Western Propagandists Attempt to Trigger Catastrophic Turkish-Syrian War

Bloomberg, Guardian, Ynet, all air unconfirmed report on "agreement" for Turkish-Syrian "buffer zone." 
by Tony Cartalucci 

October 6, 2012 - Bloomberg, Guardian, Ynet, and others are all posting in their headlines an identical unconfirmed report that Turkey and Syria have "agreed" to establish a 6 mile wide "buffer zone" running the length of the Turkish-Syrian border.

The report states specifically (emphasis added):

The Syrian government has told its military to keep aircraft at least six miles (10 kilometers) from Turkey’s borders after a deadly shelling incident left five Turks dead, according to the Turkish news website Today’s Zaman.

The news site cited Turkey’s ntvmsnbc.com, which quoted “reliable sources” yesterday as saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has ordered its warplanes and helicopters to honor the buffer. Neither Turkey’s government nor Syrian officials confirmed the report.

Accompanying this report are stories such as Reuters' "UN: Syria buffer zone plan raises questions," which states: 

The United Nations said on Thursday proposals to set up secure safe zones in Syria to help end the 17-month conflict raised "serious questions" and would need to be studied carefully.

Ahead of a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria, France and Britain warned Syria's President Bashar Assad that military action to secure buffer zones for civilians inside the country was an option.

 Reuters goes on to "warn:" 

Creating a buffer zone for displaced Syrians would be difficult because a U.N. Security Council resolution would be needed to set up a no-fly zone to protect the area, and Russia and China would not approve such a move, diplomats said.

It is not the first time Russia has posed difficulties for the United States and its allies on the Security Council. In the 1990s, Moscow strongly supported Serbia in the Balkan Wars and acted as Belgrade's protector on the council.

After an ineffectual UN presence failed to stop genocide in the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, the United States and its European allies infuriated Russia by bypassing the deadlocked Security Council and turning to NATO to halt the Serbian onslaught in Kosovo with a bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.

While the idea of a buffer zone is meant to look like a knee-jerk reaction to a still unjustified exchange of fire on the Turkish-Syrian border, with lingering conflicting reports over who was responsible for initially targeting the Turkish town of Akcacle, in reality this has been planned since at least March of this year, where the idea was proposed by the corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution in their "Middle East Memo #21" "Assessing Options for Regime Change" where it stated specifically (emphasis added):

"An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts." -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Image: The Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)," makes no secret that the humanitarian "responsibility to protect" is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

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Brookings continues by describing how Turkey's aligning of vast amounts of weapons and troops along its border in coordination with Israeli efforts in the south of Syria, could help effect violent regime change in Syria: 

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. -page 6, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Clearly,  a "buffer zone" is the next step for Western designs aimed at exacting regime change in Syria and would be a move the Syrian government would not readily agree to. It was also a step that merely needed a pretext to move forward. It appears that the West has found (or manufactured) their pretext. The unconfirmed reports floated by allegedly "reputable" news agencies, citing "high placed sources" in the Turkish media reeks of propaganda, public perception management, and psychological warfare.

Image: A satellite image of the Turkish-Syrian border and the town of Akcacle. NATO-backed terrorists had attacked and overrun the border post, situated directly amongst the sprawl of Akcacle with extends right up to the border. Turkish PM Erdogan is solely responsible for allowing armed terrorist groups, many not even Syria, but Libyan in origin, to use Turkish territory to carry out attacks. The loss of Turkish civilian life is an inevitability when Al Qaeda terrorists are permitted, even encouraged and enabled to use Turkish towns as staging grounds for their activities. It is still not clear who was responsible for initial mortar rounds that allegedly landed in Akcacle, but it is certain that NATO and their proxy Erdogan are attempting to use the incident to pressure Turkey into a wider conflict with Syria.

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Additionally, it should be noted that this policy of seeking a "buffer zone" IS NOT A TURKISH POLICY. It was imagined, planned, and is being ceaselessly promoted by corporate-financier interests emanating from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and is merely being parroted by increasingly unpopular elements within Turkish politics, specifically the government of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Protests erupted in Turkey's capital of Ankara, not in support of Erdogan's government, but to protest against it and attempts to use the nebulous border incident to initiate a wider conflict. The Turkish parliament has recently passed a bill authorizing the type of cross-border military operations needed to establish and protect Wall Street think-tank Brooking's prescribed "buffer zone."

It appears that the West, faced with reluctant proxies along all of Syria's borders, has begun both pressuring it's own allies with increasingly belligerent moves, while attempting to stoke increased cross-border tensions between Turkey and Syria. If the unconfirmed reports of a "buffer zone" agreement turn out to be false, it would confirm that the West is engaged in a concerted propaganda campaign to stoke a mutually destructive conflict that would destroy both Turkey and Syria, while benefiting only itself. If the "buffer zone" agreement has been made, Syria will have taken the first step in opening itself up further destabilization at the hands of terrorist proxies wielded now for over a year from Turkish territory, with wider US, British, French, and NATO backing. 

 Image: (Left) Time's cover depicting the "War Without End" between Iraq and Iran which lasted 8 years and cost well over a million lives. (Right) Donald Rumsfeld sent as a US envoy, meets with Saddam Hussein during the opening phases of the war to offer support to the man he would later play a role in killing. It may have seemed like a good idea in the beginning, with Iraq's Hussein receiving substantial support both politically and militarily from the US, Britain, and France, but ended in both the destruction of Iraq, and Saddam's eventual downfall. We can see a similar scenario developing with Turkish PM Erdogan now playing the role of an early 1980's Saddam Hussein. 

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For people on both sides of the border, it would be wise to unite against the self-serving, destructive Western policies that endanger not only Syria, but Turkey as well. Like Iraq in the 1980's, when President Saddam Hussein was encouraged to begin the destructive 8 year failed invasion of Iran, costing over a million lives and leaving his nation permanently weakened - even setting the stage for eventual Western invasion, occupation, and decimation, Turkish PM Erdogan is likewise jeopardizing not only the security and safety of his nation by allowing it to serve host to terrorist forces invading a neighboring nation, but jeopardizes Turkey's entire existence, should he continue forward with the "Saddam option." 

Turkey Attempts to Trigger War Vs. Syria

Turkey fires rounds into Syria after unknown attackers fire mortars into Turkish border town. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

October 3, 2012 - After over a year of harboring foreign terrorists and supporting their operations near and across the Turkish-Syrian border, NATO-member Turkey has claimed it has retaliated with military force against "targets" inside Syria for an alleged attack on Turkish territory that it has blamed on the Syrian government.

Despite heavily armed listed-terrorist organizations operating in large numbers on both sides of the Turkish border with Turkey's explicit approval and logistical support, the government in Ankara appears to have excluded the possibility that these terrorist forces, not the Syrian military, were responsible for the attack which consisted of mortar rounds the armed militants are known to widely use.

Image: Terrorists operating in Syria pose next to a large mortar. Mortars of all sizes are a favorite of terrorists operating in and around Syria in NATO's proxy bid to effect violent regime change. The mortars fired into Turkish territory could just as likely have come from terrorists Turkey itself is funding, arming, and harboring on behalf of long-planned NATO machinations. Unlike the Syrian government, the terrorists, Turkey, and by consequence, NATO, all have an actual motivation for launching the initial attack that has caused Turkey to retaliate and predictably call on NATO to intervene.

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The New York Times itself, in its article titled, "Turkey Fires Artillery at Syrian Targets in Retaliation for Civilian Deaths," concedes that:

It was unknown whether the mortar shells were fired by Syrian government forces or rebels fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish response seemed to assume that the Syrian government was responsible.

Turkey's immediate, unwarranted act of military aggression, along with knee-jerk condemnations from the US bear all the hallmarks of an orchestrated event - or at the very least an attempt to opportunistically seize upon an isolated incident to disingenuously advance the West's collective geopolitical agenda.

Syria clearly has no interest in threatening the security of Turkey, nor any reason to attack Turkish territory which would surely give NATO the excuse it has been looking for to directly intervene on behalf of its faltering terrorist proxies.

Turkey Has Longed for a Pretext to Start War with Syria

It was previously reported that Turkey was intended by NATO, and more specifically, Wall Street and London, to lead efforts in carving out "safe havens" in Syria's north, and to do so either under a false "humanitarian" or false "security" pretext.

This has been confirmed by Fortune 500-funded, US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution which has blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria and Iran. In their report, "Assessing Options for Regime Change" it is stated (emphasis added):

"An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts." -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Image: The Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)," makes no secret that the humanitarian "responsibility to protect" is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

....

Brookings continues by describing how Turkey's aligning of vast amounts of weapons and troops along its border in coordination with Israeli efforts in the south of Syria, could help effect violent regime change in Syria: 

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. -page 6, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Turkish leaders have clearly spent much time fabricating various excuses to meet Washington's demands in this regard by fabricating or taking advantage of violence Turkey itself is fostering along its own border with Syria.

The report would also mention Turkey's role in helping undermine, subvert, and carve out the ancient northern city of Aleppo:

Because creating a unified national opposition is a long-term project that will probably never fully succeed, the contact group, while not abandoning this effort, may seek more realistic goals. For example, it might concentrate maximum effort on breaking Asad’s hold on, say, the elite of Aleppo, which is the commercial capital and which is also the city where Turkey has the greatest leverage.  If Aleppo were to fall to the opposition, the demoralizing effect on the regime would be considerable.

Should this option fail, the United States can simply accept a bad situation in Syria or escalate to one of the military options below. -page 6, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

The military options include everything from perpetuating violence to, in Brookings' own words, "bleed
it, keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention," to Libyan-style "no-fly zones," to a full military invasion. It is clear, upon reading the Brookings memo, that the conspiracy has indeed begun to unfold since its writing - with various military options being prepared and various co-conspirators positioning themselves to execute them.

The Brookings Institution's "safe havens" and "humanitarian corridors" are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who has been threatening to partially invade Syria for months in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on "humanitarian concerns," examining Turkey's abysmal human rights record in addition to its own ongoing genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.


Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing "suspected" rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad have been accused of doing, in all of their hypocrisy, have been calling for a partial invasion of Syria based on "humanitarian concerns."

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This latest exchange between Turkey and Syria is not the first. Turkey has fabricated stories before involving Syrian troops "firing across" the Turkish-Syrian border. The New York Times published these bold accusations before admitting further down that "it was unclear what kind of weapons caused the injuries on Sunday around six miles inside Turkish territory," and that "there were conflicting accounts about the incident." As are all the accusations used by NATO, the UN, and individual member states to justify meddling in Syria's affairs, these tales involve hear-say from the rebels themselves.

It is clear that Turkey, NATO, and the UN are continuously attempting to set a pretext for the establishment of "safe havens" and "humanitarian corridors" intended to circumvent the UN Security Council which has seen attempts to green-light military intervention vetoed multiple times by Russia and China.

That the UN has failed utterly to condemn the combined provocations and meddling in Syria's affairs illustrates the absolute failure of supranational, let alone, global governance.

Turkey Plays NATO Attack Dog, Risks Future

Choosing Hegemony: Turkey, NATO and the Path to War

Eric Draitser
StopImperialism.com
August 1, 2012

As the destabilization of Syria has evolved over the course of the last year and a half, what has become apparent to political observers is the seeming incongruity of Turkey’s role in the region.  While Ankara has attempted in recent years to establish itself as a force for political and economic change and progress, it has also assumed the role of a NATO attack dog, becoming a crucial weapon in the arsenal of the Western imperialists.  While Turkey’s actions in Syria, in particular the sponsorship and coordination of terrorists, must be vigorously condemned, it is also important to note the geopolitical and economic issues at stake for Turkey.  In doing so, those of us around the world who reject imperialist meddling and destabilization, who stand in opposition to Western hegemony and proxy states, must help push Turkey back onto the path of peace and progress.

Turkey’s Role in Syria

Anyone who has followed the evolution of the imperialist aggression against Syria has undoubtedly noted the insidious role that Turkey has played.  From a diplomatic perspective, Ankara has led the charge in demonizing the Assad regime, saying that it “stands against the will of the Syrian people” and is “killing its own people.”  However, the reality is that Turkey, along with its collaborators in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon and elsewhere, have done more to fan the flames of violence and instability than the Assad regime ever could.

First and foremost, one must examine the overt sponsorship and hosting of international terrorists on Turkish soil.  As Reuters and other news outlets reported last week, Turkey has been operating a terrorist base in Adana, in the vicinity of US-NATO’s base at Incirlik.  It is from this base (and others, to be sure) that many of the terrorists have been funneled into Syria.  Moreover, these terrorists are not strictly Syrians trying to destabilize their own country.  In fact, the majority of those operating from the Turkish base are from Libya, Chechnya, Qatar, and elsewhere.  Essentially then, it is clear that, at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, under the command and control of the Turkish military and intelligence apparatus, the destabilization of Syria has been led.  So, it would be fair to say that Turkey has been at the forefront of the attack on its neighbor, acting as a willing partner of NATO, complicit in countless horrendous war crimes perpetrated against the people of Syria.

Hosting and operating terror networks is not the only way in which Ankara has played an instrumental role in exacerbating the conflict.  In an article entitled “War at Any Cost: Another Manufactured Pretext for War with Syria”, I analyzed the way in which the Erdogan government attempted to use the downing of one of its jets as a legitimization of war against its neighbor.  In the ensuing weeks, and after careful investigation, it has become clear that, at the very least, the Turkish jet had violated Syrian airspace and that the military acted within the confines of international law in their response.  It was the rhetoric of Erdogan, Davotoglu and others that was more instructive however.  In the aftermath of this event, Erdogan threatened military action against Syria, claiming that the military might pose a threat.  Of course, this should be taken to mean that Turkey would have taken upon itself the right to interpret the military of a sovereign state acting within its own borders as a threat, a clear violation of the principles of international relations and law.  Essentially, the entire episode with the downing of the jet demonstrated the fact that Erdogan and Co. were willing to allow themselves to be used as NATO’s dagger against Assad.

One integral element of the destabilization campaign has been the use of foreign “diplomatic” entities, primarily the so-called Syrian National Council to act as the ostensible voice of the opposition, while in fact being the mouthpiece of US-NATO. The SNC, led by foundation-funded Western proxies such as Bassma Kodmani, advocates regime change in Syria and supports the loose collection of terror groups and death squads operating under the moniker of the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA).  The Council has been hosted by Turkey, receiving financial and diplomatic support from Ankara.  This dubious entity has failed to unite the opposition, its one US-NATO delegated task, and has instead become a lightning rod for criticism from much of the international community.  It has become clear in recent months that the SNC is, in fact, composed of a number of factions including the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been implicated in weapons smuggling along the Syria-Turkey border in tandem with the CIA.  In addition, the SNC and their Turkish hosts have attempted to foment chaos in Syria using discontented Kurdish elements, many of whom view the SNC and the dismantling of the Syrian state as a prelude to Kurdish independence. Essentially, the Syrian National Council (and, to a lesser degree, the Free Syrian Army) could not exist were it not for overt support, both financial and diplomatic, of the Turkish government.

What the Turkish government has called “support for the Syrian people” has, in fact, become support for international terror networks.  It is now public knowledge that Al Qaeda is operating on Turkish soil near the Syrian border, using Turkey as a safe haven and command center from which to launch incursions into Syria.  As Tony Cartalucci points out however, this trend is nothing new.  Cartalucci points to the famous New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh entitled “The Redirection”, in which Hersh states:

"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."

Here we see the complicity of the United States and its proxies in the region in organizing and unleashing Al Qaeda as a weapon against its enemies.  Turkey has merely allowed itself to be made into a staging ground for this type of destabilization, precisely what the Assad regime has argued since the beginning of the conflict.  Aside from Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other terror networks have been mobilized in Turkey in order to smash the Syrian state.  The attempt was to topple the Assad regime and put, in its place, a government more amenable to US designs for a new Arab World, one that would be subservient to Western imperialism for another half century.  What has taken place however, has been quite the opposite.  Instead of destroying Syria and the regime in Damascus, it is the terrorists and their handlers in Ankara, Riyadh, and Washington who have had to backpedal as Damascus has executed a successful counter-terrorism strategy and maintained control of the country.

Geopolitics and Rationalizing the Subversion

Many times since the destabilization of Syria began, keen political observers have wondered what Turkey hopes to gain from fomenting chaos over the border.  In addressing this perplexing question, one begins to gain insight into more than Turkey’s reasons for doing so; one begins to explore the Turkish mindset.  For years, Turkey has maintained a “Zero Problems” policy with its neighbors, essentially preferring to have relations with all regional players, from Israel to Syria and Iran.  However, as the NY Times points out, this strategy has changed in recent years, particularly under the leadership of Erdogan and current Foreign Minister Davutoglu.  With them at the helm, Turkey has instead chosen to allow itself to become NATO’s enforcer, doing the dirty work of imperialism including diplomatic attacks, terrorism, and countless other equally horrendous forms of subversion.  In doing so, the ruling establishment in Ankara has bought into NATO’s insidious tenets of hegemony and domination.

The Turkish government seems to have succumbed to a form of hubris or, as some might argue, the hysteria of power.  Erdogan, Davutoglu and others have chosen to try to make Turkey into a regional hegemon capable of dominating its neighbors economically, politically, and militarily.  However, what they seem to have failed to realize is that Turkey itself is a fragile state, created less than a century ago and comprised of a number of ethnic groups at odds with each other.  As author and historian Webster Tarpley has pointed out, “Turkey has been bought off by the Anglo-American elite and created a situation where the risk and possible rewards are entirely out of proportion.”  Indeed, it would seem that the ruling establishment in Ankara has made the proverbial “deal with the devil”, eschewing the rational and sound “zero problems” policy in favor of an “endless problems” policy espoused by NATO and its masters on Wall St. and in London.

Playing a Dangerous Game

Turkey is risking quite a lot in attempting to destroy the Assad regime and, with it, the Syrian state.  First and foremost is the immediate blowback from the destruction of its neighbor.  Undoubtedly, the Kurdish minority in Turkey, which makes up more than a quarter of the total population, will then become more difficult to manage, uniting with their Syrian cousins and beginning to cause unrest inside Turkey which has, for decades, been fighting a perpetual separatist movement in the Kurdish areas.  The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been engaged in terrorist activities in Turkey for years and, with the destruction of Syria, would likely emerge as a much more immediate threat to the safety and security of Turkey.  Essentially then, Turkey’s destabilization of Syria would, quite predictably, grow to destabilize Turkey itself.

Secondly, Turkey risks very lucrative and long-standing economic ties with Russia and China. Because of their belligerent position vis-à-vis Syria, Turkey might jeopardize precisely those relations which stand to benefit its economy and people most.  With regard to Russia, Turkey has important development deals that must be understood.  Most prominent among these is the proposed Mersin Akkuyu nuclear power deal signed by Moscow and Ankara worth upwards of $20 billion.  This represents the largest single Russian investment anywhere outside of the Russian Federation.  Moreover, this deal would move Turkey forward in the fields of energy production and high technology, both of which are crucial for the maintenance and building of an advanced economy in the 21^st Century.  Likewise, the South Stream Pipeline, long seen as integral to the economic futures of both Russia and Turkey, could be in jeopardy.  Additionally, the establishment of the High Level Cooperation Council (UDIK) under Medvedev sought to bring together the diplomatic and political leadership of the two countries to jointly work toward building a common economic destiny.  This could be the beginning of tremendous economic and geopolitical progress for Russia and Turkey, progress which is likely to be stymied by Ankara’s incomprehensible folly in Syria.

Lastly, Turkey continues to look towards membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), dominated by Russia and China.  Because of the economic crisis in Europe and cloudy future of the EU more generally, Turkey has put the brakes on possible full integration with Europe and, instead, chosen to focus on the SCO.  Just this week, Erdogan explained that his country is looking more and more to integration into the SCO instead of the EU.  Naturally, Moscow and Beijing will not allow a NATO attack dog state into the SCO and so, as with many other issues, Turkey risks their opportunity to integrate themselves into the “developing world” of the BRICS and SCO solely because they’ve allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by US-NATO.

Turkey would do well to look at its own past to find the wisdom that will light the path back to a sound foreign policy, back to progress and reason.  Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey once said, “Unless a nation’s life faces peril, war is murder.”  The truth and meaning of this statement must not be underestimated.  In fact, Turkey had to learn the hard way that the path to progress is fraught with challenges; that notions of empire and hegemony must be shed in order to better the lives of the people.  In this case, we must think not only of the lives of Turkish people, but of Syrians as well and, for that matter, all people of the world.  In so doing, it is important to remember that no good can come to Turkey or the region if they continue down the path of subversion, terrorism, and destruction in Syria.  As Ataturk famously said, “Peace at home, peace in the world.” Hopefully, these words are not entirely forgotten in Turkey today.

CONFIRMED: Turkey Running Proxy-Invasion of Syria

Admits hosting foreign fighters seeking to enter Syria, trucks in weapons to rearm terrorist groups.
by Tony Cartalucci

July 26, 2012 - The Washington Post has just published an article with the very misleading titled, "Turkey a hub for Syria revolution as illegal border crossing points abound," in which it describes "Salafi Muslims," who have "come to offer help from the countries of the Persian Gulf region" arming and joining the so-called "Free Syrian Army." The article also claims "weapons are ferried into Syria, delivered by Turkish military trucks and picked up by fighters on the other side in the dead of night."

A more apt title would be, "Turkey hosts invading Saudi and Qatari mercenary army."

This confirms earlier reports featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post, that not only are the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and Qatar funding and arming militants via Turkey, but that the US is coordinating the logistical aspects of the operation as well. 

Likewise, CNN has attempted to spin concessions made by its own Ivan Watson, traveling with sectarian extremists into Syria, where it was admitted:

Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade's ranks.

A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a "platoon" of Libyan fighters to armed movement.

 CNN has now added:

On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.

The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.

CNN then attempts to claim the "real" Syrian "revolutionaries" "do not want an Islamist political agenda to be mixed in with their revolution."



Photo: The face of Libya's "revolution" was literally Al Qaeda. Abdul Hakim Belhaj, commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) listed by the US State Department as a "Foreign Terrorists Organization," was armed and backed by NATO (including the US) in his efforts to topple the government of Libya. Belhaj more recently pledged (NATO) weapons, cash, and Libyan militants to the "Free Syrian Army."

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Unfortunately for CNN, despite its best efforts, it cannot qualify its claim that these foreign fighters are "unwanted," - for the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) has long since exposed itself as a sectarian extremist front infiltrated with foreign fighters and foreign weapons, stretching back as far as 2007. 

Saudis and Qataris Attempt "Arab League-UN" Rescue of Faltering Mercenaries

Perhaps as a sign the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are stretched to the limits of their ability to covertly undermine Syria, they have announced plans to seek "UN General Assembly action" for a "political transition and establishment of a democratic government in Syria." For the despotic, unelected, grandiose nepotism of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to call for a "democratic government in Syria" is truly a move made as much out of desperation as it is one of farcical hypocrisy.

Image: In "progressive" Saudi Arabia, who is calling for a "democratic transition" in Syria, women are not even allowed to drive, let alone vote for their leaders - who with Qatar, are amongst the few remaining absolute monarchies on Earth.

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Both Gulf State nations are run by absolute monarchies - some of the only kind still left in the world. In Saudi Arabia, not only are elections out of the question, but women are in fact, prohibited from even driving. How the Saudis themselves are not subject to UN resolutions, open condemnations, sanctions of all kinds, and ultimatums over their own dictatorship is a true indication of the bankrupted, hypocritical, self-serving dysfunction that punctuates a Western corporate-financier dominated "international order." It is an "international community" that creates the illusion of urgency and injustice when it seeks to expand its interests into one nation, but conveniently ignores real injustice when it jeopardizes their interests elsewhere.


Turkey Supports Subversion of Syria, While Crushing Dissent at Home

Turkey itself has been waging a decades-long bloody campaign against its own armed uprising in predominately Kurdish areas bordering Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In fact, at one point, the US allowed Turkish tanks to cross into American-occupied Iraq to attack villages suspected of harboring armed Kurdish separatists in 2008, mirroring the very tactics Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is now condemning Syria for. The Guardian reported in their 2008 article, "Iraq demands Turkey withdraw from border conflict with Kurds," that the conflict had been raging since 1984 and had cost the lives of 40,000 people.

Turkey has in recent weeks, violated Iraq's airspace in order to strafe and bomb Kurdish villages inside Iraqi territory. Iraq has lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council - a complaint likely to go unnoticed.

One can only imagine the "threat" Syria would be portrayed as if it were to likewise strafe and bomb targets beyond its borders in pursuit of now admittedly foreign-armed, foreign fighters invading its country via Turkey. Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, would most likely invoke "Chapter V" of NATO's treaty, a mutual defense clause that makes an attack on one alliance member an attack on all members - thus opening up the door for more direct foreign military intervention. 

Turkey's ruling government led by PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in fact undermining its own national security by running errands for NATO versus Syria. By supporting foreign terrorists invading neighboring Syria, it undermines the legitimacy of its own campaign against Kurdish rebels within its borders, not to mention beyond them. Turkey's current stance vis-a-vis Syria is not shared by all members of Turkey's government, and at this critical stage, now more than ever they need to make their voices heard both to the Turkish people and to the people of the world.

Carving Out "Safe Havens" for the US State Department's SNC

The ultimate goal of inundating Syria with foreign fighters and weapons while Saudi Arabia and Qatar farcically call for a "democratic transition" in Syria is to create a "safe haven" from which the US State Department coached and directed "Syrian National Council" (SNC) can rule from - further dividing and undermining the Syrian nation-state.

This geopolitical objective was first summarized in the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution's March 2012 Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf) and recently reiterated almost verbatim by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria and Iran. In their report, "Assessing Options for Regime Change" it is specifically stated (emphasis added):

"An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts." -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Image: Also out of the Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)," makes no secret that the humanitarian "responsibility to protect" is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

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The Brookings Institution's "safe havens" and "humanitarian corridors" are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who had been threatening to partially invade Syria in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on "humanitarian concerns," examining Turkey's abysmal human rights record in addition to its own ongoing armed campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.

There is still extreme danger that with Aleppo still under threat by foreign fighters and the so-called "Free Syrian Army," NATO is preparing cross-border provocations to justify the "limited military power" Brookings calls for in establishing its prescribed "safe havens." Fabricated "massacres," "humanitarian crisis," and false flag attacks involving chemical weapons are also pretexts the West might use for a limited military incursions into Syria in an attempt to cripple its military and lend its militant proxies a "safe haven" in Syria to rule over.

Repost: Turkey Seeking "Buffer Zone" for NATO Death Squads

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTV & Tarpley.net
June 29, 2012
(originally posted March 28, 2012)

Editor's Note: Turkey's seeking of a "buffer zone" echos verbatim US corporate-financier funded think-tank Brookings Institute's stated plan for overthrowing the Syrian nation-state. To read more, please see, "UN's Kofi Annan: An Agent of Wall Street" and "Genocidal Turkish Government Eyes Syria." 

NATO Member Turkey Harboring Terrorist Army

Warns Syria about defending its own borders - brazen act of war, crime against world peace ignored by feckless United Nations. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

June 29, 2012 - After losing a fighter jet earlier this month while conducting a high-speed, low altitude invasion of Syria's airspace, Turkey has now pledged to treat any Syrian operation along its borders as a military threat.

"Turkey's warning could tilt the dynamic along the border, which has become an incubator for Syrian antigovernment rebels who are seeking increased levels of international support. Turkey's pledge to respond to aggression from Syrian forces could help the rebel Free Syrian Army by deterring Syrian forces from attacking—or else result in Turkish retaliation for cross-border attacks on rebels," reported the Wall Street Journal in their article, "Turkey Warns of Retaliation Against Syria." This encapsulates the brazen warping of logic applied by NATO aggressors as they seek to perpetuate the bloodbath and destabilization caused by their own proxy forces, primarily harbored, armed, and deployed from NATO member Turkey.

Syrian Rebels are Al Qaeda Terrorists

By US officials' own admissions, since 2007 a combined US-Israeli-Saudi effort to assemble and deploy against Syria and Iran an army of sectarian extremists drawn from the ranks of Al Qaeda and its affiliates has been underway. In Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection," he reported, "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."

Within Hersh's report, not only is this army of fanatical terrorists described as being fully backed by the West in order to create a sectarian bloodbath to be used to achieve Western foreign policy objectives, but it was fully anticipated that this army would commit abhorrent atrocities, particularly against ethnic and religious minorities throughout the region. In particular former CIA agent Robert Baer in Lebanon warned about the fate of Christians located in the region.

Today, Baer's warning has manifested itself in a genocidal campaign against Syria's Christians increasingly more difficult for the Western media to hide. This is confirmed by LA Times' "Church fears 'ethnic cleansing' of Christians in Homs, Syria," and more recently in USA Today's distorted, but still telling, "Christians in Syria live in uneasy alliance with Assad, Alawites."

Also mentioned was the Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, who by 2007 was already receiving significant backing from the West and Israel to destabilize Syria - despite its feigned anti-Western, anti-Israeli rhetoric.  

As clandestine military operations became larger in scale and more difficult for the complicit Western media to obfuscate, it was announced that hundreds of fighters as well as torrents of weapons and cash began flowing into Syria from NATO-armed terrorists in Libya. The Al Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (a US State Department listed terrorist organization - #28) led by Abdul Hakim Belhaj, spearheaded efforts to bolster what is essentially a foreign terrorist operation in Syria beginning as early as November 2011, according to the London Telegraph.

After Belhaj's visit to the Turkish-Syrian border and his pledge to send cash, weapons, and fighters, up to 600 Libyan terrorists were reported to have made the journey to Syria to join the fighting. At least one ship flush with weapons from Libya was interdicted by Lebanon on its way to rebels' hands in Syria.

In addition to LIFG terrorists admittedly entwined with the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), more recent reports indicate that Iraqi terrorists have also joined their ranks. Reuters in their article, "Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs," admit that not only is the FSA conducting a terrorist bombing campaign against the people of Syria, but that it is facilitated by rebels who "fought with Al Qaeda elements in Iraq" and learned their bombing skills while attacking both sectarian Iraqi targets as well as Western troops.

Ironic indeed, that the US in particular is backing entirely terrorist forces that thousands of Americans have shed their blood allegedly fighting in the "War on Terror." It appears that Al Qaeda, admittedly a creation of the CIA in the 1980's to draw in and fight Soviets in Afghanistan, is still patronized by the West and used as both a convenient casus belli as well as a terrorist proxy force against enemies of Western foreign policy.

Turkey is Helping

According to the New York Times, "a small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers." While the Times article attempts but fails to allay fears that the FSA is in fact a terrorist front, the real significance of the article is that it confirms Turkey is serving as a willing conduit to harbor, arm, and deploy terrorist forces against neighboring Syria - a crime against world peace.

The Gulf States, which provided the bulk of the "hijackers" allegedly behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, are now the primary weapons and cash suppliers for the FSA, with Saudi Arabia leading the way - as Seymour Hersh reported they would be in 2007. These weapons, according to the UK Independent, are being transferred to terrorists via Turkey. It is also reported that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood then distributes the weapons once they make their way into Syria - belying the narrative that the unrest is anything but an foreign-facilitated extremist terror campaign.

Perhaps most disturbing is a report published by Michael Weiss of the Neo-Con corporate-financier funded (beginning on page 18, .pdf) Henry Jackson Society, titled, "Syrian rebels say Turkey is arming and training them." In the report, Weiss claims that, "rebel sources in Hatay told me last night that not only is Turkey supplying light arms to select battalion commanders, it is also training Syrians in Istanbul. Men from the unit I was embedded with were vetted and called up by Turkish intelligence in the last few days and large consignments of AK-47s are being delivered by the Turkish military to the Syrian-Turkish border."

Weiss can hardly be considered a reliable source, and is just as likely fabricating his entire narrative for the purpose of psychologically targeting Syria. However, Turkey has made no attempts to refute such claims, made more frequently and by an increasing number of sources. Turkey is admittedly serving as a conduit for weapons, and is most likely participating in a more direct role to train, arm, fund, and support terrorists operating along the Turkish-Syrian border.

And despite all of this, the United Nations has remained mute over these transgressions, acts of war, and crimes against world peace. While it feigns outrage over the violence in Syria, it has failed categorically to identify the driving forces behind it - namely the unending torrent of weapons, cash, and foreign fighters flowing over Syria's borders - supplied by NATO and its Gulf State partners.

Turkey Plays Pivotal Role in Psychologically Breaking Syria

Turkey is clearly harboring a terrorist front within its borders and facilitating their violent-subversive actives within Syrian borders. While the US and NATO hypocritically use a similar narrative to justify cross-border raids into Pakistan, it is attempting to tie Syria's hands from even operating up to and along its own border to stem very real, admitted terrorist networks maintained by NATO and their Gulf State partners.

The goal of NATO is to create enough chaos in Syria, long enough, to shake the Syrian people's faith in their government and their armed forces by dividing and destroying Syria's national institutions. Just as in Libya, such divisions brought on by unwarranted panic will accelerate, not stem the violence. The stated goal by Western policy makers is to create divisions, doubt, and defections - and they are trying to achieve this through a combination of propaganda, economic sanctions, and overt Western-backed terrorism. They pursue this course of action because a full-scale military operation is untenable, as is the prospect of their terrorist proxies achieving any meaningful tactical victory. Syria, by remaining united and exhibiting perseverance will defeat NATO aggression.

Libya proves that capitulation is not an option, with sectarian genocide the result, subjecting capitulators, defectors, and even NATO's hand-picked proxies to post-Qaddafi violence and mayhem. There is no option but to continue resisting.

US "Kurdish" Threat Aimed at Turkey, Not Syria

Kurdish groups have thus far stayed out of NATO's destabilization of Syria, US threats to arm and unleash Kurdish groups aims at coaxing Turkey to act. 
by Tony Cartalucci


May 18, 2012 - The violence in Syria has been predominantly carried out by extremist groups, tied to Al Qaeda, and organized, funded, staged, and armed by the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, with Lebanon's Hariri faction playing a major supporting role. Starting as early as 2007, it was reported that Syria's notoriously violent Muslim Brotherhood was already receiving support from the West to begin undermining Syria as part of a grander strategy to to break the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah sphere of influence across the region.

The Kurds, occupying territory straddling the Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish borders, have for nearly as long, been fighting against Turkish forces, with US-occupied Iraq hosting several Turkish invasions aimed at crushing alleged Kurdish strongholds. Unlike Syria's battle against admittedly foreign-funded and armed militants, many of whom are not even Syrian, the "international community" has been mute over Turkey's military campaigns against Kurds both within and beyond its borders. And even throughout the duration of Syria's current unrest, Turkey has continued conducting military operations against the Kurds.

Image: The Kurds occupy a region straddling the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. While Kurds in northern Iraq have been relatively co-existing with other Iraqis, enjoying a degree of autonomy, and in Syria enjoying the protection of Assad along with Syria's other minority groups, the Kurds in Turkey have been fighting a decades long battle against the government who has pursued them within and beyond Turkey's borders. If Kurds are armed by the US, they will head to Ankara, not Damascus - thus Washington's latest threat was made toward Turkey, not Syria. 

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Syria's Kurdish population has remained neutral, as have most of Syria's minority groups - fearing Libya-style consequences of allowing heavily armed, foreign-backed extremists to overrun their nation and either impose draconian restrictions upon them, or uproot and/or exterminate them all together, as the people of Libya's Tawargha have experienced. So then, Washington's latest move, in addition to openly admitting they are facilitating the arming of Syria's opposition in the midst of a UN brokered "ceasefire," to invite "Kurds" from Syria for talks about arming and deploying them against President Bashar al-Assad, seems a very unlikely scenario. Indeed, Washington may very well arm Syria's Kurds, but the direction they will ultimately go will be Ankara, not Damascus. 

And even if Syria's Kurds decided to rise up against the Syrian government for Western interests first, just as is happening in Libya, the weapons, cash, and support they use to do it with will inevitably end up being used against Turkey in the near future. In Libya, arms from NATO have already trickled into the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) affiliates across Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and even into the hands of Nigeria's Boko Haram. 

Published by corporate-financier funded US policy think-tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "The Syrian Dilemma: Turkey's Response to the Crisis," notes that Turkey is the ideal proxy for the West to carry forth its agenda, but also recognizes the quandary faced by Turkey. Turkey could not credibly intervene in Syria on "humanitarian grounds" while carrying out similar military campaigns within its own borders against the Kurds, and any incursion into Syria by Turkey could lead to a backlash from the Kurdish community across the region.  

Turkey, who has been elected by US foreign policy think-tanks to create "safe havens" within Syria for NATO's proxy forces, has yet to materialize any concrete plan of action. It may be that Turkey has decided against what is ultimately the first phase of a greater war against Iran, and in turn Russia and China. The US using Turkey as a proxy, will fight its enemies to the last Turk, after bleeding its own soldiers dry and bankrupting its taxpayers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey's hesitation, in Washington's eyes, after the offering of several unpalatable carrots, seems to be now incurring the stick. If Turkey needed any more reasons to abandon a pro-Wall Street-London stance, this latest provocation by Washington should be it. 

It is unlikely the West will have any success in triggering a Kurdish uprising in Syria. If Turkey assists the Syrian government in restoring order within its borders, it is also unlikely that any attempt by the West to arm the Kurds as a punitive action against Turkey will gain any traction. However, if Turkey assists the West in destabilizing, dividing, and destroying Syria, a lawless Libya-style staging ground for militant activities in all directions, including Ankara, will result. And if Libya's "post-revolution" dystopia can serve as a warning to Turkey against advancing the West's agenda, "pre-revolution" Libya where the West feigned rapprochement with Muammar Qaddafi before ultimately betraying him can serve as warning against Turkey for believing it serves as anything more than a lever with which the West seeks to use to advance its own exclusively beneficial interests.

Engdahl: CIA plays ugly role, trains Syrian rebels

CIA Director David Petraeus makes weekly visits to Turkey.

Video: Via RT - "Researcher and author of Full Spectrum Dominance, F. William Engdahl talks to RT from across the Syrian border about his take on the latest developments in Syria and Turkey."

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Read more of F. William Engdahl's work at his website here.

Syrian Peace Deal: UN's Cloak to NATO's Dagger

Turkey begins fabricating "cross border" incidents to justify Brookings prescribed "safe havens" inside Syria.
by Tony Cartalucci 

Editor's Note: Brookings has since taken down Middle East Memo #21 - it has been reposted by Land Destroyer here in its entirety.  


April 9, 2012 - From the very beginning, US policy makers admitted that Kofi Annan's "peace mission" to Syria was nothing more than a rouse to preserve NATO's proxy forces from total destruction and create "safe havens" from which to prolong the bloodshed. It was hoped that with established "safe havens" in Syria, protected by Turkish military forces (Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952) violence and pressure versus the Syrian government could be perpetually increased until it finally collapsed and the carving up of Syria could commence.

Photo: Annan is a trustee of Wall Street speculator George Soros and geopolitical manipulator Zbigniew Brzezinski's International Crisis Group (ICG), along side Neo-Conservative corporate lobbyist and warmonger Kenneth Adelman, US State Department-listed Iranian terror organization MEK lobbyist - General Wesley Clark, Wall Street-backed color revolution leader - Mohammed ElBaradei of Egypt, and Brookings Institution's Samuel Berger. Serving as "advisers" to the International Crisis Group include, Neo-Conservative warmonger Richard Armitage, former Foreign Minister of Israel Shlomo Ben-Ami, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bank of Israel Governor Stanely Fischer, and President of Israel Shimon Peres. While Annan poses as a representative of the "United Nations" he is in reality representing the pro-regime change agenda of the ICG and the special interests that fund its work.

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This has been confirmed by Fortune 500-funded, US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution which has blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria and Iran. In their latest report, "Assessing Options for Regime Change" it is stated (emphasis added):

"An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts." -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Image: Also out of the Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)," makes no secret that the humanitarian "responsibility to protect" is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

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And while "peace" was being peddled by Soros-funded International Crisis Group trustee Kofi Annan, the US, UK, France, and members of the West's proxy Arab League simultaneously called for Assad to stand down and withdraw troops from secured cities while openly declaring that arms and cash would continue to flow to the rebels. The "Friends of Syria" summit would even ludicrously declare that "wages" would be paid to rebels to continue their battle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Clearly the label "peace deal" is inappropriate for a proposal that seeks to empower and indeed see one side prevail militarily over another whose hands are purposefully tied. It is an unconditional surrender to foreign-funded terrorists simply labeled as a "peace deal."

The Brookings Institution's "safe havens" and "humanitarian corridors" are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who has been threatening to partially invade Syria for weeks in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on "humanitarian concerns," examining Turkey's abysmal human rights record in addition to its own ongoing genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.



Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing "suspected" rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad have been accused of doing, in all of their hypocrisy, are now calling for a partial invasion of Syria based on "humanitarian concerns."

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Now, Turkey is fabricating stories involving Syrian troops "firing across" the Turkish-Syrian border. The New York Times published these bold accusations before admitting further down that "it was unclear what kind of weapons caused the injuries on Sunday around six miles inside Turkish territory," and that "there were conflicting accounts about the incident." As are all the accusations used by NATO, the UN, and individual member states to justify meddling in Syria's affairs, these tales involve hear-say from the rebels themselves.

It is clear that Turkey, NATO, and the UN are attempting to set the pretext for the establishment of "safe havens" and "humanitarian corridors" intended to circumvent the UN Security Council which has seen attempts to green-light military intervention vetoed twice by Russia and China. As the UN "peace deal" deadline of April 10 comes and goes, we can expect an ever increasing din of propaganda purporting Syrian violations against Turkish sovereignty, the continued propaganda campaign accentuating the "victimization" of NATO's death squads, and the public roll-out of Brookings' Turkish established "safe haven" within Syrian territory.



Image: Some of the corporate sponsors behind the Brookings Institution, from whose playbook Kofi Annan is being directed in his disingenuous "peace mission" to Syria. (click image to enlarge)

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Image: Just some of the corporate and "institutional" sponsors of the International Crisis Group, upon which Kofi Annan sits as a "trustee" with other dubious personalities including George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Egypt's Mohammed ElBaradei, and Neo-Cons Richard Armitage and Kenneth Adelman. (click image to enlarge)

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The UN "peace deal" was a rouse from the beginning. The West has no intention of leaving Syria intact and will seek all means by which to prevail in toppling the government, carving up the country along sectarian lines, plunging it into perpetual violence as it has Libya, and moving next toward Iran. While it is essential to expose the truth behind Syria's unrest, is also important to identify the corporate-financier interests driving this nefarious agenda and boycott them entirely while seeking out viable local solutions to support instead. If none exist, it is our duty to use our time, money, attention, and resources to create such alternatives instead of perpetuating the self-serving agenda unfolding before us.

Ultimately it is "we the people" paying into this current paradigm that allows it to continue moving forward, therefore it by necessity must be "we the people" who undermine and ultimately replace it.

Genocidal Turkish Government Eyes Syria

NATO member Turkey, guilty of a century of mass murder, seeks "humanitarian intervention" in Syria.
by Tony Cartalucci

March 16, 2012 - Once again Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, is considering the partial military invasion of Syria to give foreign terrorists and extremist militants attempting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a reprieve in their failing campaign.

Cross-border mass murder is a routine procedure for Turkey, who has been carrying out a very real genocidal campaign against the Kurd minority within and beyond its own borders for decades - this after the early 1900's Armenian genocide which the government of Turkey to this day still denies.



Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing "suspected" rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad have been accused of doing, the West's myriad of disingenuous rights advocacy groups are quiet as is the Wall Street/London beholden UN Security Council and the West's corporate media editorials.

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Turkey is currently strafing and rolling tanks over its own people.

Turkey has been waging a decades-long bloody campaign against its own armed uprising in predominately Kurdish areas bordering Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In fact, at one point, the US allowed Turkish tanks to cross into American-occupied Iraq to attack villages suspected of harboring armed Kurdish separatists in 2008, mirroring the very tactics Erdogan is now condemning Syria for. The Guardian reported in their 2008 article, "Iraq demands Turkey withdraw from border conflict with Kurds," that the conflict had been raging since 1984 and had cost the lives of 40,000 people - dwarfing the UN's fabricated death toll for Syria's current conflict.

More recently, as Turkey's prime minister lectures neighboring Syria on its bid to crush foreign-funded, armed militants, the Turkish government is preparing to augment its compliment of Israeli drones with a deployment of US Predator drones on its soil. The Associated Press reported in an article titled, "Turkey: US likely to deploy Predator drones," that Turkey has been "pressing for the drones in an escalating war against Kurdish rebels." Turkey, in addition to rolling tanks into towns suspected of harboring militants, and the deployment of drones, has also strafed suspected rebel stronghold with airstrikes and conducted sweeping nationwide mass arrests. In other words Turkey is doing everything Syria is accused of doing, plus what Qaddafi in Libya was accused of doing, only fully sanctioned by the West, with arms supplied by the West, and under the muted coverage provided by the Western media.

Yet Turkey, with its genocidal history and its current ongoing campaign against the Kurdish people, has been welcomed with open arms by NATO and has been leading efforts currently to funnel NATO resources into the hands of militants working to destabilize and overthrow Syria. Now it appears that the West has elected their genocidal junior member to fall on its own sword for the cause of continuing Wall Street and London's reordering of the Middle East, a Middle East Turkey mistakenly believes it will have a leading role in.

A Turkish intervention risks wider regional war.

Reuters reports in their article, "Turkey considers buffer zone along Syria border," that "Turkey is considering setting up a buffer zone inside Syria to tackle a growing flow of refugees fleeing the conflict there." Noting that the buffer zone would indeed be on Syrian soil and require an armed Turkish presence to maintain it, the prospect of open war between Turkish and Syrian forces is all but certain.

Just like Israel's planned attack on Iran is designed to allow the United States to appear a "reluctant" participant in the ensuing war, so too is Turkey's designs of entering and occupying Syrian territory. It will provide the perfect pretext for an escalation of both Turkish military operations as well as the participation by other NATO members, including of course Washington, London, and Paris.

What is clear is that Turkey, with a century of genocide under its belt, is the least qualified candidate in or around the Middle East to claim "humanitarian concerns" as justification for any geopolitical maneuver. Additionally, Turkey's planned invasion of Syria will only increase the bloodshed and possibly trigger a regional war at the cost of potentially millions of lives. Just the very suggestion of such an act illustrates the disingenuous, detached, dangerous, and immensely hypocritical nature of the West's campaign-by-proxy versus Syria.

Turkey's decision to bend to Wall Street.

Turkey must ask itself, as it struggles against the ghosts of its past and the crimes it is still committing against its own people, if they can really afford another catastrophic death toll owed to them and their meddling throughout the region. Turkey must ask itself if such a move truly benefits them, or is simply a means for other NATO members to mitigate and shift blame onto them, yet again. There are no seats at the table for Turkey, who is scorned by a European Union they seek to join, and used as a tool by the NATO alliance they count themselves a member of.

Whatever was promised to the leadership in Turkey, they must realize by now by the betrayals of nations all around them, from Saddam in Iraq, to Qaddafi in Libya, to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, that when the day comes they too will be destabilized, divided, destroyed, and pillaged either by the IMF or Kurdish separatists armed and funded by the next eager Western client-state.

Turkey does however have an opportunity for a clean break, an act of defiance against the West it is seemingly, irrationally beholden to. They can end the conflict in Syria by another means - denying foreign fighters, arms, and equipment from crossing their border and allowing their neighbors in Syria to restore order in their cities and countrysides.

Global public opinion of the world is shifting against the West and forming behind the multi-polar non-interventionism of the BRIC nations. Turkey must decide for itself whether or not it wants to be on the right side of history, or sacrifice itself in an act of war and intrusion for a conflict clearly started by meddling foreign nations from day-one.