Syria under a microscope

STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
World War III: The False Narrative that Fuels Conflict in Syria and Beyond
By The Daily Bell Staff - April 12, 2018

The timing is fit for a movie plot climax!

Just as Trump announced intentions to get out of Syria, Assad did something unspeakable. According to Assad’s opposition, the Syrian government “once again” used chemicals weapons on civilians.

At a time when the war is almost won for Assad, he decided to re-ignite international calls for his ouster by senselessly murdering about the same number of civilians the Las Vegas Shooter killed. Seems logical, right?

Well, there goes the Syrian exit!

Quick catch-up:

Amid uprisings in Libya and Egypt, in 2011 Syrians rebelled against their own oppressive government.

Documents from Wikileaks show that the U.S. State Department wanted to help rebels overthrow Syrian ruler Assad in order to strengthen Israel’s position against Iran.

Iran, Syria, and Russia are the main allies in the region with conflicting interests of the USA and Israel.

Turkey is harder to peg. They were once on decent terms with the Assad regime, then called for his ouster. Turkey helped train rebels, as well as the controversial rescue group the “White Helmets.”

Turkey considers the Kurds terrorists, while the U.S. arms and supports the Kurds who led the main assault on the Syrian stronghold of ISIS.

So Turkey and the U.S. are nominally on the “same side” when it comes to opposition to the Assad regime. But each country’s opposition is definitely not on the “same side” and are already fighting.

When the conflict started, the U.S. had already armed rebels in Libya to take out Gaddafi. Now they decided to transfer some recovered Libyan weapons to the Syrian rebels.

Some sources claim Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in Libya while overseeing weapons transfers from Libya to Turkey and Syria to arm the rebels.

368 days ago, we were having this exact same discussion after the first alleged chemical attack by Assad on his own people. The Daily Mail reported but later recanted, information from a source who claimed that the U.S. planned a false flag chemical attack to justify military action in Syria.

Leaked emails have allegedly proved that the White House gave the green light to a chemical weapons attack in Syria that could be blamed on Assad’s regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country.

CNN reported in 2012 that America was involved in training the rebels to secure and monitor chemical weapons sites.

The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.

The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.

This confirms that rebel forces had access to chemical weapons and that the U.S. helped familiarize rebel groups with storing and transporting the weapons.

And now, with the rebels almost defeated, someone decided to use chemical weapons against a few dozen civilians. And everyone had to know that this was the most likely way to drag the U.S. deeper into the conflict.

The White Helmets claim the attack was carried out by Assad Regime forces. The White Helmets are allegedly a neutral aid group. They were trained in Turkey, and “receive tens of millions of dollars in funding from various Western charities, governments and private organizations.”

They have been steeped in controversy, including disposing of corpses of Assad loyal fighters who were executed by rebels. They do not appear to be a trustworthy source of information as they are clearly in opposition to Assad.

Here is an extreme simplification of who is fighting who:

Turkey backed rebels: fighting Assad, ISIS, and the Kurds.

U.S. backed Kurds: fighting ISIS and Turkey backed rebels.

U.S. backed rebels (which might include al-Qaeda affiliates): fighting Assad.

Assad, backed by Russia and Iran: fighting everyone.

ISIS: fighting everyone (except some ISIS-friendly rebels).

There are No Good Guys

It is important to remember that there are no “good guys and bad guys” here. Arguably, they are all bad guys. And that is all the more reason for the USA to get the hell out! No matter who they support, they are supporting a bad guy.

The U.S. will only continue to escalate tensions by being involved at all. Best case scenario, America’s best intentions will have unforeseen unintended consequences… like arming Syrian rebels who turned out to be ISIS.

With Russian support for Assad, this also is not the first time the U.S. has armed rebels to fight a proxy war against Russia. When Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. provided military assistance and weapons to the resistance group which evolved into the Taliban.

Al-Qaeda came to assist the Afghan forces and ended up being trained and armed with American resources. And of course, the U.S. ended up fighting wars against both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

So the U.S. does not have the best track record, having directly or inadvertently provided support to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban before going on to fight wars against each.

Where will further intervention in Syria get the U.S.?

The rebel group that occupied the town of the alleged chemical attack has itself been accused of using chemical agents against Kurds. They are an Islamist unit that wants to turn Syria into a Sharia state.

It is impossible for the United States to “win” by getting further involved.

Unless of course, “winning” just means ensuring conflict will continue in the region. That also ensures military budgets stay inflated, and defense contractors stay wealthy. It means creating the desired buffer zone for Israel and installing more American basis in the center of the worldwide conflict.

And it means the U.S. can continue its crusade against “terrorists” which always seems to be turned around and aimed at American civilians.

More from Ben Swann:

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