McCain visit to Syria: Terrorists meeting Terrorists !

 foto de Syrian Rationalism.

"The Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin reports that Senator John McCain ventured into Syria recently to visit with rebel fighters, taking a detour from his official trip to Turkey (where he also met with anti-Assad rebels). McCain was accompanied on his tour by General Salim Idriss, a defector from Assad’s army who has won fans in the West by rejecting the most extreme and jihadist elements of the opposition, including the Nusrah Front, which is essentially a branch of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and otherwise appearing like a man McCain and others can do business with.

The (East) German-educated soldier and engineer, unfortunately, appears to have very little influence or credibility among the rebels — McCain, presumably, would like to try to change that with an influx of American aid for the good general.

Senator McCain, one of the cheerleaders of the U.S./NATO intervention in Libya (where he also met with rebels) has been calling for more U.S. intervention in Syria for a long time now, and he’s a strident supporter of shipping arms to the opposition. The European Union could be on the verge of making that leap — ahead of a meeting of the union’s foreign ministers this week, Britain and France announced that they would support lifting the current embargo on weapons transfers to Syria."

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"In Syria, there is mounting evidence that Al Qaeda and its allies are actively deploying terror tactics and suicide bombers to overthrow the Assad regime.

Syrian citizens who prefer the secular and stable state to the prospect of an Iraqi-style sectarian state may well be turning this same question around to the US government: are you with us, or with the terrorists?

This week, head of the Salafi jihad and close ally of al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, pledged ''deadly attacks'' against Syria as ''our fighters are coming to get you'' because ''crimes'' by the regime ''prompts us to jihad''.

Bush referred to al Qaeda as the enemies of freedom: ''the terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews''. But Sheikh Muhammad al Zughbey proclaimed that ''your jihad against this infidel criminal and his people is a religious duty … Alawites are more infidel than the Jews and Christians''. Because the new jihad targets Alawites rather than Jews and Christians, does this render them better bed fellows?

By his own admission, Bush stated that al Qaeda was ''linked to many other organisations in different countries … They are recruited from their own nations … where they are trained in the tactics of terror … They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction''.

Yet this is precisely how the foreign jihadists in Syria have been described by reporters. They are funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And they collaborate with the Free Syrian Army which is aided and abetted by the US."

http://tinyurl.com/8gmjpt2

"President Obama will have no talk of peace. He has chosen war since the very start and he’s sticking to it. A recent New York Times article revealed that President Obama has been lying through his teeth about the level of U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict since the beginning.

The President recently said that the U.S. government continues to give only “non-lethal” military aid to the rebels, but The New York Times revealed that the CIA has been actively funneling and distributing massive shipments of weapons to the rebels over the borders of Jordan and Turkey.

This “arms pipeline” of illegal gun trafficking has been overseen by the U.S. government since January 2012. It has literally been the lifeblood of the Syrian “rebels,” and thus the cause of the immense bloodshed in Syria.

The New York Times reports:

“The C.I.A. role in facilitating the [weapons] shipments… gave the United States a degree of influence over the process [of weapon distribution]…American officials have confirmed that senior White House officials were regularly briefed on the [weapons] shipments.”

The article also explains that a “conservative estimate” of the weapons shipment to date is “3,500 tons.”

So while Obama has repeatedly lied about “non-lethal” military aid, he has been personally involved in overseeing a multi-country flood of weapons into Syria, many of which are given to terrorist organizations. The only effective fighting force for the Syrian rebels has been the terrorist grouping the Al Nusra Front, and now we know exactly where they got their guns.

If not for this U.S.-sponsored flood of guns, the Syrian rebels — many of them from Saudi Arabia and other countries — would have been militarily defeated long ago. Tens of thousands of lives would thus have been spared and a million refugees could have remained in their homes in Syria. The large scale ethnic-religious cleansing initiated by the rebels would have been preventable.

But Obama is so intent on war that he will not even discuss peace with the Syrian government. He has repeatedly stated that there are “preconditions” for peace negotiations, the most important one being the downfall of the Syrian government, i.e., regime change. If a toppling of a nation’s government is Obama’s precondition for peace, then Obama is by definition choosing war.

Never mind that Syria is a sovereign nation that should not have to worry about a foreign country making demands as to who is in power. Obama doesn’t seem to think this relevant. In fact, his administration has been very busy determining who the “legitimate” government of Syria is, by hand picking the “National Coalition of Syrian Revolution,” the prime minister of which is a U.S. citizen.

One of the preconditions for being on Obama’s National Coalition of Syrian Revolution is that there be no peace negotiations with the Syrian government. Of course most Syrians want to immediately end the conflict in Syria, since it threatens an Iraq-like destruction of the country.

The most popular leader of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution, Moaz al-Khatib, recently quit in protest because he was prohibited from pursuing peace negotiations by the U.S.-appointed opposition Prime Minister, Ghassan Hitto, a U.S. citizen who had lived in the U.S. for the previous 30 years."

"Obama also recently pressured the Arab League — composed of regimes loyal to the United States — to install as a member the hand-picked National Coalition of Syrian Revolution as the official government of Syria. The appointment didn’t give as much credibility to the opposition as much as it degraded the Arab League’s legitimacy.

The rebel’s seat in the Arab league implies, again, that the U.S. and its allies are fully intent on “regime change,” no matter how many people die, no matter the existing political alternatives. They will not reverse course.

The Russian government called the Arab League membership decision “… an open encouragement of the [rebel] forces which, unfortunately, continue to bet on a military solution in Syria, not looking at multiplying day by day the pain and suffering of the Syrians…. Moscow is convinced that only a political settlement and not encouraging destructive military scenarios, can stop the bloodshed and bring peace and security to all Syrians in their country.”

Obama has rejected both Russian and Syrian calls for peace negotiations in recent months, as he has greatly increased the frequency of the weapons trafficking plan."

http://tinyurl.com/d5h35ue

"Confrontation with Iran has been the goal of U.S. foreign policy for decades and Syria is one more strategic stepping stone in the process. Syria is one of Iran's strongest allies in the region and getting rid of Assad will further isolate Iran.

While visiting Iran in 2010, Assad said: "We have stood beside Iran in a brotherly way from the very beginning of the (Iranian Islamic) revolution."

During the visit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad awarded Assad Iran's highest medal of honor in recognition of his support for Palestinians and Lebanon and his resistance to "global arrogance" -- a term which usually refers to the United States and its allies.

Assad also rejected an offer by the U.S. to have sanctions dropped against his country if Syria ditched Iran as an ally."

"In 2008, Syria agreed to allow Russian missile defense systems into their country as a counterweight to plans for a United States missile deployment to Poland.

That same year, according to UPI: "Syria is adding the latest Russian MiG-29SMT fighter to 36 Pantsir S1E air-defense systems purchased from Russia, RIA Novosti reported, noting Syria also hopes to buy Strelets short-range air defense systems, Iskander tactical missile systems, Yak-130 aircraft and two Amur-1650 submarines -- all Russian-made."

In terms of the China-Syria relationship: "China has become Syria’s number one supplier. While figures from Syria’s Bureau of Statistics put the value of Syrian imports from China at $691 million, Syrian officials have said the real figure is more likely to be close to double that at around $1.2 billion. What is not in doubt is that China easily outstrips Syria’s other major suppliers Egypt ($553 million), South Korea ($441 million), Italy ($356 million), Turkey ($338 million), Japan ($317 million) and Germany ($308 million). Bilateral trade surged to a record high of $1.4 billion in 2006. [...] China was the second largest non-Arab investor in Syria in 2006, accounting for $100 million out of the $800 million in non-Arab investment funds which flowed into the country. By the end of 2006, Chinese companies had signed project contracts worth $819 million and this amount is virtually guaranteed to be superseded this year with a billion dollar oil refinery deal near completion.""

"Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ditched the dollar back in 2000.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi talked about dropping the dollar in 2009.

During the same year, Iranian leader Muammar Ahmadinejad switched Iran's reserve currency off the dollar.

In 2006, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, Syria "switched the primary hard currency it uses for foreign goods and services from the U.S. dollar to the euro in a bid to make it less vulnerable to pressure from Washington.""

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