Although Syria was once the epicenter of a great civilization and powerful empires, it is now a tiny country that most Americans can’t identify on a map. However, Syria has surprisingly taken a disproportionate role in geopolitics, even possibly becoming the flashpoint for a new world war involving the U.S., NATO, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc. What’s really going on?
Three versions of the conflict are presented here and the reader can choose the one that makes the most sense.
Disney version
Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. America may now have to invade Syria to save the Syrian people.
This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans.
High school version
Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.
America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Many wise people in the media and politics are now demanding that America invade Syria and topple Assad.
The above version is presented in most mainstream media.
College version
Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last six years (if you want to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read my article: “Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries”).
2011
In early 2011, U.S./UK special forces used Jordan’s military base to organize protests against Assad in a border town called Daraa. With Muslim Brotherhood’s organizational skills and Saudi Arabia’s deep pockets, the protests spread thru Syria. Soon, an organized and armed militia known as Free Syrian Army (FSA) was created by the outsiders.
After the fall of Gaddafi in late 2011, deadly weapons such as Stinger missiles and Sarin gas were shipped from Libya to Syria, via Turkey (link). Even with all this help, FSA couldn’t win the war. At this point, NATO and Neocons wanted to bomb Syria, but somehow Russia was able to stop it, so the war of attrition moved on to the next phase.
2012
In early 2012, someone dialed Al Qaeda (referred to as AQ or AQI in government documents). Zawahiri, AQ’s top leader, called for help (link) and experienced Islamic terrorists from all over the world rushed into Syria. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, received an email from her chief adviser, saying that “Al Qaeda is on our side” (link).
Al Qaeda rebranded itself as Al Nusra, and fearsome weapons such as grenade launchers, mortars, tanks and anti-tank missiles started pouring into Syria via Turkey and Jordan.
The CIA spent $100,000 to train each rebel (link). Billions of dollars were wasted once again on terrorists.
Watching the western media, one wouldn’t know that we were supporting Al Qaeda or how heavily armed these “rebels” were.
Western media and politicians also stuck to their talking points and referred to all these fighters as “moderate rebels.” However, many of them are ruthless Islamists who use suicide bombers, behead even children, and commit unspeakable atrocities. They are also religious fanatics who seek out and kill Christians and Shiites.
At this point, the Syrian war stopped being a civil war and turned into an invasion. A Pentagon memo warned against this reckless policy and precisely predicted the rise of groups such as ISIS (link). Obviously, the memo was ignored by the White House and other officials.
2012 was also the year when the refugee crisis started to become real. By the end of the year, almost 200,000 people had fled Syria. In the coming years, it would swell to five million.
2013
When FSA and AQ failed to oust Assad, the powers-to-be started recruiting Sunni extremists in Iraq. In April 2013, ISIS was officially created. In the next year, these barbaric Salafists would capture much of eastern Syria.
This was also the year when Obama’s red-line was crossed – use of chemical weapons by Assad. UN experts who went to the site soon found that it was actually the rebels who had likely used the chemical weapons (link). The report was quickly drowned by the western propaganda machine.
2014-2016
The next two years were just repetitions of the daily brutality of war, with ISIS making huge gains in the east. Whenever the rebels started to lose, either more weapons would flow in, or Israel would fly into Syria and bomb the Syrian army (link). In late 2015, the Syrian government sought Russia’s help. Within a month, Putin weakened ISIS by destroying most of the oil tankers that ISIS was using to transport oil to Turkey. By the end of 2016, the Syrian government had the upper hand – Aleppo was liberated from Al Qaeda, and ISIS was running out of cash and morale.
2017
2017 was turning out to be a great year for Assad. By March, ISIS had lost over three hundred towns to the Syrian army. ISIS had also lost much of Mosul – it’s capital in Iraq; and Raqqa (ISIS’ second capital, based in Syria) was besieged by the Kurds. Both Russian and American air forces were bombing ISIS on a daily basis (you can look up @CJTFOIR on Twitter for daily reports of U.S. fight against ISIS).
Al Qaeda was facing a similar demise, losing one big city after another.
Furthermore, Trump had stopped arming the rebels in February (link). In late March, Trump and Tillerson dropped the slogan “Assad must go” (link). Finally, Assad was getting ready for an EU-UN peace conference on April 4-5 (link).
This was the moment – when everything was going in favor of the Syrian government – that the alleged chemical attack occurred in an area controlled by the rebels. Plus it happened on the very day that the peace conference had begun.
Without any investigation, within an hour after the pictures and videos came out, the Establishment concluded that Assad was responsible. No independent doctors or experts were sent to the site. It’s worth noting that an MIT professor who is also an expert in chemical weapons has analyzed the pictures and has concluded that the entire chemical attack was a hoax (link).
In November 2016, the media reported that ISIS had used chemical weapons at least 52 times (link), but that inconvenient fact was quickly forgotten in April.
If someone asked, “Who had the motives, means and opportunity?” the answer would be clear: the rebels.
Trump who felt sad for the “beautiful babies” – victims of the alleged chemical attack – had nothing to say when, a few days later, the U.S.-supported rebels bombed buses full of children and women and celebrated while the buses were still burning (link).
Neocons are now crying for a ground invasion with up to 150,000 U.S. troops; and Thomas Friedman of The New York Times is calling out for arming ISIS (link).
Before NATO decided to drop democracy bombs six years ago, Libya had the highest GDP per capita and the highest Human Development Index in all of Africa (link). Libya is now broken up into lawless regions that are ruled by different barbaric, jihadist groups. (But since the Libyan oil fields are now controlled by our jihadists, nobody cares.) A worse fate awaits Syria and the neighboring countries if Assad is removed.
In their quest for hegemonic geopolitical goals, the elites are sowing more chaos around the world and irreparably damaging the western moral compass. The global mafia’s rule seems to be this: if you play by our rules, we will be nice to you. Or else.
Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans believe?
P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:
- 1956: CIA plot to overthrow the Syrian government (link)
- 1983: CIA document on plans to obliterate Syria to enable an oil pipeline (link)
- 1986: CIA document on how to use Muslim Brotherhood to fuel a sectarian (Sunni v. Shiite) civil war in Syria (link)
- 2001: Wesley Clark told that USA will take out 7 countries in 5 years (Libya, Syria etc.) (link)
- 2005: CNN Interview. Christiane Amanpour tells Assad that the western governments are plotting a regime change in Syria (link)
- 2006: State Dept cable: Detailed discussion of various strategies to enable regime change in Syria (link)
- 2009: State Dept Email: Saudi Arabia is worried that a Shiite crescent is turning into a full moon (referring to a possible Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon coalition) (link)
- 2009: State Dept Cable: Saudi Arabia is the #1 source of funding of terrorism worldwide (link)
- 2011: Special Ops from U.S./UK/Turkey were inside Syria, training the rebels (link)
- 2012 State Dept Email: Conquest of Syria means a weakened Iran and this is important for Israel (link)
- 2012: State Dept Email: Use Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to arm/train rebels (link)
- 2012: Saudi Arabia demands that Assad be overthrown using all means available (link)
- 2012: Hillary Clinton receives an email: “Al Qaeda is on our side.”
- 2012: DIA (Pentagon) memo: Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists (extremist Sunnis) are the opposition in Syria. We should stop arming them (link)
- 2014: Hillary Clinton admits in an email that Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund ISIS (link)
- 2015: Joe Biden says Saudi Arabia and Qatar arming/funding Al Qaeda in Syria (link)
- Turkey-ISIS connections: oil and arms trade (link)
- 2016: John Kerry in a leaked audio recording explains how the U.S. trained/armed the opposition and was hoping to use ISIS to force Assad into negotiation (link)
- Chapter 10 of Julian Assange’s book “The WikiLeaks Files” that explains the efforts behind regime change in Syria (link)
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