Cambridge Analytica violated US election laws!

All these days, we had been hearing about Russian interference in the 2016 US Election using social media. Now the story line is changing... Finally the truth has started to reveal itself to put shame on the Russophobes...


Cambridge Analytica formally accused of violating US election laws
RT : 26 Mar, 2018

Cambridge Analytica, the British firm at the center of the Facebook data mining scandal, has been accused of violating US election laws in new legal complaints filed by government watchdog Common Cause.

The watchdog group has filed legal complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Department of Justice, accusing Cambridge Analytica of violating federal laws which prohibit foreigners from direct or indirect participation in US political campaigning.

Cambridge Analytica, which worked with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, is accused of mining the data of 50 million Facebook users, without their explicit knowledge or consent, and then attempting to use it to influence voters.

The Trump campaign is reported to have paid the British firm more than $5 million for its services. Records also show that seventeen other Republican campaigns and political groups paid the firm $16 million for similar services.

The legal complaints against Cambridge Analytica refer to a memo in which lawyer Laurence Levy warns company CEO Alexander Nix that foreign nationals “may not play strategic roles” in US campaigns but that they can “act as functionaries that collect and process data” so long as the final analysis of the data is done by American citizens.

Levy suggested in the alleged memo that Nix, as a foreign national, should recuse himself from “substantive management” of clients involved with American elections, but that advice was ignored by Cambridge Analytica, the complaints say. The defendants in the case are all non-US citizens.

Common Cause has called for the FEC and the Department of Justice to investigate and impose appropriate sanctions on Cambridge Analytica for election law violations.

The watchdog’s vice president for policy and litigation, Paul S. Ryan, said it “defies belief” that, even after their own lawyer warned them they would be violating federal law, they did so anyway.

“A full investigation must be conducted, and if Cambridge Analytica and its staff did in fact repeatedly violate our laws, then there must be punishment levied sufficient to deter similar lawbreaking in future,” Ryan said.

Cambridge Analytica has denied any wrongdoing, but said it takes recent allegations of unethical practices “very seriously”.

“As anyone who is familiar with our staff and work can testify, we in no way resemble the politically-motivated and unethical company that some have sought to portray,” acting CEO Alexander Taylor said in a statement.

Earlier today, the Federal Trade Commission confirmed it was investigating Facebook over its privacy practices.

In a statement, the FTC said it took recent reports raising concerns over the social media giant’s privacy policies “very seriously” and that there was an “open, non-public” investigation into those practices.

Selected Comments:

# Hey Common Cause...so why didn't you have a problem with them when they were collecting for Obama?

# Sanctions on the UK now eh, uncle Sam?

# It's conspiracy have to charge Facebook too. They provided the info.

# Can you charge Cambridge Analytica without charging it's co-conspirator because Facebook facilitated and participated in a common scheme and purpose????

= = =
Cambridge Analytica pitched ‘psychological profiling’ services to multiple US campaigns - report
RT : 10 Apr, 2018

Cambridge Analytica boasted about its possession of unique data in pitches to multiple Republican election campaigns after harvesting personal information from 87 million Facebook users, a new report reveals.

The data mining firm, which worked for President Donald Trump's campaign in 2016, pitched its “unique” data and “psychological profiling” abilities, which could be used to micro-target voters on Facebook, according to a Channel 4 News report.

According to the documents seen by Channel 4, Cambridge Analytica told prospective clients that its data had been successfully used by the North Carolina Republican Party, the conservative For America advocacy group and a number of Republican campaigns in Arkansas, North Carolina and New Hampshire, which were funded by the John Bolton Super PAC.

Cambridge Analytica claimed it had been able to “accurately predict partisanship, turnout, issue importance and build psychographic profiles” for voters in North Carolina.

“We produced clusters of voters based on the modeled data to maximize campaign impact, which enabled the creation of tailored messages directed to specific voter groups,” the company said.

The firm even boasted that they had been able to boost turnout among target voters by about eight percent. Adverts created by Cambridge Analytica were “tailored to voter personality profiles” and had “clear calls to action” that reminded people to vote.

The company detailed how it had categorized voters according to personality types in North Carolina in 2014. For example, young female voters who care about the economy and immigration were shown video commercials focusing on those issues. Voters with “high neuroticism” were targeted with ads that prompted fears about national security.

In a statement to Channel 4, Facebook said that Cambridge Analytica has certified that it destroyed the data in 2015. The UK data regulator is now investigating the truth of that claim, Facebook added.

On Tuesday, Facebook began notifying users whose information could have been shared with Cambridge Analytica. The social media platform said it has introduced “a number of measures” to tighten its systems in light of recent revelations.

Cambridge Analytica told Channel 4 News that the data in question was “not Facebook data” but from another company called Cint, which surveyed 40,000 users with their consent.

The company released a statement on Monday, claiming that it did not break any laws and that it did not “hack” Facebook to collect any data. It also claimed that it is “politically neutral” and works across the political spectrum.

Testifying before members of the US Congress on Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was “clear now” that his company did not do enough to prevent apps that share personal data from being used for harm “It was my mistake, and I'm sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens,” Zuckerberg said.

US & UK press has ruled world for decades

The Western MSM have only started to feel the pinch of alternative voices; so they are now hell-bent on censoring the Internet by various shrewd means!

Manipulative media monopoly: Kremlin spokesman says US & UK press has ruled world for decades
RT : 23 Mar, 2018

Media outlets based in the US and Britain have long enjoyed dominance in the global news market and have abused their position to manipulate audiences, a Kremlin spokesman told RT in an exclusive interview.

Russia is currently being targeted by an unprecedented campaign in the West, aimed at undermining its resurgence, Dmitry Peskov told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze. The media are playing a major part in it, as they are selling an anti-Russian narrative to the people of Western nations. But what those
outlets do is a disservice to their audiences, he argued.

“People are naked against these media wars. They are victims of these media wars,” he said. “They are being… driven into a certain way of emotions without even understanding that.”

Peskov said that for decades “Anglo-Saxon media” enjoyed a virtual global monopoly on delivering news about economy and politics. “They are the most powerful, the most influential, and they have the widest possible reach globally,” he said. “And, of course, this feeling of monopoly brings a will to
manipulate this monopoly. You can use this monopoly as a tool of delivering your point of view, whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter, you can adjust it in accordance with the situation – to simply manipulate the [minds] of people throughout the world.”

He added that outlets like RT challenge this “huge machine” with alternative narratives and facts that don’t fit into how the Western media wants the world to see things. A good example of this is coverage of events in Syria and Iraq, Peskov said. Western media were all too eager to highlight civilian casualties of the operation in Aleppo, which they blame solely on Russian and Syrian forces, but failed to extend this kind of reporting to similar operations in Mosul and Raqqa, where the US-led coalition was in charge.

Landings, NASA, and the Soviet Space Program

Landings, NASA, and the Soviet Space Program
Published on November 30, 2010

I recently wrote a blog post about NASA’s choice of using exclusively splashdowns landings during the space race and a (relatively brief) discussion of why this method was far less desirable than a land landing alternative. In retrospect, I realized that I only told half the story. Part of what makes the NASA “splashdown v. land landing” story an interesting one is a comparison to their Soviet counterparts who used exclusively land landing systems. (The image to the left shows cosmonaut Alexei Leonov during his spacewalk, Voskhod 2, March 1965.)

Throughout the Space Race, both the Americans and Soviets were launching capsule-style spacecraft. Try as they might, the Americans just couldn’t land their spacecraft on land. Which begs the question: what did the Soviets do that the Americans didn’t, or couldn’t? The comparison between the two programs in this critical mission phase is a pretty interesting one.

NASA’s choice of splashdown landing for its Mercury manned space program was based on simplicity. A parachute was more than enough to slow the re-entering non-aerodynamic spacecraft to a speed at which the astronaut inside could sustain the final drop into the ocean. With the Atlantic and Pacific as well as a huge Navy as its disposal, it would be crazy for NASA to waste time developing a complicated landing system. Especially as time became a factor. The Soviets, it is no stretch to say, were consistently leading the Americans in space.

Consider a few of the Soviet firsts relevant to manned spaceflight in the early Space Race: In 1957 the Soviets launched the first artificial Satellite, Sputnik, followed a month later by the significantly larger Sputnik 2, which carried a dog, Laika, into orbit. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. In 1962 the Soviet Space Program launched the first dual-spacecraft mission; Adrien Nikolayev in Vostok 3 and Pavel Popovich in Vostok 4 flew within 4 miles of one another in orbit. In 1964, the Soviets launched the first mission with a multi-person crew. Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov, and Boris Yegorov flew the first mission in the second-generation Soviet program, Voskhod. In 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov completed the first extra-vehicular activity (or EVA).

The American timeline shows a definite lag in accomplishments. The first American satellite in orbit, Explorer, was launched in 1958. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in 1962. The first dual-spacecraft mission wasn’t until 1966.

While the Americans lagged behind their adversaries, they surpassed the Soviets with their technology.  The American space program opened the closed loop of the spacecraft to give the astronaut an increased amount of control. Engineers and designers took care to ensure the comfort and safety of the American astronauts as missions progressed and new spacecraft were developed. The same can hardly be said of the cosmonauts. The Soviet cosmonauts had comparatively little control. Clever engineers orchestrated many of their ‘space firsts’.

The best example is perhaps the Soviet first of a dual-spacecraft mission in 1962. Although presented to the west as two spacecraft flying in formation in orbit, in reality the cosmonauts didn’t pilot their spacecraft to close the gap between them. Rather, the engineers launched the spacecraft one after another such that their orbits took them within 4 miles of each other. The cosmonauts remained passengers. The American’s first rendezvous between two manned spacecraft was achieved through manual control of the flight path. Commander Wally Schirra, with pilot Tom Stafford, manipulated the orbit of the Gemini 6 spacecraft to within feet of Jim Lovell and Frank Borman’s Gemini 7. (The image to the right is Gemini 6 taken from the window on Gemini 7 while both were in orbit, December 1965.)

The astronauts control stands in stark contrast to the cosmonauts lack thereof, but the one aspect of all missions that put both on equal footing was the lading phase. Both astronauts and cosmonauts were stuck in a predominantly passive role.

In initially developing the landing method, NASA took advantage of its natural geography. The launch site at Cape Canaveral (later Cape Kennedy) in Florida is one of the most southern points in the United Sates. This is advantageous in putting spacecraft in orbit as well as bringing the astronauts home. The climate is, for the most part, conducive to launches year round, and splashdowns at a more or less equivalent latitude is safe enough for the astronauts to open their spacecraft and enter the water if need be.

The cosmonauts had no such luxurious natural resources to take advantage of. The Soviet Space Program’s (now known as the Russian Federal Space Agency’s) launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (sometimes referred to as Tyuratam for its proximity to the river of the same name) is actually in Kazakhstan. The site, leased to Russia by the Kazakh government in the 1950s, was the Soviet’s attempt to establish the southern most launch site possible within the Soviet Union. It was, however, still quite north; the site is on roughly the same latitude as Portland, Maine.

(The above image shows a comparison between the Soviet and American launch sites and the relative area surrounding each.)

Additionally, the Baikonur Cosmodrome is essentially land locked. The Caspian Sea is the nearest body of water, west and slightly south of the launch site. Open Russian waters lie significantly farther north in the Arctic Circle and include bodies such as the Barents Sea, The Laptev Sea, and the East Siberian Sea. None of these are hospitable places for a splashdown. If water breached their spacecraft at all, the cosmonauts inside would surely freeze. Similarly, rescue forces would have a hard time assisting the cosmonauts in the water if they needed it. Any hospitable bodies of water would have the Soviets operating in shared international waters, an undesirable position in which to be.

What The Soviets did have access to was a huge expanse of land, most of which is free from populated areas. Land landings were thus the lesser of two evils, a comparatively safe and viable option.

The first Soviet manned spacecraft, Vostok, had a spherical cabin for the cosmonaut attached to a conical instrument and engine module. Retro rockets would slow the spacecraft for orbit. Before gravity began the reentry phase in earnest, the conical module was jettisoned; only the spherical portion would return to Earth. Once reentry had been initiated, there was little the cosmonaut could do to control the spacecrafts path or orientation. Although the natural weighting of the spacecraft ensured it entered the atmosphere with its heavier end down, the spherical shape was intended to protect the cosmonaut from the heat of reentry on all sides. (The above photo shows the Vostok 1 spacecraft).

The Vostok spacecraft used a parachute to slow and control its rate of descent.  Even so, the landing was expected to be unsurvivably harsh. To spare the life of the cosmonaut, an ejection system was used in addition to the parachute-controlled descent. The cosmonaut would eject from the spacecraft at 23,000 feet, replying on a personal parachute for his return to Earth. The spacecraft and its cosmonaut would land separately.

The first man to land with his system was Yuri Gagarin on his historic Vostok 1 flight. His landing was presented to the West as having followed mission parameters and schedules perfectly. In reality, the descent was a near disaster and quite perilous to Gagarin’s life. After a perfect fire of the spacecraft’s retrorockets, the instrument module failed to separate from the descent vehicle. It remained connected by a tether, which caused the unbalanced pair to tumble wildly into the atmosphere. The risk was high of the two spacecraft sections colliding, and the tumbling was affecting the orientation of the descent module. It needed to be free from the pull of the instrument module in order to settle into the heavy-end-down configuration that would ensure Gagarin’s safety. (The picture above is cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.)

The trouble early in the descent stage forced Gagarin to eject from his spacecraft ahead of schedule. His own parachute opened first, causing him to land ten minutes after his spacecraft and roughly two miles away. Both spacecraft and cosmonaut landed in the Saratova, a region of Soviet Union not far from the Kazakhstan border. Gagarin’s landing position was also affected by the trouble in the initial phases of his descent. He landed on rural farmland. As he walked towards the curious onlookers who were confused by his spacesuit and helmet, one woman asked in dismay whether he’d come from space. Gagarin replied simply that she wouldn’t believe him if he told her.

Near fatalities aside, the mission proved that land landings could work; five more cosmonauts carried out five successful landing in like manner in following Vostok missions. Nonetheless, the method had its drawbacks and would become increasingly problematic with a multi-manned crew. The need for a new system became more urgent with the design of the second-generation spacecraft, Voskhod.

To call Voskhod a second-generation spacecraft is a misnomer. The Voskhod was really just a reconfigured Vostok even if it was presented to observers in the west as an entirely new spacecraft. For the Voskhod program, the space-consuming Vostok-era ejection seats were removed to accommodate the larger crew.

The first mission carried three cosmonauts.  Even without ejection seats, the spacecraft was cramped; to make room for all three men, none were able to wear spacesuits meaning there was nothing protecting them in the even of depressurization. Writer Ben Evans draws the comparison that if the Mercury astronauts were ‘spam in a can’, then the Voskhod 1 cosmonauts were sardines.

The second Voskhod mission, Voskhod 2, afforded the crew comparative luxury. Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov flew without a third since only two men could fit with pressure suits on. This was a necessity since Leonov would be leaving the spacecraft. (Belyayev actually remained inside the pressurized spacecraft since Leonov left through an airlock. Still, if the airlock failed, both cosmonauts would be exposed to the vacuum. As such, both had to be prepared.) (To the right is cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.)

The removal of the ejection seats had another consequence: the development of a soft landing system was absolutely imperative to the success of this program.

The solution was the soft landing system known as ‘Elburs’. The system built on the previously used parachute-controlled descent method, adding probes to the end of the parachute lines. The probes were the first piece of the spacecraft to make contact with  the ground, triggering a solid propellant braking rocket on the underside of the spacecraft. The final stage of the descent, if everything prior went smoothly, was a soft touchdown on the ground.

The Voskhod 1 cosmonauts reported that the landing was so gentle they hardly felt it. The Voskhod 2 cosmonauts on the other hand ran into complications and found themselves faced with the real dangers of landing a capsule-style spacecraft on land.

Voskhod 2 began its retrofire sequence on schedule, but a faulty solar orientation sensor meant that the command was not properly processed. The spacecraft began rolling. Leonov and Belyayev optically reoriented their spacecraft prior to manually firing their retro rockets. This deviation from the automated schedule cost the cosmonauts valuable seconds. They fired their retrorockets late, still landing in Soviet territory, but over 2,000 km from their intended site.

Overshooting the landing zone on a body of water results in the same basic splashdown. The same is not the case when overshooting a land landing. Leonov and Belyayev landed in the forest of the Ural Mountains. Only when their hatch refused to open did they realize their spacecraft was wedged between two fir trees. They managed to rock the capsule enough to free the hatch, but they were still in the in a heavily wooded forest, forced to spend a snowy night before loggers could cut a path for the rescue effort to reach the cosmonauts. By morning, rescue helicopters had located the cosmonauts in time to scare away wolves that had been closing in on the men through the night.

The problems associated with the Soviet landings are indicative that the Soviet program was as much of a crash program as the US space effort in the 1960s. Perhaps more so. Reconfiguring a spacecraft and calling it new speaks to a much more desperate need to more forward in space than the Americans demonstrated. Gemini built off Mercury, but it was a new spacecraft. However, the Soviets did succeed in landing a blunt spacecraft on landing while sparing the life of the cosmonaut(s) inside.

The motivations behind each country’s pursuit of land landing were different, and I think here lies the reason for the Soviet success and the American failure. NASA wanted to give the astronauts increased control with a land landing system. The proposals added new components into a spacecraft that worked, thus complicated the system. Not to mention NASA had the perfectly viable splashdown landing as a backup. Even though splashdowns were less desirable, a new land landing system was never absolutely necessary. The Soviet Space Program on the other hand absolutely needed a way to land on land; it was never a matter of giving the cosmonauts control. The solution was fairly simple. In fact, NASA had tried a similar method in Gemini, but the system proved too problematic and it never went beyond the initial testing phase.

Perhaps it was necessity that made Soviets’ system work. Without another option, they had to find a way to make it work. And they did, crude as the ejection system may be. In light of the Soviets’ accomplishment, it seems that the primary reason NASA engineers failed to incorporate a land landing system into its space race era spacecraft is rooted in their attempt to open the closed system further. The spacecrafts of Space Race were largely automated, regulated with feedback loops, and capable of being entirely controlled by mission control. Adding a human element adds complexity, and giving the human control complicates the system as a whole still further. Perhaps if the Americans had sought a land landing system without pilot control they would have succeeded. But then that would stand in the face of everything the pilots turned astronauts fought for.

Suggested Reading/Selected Sources:

1. Burgess, Colin and Hall, Rex. The first Soviet cosmonaut team: their lives, legacy, and historical impact. UK: Springer Praxis. 2009

2. Evans, Ben. Escaping the bonds of Earth: the fifties and the sixties. UK: Springer Praxis. 2009

3. Gagarin, Yuri et al. Soviet Man in Space. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific. 2001.

4. Hall, Rex and Shayler, David. The rocket men: Vostok & Voskhod, the first Soviet manned spaceflights. UK: Springer Praxis. 2001

5. Scott, David and Leonov, Alexei. Two Sides of the Moon. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. 2004.

Ex-CIA operative says US has long meddled in elections!

Former USA Congressman Ron Paul exposed last year that the USA Government has interfered with Hundreds of Foreign Nations elections. What kind of bat chit crazy mindset is operating inside the USA Government that thinks by doing that, it wouldn't happen to America in return?

Ex-CIA operative says US has long meddled in elections, but it’s OK since they are ‘good cops’
RT : 18 Feb, 2018

As Democrats indict Russians over "election meddling," former CIA officers say the US has been interfering in foreign elections for decades and “hopefully” will keep doing so because it has the moral high ground.

In an article published in the New York Times on Saturday, former CIA officers and several researchers, who have been studying covert US intelligence operations for years, say that the while methods allegedly used by Russians to meddle into the US elections might slightly differ from the old school CIA operations overseas, there is nothing in the allegations against Russians that Americans haven't done themselves.

If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” retired CIA veteran Steven Hall told NYT’s Scott Shane.

Hall, who left his job as CIA Chief of Russian Operations in 2015 after 30 years of service, noted that the US has never shunned attempting to meddle in other countries’ elections.

Saying that the CIA had “absolutely” engaged in such operations in the past, Hall added that he hopes “we keep doing it.”

Thirteen Russian nationals and three entities were indicted on Friday as part of the special FBI counsel Robert Mueller's lingering probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, and collusion between Moscow and US President Donald Trump's campaign. As proof to support either of the two allegations is still scant, the Russians listed in the indictment were accused of waging “information warfare against the United States of America,” including by sowing discord on social media with “divisive” posts on Facebook and Twitter.

While the social media boom is a recent phenomenon, the US intelligence has a long record of weaponizing information, albeit in a more conventional form, Loch Johnson, a scholar at the University of Georgia, who has been investigating the CIA since the 1970s, told the Times.

“We’ve used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners — you name it. We’ve planted false information in foreign newspapers. We’ve used what the British call ‘King George’s cavalry’: suitcases of cash,” Johnson said, recounting that in the late 1980s he was told by CIA operatives that they used to plant reports that fit the US agenda or bluntly fake news in foreign newspapers by the dozen. The number of such daily “insertions” ran in as many as 70 to 80 publications, he recounted.

But when the US does it, it's for the greater good, the scholar and the CIA officers claim.

Likening the American operations to what Russia is accused of, “is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns — the motivation matters,” Hall said. Because, just like the bloody wars the US is waging around the world, it is being done for the sake of democracy.

Contrary to the supposed Russian onslaught on the American democracy, which, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, did not affect the outcome of the presidential elections, some US meddling did lead to actual changes of power across Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

According to a survey by Researcher Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy, the US meddled in elections at least 81 times from 1946 to 2000, including in Yugoslavia in the 2000 against Slobodan Milosevic.

The number, however, does not include the military coups orchestrated by the US, or regime changes as a result of the US interventions, some of which had precious little to do with democracy, such as the rise of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet after the violent overthrow of President Salvador Allende in 1973. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the US did not give up on its interventionist policy. The most recent examples include the US-led NATO intervention in Libya that brought down strongman Muammar Gaddafi, but failed to deliver a semblance of democracy. The war-ravaged country is being torn between three different power centers seven years after the military incursion.

The US role in the coup in Ukraine, which paved way for bloodshed in the country’s east, has been widely reported. Last year, former US Vice President Joe Biden admitted in his memoir that he demanded former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich resign in 2014, telling him that his “time was over.”

Biden also boasted that he played a part in the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor during a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk in March 2016.

Spread of Wahhabism was done at request of West...

Finally the admission comes but the damage has already been done. Now it is hard to reverse!

Spread of Wahhabism was done at request of West during Cold War – Saudi crown prince
RT : 28 Mar, 2018

The Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism began as a result of Western countries asking Riyadh to help counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post.

Speaking to the paper, bin Salman said that Saudi Arabia's Western allies urged the country to invest in mosques and madrassas overseas during the Cold War, in an effort to prevent encroachment in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.

He added that successive Saudi governments had lost track of that effort, saying "we have to get it all back." Bin Salman also said that funding now comes mostly from Saudi-based "foundations," rather than from the government.

The crown prince’s 75-minute interview with the Washington Post took place on March 22, the final day of his US tour. Another topic of discussion included a previous claim by US media that bin Salman had said that he had White House senior adviser Jared Kushner "in his pocket."

Bin Salman denied reports that when he and Kushner – who is also Donald Trump's son-in-law – met in Riyadh in October, he had sought or received a greenlight from Kushner for the massive crackdown on alleged corruption which led to widespread arrests in the kingdom shortly afterwards. According to bin Salman, the arrests were a domestic issue and had been in the works for years.

He said it would be "really insane" for him to trade classified information with Kushner, or to try to use him to advance Saudi interests within the Trump administration. He stated that their relationship was within a normal governmental context, but did acknowledge that he and Kushner "work together
as friends, more than partners." He stated that he also had good relationships with Vice President Mike Pence and others within the White House.

The crown prince also spoke about the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition continues to launch a bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in an attempt to reinstate ousted Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi as president. The conflict has killed thousands, displaced many more, driven the country to the brink
of famine, and led to a major cholera outbreak.

Although the coalition has been accused of a large number of civilian deaths and disregard for civilian lives - an accusation which Riyadh denies - the crown prince said his country has not passed up "any opportunity" to improve the humanitarian situation in the country. “There are not good options and bad options. The options are between bad and worse,” he said.

The interview with the crown prince was initially held off the record. However, the Saudi embassy later agreed to led the Washington Post publish specific portions of the meeting.

Selected Comments:

# So he confess that his country along with the western powers are the cause of Wahhabi ideology behind mujaheddin, Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS. way to go western terrorists.

# The idea of West being puppets of the Saudis is silly nonsense. It's the West that's sold hundreds of billions in weapons to Saudi so al-Qaeda/ISIS would justify Western intervention everywhere. Western govts, banksters and corporations had vested interests in the creation of Ziodi Arabia and the ISISraelie in Palestine.

# This is your smoking gun folks. Your classic limited hang out in intelligence parlance. The Wahabi/Salafist terrorist program never stopped. It just morphed into whatever tool the globalists needed at the time.

# Most of America's "moderate rebels" from the Chechen wars back then are "moderate rebels" in Syria today. Remember that the US still actively support terrorists in Chechnya, no matter how many Beslan schools or Moscow theatres they shoot up.

# So, all these “crazy” conspiracy theories are proving to be true. Our politician's criminal incompetence, corruption & greed has destroyed our culture and our children’s future security and they must be held to account.

7 Signs of a Vitamin D Deficiency

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that plays a role in many important body functions. It is best known for working with calcium in your body to help build and maintain strong bones. Vitamin D is also involved in regulating the immune system and cells, where it may help prevent cancer. – University of Maryland Medical Center

Vitamin D is perhaps the most important nutrient when discussing bone or immune system health. Not only does adequate consumption of vitamin D preserve bone and immune system health, it’s also thought to prevent a number of serious health conditions.

A deficiency of vitamin D is best known for causing rickets (brittle bones) in children, a condition in which the tissue of the bone doesn’t fortify or mineralize. This condition often leads to fragile bones and skeletal deformities, frequently coinciding with increased risk of injury. However, more recent research is uncovering the link between vitamin D deficiency and a host of other health conditions.

Research suggests that vitamin D may play a role in both the prevention and treatment of hypertension, type1 and type2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis (MS), and hypertension.

Given the importance of consuming vitamin D, we’ll identify seven different ways to uncover a potential vitamin D deficiency. Armed with this knowledge, we’ll but in a better position to correct any shortfall and safeguard our health.

Here are 7 warning signs of a vitamin D deficiency:

1. Pain and Muscle Weakness

The degree of pain and muscle weakness can vary from subtle to severe. Initially, symptoms of this type are almost non-present; however, as the deficiency becomes longer in duration, associated symptoms tend to become worse. The reason is that vitamin D, when metabolized, enhances muscle contraction – an essential mechanism for strengthening bones.

2. Impaired Immune System

When vitamin D levels are low, our immune system is inextricably affected. A high concentration of vitamin D receptors can be found in the immune cells, an area of the body that requires sufficient vitamin D supplementation. In one Japanese study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, schoolchildren that were given vitamin D supplements recorded fewer instances of the flu strain influenza A than those who did not receive supplements.

In another study, individuals diagnosed with an autoimmune disease also tested for low levels of D vitamin.

3. Hypertension

Hypertension (high blood pressure) often results when the body’s levels of vitamin D are low. Our body formulates a peptide that increases blood pressure through arterial restriction and water retention. Vitamin D serves as a countermeasure, suppressing this enzymatic reaction and reducing the body’s inappropriate and exacerbated response to this peptide, thus normalizing blood pressure levels.

4. Feelings of Sadness/Depression

A link has been made between sadness/depression and low levels of vitamin D. One particularly interesting discovery involves the correlation between seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a seasonal depressive condition, and fluctuating levels of vitamin D3.  In one study, participants given D3 supplementation experienced enhanced positive effects and a reduction of negative effects – both physical and cognitive. Participants reported a significantly diminished presence of various symptoms, including food craving, hypersomnia, lethargy, and sleep disturbances.

5. Gut troubles

Certain gastrointestinal conditions affect vitamin D absorption. Those with celiac, Crohn’s, inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions, are likely to be at a greater risk of vitamin D deficiency because of these interactions. Furthermore, those with high amounts of body fat are prone to vitamin D deficiency since fat dilutes the vitamin and reduces its physiological effects.

6. Excessive sweating

A strange addition to this list is the tendency of people to sweat more without sufficient vitamin D levels. Contrary to many of the items on this list, medical experts aren’t quite certain why we sweat more with low vitamin D levels. All that’s known is that there seems to be an inseparable link between low vitamin D and excessive sweating, especially around the forehead.

7. Heart Conditions

There exists a probable correlation between low vitamin D levels and cardiovascular disease. Medical professionals believe that low levels of the vitamin result in higher concentrations of calcium build up in the arteries; calcium buildup is plaque that forms in the arteries and increases the risk of heart attack or stroke. Other conditions linked to low vitamin D levels – hypertension, type 2 diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol – appear to solidify the connection between vitamin D levels and heart health.

Sources of Vitamin D

Now that we’ve discussed seven symptoms associated with vitamin D deficiency, we’ll list some common sources of the nutrient. Remember to get the recommended daily amount of vitamin D on a daily basis.

– Sunlight

– Orange Juice (Vitamin D fortified)

– Fortified Plant-Based Milks

Who Was Behind the 2011 Syria “Protest Movement”?

Of course, it was CIA at the request of GCC countries namely, Qatar, Ziodi Barbaria. Kuwait, UAE etc. And the bone of contention was Assad's refusal to lay their gas pipeline through the landscape of Syria enroute to Europe via Turkey to cut off Russia from supplying gas to most of Europe....

Seven Years Ago: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind the 2011 “Protest Movement”?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, March 01, 2018

Author’s note

The war on Syria started seven years ago in Daraa  on the 17th of March 2011.

The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.

It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan. 

Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington. This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads? 

From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August14, 2011): 

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011) 

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war: 

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS. 

The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.

Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).

In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad.

In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.

In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.

Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:

“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)

The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.

[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”

The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)

These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.

Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.

This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.

What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson.

The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protest

The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda affiliated insurgency integrated by death squads and professional snipers. President Bashar al Assad is then to be blamed for killing his own people. 

Does it Sound familiar? 

The same “false flag” strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine Maidan protest movement.  On February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both demonstrators and policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor Yanukovych of “mass murder.”

It was subsequently revealed that these snipers were controlled by the opponents of president Yanukovych, who are now part of the coalition government. 

The “humanitarian mandate” of the US and its allies is sustained by diabolical “false flag” attacks which consist in killing civilians with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments which refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.

Michel Chossudovsky, March 9, 2017

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SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention”

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, May 3, 2011

There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification from the outset of the protest movement in southern Syria on March 17th [2011].

The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of the broader Arab pro-democracy protest movement, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria.

Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed forces, which are accused of indiscriminately shooting and killing unarmed “pro-democracy” demonstrators. While these police shootings did indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were shooting at both the security forces and the protesters.

The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated. Many of the reports are “according to witnesses”. The images and video footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not always correspond to the events which are being covered by the news reports.

There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased in recent year, social conditions have deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of sweeping economic reforms under IMF guidance. The IMF’s “economic medicine” includes austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the financial system, trade reform and privatization.

(See IMF  Syrian Arab Republic — IMF Article IV Consultation Mission’s Concluding Statement, http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2006/051406.htm, 2006)

While Syria is [2011] no “model society” with regard to civil rights and freedom of expression, it nonetheless constitutes the only (remaining) independent secular state in the Arab world. Its populist, anti-Imperialist and secular base is inherited from the dominant Baath party, which integrates Muslims, Christians and Druze.

Moreover, in contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, in Syria there is considerable popular support for President Bashar Al Assad. The large rally in Damascus on March 29, “with tens of thousands of supporters” (Reuters) of President Al Assad is barely mentioned. Yet in an unusual twist, the images and video footage of several pro-government events were used by the Western media to convince international public opinion that the President was being confronted by mass anti-government rallies.

Tens of thousands of Syrians gather for a pro-government rally at the central
bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)

Syrians display a giant national flag with a picture of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad during a
pro-government rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)

The “Epicenter” of the Protest Movement. Daraa: A Small Border Town in southern Syria

What is the nature of the protest movement? From what sectors of Syrian society does it emanate? What triggered the violence?

What is the cause of the deaths?

The existence of an organized insurrection composed of armed gangs involved in acts of killing and arson has been dismissed by the Western media, despite evidence to the contrary.

The demonstrations  did not start in Damascus, the nation’s capital. At the outset, the protests were not integrated by a mass movement of citizens in Syria’s capital.

The demonstrations started in Daraa, a small border town of 75,000 inhabitants, on the Syrian Jordanian border, rather than in Damascus or Aleppo, where the mainstay of organized political opposition and social movements are located. (Daraa is a small border town comparable e.g. to Plattsburgh, NY on the US-Canadian border).

The Associated Press report (quoting unnamed “witnesses” and “activists”) describes the early protests in Daraa as follows:

The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a major challenge for President Bashar Assad, …. Syrian police launched a relentless assault Wednesday on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government protesters [Daraa], fatally shooting at least 15 in an operation that began before dawn, witnesses said.
At least six were killed in the early morning attack on the al-Omari mosque in the southern agricultural city of Daraa, where protesters have taken to the streets in calls for reforms and political freedoms, witnesses said. An activist in contact with people in Daraa said police shot another three people protesting in its Roman-era city center after dusk. Six more bodies were found later in the day, the activist said.
As the casualties mounted, people from the nearby villages of Inkhil, Jasim, Khirbet Ghazaleh and al-Harrah tried to march on Daraa Wednesday night but security forces opened fire as they approached, the activist said. It was not immediately clear if there were more deaths or injuries. (AP, March 23, 2011, emphasis added)

The AP report inflates the numbers: Daraa is presented as a city of 300,000 when in fact its population is 75,000;  “protesters gathered by the thousands”, “casualties mounted”.

The report is silent on the death of policemen which in the West invariably makes the front page of the tabloids.

The deaths of the policemen are important in assessing what actually happened. When there are police casualties, this means that there is an exchange of gunfire between opposing sides, between policemen and “demonstrators”.

Who are these “demonstrators” including roof top snipers who were targeting the police.

Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) provide a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18. The Israel National News Report (which cannot be accused of being biased in favor of Damascus) reviews these same events as follows:

Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday.
…. On Friday police opened fire on armed protesters killing four and injuring as many as 100 others. According to one witness, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, “They used live ammunition immediately — no tear gas or anything else.”
…. In an uncharacteristic gesture intended to ease tensions the government offered to release the detained students, but seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)

The Lebanese news report, quoting various sources, also acknowledges the killings of seven policemen in Daraa: They were killed  “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a” 

The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a”  (emphasis added)

These news reports of the events in Daraa confirm the following:

1. This was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media. Several of the “demonstrators” had fire arms and were using them against the police:  “The police opened fire on armed protesters killing four”.

2. From the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than demonstrators who were killed:  7 policemen killed versus 4 demonstrators. This is significant because it suggests that the police force might have been initially outnumbered by a well organized armed gang. According to Syrian media sources, there were also snipers on rooftops which were shooting at both the police and the protesters.

What is clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson. The title of the Israeli news report summarizes what happened:  Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests.  The title suggests that the “demonstrators” rather than the police had the upper hand.

The Daraa “protest movement” on March 18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving, in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence. Government sources point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel)

Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement.

What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent clashes on 17-18 March, is the confrontation between the police and the armed forces on the one hand and armed units of terrorists and snipers on the other which had infiltrated the protest movement.

Reports suggest that these terrorists are integrated by Islamists. There is no concrete evidence as to which Islamic organizations are behind the terrorists and the government has not released corroborating information as to who these groups are.

Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), among others have paid lip service to the protest movement. Hizb ut Tahir (led in the 1980s by Syrian born Omar Bakri Muhammad) tends to “dominate the British Islamist scene” according to Foreign Affairs. Hizb ut Tahir is also considered to be of strategic importance to Britain’s Secret Service MI6. in the pursuit of Anglo-American interests in the Middle East and Central Asia. (Is Hizb-ut-Tahrir another project of British MI6? | State of Pakistan).

Hizb ut-Tahrir anti-Assad rally in Tripoli, Lebanon (40 km from Syrian border), April 22, 2011. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Syria

Syria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance, where Muslims and Christians have for several centuries lived in peace. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical political movement committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed objective is to destabilize the secular state.

Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as Israel’s Mossad have consistently used various Islamic terrorist organizations as “intelligence assets”. Both Washington and its indefectible British ally have provided covert support to “Islamic terrorists” in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to triggering ethnic strife, sectarian violence and political instability.

The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The insurrection in Eastern Libya is integrated by the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA. The ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and fabrications, is to create divisions within Syrian society as well as justify an eventual “humanitarian intervention”.

Armed Insurrection in Syria

An armed insurrection integrated by Islamists and supported covertly by Western intelligence is central to an understanding of what is occurring on the ground.

The existence of an armed insurrection is not mentioned by the Western media. If it were to be acknowledged and analysed, our understanding of unfolding events would be entirely different.

What is mentioned profusely is that the armed forces and the police are involved in the indiscriminate killing of protesters.

The deployment of the armed forces including tanks in Daraa is directed against an organized armed insurrection, which has been active in the border city since March 17-18.

Casualties are being reported which also include the death of policemen and soldiers.

In a bitter irony, the Western media acknowledges the police/soldier deaths while denying the existence of an armed insurrection.

The key question is how does the media explain these deaths of soldiers and police?

Without evidence, the reports suggest authoritatively that the police is shooting at the soldiers and vice versa the soldiers are shooting on the police. In a April 29 Al Jazeera report, Daraa is described as “a city under siege”.

“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.

Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him – neither with the secret police,  paid thugs or the special forces of his brother’s military division – President Bashar al-Assad has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Deraa for an operation the regime wants nobody in the world to see.
Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut, including the Jordanian mobile service that reaches into the city from just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered firsthand accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from eyewitnesses inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.
The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being killed or wounded, in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is created the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating crackdown. (Daraa, a City under Siege, IPS / Al Jazeera, April 29, 2011)

The Al Jazeera report borders on the absurd. Read carefully.

“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out”,  “thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Daraa”

This situation has prevailed for several weeks. This means that bona fide protesters who are not already inside Daraa cannot enter Daraa.

People who live in the city are in their homes: “nobody dares walk … the streets”. If nobody dares walk the streets where are the protesters?

Who is in the streets? According to Al Jazeera, the protesters are in the streets together with the soldiers, and both the protesters and the soldiers are being shot at by “plain clothes secret police”, by “paid thugs” and government sponsored snipers.

The impression conveyed in the report is that these casualties are attributed to infighting between the police and the military.

But the report also says that the soldiers (in the “thousands”) control all roads in and out of the city, but they are being shot upon by the plain clothed secret police.

The purpose of this web of media deceit, namely outright fabrications  –where soldiers are being killed by police and  “government snipers”– is to deny the existence of armed terrorist groups. The later are integrated by snipers and “plain clothed terrorists” who are shooting at the police, the Syrian armed forces and local residents.

These are not spontaneous acts of terror; they are carefully planned and coordinated attacks. In recent developments, according to a Xinhua report (April 30, 2011), armed “terrorist groups” “attacked the housing areas for servicemen” in Daraa province, “killing a sergeant and wounding two”.

While the government bears heavy responsibility for its mishandling of the military-police operation, including the deaths of civilians, the reports confirm that the armed terrorist groups had also opened fire on protesters and local residents. The casualties are then blamed on the armed forces and the police and the Bashar Al Assad government is portrayed by “the international community” as having ordered countless atrocities.

The fact of the matter is that foreign journalists are banned from reporting inside Syria, to the extent that much of the information including the number of casualties is obtained from the unverified accounts of “witnesses”.

It is in the interest of the US-NATO alliance to portray the events in Syria as a peaceful protest movement which is being brutally repressed by a “dictatorial regime”.

The Syrian government may be autocratic. It is certainly not a model of democracy but neither is the US administration, which is characterized by rampant corruption, the derogation of civil liberties under the Patriot legislation, the legalisation of torture, not to mention its “bloodless” “humanitarian wars”:

“The U.S. and its NATO allies have, in addition to U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO Active Endeavor military assets permanently deployed in the Mediterranean, warplanes, warships and submarines engaged in the assault against Libya that can be used against Syria at a moment’s notice.
On April 27 Russia and China evidently prevented the U.S. and its NATO allies from pushing through an equivalent of Resolution 1973 against Syria in the Security Council, with Russian deputy ambassador to the UN Alexander Pankin stating that the current situation in Syria “does not present a threat to international peace and security.” Syria is Russia’s last true partner in the Mediterranean and the Arab world and hosts one of only two Russian overseas naval bases, that at Tartus. (The other being in Ukraine’s Crimea.)” (Rick Rozoff,   Libyan Scenario For Syria: Towards A US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention” directed against Syria? Global Research, April 30, 2011)

The ultimate purpose is to trigger sectarian violence and political chaos within Syria by covertly supporting Islamic terrorist organizations.

What lies ahead?

The longer term US foreign policy perspective is “regime change” and the destabilization of Syria as an independent nation-state, through a covert process of “democratization” or through military means.

Syria is on the list of “rogue states”, which are targeted for a US military intervention. As confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark the “[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark).

The objective is to weaken the structures of the secular State while justifying an eventual  UN sponsored “humanitarian intervention”. The latter, in the first instance, could take the form of a reinforced embargo on the country (including sanctions) as well as the freezing of Syrian bank assets in overseas foreign financial institutions.

While a US-NATO military intervention in the immediate future seems highly unlikely, Syria is nonetheless on the Pentagon’s military roadmap, namely an eventual war on Syria has been contemplated both by Washington and Tel Aviv.

If it were to occur, at some future date, it would lead to escalation. Israel would inevitably be involved. The entire Middle East Central Asian region from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Chinese-Afghan border would flare up.

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Editor of globalresearch.ca. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.  He spent a month in Syria in early 2011.