Washington's war , not Ankara's (addendum)

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Oct 19, 2012 at 02:57

Somehow part of my post went missing. Yet , I consider it worth re-posting to reinforce the point made previously. The lost part read roughly so :

Washington's plans to "clean up the Middle East" are confirmed by what has transpired through the smoke screen of secrecy and disinformation surrounding the time between the fall of Libya and the eruption of war against Syria. The former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency Philipp Geraldi noted on December 19,2011 :

"NATO is already clandestinely engaged in the Syrian conflict, with Turkey taking the lead as U.S. proxy. Ankara's foreign minister, Ahmet Davitoglu, has openly admitted that his country is prepared to invade as soon as there is agreement among the Western allies to do so. The intervention would be based on humanitarian principles, to defend the civilian population based on the "responsibility to protect" doctrine that was invoked to justify Libya. Turkish sources suggest that intervention would start with creation of a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border and then be expanded. Aleppo, Syria's largest and most cosmopolitan city, would be the crown jewel targeted by liberation forces.

Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons from the late Muammar Gaddafi's arsenals as well as volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council who are experienced in pitting local volunteers against trained soldiers, a skill they acquired confronting Gaddafi's army. Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army, the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers."

So how can we speak of "Ankara at war" when it is clear that it is NATO that is guiding the whole operation from and through Turkey? The centre for war in Syria is in no other place than the US military base in Incirlik and big time operations there started in earnest in April-May last year. It is what Sibel Edmonds ,a courageous and knowledgeable whistle blower who despite losing her job as FBI interpreter , harassments and threats , exposed the sinister collusion between the US establishement and Turkey , writes on that :

"The joint US-NATO secret training camp in the US air force base in Incirlik, Turkey, began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. Since then, in addition to Col. Riad al-Assad, several other high-ranking Syrian military and intelligence officials have been added to operations' headquarters in the US base. Weekly weapons smuggling operations have been carried out with full NATO-US participation since last May. The HQ also includes an information warfare division where US-NATO crafted communications are directed to dissidents in Syria via the core group of Syrian military and Intelligence defectors."

Against this background Turkish incursions into Syrian airspace using US spy planes ,unilaterally and illegally declaring a buffer zone within Syria and shelling Syrian territory under a trumped up excuse and Turkish bellicosity and lies about all of that fit well into a larger picture and a larger US strategy as outlined by Geraldi and confirmed by Sibel Edmonds. It is very hard for anyone - except perhaps for the Turkish magical mind - to imagine that a country engaged in a protracted bloody civil war would provoke the second biggest NATO army armed to the teeth with US weaponry to start an extra war to be invaded with potential NATO enemies numbering some 3 mln soldiers in bad need of foes to justify their enormous budget allocations!

This impression is reinforced by what is going on largely unreported on another Syrian front – the border with Jordan. The United States military has secretly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan. The official version is "to help the armed forces there handle a flood of Syrian refugees, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons ... to insulate Jordan...from the upheaval in Syria". But surpise, surprise we hear that "the idea of establishing a buffer zone between Syria and Jordan — which would be enforced by Jordanian forces on the Syrian side of the border and supported politically and perhaps logistically by the United States — had been discussed"! In other words Geraldi's prediction to squeeze Syria starting with "a buffer zone" and moving further and further inside the Syrian territory has been borne out.

Another "coincidence" is worth stressing. Last year and this year Eager Lion - "a major bilateral strategic theater cooperation exercise between Jordan and the U.S. focusing on irregular warfare, special operations and counterinsurgency" took place. With more than 12 000 soldiers from 19 countries including such "staunch democracies" as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia ,Qatar and the UAE ) it was the largest exercise of its kind in the Middle East in a decade. The official website of US Central Command that organized them assures us that "The exercise scenarios are designed to portray realistic, modern-day security challenges", even though Major General Awni El-Edwan, Jordanian Armed Forces operations and training chief of staff, and US Army Major General Ken Tovo, head of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) declared in the press conference that "the exercise has no connection with any real-world events, including the unrest in Syria". ;) The two visibly need an extra exercise to ccordinate their opinions because one says on such occasions las this one that the mouth is denying what the hand is doing.

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