The assertions made by the Intercept writer are unfounded. Moreover they are based on a false translation.When I saw it, I immediately labeled it as a hit piece based on nonsense. Moon of Alabama explains why.
According to a recent report by CBC Canada, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, which was formerly known as al-Nusra Front and then Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) since July 2016, has been removed from the terror watch-lists of the US and Canada after it merged with fighters from Zenki Brigade and hardline jihadists from Ahrar al-Sham and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January this year.…
Thus, this rebranding exercise has been going on for quite some time. Al-Julani announced the split from al-Qaeda in a video statement last year. But the persistent efforts of al-Julani’s Gulf-based patrons have borne fruit only in January this year, when al-Nusra Front once again rebranded itself from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which also includes “moderate” jihadists from Zenki Brigade, Ahrar al-Sham and several other militant groups, and thus, the US State Department has finally given a clean chit to the jihadist conglomerate that goes by the name of Tahrir al-Sham to pursue its ambitions of toppling the Assad regime in Syria.
President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks published on Wednesday that he saw no legitimate successor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that France no longer considered his departure a pre-condition to resolving the six-year conflict.
Macron said he will not allow US “neo-conservatism” to seep into France, and that the focus of French policy will be aimed at achieving “stability” in Syria, rather than getting dragged into a Libya-style conflict.
“What was the outcome of these interventions? Failed states in which terrorist groups flourished. I do not want that in Syria,” the French leader emphasized.RT
Smell that? Yes, that's the magnificent aroma of Washington trying to cover its ass now that its brilliant strategy of "arming human scum and shipping them into Syria by the Toyota-load" has failed miserably.
Here is Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes talking about the horrible moral dilemma Washington faced while arming random (but "moderate"!) weirdos in Syria:
What’s strange is, I met with the Syrian opposition, and often they would argue that we should work with al-Nusra, who we know is Al Qaeda. And I’m sympathetic if you’re in a neighborhood where al-Nusra is defending you against Assad. You want us to work with them. But let’s say a U.S. president does that, and then al-Nusra is using weapons that we gave them against us. That’s something you never recover from, right?
"We didn't want to directly/indirectly aid al-Nusra — and even if we sometimes did, by accident, the 'moderate' rebels made us do it!"
We remember employing a similar line of argument ... in first grade....
Washington's grand vision for Syria (a failed state that can be used to destabilize Iran and train psychos to send eastward, with their final destination being Russia) has failed. And the ass-covering begins....
In case there was still any uncertainty, Hillary Clinton banished all doubt in her second debate with Donald Trump. A vote for her is a vote not only for war, but for war on behalf of Al Qaeda.
This is clear from her response to ABC reporter Martha Raddatz’s painfully loaded question about the Syrian conflict. With Raddatz going on about the hundreds killed by the evil twins, Bashar al-Assad and Putin and even tossing in the Holocaust for good measure, Clinton saw no reason to hold back:
“Well, the situation in Syria is catastrophic and every day that goes by we see the results of the regime – by Assad in partnership with the Iranians on the ground, the Russians in the air – bombarding places, in particular Aleppo where there are hundreds of thousands of people, probably about 250,000 still left, and there is a determined effort by the Russian air force to destroy Aleppo in order to eliminate the last of the Syrian rebels who are really holding out against the Assad regime.
“Russia hasn’t paid any attention to ISIS. They’re interested in keeping Assad in power. So I, when I was secretary of state, advocated, and I advocate today, a no-fly-zone and safe zones. … But I want to emphasize that what is at stake here is the ambitions and the aggressiveness of Russia. Russia has decided that it’s all in in Syria, and they’ve also decided who they want to see become president of the United States too, and it’s not me. I stood up to Russia, I’ve taken on Putin and others, and I would do that as president.”
It was an astonishing performance, even for a presidential debate. Rarely have more lies and misstatements been crammed into a single two-minute statement.…Killary Clinton, shill for Wall Street, the military-idustrial complex, and the US deep state.
The fact remains: The moderate Syrian opposition only exists in fancy suits in Western hotel lobbies. It has little military backing on the ground. If you want to ask why Assad is still the president of Syria, the answer is not simply Russia or Iran, but the fact that his army remains resilient and pluralistic, representing a Syria in which religion alone does not determine who rises to the top. The military also represent as challenge against the spread of terrorism, which is why three of the top British generals of the last five years have openly called for the recognition that the Syrian Arab Army, loyal to President Assad, is the only force capable of defeating ISIS and Al Qaeda in the Levant.
Constructive mediation rather than military intervention is urgently needed, but first all parties must be realistic about the situation on the ground, and open to a political transition through negotiation.China US Focus
"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.”— Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria, Politico
Madelyn Hoffman, Executive Director of New Jersey Peace Action, Member of the Syria Delegation at the 17:15“This is not a civil war in Syria. That’s probably the first thing we heard, and we heard it over and over again.
It is not President Assad against his own people. It is President Assad and the Syrian people, all together, in unity, against outside forces, outside mercenary forces, terror organisations, the names change everyday or every other day, to try to protect their identity, and maybe keep the connection between the country that funded it and that group, kind of a little bit more nebulous, but there are groups, mercenary forces, supported by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United States, and underneath it, Israel, the state of Israel.
And these outside mercenary forces are the ones that are terrorising the Syrian people, and are attempting to divide the Syrian people.”
No unveiling of the truth about the "western" attack on the Syrian state and its people seems to any effect on the ongoing media operations. On April 20 the U.S. military spokesperson for the anti-Islamic State coalition told some truth about the role of al-Qaeda in the "rebel" occupied eastern Aleppo city:Moon of AlabamaThat said, it's primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities.Only two weeks later the NYT propagandist Anna Barnard has the Chutzpah to claim that al-Qaeda onlyhas a small presence in AleppoLies get repeated even after they have been debunked again and again. The relentlessness of the propaganda onslaught is effective in suppressing any larger opposition to it.
120,000 Syrians in exile in Lebanon returned to the country for the purpose of voting. I think a participation rate of 58% is pretty good considering the ongoing war all over the country. IMO the results indicate that Assad could probably win an internationally supervised election for president.
The Borgist media refuses to take much note of the election.The "Assad musts go" policy is fixed.
At the same meeting with Russian defense officials, Vladimir Putin stressed that military expenditures must be tightly controlled. “I have said this more than once, and I want to emphasize it again: we do not have extra money,” said the president.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refuted accusations against Ankara about buying oil from the terrorists of the organization "Islamic state". The Turkish leader said that, in his opinion, deals with ISIS occur with the Syrian leader Bashar Assad.It's so funny RT doesn't even comment on it.
"Those who accuse us in buying oil from Islamic State, let them prove it. If you are looking for a source of funding for ISIS, then the first place to look is in the direction of the Assad regime and those who support it", — quotes RIA Novosti from words of Erdogan.
