure ISIS was shut off completely from the supplies it depends on to maintain its fighting capacity. That the borders are intentionally left open for this extensive daily torrent of supplies, weapons, and fighters to pass over unopposed, is proof positive that ISIS is and has been from the beginning a proxy force intentionally created to stoke fear and support at home for unending war abroad.

Without the threat of ISIS and the chaos it is creating across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the ability for the West to wage war on its enemies and justify extraterritorial meddling would be severely limited. In fact, the very ISIS forces clearly being armed and supplied by NATO directly, are being used as a pretext by US policymakers to execute recently laid plans to incrementally invade and occupy Syria with US military forces.

The Brookings Institution, from which these plans originated, recently used an ISIS assault on Kobani to call for “US boots on the ground” in Syria, an assault which would have been logistically impossible were it not for the daily torrent of supplies the US and its NATO-ally Turkey have themselves intentionally enabled for years to cross into Syria.

To defeat ISIS, its supply lines must be cut – a simple matter to perform that requires only Turkish and other NATO troops to move in and disrupt overt ISIS logistical networks running within their own territory. Instead, the US State Department and US-operated NGOs have even gone as far as condemning what little attempts have been made to control Turkey’s border with Syria. The US State Department’s Voice of America in their article, “Turkish Border Crackdown Imperils Syrian Refugees,” used the pretext of “human rights” to condemn Turkey for what meager control measures it has attempted to put in place.

The fact that the US, with a military base in Turkey itself, has elected not to call for or attempt to implement stricter border security to stem the flow of ISIS supplies, and instead has gone as far as bombing Syrian territory in feigned efforts to “fight ISIS,” proves that the terrorist organization is both a proxy and a pretext. No serious military campaign would be launched against an enemy without identifying and cutting off its supply lines, especially when those supply lines run through that military’s own territory.

The general public across the West, if they truly desire an end to ISIS and its atrocities, will demand what least the West can do – shutting the borders of Turkey and Jordan and ending the flow of supplies to ISIS. This will never happen, thanks to both elementary but effective “divide and conquer” rhetoric miring the Western public in endless circular debate, and the fact that the average Westerner’s understanding of modern warfare and military logistics is derived from Hollywood and television, not maps, history, and basic knowledge.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”, where this article first appeared.

By Brandon Turbeville

As Turkey continues to bomb  alleged ISIS targets in Syria and Kurdish targets in Iraq, it has now taken yet another step toward its goal of establishing a “buffer zone” and “no-fly zone” over Syria. This is because Turkey has now called an emergency NATO meeting scheduled to take place on Tuesday.

The meeting is an extraordinary act and is being justified under Article 4 of the NATO treaty.

Article 4 allows any member of NATO to “request assistance” when its “territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.”

In regards to the scheduled meeting, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg stated that “Turkey requested the meeting in view of the seriousness of the situation after the heinous terrorist attacks in recent days, and also to inform Allies of the measures it is taking. NATO Allies follow developments very closely and stand in solidarity with Turkey.”

According to SKY News’ Foreign Affairs Editor Sam Kiley, the Turks are requesting NATO surveillance aircraft along the Turkey-Syria border.

Kiley also suggested that Turkey was requesting the establishment of a Safe Zone (aka buffer zone/no-fly zone) over the northern portion of Syria on the border with Turkey.

“It is part of its argument for safe zones inside Syria along its border that would be policed by armed forces presumably from NATO and members of the US-led coalition,” Kiley stated.

Article 4 reads “The parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.” While it is less of a declaration of military operations than Article 5, which recognizes an attack against one member as an attack against them all, it is clearly a step in the direction of some type of military confrontation, particularly with the Syrian government.

Turkey has called Article 4 NATO meetings twice – once in 2003 and once in 2013. In the latter incident, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United states sent two PATRIOT anti-missile batteries each as well as soldiers trained in the operation of those missiles. Turkey was requesting help with its border security due to the crisis in Syria.

It was also reported in April that the Turks, Saudis, and Qataris, were in high level talks regarding a plan to invade Syria in the relatively near future.

Ironically, the crisis in Syria – in particular, the issue surrounding the Turkish-Syrian border – was largely the fault of Turkey itself as it helped train and funnel terrorists from inside its borders into Syria.

Regardless, it should be remembered that a “buffer zone” and/or a “no-fly zone,” of course, is tantamount to war and an open military assault against the sovereign secular government of Syria since the implementation of such a zone would require airstrikes against Assad’s air defense systems.

With the establishment of this “buffer zone,” a new staging ground will be opened that allows terrorists such as ISIS and others the ability to conduct attacks even deeper inside Syria.

While the goal is clearly to establish such a zone before tightening the grip on Assad even further and ultimately leading to his overthrow, one can only wonder as to what pronouncement or “policy” will result from the Tuesday NATO meeting. Whatever it may be, the Syrian people will be the ones to pay the highest price.

Image source

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By Brandon Turbeville

Another geopolitical storm is brewing. This time, however, waves are being made between lines largely already drawn even if not officially acknowledged.

Sweden and Russia are now engaged in a war of words regarding Sweden’s plan to formerly join NATO, a plan that the Russians clearly oppose.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, stated that “Swedish membership in NATO would have politico-military and foreign policy consequences, and would require retaliatory measures from Russia.”

“Defense and national security strategy is up to each sovereign state to decide. However, we still consider Sweden’s policy of non-participation in military blocs to be an important factor for the stability of northern Europe,” she added.

It has been reported in a number of different media outlets over the last year that Sweden has been considering membership in NATO.

Back in June, 2015, the Russian Ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tartarinstev, stated that if Sweden decided to join NATO, it may provoke a military response from Russia. He stated,

I don’t think it will become relevant in the near future, even though there has been a certain swing in public opinion. But if it happens there will be counter measures. Putin pointed out that there will be consequences, that Russia will have to resort to a response of a military kind and reorientate our troops and missiles. The country that joins NATO needs to be aware of the risks it is exposing itself to.

Tartarinstev did point out that Sweden was not a target for Russian military forces. Still, his statement was clearly a military warning to the prospective NATO member.

Interestingly enough, it was Zakharova’s words that attracted the most attention from Sweden, at least publicly.

On Friday, the Swedish Foreign Ministry called Tartarinstev in to elaborate and explain Zakharova’s recent statements in regards to Sweden’s potential membership in NATO.

The Swedish government has been acting increasingly hostile towards Russia over recent months, expressing greater and greater solidarity with “Western” nations who are intent on destroying three of Russia’s allies and/or neighbors.

In April, 2015, defense ministers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland all joined together to express solidarity “against Russian aggression” in a joint statement. “Russia’s leaders have shown that they are prepared to make practical and effective use of military means in order to reach their political goals, even when this involves violating principles of international law,” Reuters quotes the statement as reading.

Sweden has been cooperating with NATO openly since at least 1994 when it joined NATO’s Partnership For Peace Program. The PFPP’s stated purpose is to provide for greater trust between NATO and other countries in Europe.

Even in terms of direct military cooperation, Sweden has committed forces alongside NATO’s military personnel. Sweden has had its own military deployed with International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan since 2006.

In 2011, Sweden joined NATO’s mission in Libya.

Image Credit

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

By Tony Cartalucci

It is no longer tenable for the United States and its regional allies in and near the Middle East to claim they are backing “moderate rebels” in the proxy war raging in Syria, Iraq, and parts of Lebanon. There is the Syrian government on one side, and terrorists including Al Qaeda and its various franchises such as the Al Nusra Front and the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS/ISIL) on the other.

If one is not supporting the Syrian government, it is very clear they are supporting Al Qaeda. So obvious is this fact, that the Western press and the corporate-financier think tanks that produce for them their talking points, have begun a campaign to re-brand Al Qaeda as a lesser evil vis-a-vis ISIS. In reality, there is virtually no difference, with the US and its regional allies clearly arming, funding, and supporting both.

The most recent and obscene manifestation of this re-branding was US Army General and former CIA Director David Petraeus’ open calls to use Al Qaeda to “fight” ISIS. In the Daily Beast’s article, “Petraeus: Use Al Qaeda Fighters to Beat ISIS,” it was reported that:

Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, four sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast.

Within this rhetorical shift we find an admission that there is indeed no “moderate rebel” force to speak of. All that exists, admittedly, are extremists operating under the various banners of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Revelations of America’s support behind Al Qaeda may not have ever been so overt, but are certainly nothing new. It is admitted that the US and its Saudi allies first created Al Qaeda as a proxy mercenary force to fight the Soviet Union in a proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 2007, long before the current war in Syria broke out, it was warned by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh in the pages of the New Yorker that under the then Bush administration, support already began to flow to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and other extremists groups including Al Qaeda for the purpose of violently undermining the Syrian government in Damascus.

Hersh’s article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” it is explicitly stated:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Past and present, it is clear that Al Qaeda was and still is a central instrument of the United States in achieving geopolitical objectives – particularly where Western forces cannot immediately or in any practical sense intervene directly.

But Al Qaeda and its various affiliates are only one faction among many terrorist groups minding the vast interests of American global hegemony. A recent bombing in the heart of  Bangkok, capital of Southeast Asia’s nation of Thailand, and ongoing violence in China’s Xinjiang region expose another vast network of US-sponsored terrorism operating in tandem with Al Qaeda and in fact stretching from Asia all the way to frontiers of America’s proxy war with Syria.

Turkish-Uyghur Terror – the Other Al Qaeda

Because it is relatively poorly understood and under-reported in comparison to other more notorious terrorist groups, the Turkish-Uyghur terror network is perhaps more dangerous and of greater utility to the United States and its allies presently versus their increasingly exposed Al Qaeda legions.

The genesis of modern Turkish-sponsored terrorism, like Al Qaeda, also originates from the Cold War. Part of the wider stay-behind networks known as “Gladios” created by NATO to allegedly fight Soviet forces in the event of a Soviet invasion and occupation of Western Europe, these terrorist groups were instead turned against the population of NATO member states and engaged in violence, terrorism, mass murder, and assassinations. A group of ultra-nationalists known as the “Grey Wolves” would be cultivated for this task within Turkey.

In a 1998 LA Times article titled, “Turkish Dirty War Revealed, but Papal Shooting Still Obscured,” it would be reported that (emphasis added):

In the late 1970s, armed bands of Gray Wolves launched a wave of bomb attacks and shootings that killed hundreds of people, including public officials, journalists, students, lawyers, labor organizers, left-wing activists and ethnic Kurds. During this period, the Gray Wolves operated with encouragement and protection of the Counter-Guerrilla Organization, a section of the Turkish Army’s Special Warfare Department. Working out of the U.S. Military Aid Mission building in Ankara, the Special Warfare Department received funds and training from U.S. advisors to establish “stay behind” squads of civilian irregulars who were set up to engage in acts of sabotage and resistance in the event of a Soviet invasion. Similar Cold War counter-guerrilla units were created in every member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But instead of preparing for foreign enemies, these operatives often set their sights on domestic targets.

Another LA Times piece titled, “Turkey’s Gray Wolves Nip at Heels of Power,” would reveal the extent of the Grey Wolves reign of terror (emphasis added):

At the height of the Cold War, the army used the Gray Wolves as a violent counterweight to Turkish Communists. The party’s coffers swelled with secret contributions from the government.

By the late 1970s, the Gray Wolves had spun out of state control. Their paramilitary wing fought a campaign against leftist rivals that killed nearly 6,000 people. Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in a 1981 assassination attempt, is alleged to have been affiliated with the party.

The article would also reveal that despite this horrific past, the Grey Wolves and their political allies were still a very potent political force in Turkey. Today, the Grey Wolves function as a paramilitary wing of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which holds the third largest number of seats in Turkey’s parliament.

As troubling as this should be to Turks who may find themselves on the receiving end of a politically powerful terrorist organization apparently tolerated, even sponsored by NATO for decades and in particular, supported by the United States, the Grey Wolves’ terrorism has branched out far beyond Turkey’s borders.

According to a 2009 New American Media report titled, “Behind the China Riots — Oil, Terrorism & ‘Grey Wolves’,” Turkey’s Grey Wolves have established militant training camps as far as China’s western Xinjiang region, helping produce violent terrorists who have carried out a series of deadly attacks across China. The report would state (emphasis added):

Enter the Grey Wolves, one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations. Founded in the 1960s, the Wolves are a pan-Turkic paramilitary group with 1 million followers across the Near East, Central Asia and inside Xinjiang. During the decade of political violence in Turkey in the 1980s, the military-backed activists launched a wave of assassinations, massacres of ethnic minorities, and extortions of businesses. By official count, the Turkish government holds the Wolves responsible for more than 600 murders, while leftists estimate the victims numbered in the many thousands.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Grey Wolves set up training camps in Central Asia for youths from Turkic language groups, including Uighur. Their indoctrination program embraces the goal of establishing Turan, a Turkish empire across Euro-Asia, subjugating non-Turkish races and unleashing violence to achieve their ends. Out of the limelight, the Wolves provided commando training and material support for the East Turkestan Independence Movement.

In essence, NATO’s stay-behind networks had become NATO’s “go-abroad” networks, projecting the same sort of violence, terrorism, and political coercion abroad after the Cold War that these networks carried out domestically during the Cold War.

The alleged “struggle” by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, referred to by the terrorists and their foreign sponsors as “East Turkistan,” consists of two essential components – a foreign harbored political front including the Washington D.C. and Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and a militant front clearly backed by the US and NATO through intermediary groups like Turkey’s Grey Wolves.

Like the Grey Wolves, the World Uyghur Congress is a creation and perpetuation of Western special interests. WUC is directly funded by the US State Department via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) over a quarter of a million dollars (on record) a year. The NED admittedly organizes and underwrites all of WUC’s events, and their annual meetings usually feature almost exclusively US representatives reaffirming their commitment to support WUC’s objectives which, as stated on their official website, include:

The WUC declares a nonviolent and peaceful opposition movement against Chinese occupation of East Turkestan and an unconditional adherence to the international accepted human rights standard as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and adherence to the principals of democratic pluralism and rejection of totalitarianism, religious intolerance, and terrorism as an instrument of policy.

And while WUC claims to stand for a “peaceful opposition” to resist what it calls “Chinese occupation,” it regularly justifies, defends, or covers up violence. Perhaps the most appalling example of this was when it failed to condemn the 2014 brutal murder of prominent Uyghur imam, 74 year old Jume Tahir, in front of China’s biggest and oldest mosque. WUC would denounce him as a “tool” of the Chinese government and even go as far as denounce China for sentencing his killers – Uyghur terrorists – to death for the horrific murder.

Clearly WUC not only finds it impossible to denounce terrorism, it willfully serves as rhetorical cover for it.

Looking at a map of China it is clear that this campaign of separatism directly serves the long-standing plans of the United States to encircle and contain China’s rise – a campaign that has been openly and repeated outlined in US policy papers for decades – the most recent of which was published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and was titled, “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China.” It states in no uncertain terms:

Because the American effort to ‘integrate’ China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia—and could result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy.

Encouraging separatism in China’s western Xinjiang region, if successful, would carve off a substantial amount of territory. In conjunction with US-backed separatism in China’s Tibet region, an immense buffer region stands to be created that would virtually isolate China from Central Asia. And while the Grey Wolves and their Uyghur proxies are working hard to create this barrier to China’s west, with their involvement in a recent bombing in Bangkok, it appears the US is now using them to augment efforts to create a similar encirclement across Southeast Asia.

NATO Terror Expands into Southeast Asia

The Turkish-Uyghur terror network, in addition to fomenting violence across China, has more recently been trafficking terrorists from Xinjiang, through Southeast Asia, and onward to Turkey where they are staged, armed, trained, and then sent to fight NATO’s proxy war in Syria. This trafficking network apparently snaked its way through Thailand – exposed when Thailand detained over 100 Uyghurs which it then deported upon Beijing’s request back to China in July.

On the same day the deportations occurred WUC and NATO’s Grey Wolves organized violent protests in Turkey both in Ankara and at the Thai consulate in Istanbul during which the consulate was invaded and destroyed.

A month later, a devastating bomb would detonate in the heart of Bangkok, killing 20 mostly Chinese tourists and injuring over 100 more. In addition to the BBC already being on site before the blast, the British network would conclude even before bodies were cleared from the site that Uyghurs were likely behind the blast. This was done specifically to deflect blame from another US proxy, Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been attempting for years to regain power in Thailand.

In reality, Shinawatra and the Uyghur terrorists are both functions of the same Westesrn agenda to encircle and contain China by building up a “wall” of proxy states around Beijing, and if nothing else, to create chaos in which Beijing finds it nearly impossible to prosper.

What is perhaps most concerning regarding these two Western proxies is the fact that many past bombings associated with Shinawatra’s terrorist networks – networks which are extensive – match the methods used by Turkish-Uyghur terrorists making it likely that NATO’s extraterritorial networks New American Media reported on in 2009 being set up in China, are likely now dotting Uyghur trafficking routes throughout Southeast Asia as well.

The blast in Bangkok likely took place for a number of reasons. Not only did Thailand ignore US demands to release the detained Uyghurs to Turkey, as well as oust a long-cultivated US proxy – Thaksin Shinawatra – but it has been cultivating unmistakably closer ties to Beijing including the signing of major joint-infrastructure development projects, closer military cooperation, and even the potential procurement of 3 Chinese-made submarines – all of which US policymakers have been decrying with increasing indignation.

Turkish-Uyghur Terror Beyond Asia

And while the US is using Turkish-Uyghur terror to extort concessions from Southeast Asia and to destabilize China, it is likely that this “other Al Qaeda” will turn up still in other regions – most predictably, Russian Crimea.

Crimea rejoined Russia after a NATO-backed, violent Neo-Nazi coup overthrew the government of Ukraine, creating a cascade of anti-Russian violence across the country. Eager to avoid the fate of many cities across Ukraine, the people of Crimea overwhelmingly voted in a referendum to rejoin Russia. Since then, Crimea has enjoyed peace and prosperity just across the border from a Ukraine now mired in civil war and economic catastrophe, all compounded by an illegitimate regime beholden to the US and NATO who thrust it into power.

The fact that the border between Russian Crimea and Ukraine also represents the border between peace and pandemonium highlights the criminal chaos fostered by US-NATO meddling in Ukraine. A peaceful, stable Crimea serves as a constant reminder to all in Eastern Europe that where ever NATO goes, chaos follows.

TO allies could destabilize Crimea, thus creating chaos within newly repatriated Russian territory, the West could make a compelling case that dealing with Russia is at least as undesirable as dealing with NATO.

If the US and its NAUS-NATO backed Turkish terrorism would be the key to accomplishing this. Crimea’s proximity to Turkey and a sizable Turkish Tatar minority serves as a potential medium for the West to carry this out. Already the Western media has invested heavily in a narrative centered around “disenfranchised Tatars” and has begun working with opposition groups to stir up confrontations. Like in Xinjiang, those willing to participate in such an opposition constitute a fractional minority – but through the power of Western media, are inflated in the minds of impressionable audiences.

The US State Department’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty media outlet in an article deceptively titled, “Putin Warns Crimean Tatars Not To Seek Special Status,” indicated that Russia was well aware of the ruse:

Putin suggested that foreign countries were funding rights activists in an effort to “destabilize the situation” by playing up problems faced by Crimean Tatars, the third-largest ethnic group after Russians and Ukrainians on the peninsula, and said that Moscow would not allow this.

“You and I know full well who we are talking about. There are a number people who consider themselves professional fighters for rights,” he said, adding that “they want to receive foreign grants and acknowledgement and realize their ambitions, including political ambitions.”

Already in Kiev, these Tatar opposition fronts have begun organizing and attempting to fan the flames of conflict in Crimea. This includes ATR – a Tatar media channel with opaque funding, now based in Kiev and now what US NED funded “Human Rights in Ukraine” (KhPG) calls fighting “to counter the psychological and propaganda influence from Russia.”

Understanding the scope of Turkish-Uyghur terrorism, their rhetorical supporters, and the function both serve toward maintaining US global hegemony helps disarm the West of its various volatile narratives and criminal conspiracies aimed at creating and leveraging terrorism. If when each bomb goes off, or when any consulate is attacked, the public points the finger not at America’s proxies, but directly at the special interests upon Wall Street and lining Washington instead, all benefits of carrying out a proxy campaign of global terrorism to begin with will evaporate before the West.

As is already happening in Syria where Western plans have been frustrated by growing global awareness of the West’s true involvement in the conflict and its role behind groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, by exposing their “other Al Qaeda,” their plans elsewhere around the globe will likewise be confounded.

And while the US has attempted for years to galvanize the world behind its global agenda through the use of terrorism, it is ironic that now China, Russia, and even nations like Thailand all now find themselves on common ground, having reason to cooperate closer together in facing a common threat – America’s global terror enterprise.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

By Steven MacMillan

As certain NATO powers are exploiting the recent flood of refugees from the Middle East and Africa to push for more military action in Syria, it is essential to further illustrate the deceptive and nefarious nature of a previous war conducted by the military alliance, namely the 2011 war in Libya.

“We came, we saw, he died”

These are the repugnant words of the former US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, in an apparent reference to the famous words attributed to Julius Caesar: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Clinton was gloating following the brutal murder of the Libyan leader,Muammar al- Qaddafi, by the Libyan rebels in October 2011.

NATO powers exploited the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 which established a “no fly zone” in the country to bomb Libyan government positions and force regime change. As Paul Joseph Watson succinctly summed it up, “a ‘no fly zone’ is merely a euphemism for aerial bombardment and aggressive regime change.”

Supported by Western intelligence agencies – most notably the CIA and MI6 – the al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan rebels worked alongside NATO to overthrow the Libyan government, plunging the country into intolerable chaos which has never halted since 2011. Many fighters from Libya then traveled to fight alongside the Syrian rebels in the proxy war against Bashar al-Assad.

NATO’s intervention turned an advanced country which had the highest standard of living on the African continent, into a failed state devoid of leadership, cohesion and structure.

Inverted Narratives

In a policy brief written in September 2013 by Alan J. Kuperman, an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, who also holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kuperman outlines that NATO’s only objective in Libya was to force regime change in the country. Despite the inverted narrative promulgated by the Western establishment that the war was a “humanitarian intervention,”

Kuperman details how NATO overthrew the Qaddafi regime even at the expense of civilian life.

The policy brief was based on an earlier article by Kuperman which was published in the summer 2013 issue of the International Security journal, titled: “A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO’s Libya Campaign“, a project of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

Kuperman writes in his policy brief, Lessons from Libya: How not to Intervene, that NATO’s so called “humanitarian intervention” in the North African nation actually “exacerbated humanitarian suffering:”

NATO’s action magnified the conflict’s duration about sixfold, and its death toll at least sevenfold, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If Libya was a “model intervention,” then it was a model of failure.

The author continues to dispel the mainstream narratives on the war by documenting that the Libyan government did not “initiate Libya’s violence”, but instead “responded” to violence perpetuated by the protesters:

The conventional account of Libya’s conflict and NATO’s intervention is misleading in several key aspects. First, contrary to Western media reports, Qaddafi did not initiate Libya’s violence by targeting peaceful protesters. The United Nations and Amnesty International have documented that in all four Libyan cities initially consumed by civil conflict in mid-February 2011—Benghazi, Al Bayda, Tripoli, and Misurata—violence was actually initiated by the protesters. The government responded to the rebels militarily but never intentionally targeted civilians or resorted to “indiscriminate” force, as Western media claimed.

It was not just the media that was pushing this narrative, however, US President Barack Obama asserted in a March 2011 speech that “Qaddafi began attacking his people”, and the US responded by assigning forces “to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger.”

Other assessments of what actually transpired in Libya starkly differ from the President’s words though, as Kuperman argues that NATO was belligerently attempting to force regime change in Libya at any cost, “even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans:”

The conventional wisdom is also wrong in asserting that NATO’s main goal in Libya was to protect civilians. Evidence reveals that NATO’s primary aim was to overthrow Qaddafi’s regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans… NATO continued to aid the rebels even when they repeatedly rejected government cease-fire offers that could have ended the violence and spared civilians. Such military assistance included weapons, training, and covert deployment of hundreds of troops from Qatar, eventually enabling the rebels to capture and summarily execute Qaddafi and seize power in October 2011.

Kuperman also notes the potential “crimes against humanity” committed by the rebels after they had overthrown the Libyan regime:

The victorious rebels perpetrated scores of reprisal killings and expelled 30,000 mostly black residents of Tawerga on grounds that some had been “mercenaries” for Qaddafi. HRW reported in 2012 that such abuses “appear to be so widespread and systematic that they may amount to crimes against humanity.” Ironically, such racial or ethnic violence had never occurred in Qaddafi’s Libya.

Regime Change in Libya was a Premeditated Geostrategic Objective

Contrary to many mainstream news outlets, the overthrow of the Libyan regime was not a spontaneous decision by NATO powers in response to the Libyan government ‘savagely attacking their own people’. Instead, it was part of a much grander geostrategic plan by Western powers to destroy any nation-state that could resist Western hegemony.

In addition to being named on the neoconservatives hit list in 2000, Libya was targeted for regime change in a 2001 plan circulating around the Pentagon. The plan was revealed by retired four star general and former NATO commander, Wesley Clark, in a speech in 2007 at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. Clark recites a conversation he had with an official at the Pentagon in 2001, who had received a classified memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office:

I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office, it says we are going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.

In 2014, three years after the war in the country, Libya joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), an organization which is a corporate member of one of the most preeminent organizations within the Western establishment – the Royal Institute of International Affairs (or Chatham House).

In the future, the EBRD will offer un-payable loans to the North African nation. This will result in Libya being in debt to an organization that will ensure the country will be subservient to the interests of Western imperialism, whilst experiencing a sustained period of chaos induced by NATO’s war in 2011. This is 21st century imperialism par excellence.

It is clear that for many political leaders in Western capitals, humanitarianism is merely a euphemism for imperialism. Today’s Western elite unimaginatively use the same propaganda over and over again to justify perennial wars. David Cameron recently regurgitated the slogans we heard ad nauseam in 2011, when he claimed the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has “butchered his own people.”

Libya provides a window into Syria’s future if the West ousts Assad, as NATO strategists have no intention of stabilizing Syria if they succeed in ousting the government in Damascus. The Western overthrow of Assad will most probably result in Syria being balkanized into small autonomous regions whilst experiencing a sectarian bloodbath. We can be assured it won’t transition into a democratic utopia (but that doesn’t stop Western propaganda pushing this fairy tale).

Thankfully, however, Russia will not allow the West to butcher Syria in the same manner they butchered Libya.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

By Brandon Turbeville

As Western media circulates reports accompanied with exactly zero evidence to back up claims that Russian cruise missiles crashed in Iran or that Russia has engaged in a hospital bombing spree, there is a notable silence about the capabilities of the Russian military, particularly when it relates to the question of how effective it is in preventing NATO and the United States from achieving its goals in Syria.

Recent reports in the alternative media, however, are suggesting that, at least in the coastal areas of Syria and in a number of locations controlled by the Assad government and backed by Russian forces, the NATO forces are essentially blind.

Noted and respected researcher Thierry Meyssan of the Voltaire Network recently stated on Webster Tarpley’s World Crisis Radio program that the Russians have deployed a new “secret weapon” in Syria that is capable of jamming American and NATO satellites and radar transmissions, essentially creating a space where the interlopers are incapable of using radar, sonar, or directional systems. The system, according to Meyssan, is also capable of preventing opposing forces from even being able to monitor and observe what is happening inside the area in which the jamming devices are operating.

Meyssan, who is currently living in Damascus and is functioning as an advisor to the Assad government, stated,

In fact, nobody knows what is really happening now in Syria. Because now there is something totally new, totally different from the past. The Russians [military] has deployed a special system to scramble, to jam all the communications in Syria. So, right now, all the military communications – the radar, the satellites, everything is jammed, is scrambled. And the result is that NATO [doesn’t] know what is happening inside Syria since three weeks [ago].

[…]

This means that Russia has a new weapon able to stop all the communications system of NATO and this means that Russia is now the main military power in the world. You understand what I’m saying? Because right now NATO is totally blind. Because if NATO tries to do something inside Syria they can’t do it.

For those who question the claims of Meyssan, it should be noted that Russia has already deployed a sophisticated system of radar, sonar, and directional jamming that has caused some consternation amongst the NATO and American militaries.

In April, 2015, a public version of this alleged “secret” weapon was unveiled and reported on by Sputnik. The Russian media organization stated,

The Richag-AV system, mounted on the Mi-8MTPR1 (a variant of the Mi-8MTB5-1 helicopter) is said to have no global equivalent. Its electronic countermeasures system is designed to jam radar, sonar and other detection systems in the aims of defending aircraft, helicopters, drones, ground and naval forces against air-to-air and surface-to-air defense systems within a radius of several hundred kilometers. It can be mounted on units from any branch of the armed forces, including helicopters and airplanes, as well as ground and ship-based forces. The Mi8-MTPR1-based Richag-AV platform, using multi-beam antenna arrays with DRFM technology, is designed to actively jam and thus ‘blind’ radar systems in order to defend against radio-electronic guided weapons systems. In a combat situation, the system would operate as part of an aviation shock attack group aimed at breaking through virtually any defense system, blinding everything up to and including the US MIM-104 ‘Patriot’ anti-aircraft missile system.

The new Russian system seems to be functioning via a similar concept but at a much higher capacity.

It should also be noted that, in late September of this year, NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Phillip Breedlove warned that Russia was creating an A2/AD bubble over the Syrian coast and the eastern Mediterranean. Breedlove also mentioned that similar bubbles were already created by Russia over the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad and the Black Sea near Crimea. A2/AD is an abbreviation for Anti-Access and Area Denial.

As the Washington Post reported,

While Russia’s stated goal in moving into Syria is to fight the Islamic State, NATO’s top commander believes Russia’s new presence includes the first pieces of an intricate layer of defensive systems deployed to hinder U.S. and coalition operations in the region. “As we see the very capable air defense [systems] beginning to show up in Syria, we’re a little worried about another A2/AD bubble being created in the eastern Mediterranean,” said Breedlove to an audience at the German Marshall Fund Monday. A2/AD stands for anti-access/area denial. During the early stages of warfare, A2/AD could have been a moat around a castle, or spikes dug into the ground—anything to keep the enemy off a certain swathe of territory. In the 21st century, however, A2/AD is a combination of systems such as surface-to-air missile batteries and anti-ship missiles deployed to prevent forces from entering or traversing a certain area—from land, air or sea. According to Breedlove, the introduction of an A2/AD bubble in Syria would be Russia’s third denial zone around Europe. The first and oldest he said, was in the Baltics where the Russian naval base in Kaliningrad has robust anti-air capabilities. The second zone—originating from Russian-occupied Crimea—covers the Black Sea. “Russia has developed a very strong A2/AD capability in the Black Sea,” said Breedlove. “Essentially their [anti-ship] cruise missiles range the entire Black Sea, and their air defense missiles range about 40 to 50 percent of the Black Sea.

Hints of the effectiveness of the Russian technology was demonstrated in a tense standoff between a Russian fighter jet and an American Destroyer in the Black Sea in 2014 when the Russian jet turned toward the Destroyer (who was stationed in the Black Sea in violation of the Montreaux Convention) and completely jammed the radar and directional systems on board the ship. While the silencing of the US systems was impressive enough, the fact that the jet did so for a total of 12 times was a clear message.

Considering the nature of the conflict taking place in Syria, we can only hope that the Russians continue to blackout access to visuals, communications, and the ability to launch a coordinated assault against the Assad forces by NATO powers and any other force attempting to destroy Syria and its people. However, we must also hope that the US ruling elite soon begins to keep its hubris in check before we find ourselves engaged in a worldwide conflagration.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

By Brandon Turbeville

The Syrian crisis has just seen a drastic escalation in the potential for what could essentially turn into World War 3 with the NATO bloc engaging in direct military confrontation with the Russian alliance. Only hours ago, Turkey announced that it shot down a Russian jet, a claim confirmed by the Russian government shortly thereafter.

The Turks argue that the Russian jet violated Turkish airspace, a claim which the Russians deny. While some evidence exists suggesting that the plane was indeed within Turkish airspace (only 9 seconds worth of traveling time if the coordinates are accurate), the Russian Defense Ministry has stated that “We are looking into the circumstances of the crash of the Russian jet. The Ministry of Defense would like to stress that the plane was over the Syrian territory throughout the flight.”

Russia also claims that the plane was brought down by artillery fire but the Turkish military says that it was shot down by Turkish F-16s after it had ignored numerous warnings.

Video footage shows a burning plane crashing to the ground on a hill while two pilots are seen floating downwards after the crash, indicating that the pilots had ejected.

Unfortunately, it appears that at least one of the Russian pilots has been killed and another is rumored to have been captured by Obama and Erdogan’s “relatively moderate cannibals.”

Reports suggest that death squad fighters on the ground began firing at the soldiers on their way down, suggesting that the dead Russian pilot may have been killed before he ever reached the ground. The status of the other pilot is not yet confirmed.

It should be noted that the plane actually crashed in Syrian territory.

The jet had apparently been shot down from an altitude of 19,685 ft.

While the question of whether or not the jet had ever actually crossed into Turkish territory is still very much a question, it is important to remember that Turkey has long claimed special privileges over Northern Syria, creating a de facto “no-fly zone” of its own over territory approximately 10 miles into Syria.

Russian President Vladmir Putin has since labeled the downing of the jet as a “stab in the back by accomplices of terrorism.”

An emergency meeting of NATO has now been called by Turkey. “The aim of this extraordinary NAC meeting is for Turkey to inform allies about the downing of a Russian airplane,” said Carmen Romero, NATO’s deputy spokesperson.

Turkey’s actions come as Russian and Syrian forces continue their march across Northern Syria and Aleppo and as terrorist targets in places like Raqqa are finally being destroyed from the air. If NATO does not respond soon, it will be the end for the geopolitical plans of the Anglo-Americans in Syria and the end for their trained terrorist monkeys who have raped and beheaded their way across the Middle East.

While the attack on the Russian jet shows, to some extent, the lengths to which NATO and particularly Turkey’s Erdogan will go to defend and support ISIS terrorists, we have now entered frightening new territory when NATO is willing to risk nuclear war over geopolitical interests and Neolithic savages in Syria.

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Source: Russian warplane shot down in Syria by ReutersNews on Rumble

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

By Brandon Turbeville

As the situation in Syria heats up on the heels of the Turkish shoot down of a Russian military jet, the situation in Ukraine is doing the same as the Western-backed fascist Kiev regime is once again poking the Russian bear, presumably at the behest of the NATO powers.

After “mysterious” blasts that took place in the Kherson region of Ukraine over the weekend leaving nearly two million citizens without power in the recently annexed Russian territory, the Ukrainian government is now officially halting aid shipments as “activists” inside Crimea are blocking the repair of the power lines.

The Kherson region is located in Southeastern Ukraine and on the border with Crimea.

The blasts brought down electricity pylons that serve Crimea although the intended target was a currency exchange located in Kherson. A man apparently demanded cash before detonating the bomb in the building, with another bomb being found shortly thereafter outside. A separate explosion took place in Odessa, another city in the Southeastern Ukraine region. Explosives were later found near the power lines according to officials, preventing crews from being able to repair them.

Shortly thereafter, groups of “activists” made up of Crimean Tatars have taken to protest and have blocked the repair crews from restoring power to the areas currently suffering from the outage. The demands of the “activists” are that a tougher line be taken against Moscow. This “tougher line” essentially means doing more to “restore” Crimea to Ukraine and to “take it back” from Russia.

This is not the first political act groups of Tatars have committed in this regard. Ever since September, Tatar “activists” have stalked the border between Crimea and mainland Ukraine and have attempted to block commercial trucks from entering the peninsula.

The Ukrainian fascist government has now responded by decreeing that all vehicles hauling goods to and from Crimea be temporarily halted. As Laura Mills writes for the Wall Street Journal,

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk asked his cabinet to formalize the decree by drafting a law that would “take into account the interests of our brotherly Crimean Tatar people.”

“We aren’t satisfied with today’s status quo, when an occupying power neglects the basic rights of the Crimean Tatar people,” said President Petro Poroshenko after a meeting with three European foreign ministers. “Crimea is Ukrainian territory. We will defend the rights of the Crimean Tatar people and all Ukrainians who are living on occupied territory.”

While it is unclear whether or not the bombing itself was engineered by Ukrainian, Western, or NATO forces or if it was some coordinated and bizarre robbery plan gone wrong, given the history and methodology of the aforementioned nations and organizations, the circumstances surrounding the bombings are highly suspect. After all, with the bombings coming so close together, succeeding in knocking out civilian power in a highly convenient manner at a highly convenient time, and the resulting measures coming from the “activist” Tatars and the Ukrainian government, it would be reasonable to suggest that a country that would allow pro-Moscow activists to be burned to death in a trade union hall would indeed carry out bombings to achieve a much greater geopolitical goal.

Remember, Turkey and Ukraine have already conferred in order to establish “Muslim Brigades” to be used against Russia in Crimea.

On August 1-2, a meeting was convened at the Hotel Billkent in Ankara, Turkey and was labeled the Second World Congress of the Tatars. This meeting brought together over 200 Tatar NGOs and associations from all over the world. The event was also attended by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus. Both officials participated in the event as well.

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As Zaman reports,

Nearly 200 Crimean Tatar nongovernmental organizations and civil society groups gathered in Ankara as part of the Second World Crimean Tatar Congress to discuss the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the situation of their brethren in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in February of last year.

The meeting took place on Saturday at Ankara Bilkent Hotel and Congress Center and focused on the dire conditions under which Crimean Tatars have to live in the face of encroaching Russian pressure on their cultural life. The gathering offered an opportunity for lengthy discussions about how to resolve the prolonged conflict in Ukraine and to maintain Tatars’ threatened community rights under the new administration in Crimea.

But, while Russia and the annexation of Crimea were the focus of the meeting, a foolish and potentially dangerous decision was made between Ukraine and Turkey.

At the meeting, it was announced by Mustafa Abdulcemil Cemiloglu, acting leader of the Crimean Tatars as decreed by Ukrainian President Poroshenko, the creation of a “Muslim Brigade” to oppose “Crimean separatism,” as well as “human trafficking” and the “transportation of goods near conflict zones.” In other words, the creation of a terrorist brigade to combat Russian involvement in Crimea and pro-Russian sentiment and activism in the area.

It should be noted that Cemiloglu was a notorious CIA asset and collaborator throughout the years of the Reagan Administration. He was also the former leader of the Crimea Tatar Majlis.

After the announcement was made by Cemiloglu, he was received by Turkish Recep Erdogan, who assured him of Turkey’s full support for the Tatars against Russia. Turkey has been vocal about the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine and has, like the rest of NATO, taken a strong anti-Russian stance on the issue of Ukraine.

The “Muslim Brigade” was supposed to be based at Herson, near the Crimean border and includes volunteers and jihadists from a number of other locations in the region – “Tatarstan,” Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, and Georgia.

Turkey was not to be left out of the mix, however, since it agreed to commit a number of the jihadists currently operating within its own borders for the purposes of destroying the government of Syria to the new Muslim Brigade in Ukraine.

Indeed, in December 2013, Turkish intelligence sent a number of Tatar jihadists to Ukraine so they would be able to assist the Western color revolution in Kiev where the terrorists acted as “security” for pro-European and anti-Russian protests in the Maidan, often suspected of being the culprits behind a number of violent acts resulting in the violent crackdown by police.

As the Voltaire Network reported in its article “Jihadists In Charge of Crowd Control In Kiev Protests,”

They are members of the “Azatlyk’’ (freedom) movement led by young Naïl Nabiullin, and campaign for a Greater Turkey. They are backed by Trotskyist parties such as the Russian Left Front of Sergei Udaltsov, as well as the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They’ve just come back from Syria, through Turkey, where they had gone to practice jihad against the Syrian government. They seem to be behind the provocations that have led the Riot Police to commit excesses.

With this in mind, it is very concerning that Turkey and Ukraine are moving towards greater provocations against Russia – this time using jihadist terrorists on and inside Russian borders, only days before it shot down a Russian jet over Syria. Such moves clearly increase the likelihood that Russia will be forced to engage NATO and its proxies in a direct military fashion at some point. World War 3 may very well be at our doorstep. It is time the American people and the people of the world wake up to the dangers they face and begin to do something to change the situation before it is too late.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

By Tony Cartalucci

For years, NATO has granted impunity to convoys packed with supplies bound for ISIS and Al Qaeda. Russian airstrikes have stopped them dead in their tracks. If a legitimate, well-documented aid convoy carrying humanitarian supplies bound for civilians inside Syria was truly destroyed by Russian airstrikes, it is likely the world would never have heard the end of it.

Instead, much of the world has heard little at all about a supposed “aid” convoy destroyed near Azaz, Syria, at the very edge of the Afrin-Jarabulus corridor through which the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and Al Qaeda’s remaining supply lines pass, and in which NATO has long-sought to create a “buffer zone” more accurately described as a Syrian-based, NATO-occupied springboard from which to launch terrorism deeper into Syrian territory.

The Turkish-based newspaper Daily Sabah reported in its article, “Russian airstrikes target aid convoy in northwestern Syrian town of Azaz, 7 killed,” claims:

At least seven people died, 10 got injured after an apparent airstrike, reportedly by Russian jets, targeted an aid convoy in northwestern Syrian town of Azaz near a border crossing with Turkey on Wednesday.

Daily Sabah also reported:

Speaking to Daily Sabah, Serkan Nergis from the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said that the targeted area is located some 5 kilometers southwest of the Öncüpınar Border Crossing.

Nergis said that IHH has a civil defense unit in Azaz and they helped locals to extinguish the trucks. Trucks were probably carrying aid supplies or commercial materials, Nergis added.

Daily Sabah’s report also reveals that the Turkish-Syrian border crossing of Oncupinar is held by what it calls “rebels.” The border crossing of Oncupinar should be familiar to many as it was the scene of Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s (DW) investigative report where DW camera crews videotaped hundreds of trucks waiting at the border, bound for ISIS territory, apparently with full approval of Ankara.

The report was published in November of 2014, a full year ago, and revealed precisely how ISIS has been able to maintain its otherwise inexplicable and seemingly inexhaustible fighting capacity. The report titled, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” included a video and a description which read:

Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods. The haulers believe most of the cargo is going to the “Islamic State” militia. Oil, weapons, and soldiers are also being smuggled over the border, and Kurdish volunteers are now patrolling the area in a bid to stem the supplies.

The report, and many others like it, left many around the world wondering why, if the US is willing to carry out risky military operations deep within Syrian territory to allegedly “fight ISIS,” the US and its allies don’t commit to a much less riskier strategy of securing the Turkish-Syrian border within Turkey’s territory itself – especially considering that the United States maintains an airbase, training camps, and intelligence outposts within Turkish territory and along the very border ISIS supply convoys are crossing over.

Ideally, NATO should have interdicted these supply convoys before they even crossed over into Syria – arresting the drivers and tracking those who filled the trucks back to their source and arresting them as well. Alternatively, the trucks should have been destroyed either at the border or at the very least, once they had entered into Syria and were clearly headed toward ISIS-occupied territory.

That none of this took place left many to draw conclusions that the impunity granted to this overt logistical network was intentional and implicated NATO directly in the feeding of the very ISIS terrorists it claimed to be “fighting.”

Russia Steps In

Obviously, any nation truly interested in defeating ISIS would attack it at its very source – its supply lines. Military weaponry may have changed over the centuries, but military strategy, particularly identifying and severing an enemy’s supply lines is a tried and true method of achieving victory in any conflict.

Russia, therefore, would find these convoys a natural target and would attempt to hit them as close to the Syrian-Turkish border as possible, to negate any chance the supplies would successfully reach ISIS’ hands. Russian President Vladmir Putin noted, regarding the Azaz convoy in particular, that if the convoy was legitimately carrying aid, it would have been declared, and its activities made known to all nations operating military aircraft in the region.

The trucks hit in the recent airstrikes, just as they were during the DW investigation, were carrying concrete and steel, not “milk and diapers” as the West would lead audiences to believe. That the supplies were passing through a “rebel” controlled crossing means that the supplies were surely headed to “rebel” controlled territory – either Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front in the west, or ISIS in the east.

Russian airstrikes insured that the supplies reached neither.

Strangling NATO’s Terrorists at the Border

Russia’s increased activity along the Syrian-Turkish border signifies the closing phases of the Syrian conflict. With Syrian and Kurdish forces holding the border east of the Euphrates, the Afrin-Jarabulus corridor is the only remaining conduit for supplies bound for terrorists in Syria to pass. Syrian forces have begun pushing east toward the Euphrates from Aleppo, and then will move north to the Syrian-Turkish border near Jarabulus. Approximately 90-100 km west near Afrin, Ad Dana, and Azaz, it appears Russia has begun cutting off terrorist supply lines right at the border. It is likely Syrian forces will arrive and secure this region as well.

For those that have criticized Russia’s air campaign claiming conflicts can’t be won from the air without a ground component, it should be clear by now that the Syrian Arab Army is that ground component, and has dealt ISIS and Al Qaeda its most spectacular defeats in the conflict.

When this corridor is closed and supplies cut off, ISIS, Nusra, and all associated NATO-backed factions will atrophy and die as the Syrian military restores order across the country. This may be why there has been a sudden “rush” by the West to move assets into the region, the impetus driving the United States to place special forces into Syrian territory itself, and for Turkey’s ambush of a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian-Turkish border.

What all of this adds up to is a clear illustration of precisely why the Syrian conflict was never truly a “civil war.” The summation of support for militants fighting against the Syrian government and people, has come from beyond Syria’s borders. With that support being cut off and the prospect of these militants being eradicated, the true sponsors behind this conflict are moving more directly and overtly to salvage their failed conspiracy against the Syrian state.

What we see emerging is what was suspected and even obvious all along – a proxy war started by, and fought for Western hegemonic ambitions in the region, intentionally feeding the forces of extremism, not fighting them.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

By Jay Syrmopoulos

A video that seemingly bolsters Russian claims of Turkish government complicity with the Islamic State, highlights the casual relations between the terror group and Turkish officials.

Turkey has been accused of being one of the main benefactors of the ISIS terror group, accused of providing logistics, financing and military hardware. These accusations are particularly startling as Turkey is a member of NATO, a collective security group obligated to go to war if a member state is attacked. It would be a seemingly dangerous proposition to allow a state that basically props up the Islamic State, which then uses the group as a geopolitical weapon, to be in such a strategically important group.

The amateur footage reportedly shows ISIS militants and Turkish border guards holding a relaxed conversation near the Syrian city of Kobane, according to the Daily Mail. The amateur footage, taken near Zarova Hill on the outskirts of Kobane, was uploaded to YouTube on October 28, 2014.

According to the report in the Daily Mail:

It appears to show two heavily armed militants wandering nonchalantly up to the Turkish border fence – displaying shocking bravado as they smile and wave at the camera.

They are met by what appears to be a military vehicle full of security officials who, despite carrying weapons themselves, do little more than break into conversation with the jihadis, who eventually wander off back into Syria while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’…

The clip begins with the two apparent jihadists lighting fires near a group of cars, which are believed to have been abandoned by desperate Kurdish families who fled Kobane in recent weeks when ISIS militants stepped up their attacks on the city.

After appearing to realise they are being filmed from inside Turkey, the pair start walking towards the border fence, stopping only to mockingly wave at the amateur filmmaker.

As they reach the border fence, an armoured military vehicle belonging to Turkish border guards speeds up to meet them. Heavily armed officials jump out the back of the car and – after briefly talking on their radios, simply engage the men in conversation.

At one point the situation appears tense and a border guard scampers towards the militants with his gun briefly raised, but he stops seconds later and also begins talking to the men.

After several minutes chatting, the militants wander off, defiantly raising their index finger to the sky to represent jihadism while chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ – a phrase that translates as ‘God is the greatest’.

The Turkish government has repeatedly been accused of being one of the largest state sponsors of the Islamic State.

International security expert, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, has repeatedly documented the fact that Turkey acts as a state sponsor of ISIS.

According to a report in Insurge Intelligence by Dr. Ahmed:

Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS…

A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer from a major raid on an ISIS safehouse told the Guardian that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now ‘undeniable.’” The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria…

Turkey has also played a key role in facilitating the life-blood of ISIS’ expansion: black market oil sales. Senior political and intelligence sources in Turkey and Iraq confirm that Turkish authorities have actively facilitated ISIS oil sales through the country…

Last summer, Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, estimated the quantity of ISIS oil sales in Turkey at about $800 million — that was over a year ago.

By now, this implies that Turkey has facilitated over $1 billion worth of black market ISIS oil sales to date.

Turkey is a neo-Islamist regime bent on taking out the Assad government in Syria through the use of terrorist proxies and is working to defend their terrorist allies in Syria.

After the downing of the Russian fighter jet, Russian President Vladimir Putin very succinctly laid out what has been taking place, placing blame directly on the Turkish government for the continued growth of the Islamic State.

“We have long been recording the movement of a large amount of oil and petroleum products to Turkey from Isis-occupied territories. This explains the significant funding the terrorists are receiving. Now they are stabbing us in the back by hitting our planes that are fighting terrorism. This is happening despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents, and, as you know, Turkey is among those who are supposed to be fighting terrorism within the American coalition…

If Isis is making so much money – we are talking about tens or maybe even hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars – in oil trade and they are supported by the armed forces of an entire state, it is clear why they are being so daring and impudent, why they are killing people in such gruesome ways, why they are committing terrorist attacks all over the world, including in the heart of Europe,” Putin said.

The fact that NATO continues to allow membership by Turkey, after their blatant support of the Islamic State, should raise serious questions as to who we call our “allies.”

If the U.S. truly wants to stop the Islamic State then it would seem logical to call Turkey out for its immense and continued state support of ISIS/Daesh.

The fact remains that Turkey is one of the biggest supporters of global terrorism and a member of NATO.

Will the Western world really allow itself be dragged into a potential global war due to an alliance with the Turkish government who refuses to cease their support for the Islamic State?

Jay Syrmopoulos writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com

By Tony Cartalucci

Geopolitical analyst Christoph Germann posted a very subtle, almost unnoticed link in his Twitter feed in the immediate aftermath of the ambush of Russia’s Su-24 near the Syrian-Turkish border by an alleged Turkish F-16.

It was a link to an article published just ahead of the incident titled, “US air force Gen Selva visits Ankara to discuss terror, Syria,” which stated specifically (emphasis added):

Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Paul J. Selva starts his visit to Ankara reportedly to discuss the fight against DAESH and Turkey’s border security in the region,

Selva, an air force general and the nation’s second-highest ranking military officer, is expected to commence his official talks with Turkish officials today and pay his first visit to Deputy Chief of Military General Staff Gen. Yaşar Güler.

During the meetings the officials are expected to discuss the Russian airstrikes on Turkmen-populated areas in Syria as well as other issues pertaining to the region.

It would seem that the US general would be either on hand, or having just concluded his business with his Turkish counterparts just as Turkey carried out what surely was a long-planned ambush of a Russian warplane near the Syrian-Turkish border, and in particular, precisely over the “Turkmen-populated areas in Syria.”

Not only did Turkey ambush the warplane – which at best flew a mere 17 seconds in Turkey’s airspace and, at worst, never entered it in the first place – but NATO-backed terrorists operating inside Syria also participated, attempting to execute both pilots by firing at them as they parachuted to the ground killing one of them – a war crime under the Geneva Convention – and attacking rescue helicopters attempting to retrieve the pilots, killing one Russian Marine.

Seventeen seconds – if that were even true – is by far not enough time to scramble fighter jets, acquire targets, and successfully down a jet briefly skimming one’s borders. For the F-16s to have been coincidentally in place, with terrorists on the ground waiting for pilots Turkey knew would come down in Syrian territory, much planning would have been necessary, days or weeks ahead of the ambush.

The final result of NATO’s “masterstroke” – one that was dreamed about since Russia’s operations in Syria began and repeatedly called for particularly within the halls of the US Senate – was a treacherous display of depravity upon the world stage – an act of treachery that will only further reveal NATO’s role in feeding, not fighting terrorism and give Russia further impetus to finish what it has started doing in Syria.

It is also clear that while the US attempts to maintain plausible deniability, Turkey’s act of war was done on behalf of all of NATO, including – perhaps especially – the United States.

Turkey Plays Role as NATO’s “Wild Card”

Turkey and Israel both have been playing the role of “wild cards” NATO and the US in particular have attempted to feign an inability to control. This allows the US to carry out acts of aggression by proxy through the use of conventional military forces it itself could never justify carrying out.

Turkey and Israel’s use by the US in this manner was revealed as early as 2012 in the Brookings Institution’s Middle East Memo #21, “Assessing Options for Regime Change,” which stated (emphasis added):

In addition, Israel’s intelligence services have a strong knowledge of Syria, as well as assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to subvert the regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. Advocates argue this additional pressure could tip the balance against Asad inside Syria, if other forces were aligned properly.

It appears an uninspired rewriting of this plan is being put into effect now, despite the presence of Russian forces in the region. Perhaps the US believes Russia too would seek to avoid a two-front war with Turkey and Israel as the primary combatants with the US itself playing a muted role for the sake of plausible deniability. Even if war was not the intended final outcome, perhaps the US believes this extra pressure could afford them much needed leverage in a conflict already clearly escaping out of their control.

To this end, in the wake of Turkey’s actions, Ankara has intentionally posed as unrepentant. While it claims to have recordings of its “warning” transmitted to the Russian Su-24, readers should keep in mind another recording made public coming from amid Turkey’s senior leadership.

Ahead of a previously failed attempt to establish a “buffer zone” in northern Syria, Turkey was caught conspiring to carry out a false flag attack on its own territory to blame on Syria thus justifying a full-scale invasion of Syria’s northern border.

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The International Business Times reported in its article, “Turkey YouTube Ban: Full Transcript of Leaked Syria ‘War’ Conversation Between Erdogan Officials,” that (emphasis added):

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ban of YouTube occurred after a leaked conversation between Head of Turkish Intelligence Hakan Fidan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that he wanted removed from the video-sharing website.

The leaked call details Erdogan’s thoughts that an attack on Syria “must be seen as an opportunity for us [Turkey]”.

In the conversation, intelligence chief Fidan says that he will send four men from Syria to attack Turkey to “make up a cause of war”.

Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Yaşar Güler replies that Fidan’s projected actions are “a direct cause of war…what you’re going to do is a direct cause of war”.

It is clear that for some time, Turkey has been playing the role of an intentional provocateur, seeking to “shake up” an otherwise hopelessly lost situation, through acts of terrorism and now apparently, acts of war.

Finish Line in Sight, Losers in Tow

Syria and its allies appear to realize that despite much more work to be done, the momentum has finally and irreversibly shifted in their favor. Seizing territory from NATO-backed terrorists and cutting off their supply lines leading in from NATO territory in Turkey will essentially end the war in favor of Damascus, Tehran, and Moscow.

Attempts to provoke Russia, no matter how tempting, will be resisted by Moscow. Any retaliation Russia exacts against Turkey will be done in a matter that negates any affects carrying over to its primary mission in Syria – to win the war.

With Russian air defense systems being enhanced across the region the stakes are being raised as is the cost of any further provocations not only for Turkey, but for NATO as a whole. Should F-16s attempt to ambush another Russian warplane and end up themselves shot down, the veneer of invincibility NATO airpower has enjoyed for years will evaporate amid an already losing battle the hegemonic military alliance is fighting.

Nations being courted for NATO ascension and allies of the antiquated geostrategic bloc, will begin having second thoughts about accepting a subordinate role among an alliance seemingly incapable of winning wars, or even individual confrontations.

Already, murmurs in the halls of power around the world are noting that NATO’s “victory” over Russia’s single Su-24 came at the cost of weeks of planning, absolute treachery, tremendous expenditures in political capital, and included blatant war crimes just to kill a pilot and a Marine. It is unlikely that NATO will be able to orchestrate another ambush of this magnitude, but even if it could, it would do so only to further confirm to the world the lengths it must go through to achieve superficial primacy over Russia in a conflict it has otherwise clearly lost.

Syria and Russia’s goal now must be to raise exponentially the cost of NATO forces further entering into the Syrian conflict.US President Barack Obama’s comments regarding Turkey’s “right to defend itself” are not only supremely hypocritical – even self-incriminating, but may present Syria and its allies with an opportunity to finally clear its skies of intruding Western warplanes. If Turkey is justified in shooting down a warplane near its borders it knew had no intention of attacking Turkish territory, then surely Syria has every right to down Western planes who are most certainly attacking its territory.

Alternatively, expanding Russia’s footprint in Syria and accelerating the eradication of NATO’s terrorists proxies will leave NATO with little reason to justify further intervention in Syria’s skies, let alone on the ground. In all likelihood, Turkey’s unprecedented act of war was in part motivated by the realization of this fast approaching reality.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

By Tony Cartalucci

In an under-reported incident in which Russian Crimea’s power lines were severed from Ukraine, leaving the peninsula and over 2 million residents in darkness for over a week, it has become clear to the world the tenuous grip Kiev and its NATO backers actually have over the “Ukraine” they claim they preside over.

Image: Power lines providing electricity to Crimea’s 2 million residents were intentionally downed by Neo-Nazis and Kiev-backed Tatar groups. They have used violence to achieve a clearly political goal – the textbook definition of terrorism. 

It would be Russia through an underwater cable that would begin restoring power to Crimea. While rhetoric regarding Crimea is still strong on both sides, it is the actions of both Ukraine and its NATO backers versus Russia that appear to finally be answering the “Crimea question” if there even was such a question.

Russia Restores Power, Asserts Sovereignty

In the first week of December, the International Business Times would report in their article, “Vladimir Putin inaugurates Crimea energy bridge during surprise visit,” that:

President Vladimir Putin has inaugurated the first leg of a power line between the Russian mainland and Crimea in a surprise visit to the peninsula. His visit to the strategically important territory comes after the region plunged into darkness over widespread power outage.

Crimea, which Moscow claims to have been hit by Ukraine’s energy blockade, will start receiving power supply from Russia once the “electricity bridge” is completed. The undersea cable project was scheduled to have been completed by the end of December but it has been brought forward after Crimean power supply was knocked off.

While Crimea’s dependency on Ukraine for power and other necessities could have been used as a means of proving that the peninsula exists as an integral part of Ukrainian territory, by cutting power and being unable to rein in the terrorists who for over a week blocked repairs from the Ukrainian side, Kiev has all but proved it has no interest or ability to administer the region.

That the terrorists in fact are backed by not only special interests now occupying Kiev, but by NATO and the United States in particular, illustrates the punitive measures Ukrainians and their neighbors face for falling on the wrong side of NATO and its proxies in Kiev. It also illustrates once again the impetus that drove the people of Crimea to wisely choose ascension into the Russian Federation rather than to remain a part of Ukraine in the first place.

US Insists on the “Return” of Crimea

In a pattern that is becoming all too familiar, the United States continues to make statements contrary to reality. US Vice President Joseph Biden was reported to have called on Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine – despite the obvious act of terrorism carried out against the people of Crimea and Kiev’s clear role behind the terrorism.

Bloomberg in its article, “Biden Says ‘Illegal’ Russian Occupation of Crimea Must End,” would report that:

Vice President Joe Biden called Russia’s annexation of Crimea “illegal” in a demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine’s government that signaled the U.S. won’t bargain away its support for the country to win Russian cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

“The United States stands firmly with the people of Ukraine in the face of continued — and I emphasize continued — aggression from Russia and Russian-backed separatists,” Biden said in Kiev on Monday, following a meeting with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko.

Papers like The Moscow Times with deceptive headlines like, “Activists Block Crimea Power Line Relaunch,” would reveal in the bodies of their articles that these “activists” were in fact the heavily armed, Neo-Nazi paramilitary organization Right Sector, notorious for its front line role in NATO’s proxy war on eastern Ukraine.

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Image: The heavily armed fanatics of the Neo-Nazi Right Sector, when not intimidating political adversaries in western Ukraine, or killing them in eastern Ukraine, have more recently been implicated in cutting power to some 2 million civilians residing in Russian Crimea. 

The Moscow Times would report:

Activists have prevented Ukrainian repair crews from relaunching one of the four power lines supplying Crimea with electricity from the mainland, despite Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stating earlier that Kiev would allow power flows to resume, Russian and Ukrainian media reported Monday.

Members of the far-right paramilitary Right Sector group blocked the first attempt at re-activating the Kakhovskaya-Titan line on Sunday night, the RIA Ukraine news agency and depo.ua news site wrote the following morning.

Either Kiev has no control over what takes place in its own territory or it has ordered Right Sector and other groups to initiate the blockade of Crimea. Either way, Vice President Biden’s calls for Russia to return Crimea to Ukrainian control appear irresponsible at best. With literal Neo-Nazis cutting power to 2 million civilians – a blatant war crime – seems only to further vindicate Russia’s actions regarding Crimea and the decision of the people of Crimea themselves to seek a place within the Russian Federation.

Sovereignty Games

The illegitimacy of not only the regime in Kiev, but of NATO who created it and to this day perpetuates its existence, has helped erode the very principles both are now trying to appeal to in order to maintain the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Beyond Ukraine, similar scenarios are developing across all of Eastern Europe, where as NATO attempts to expand closer and closer to Russia’s borders, it is finding it increasingly difficult to find allies who are not extremists with ties to fascism and/or Nazism.

By allying itself with these radical elements, those populations subjected to their NATO-backed domination of politics, economics, and security are more likely to turn toward Russia either as Crimea did, or as the break-away republics of Donetsk and Lugansk have.

Beyond Eastern Europe, the continual violation of Syria and Iraq’s sovereignty by NATO is making it exponentially more difficult to appeal to sovereignty and territorial integrity in regards to Ukraine. The West has repeatedly called for the “Balkanization” of Syria into several weaker regions. As the balance of power turns in the region, and even globally, the West may find this contempt it has shown toward national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of existing nations backfire on it when its own allies face the same prospect of being carved up.

Some may argue that Crimea’s ascension into the Russian Federation itself  was only possible because the NATO-driven lawlessness that it occurred in the midst of. As this lawlessness continues, it is all but guaranteed that Crimea will only be driven deeper within the Russian Federation.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

By Ulson Gunnar

Ukraine was not exactly clamoring to get into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the antiquated military alliance created in the wake of World War II to prevent a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

In order to even raise the prospect of Ukraine’s inclusion, first NATO itself would have to overthrow the elected government via an armed coup. Then it would have to ensure its new client regime remained in power. To do that, it organized, trained, funded, armed and militarily backed a patchwork of military units, including “volunteer battalions” openly founded upon Nazi ideology.

The incredible shrinking state…

In the process of building this obedient client regime, Ukraine would entirely lose the Crimean peninsula when its population voted to join the Russian Federation. While Kiev and its NATO patrons claim Crimea was “invaded” and is now being “occupied” by Russia, the people of Crimea are clearly counting themselves lucky to have escaped the fate of other regions with large Russian demographics.

Several of Ukraine’s eastern-most oblasts were not so lucky. Upon coming to power, the regime, tainted with Neo-Nazi ideology imported by coalition members such as Svoboda, began instituting anti-Russian policies which included rolling back many of the privileges and compromises long made by previous governments to accommodate Ukraine’s large Russian minority. Neo-Nazi “volunteer battalions” were sweeping the country, imposing Kiev’s authority and attempting to preempt any counter protests that might threaten its grip on power.

Their heavy handed tactics coupled with the people’s deep-seated hatred for their Neo-Nazi political and ideological stripes quickly provoked violence. Several oblasts rose up in armed rebellion against the new regime and its Neo-Nazi enforcers. As a result, Ukraine now has effectively lost Donetsk and Luhansk as well.

And while Ukraine shrinks territoriality, what remains becomes increasingly divided within.

Ukraine’s government/circus…

The halls of Ukraine’s government have of late become notorious for outrageous scenes of violence and disorder altogether locked in absolute dysfunction, incompetence and inaction. While many of the scenes making headlines in recent months may appear comical to outsiders, the world should note that the lives of millions are subjected to the decisions (or indecision) of these politicians.

For many nations, both East and West, the idea that one politician would attempt to pick up and physically remove the Prime Minster from his podium is almost unthinkable. Yet just such a scene played out just before a large, violent brawl unfolded shortly after. Onlookers must remember that the current regime in Kiev has all but expunged any semblance of real opposition, so those physically assaulting each other in Ukraine’s parliament are actually, supposedly, on the same side.

Another scene unbecoming of the halls of political power, played out as the ex-Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, vocally berated Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, provoking him to throw a filled glass of water at Saakashvili. It should be noted that Saakashvili has inexplicably become the governor of Odessa, despite obvious questions regarding his nationality, political and criminal past, and qualifications to even hold such a position.

Saakashvili isn’t the only foreigner now running the Ukrainian government (this openly). There is also David Sakvarelidze, also from Georgia, now Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general.

It seems in NATO’s new Ukraine, all of Eastern Europe is one big happy family/front with which to fight Russia, and the norms that generally govern national sovereignty and those allowed to lead one’s nation have been shown the door, together with dignity and statesmanship.

Suffering the insufferable…

When NATO’s new Ukraine is not losing territory to those disinterested in living within its borders, but equally disinterested in leaving their homes, and when the Ukrainian government is not busy fighting itself in pauses between fighting its own people, NATO sits them down to literally lecture them on how to run their country.

US Vice President Joseph Biden recently traveled to Ukraine to lecture the parliament. In his talk, he went on at length like a father scolding his son, over the harm corruption does to a nation.

And speaking of Vice President Biden’s son, and also corruption for that matter, it should be mentioned that at no time during Vice President Biden’s talk, was it explained how the appointment of his own son, Hunter Biden, as a director in Ukraine’s Burisma gas company, was not a perfect example of abuse of power, nepotism and of course, corruption.

The BBC’s article “Vice President Joe Biden’s son joins Ukraine gas company” explains further by stating:

The younger Mr Biden isn’t the only American with political ties to have recently joined Burisma’s board. Devon Archer, a former senior advisor to current Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and a college roommate of Mr Kerry’s stepson HJ Heinz, signed on in April.

Mr Biden and Mr Archer are also managing partners at Rosemont Seneca Partners, a Washington, DC-based investment company.

Perhaps Vice President Biden’s talk was actually about irony? Or hypocrisy?

For a Ukraine that claims it overthrew an elected government to escape Russian “domination,” one now must question that decision seriously as clearly Ukraine is now under NATO domination.

Ukraine, a warning to others…

There are other nations the United States and NATO are courting. But considering the fate of Ukraine, it will likely take coups, terrorism, and coercing, unparalleled even to what Ukraine has suffered, in order to strong-arm them into the alliance.

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The loss of territory to those disinterested in NATO membership and all that it entails, the loss of national sovereignty or dignity as NATO imports foreigners to run their country for them, the prospect of ethnic persecution at the hands of NATO-backed extremists, the loss of any sense of destiny or progress with inept, infighting proxies intentionally kept needy and dependent on Washington and Brussels, are all not exactly ideal “enticements” on their own.

Ukraine had been doing far better playing both sides of the NATO-Russian coin, a strategy many nations throughout history have used to avoid being dominated by any number of competing foreign interests. With the NATO-backed coup in 2013-2014, this balancing act has been upset, and Ukraine has come tumbling down from great heights. It will take years, if not longer for the nation to recover from the damage its courtship with NATO has wrought.

This tumble is something the rest of Eastern Europe, and indeed, all other nations globally must consider before trading in careful balancing acts for the close embrace of geopolitical hegemony.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

By Jay Syrmopoulos

In spite of French-led U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 creating a no-fly zone over Libya with the express intent of protecting civilians, one of the over 3,000 new Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department on New Year’s Eve, contain damning evidence of Western nations using NATO as a tool to topple Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. The NATO overthrow was not for the protection of the people, but instead it was to thwart Gaddafi’s attempt to create a gold-backed African currency to compete with the Western central banking monopoly.

The emails indicate the French-led NATO military initiative in Libya was also driven by a desire to gain access to a greater share of Libyan oil production, and to undermine a long term plan by Gaddafi to supplant France as the dominant power in the Francophone Africa region.

The April 2011 email, sent to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by unofficial adviser and longtime Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal with the subject line “France’s client and Qaddafi’s gold,” reveals predatory Western intentions.

The Foreign Policy Journal reports:

The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure French influence in the region, increase Sarkozy’s reputation domestically, assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafi’s influence in what is considered “Francophone Africa.”

Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver,” posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency.

The email makes clear that intelligence sources indicate the impetus behind the French attack on Libya was a calculated move to consolidate greater power, using NATO as a tool for imperialist conquest, not a humanitarian intervention as the public was falsely led to believe.

According to the email:

This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).

(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.)

The email provides a peek behind the curtain to reveal how foreign policy is often carried out in practice. While reported in the media that the Western-backed Libyan military intervention is necessary to save human lives, the real driving factor behind the intervention was shown to be the fact that Gaddafi planned to create a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency, which would lessen French influence and power in the region.

The evidence indicates that when French intelligence became aware of the Libyan initiative to create a currency to compete with the Western central banking system, the decision to subvert the plan through military means began, ultimately including the NATO alliance.

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h/t Levant Report

Jay Syrmopoulos is a political analyst, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has been published on Ben Swann’s Truth in Media, Truth-Out, Raw Story, MintPress News, as well as many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.

By Brandon Turbeville

The pattern is almost unmistakable for any observer with an adequate attention span – when the terrorists are gaining ground, the calls from the NATO corners are a united chorus of “Assad must go!” When the SAA is gaining ground, however, that chorus becomes united with calls for a “ceasefire.”

Thus, as the SAA continues to make immense gains across Syria and as the battle for Aleppo has all but seen the terrorists huddled inside the city completely eradicated, Secretary of State John Kerry is calling for a ceasefire at the top of his lungs.

As Michelle Nichols of the Huffington Post writes,

World powers pressed Russia on Wednesday to stop bombing around Aleppo in support of a Syrian government offensive to recapture the city and a Western official said Moscow had presented a proposal envisaging a truce in three weeks’ time.

Secretary of State John Kerry is pushing for a ceasefire and more aid access to Aleppo, where rebel-held areas are being cut off and the United Nations has warned a new humanitarian disaster could be on the way.

. . . . .

Kerry is hoping for agreement at a meeting in Munich on Thursday between Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other powers, aimed at trying to revive peace negotiations that foundered earlier this month.

Of course, Kerry calls for peace now only because his terrorist proxies are losing and doing so decisively. They are all but surrounded in the largest city in Syria and it is only a matter of time before they cease to exist there as a relevant fighting force. Latakia province is almost entirely liberated. The border with Jordan is virtually sealed. The Turkish border is in the process of being sealed and the Jarablus corridor is slowly being shut. Even Raqqa, the terrorist stronghold, is now being assaulted by the SAA and Russian Air Force.

Kerry’s whining about “peace” now – after his deck of cards has fewer Aces – is hardly believable since it is the United States, NATO, Israel, the GCC, and Turkey that are responsible for the Syrian crisis to begin with. Indeed, as Patrick Henry once stated, “Gentlemen, may cry ‘Peace!’ ‘Peace!’ – but there is no peace!”

Of course, Kerry is not a gentlemen and the country he represents is much more reminiscent of the imperialist British Empire than the context in which Henry uttered his famous words. Nor is Kerry actually calling for peace. He is calling for the destruction of a people and their way of life and for the annihilation of their secular government in favor of a puppet regime as first choice or an impotent jihadist state as a consolation prize. Peace is only the cover story designed to allow jihadist savages breathing room to regroup and launch yet another assault.

It is the Syrian people and their military who are now in the position of being the country the world is watching to see whether or not a small population of proud people are able to resist the onslaught of a powerful conglomerate of nations bent on its destruction. It is Syria that represents a true resistance to imperialism.

John Kerry can call for his phony “peace” all he wants but he knows that his terrorists’ days are numbered. Even while his press conferences call for ceasefires, the terrorists are calling for emergency assistance because they also know their time is short.

Five years on and the Syrian people, along with their military, have demonstrated that their determination and refusal to submit to foreign demands are as powerful an idea as the desire to impose that foreign will on the part of the Western powers.

It is the Syrian people who are now uttering the famous quote by Patrick Henry,

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

If Henry is right now as he was then that “the battle is not to the strong alone,” but to “the vigilant, the active, the brave,” we should soon see an acknowledgement from the United States that the invasion of Syria has failed. We should see a geopolitical retreat by NATO and the elimination of the terrorist contingent in Syria.

While we are aware that NATO and its allies are not completely out of tricks, we must encourage the Syrian people and the Syrian government to stay strong in this fight because the fate of the world – not just Syria – lies within its borders. If NATO can destroy Syria, it will move on to Iran and on still to Russia, a war that will involve us all.

We wish Syria victory in this fight against imperialism and terrorism.

We wish the NATO powers clarity and wisdom to realize the error of their ways before it is too late for us all.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 650 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

By Tony Cartalucci

News agencies are reporting on a WikiLeaks report detailing the EU’s “Operation Sophia,” an allegedly covert military operation aimed at stemming the flow of refugees into Europe.

The International Business Times in their report, “WikiLeaks leak ‘classified report’ indicating EU Operation could move into Libyan territory,” would report that:

WikiLeaks has released a “classified report” about the first six months of Operation Sophia, the EU military intervention against refugee boats in Libya and Mediterranean.

The leaked report is dated 29 January 2016 and written by the operation commander, Rear Admiral Enrico Credendino of the Italian Navy. It allegedly provides statistics on refugee flows and outlines the phases of Operation Sophia, including future strategies of the operation. The report has been published for the European Union Military Committee and the Political and Security Committee of the EU.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of “Operation Sophia” is the EU’s ultimate exit strategy, creating a functioning Libyan navy capable of policing its own shores. The Times would report:

The report published by WikiLeaks notes that their “exit strategy” involves ensuring that a “well-resourced Libyan Coastguard can protect their own borders and prevent irregular migration taking place from their shores”. It also mentions an “EU comprehensive approach to help secure their invitation to operate inside [Libyan] territory”.

It is particularly ironic that the EU now sorely needs a Libyan navy to police its own coasts because until 2011, it already had one. Some may wonder what happened to that navy. Within the answer lies the irony.

US-EU Destroyed the Navy in 2011 it now Needs to Restore Order Back to the Med

In broad daylight in the middle of May, 2011, NATO laid waste to three separate locations in the North African nation of Libya. The targets, more specifically, were ports used by the nation’s navy. Several warships would be sunk, among many more that would be destroyed during the conflict. In addition to ships, the facilities supporting them were also utterly destroyed.

Even before the first NATO bomb dropped on Libya in 2011, geopolitical analysts had warned of the refugee crisis that would be triggered along with a variety of other humanitarian and security concerns that would evolve with the destruction of not only the Libyan navy, but the stabilizing effects of the Libyan government itself.

Indeed, many migrants and refugees from across Africa came to Libya to live and work. They were supported by and supporters of the Libyan government, but reviled by US-backed terrorists based in eastern Libya’s Cyrenaica region. During the conflict, the Western media disingenuously depicted these Libyans as “African mercenaries” to account for the subsequent racist genocide carried out by NATO-backed terrorists.

When the terrorists of Benghazi, Derna, and Tobruk finally overran the country with NATO backing, entire cities of Libya’s black population were emptied out either through genocide, into concentration camps, or driven out of the country into neighboring Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria.

Refugees eventually following those who destroyed and plundered their nation back to the den in which their nation’s future was stolen to, was all but inevitable. NATO’s own terrorist proxies were also expected to leverage the lawlessness of America and Europe’s “new” Libya, turning it into a base for Mediterranean piracy and human trafficking. The US State Department itself, in post-regime change Libya, would go as far as constructing terrorist networks through which weapons and fighters were forwarded to Turkey and onward to Syria and Iraq.

The Destruction of Libya “Uncorked” a Volatile Brew

If the continent of Africa and the many countries within it subjected to both over and covert Western meddling, exploitation, and subversion was a bottle, Libya was the cork. It provided a means of preventing the pressure building up from various conflicts from exploding into Europe – one of the primacy culprits driving these conflicts. France alone – one of the most vocal nations decrying the “migrant crisis,” currently has troops stationed in African nations including the Central African Republic (2,000), Chad (950), Ivory Coast (450), Djibouti (2,470), Gabon (1,000), Mali (2,000), and Senegal (430).

These nations either constitute, or are bordering those nations producing the most refugees flooding in to Europe with the exception of Syria, which France, along with several other European nations and the United States are bombing and arming terrorists on the ground in, and Afghanistan, occupied by NATO since 2001.

With Europe’s very intentional transformation of Libya from a bastion of stability to a divided and destroyed wasteland, the bottle was uncorked, and the poisonous brew the US and Europe had been developing, exploded like a volcano.

Europe plays the victim of a region-wide conflagration it itself not only intentionally lit, but continuously poured gasoline upon ever since. The missing Libyan navy it itself helped send to the bottom of the Mediterranean being cited as a contributing factor to the severity of the current “migrant crisis” is an indictment of the “international order” the EU and its Transatlantic partners both claim to uphold, and predicated the destruction of Libya and the incremental occupation of the African continent upon.

For other nations around the world, including Eastern Europe, Russia, and beyond, who played no role in the West’s various wars – or even openly opposed Western military aggression – they have no obligation to take responsibility for refugees created by these wars, thus attempting to wade into the refugee debate in Europe is both unnecessary and unbecoming.

Regardless of how the US and Europe attempt to wield “international law,” it is clear that they are directly responsible for the instability driving millions of people from their homes, and they have intentionally elected to continue destabilizing these regions of the world.

They cannot elect, therefore to avoid the consequences of their meddling, nor demand others to share the burden of these consequences. That the EU desperately seeks the help of a fleet it itself sent to the bottom of the sea illustrates perfectly the self-inflicted nature of this crisis.

Compounding and Exploiting Crisis

Finally, it should be noted, that the WikiLeaks report also indicates that not only does the EU seek to replace a fleet it itself sank in 2011 which led to the crisis in the first place, it is also seeking to expand EU military jurisdiction far beyond EU territory, predicated on a disaster of its own making.

The report states specifically that:

It also mentions an “EU comprehensive approach to help secure their invitation to operate inside [Libyan] territory

For Europeans – many of whom were complacent as their respective governments went to war against Libya in 2011 – they must understand that the chaos unfolding in their streets has not only been intentionally created, but is being cynically used to expand the control of special interests both at home and abroad. With the EU’s naval operations extending into Libyan territory, it will be all that much easier to secure and exploit Libya’s coastal oil assets, while keeping the rest of the country divided against themselves and collectively too weak to protect and use their own resources for their own nation’s future.

Unfair hands are being dealt all around. Instead of fighting over who has the worst hand, the world must expose and deal with those who have rigged the deck.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”