So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and deliver me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me." Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and captured it, and carried the people of it away into exile to Kir, and put Rezin to death. Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the pattern of the altar and its model, according to all its workmanship. So Urijah the priest built an altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, thus Urijah the priest made it, before the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus. When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; then the king approached the altar and went up to it, and burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

- 2 Kings 16:7-13

[Note: This is the second part in a series of alerts that will consider various Op-Ed and news reports on the current situation in the Middle East outside of our normal corporate MSM Western/NATO controlled paradigm. However, this collection contains a mix of many traditional sources as well, just not with the normal surroundings, settings and spins.

Caveat: I consider myself conservative on the political spectrum, however, what I find quite irritating is that conservative and Christian journalists rarely write anything that questions the ethics and motivation of our government concerning military leadership and strategies (or should I say Military Industrial Complex) outside of the political arena. This is unfortunate and should not be a "no go" area. Legitimate questions need to be asked as to why our countries do certain things, and these questions are not being asked or investigated, thus the need to dig into what many of my friends would call liberal, "commie" and even 'enemy' journalism. That should be an encouragement for all journalists to wake up out of their biases, so this need would not be.]

Be Alert has a simple goal: It is sent out regularly and includes news items of Biblical significance, encouragement, and warning to the body of Christ to help keep you looking up for our soon and coming King, Jesus Christ.

However, with the speed of which current events take place and the speed that the media propagates them, it is nearly impossible to keep up let alone alert each other to the importance. I have often envisioned 'BE ALERT!' becoming a three column 24/7 updated website vis-�-vis The Drudge Report, et al. only geared to the discerning believer in The Lord Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha Mashiach). Perhaps someday Lord willing, but now it is on my heart that we need to encourage one another to not jump to conclusions but be diligent in trying to hold all things up to the light of the whole council of Scripture whether it be things in the church or events concerning Israel and the nations. We have arrived at a time where we all need to be discerning and at least have the basic tools to search out a matter.

Regardless of this, I believe we have come to a point where what we have long trusted in America and our Western counterparts as journalism and "hard news" has essentially become disinformation and deception. Yes, there are factually correct accounts (many times not) but the editing, dramatization, "spin," and commentary added all combine to create a slick distorted facade, sometimes purposely and other times for entertainment sake. This in not unlike what we have seen today's hype-artistry 'seeker' preachers do in the modern-mega church. Perhaps I am preaching to the choir on this - but I always have a lingering suspicion about the stupor my fellow Christian Americans are in concerning this issue.

Nevertheless, depending on the particular news story, we can no longer give credibility to what is reported and why. You may have come across a new term made often by journalists and media professionals referring to something called "the narrative." A reporter from ABC News America used the term in an interview titled Media Failing Country on August 21. Narrative implies a "one sided" or single viewpoint rather than objective reporting on a matter.

I hate to belabor the point, but from a Born Again Christian perspective, the media has always been fallen, but in the last few years, it has completely been 'given over' to their baal and master, the prince of the power of the air [waves].  

Just a couple weeks ago, a homosexual activist walked into the conservative Christian Family Research Council and shot a guard, a story pretty much ignored by the media. In America, mass shootings are 'sacred' events for the satanic media because they can immediately go on tirades about the evil of guns and make connotations between guns and Judeo-Christian beliefs. However, the one problem seems to be that nearly every shooting turns out to be someone with serious mental health problems, Islamist beliefs, "real" hate group connections, such as this one, or often times a personal issue such as the shooting that took place last week at the Empire State Building. Since the police shot a number of bystanders, and the story could be tied to the horrendous economy and unemployment, this received much attention.

When it comes to salvation God says:

"Come now, and let us reason together,"

Says the LORD,

"Though your sins are as scarlet,

They will be as white as snow;

Though they are red like crimson,

They will be like wool.

- Isaiah 1:18

Our God is a God of reason. He wants us to think through things, not just blindly except whatever is "dished out." He is that way regarding the gospel and He is that way regarding all things. He wants His people to think and reason through what is happening in their lives and the world around them always using His Word of Truth as a lamp to the light the way and a plumb-line to keep things straight.

However, the ruler of this world does not want this, he prefers deception, diversion and slavery, undoubtedly, his minions follow in accord, and that is the continuing point in this series of alerts concerning the Middle East. Certainly, I do not agree with everything that is suggested by some of the commentary included below. But my goal is to continue to broaden our understanding as to how various groups are viewing these current events. We have is a general state of confusion not only among the world but believers also when it comes to understanding what is going on and why? Confusion is not from our God but from the god of this world and in particular related to Mystery Babylon.

Pilate *said to Him, "What is truth?" ...

- John 18:38a

In one sense we should not be surprised that Pilate first responded in this way to Jesus' statement. Being familiar with Herod, the Herodians, and the elite of the Jews he was likely exposed to much religious hypocrisy during his entire career. He had likely heard of the many Jewish laws only to see them cleverly twisted and broken for political gain and expediency. The same is true today in the sense that we have the perceived Christian countries like the United States and Britain working with Israel in what I can only refer to as slimy, underhanded and lawless ways, supposedly as "the good guys," against what we know are despots, but in the process, empowering terrorists, putting greater despots in power, and trouncing believers. I ask, what kind of good guys have these nations of ours become? What our countries are doing these days is akin to our local police hiring, training and arming gangs of thugs to fight crime in our neighborhoods. This is what our elected officials and our highest levels of military and secret agencies do all in adulterous union with the great harlot and then they use the bought and paid for media to propagate their lies to us and berate us into submission. 

In the first alert in this series, I tried to make a case that US/NATO involvement was behind rebel groups in Syria and the increase of power in al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. I think there is ample evidence even in our own misleading media reports that this is occurring. We have a strange case of the US State Dept. complaining that Iran is interfering in Syria when we are doing the very same thing. We complain that Russia and China are not signing on the line to implement new UN resolutions but they rightly complain that we are interfering with the ones already passed. As born-again believers filled with the Holy Spirit, we need to view all these things as citizens of Heaven, not of any nation or kingdom on earth. Christians are being routed out and put to death everywhere in the Middle East and Israel is being set up for the ultimate deception whether any of her leaders of are aware or not as they play this game.

Please briefly recall these previous recent alerts on the growing persecution of our brethren because of US/NATO efforts:

Be Alert: What time of the night

Be Alert: From six troubles He will deliver you

What will ultimately become of the US/NATO at the end of this, I do not know, but many of the NATO countries are part of the original Roman Empire. Further, I know not if the persons who will ultimately rise to be the antichrist and false prophet are yet somewhere on the scene and somehow participating or observing these schemes employed by the US, Britain, NATO, Israel and Saudi Arabia, but if they are not, the pattern is surely being laid out to deceive the nations and Israel is indeed calling on the King of Assyria again for deliverance.  

Concerning Syria, and Damascus:

The oracle concerning Damascus. "Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city and will become a fallen ruin. - Isaiah 17:1

In 2 Kings 16:9 the King of Assyria captured Damascus and carried the people away into exile. However, to the best of my understanding, Damascus was not "removed" from being a city. The phrase "to be removed" is the Hebrew word cuwr, which here means to be abolished as it is also translated in Dan 12:11 regarding the regular sacrifice. Because of what is occurring presently in the Middle East, Preterists have been trying to explain passages like this away by saying all prophecy has been fulfilled. It has not and it will happen again.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/gop-votes-to-back-two-state-solution-in-middle-eas 

"There is no demand in the Annan Plan for Bashar al-Assad to step down before any ceasefire, contrary to what Hillary Clinton repeats after insisting the US also backs the Annan Plan. The Annan Plan calls for a diplomatic solution. The US clearly does not want a diplomatic solution. It wants regime change and evidently widening war across the Shi'ite-Sunni divide of the Muslim world."

Since reassuming his post as Russia's President, Vladimir Putin has lost no minute in addressing the most urgent geopolitical threats to Russia internationally. Not surprisingly, at the center of his agenda is the explosive situation in the Middle East, above all Syria. Here Putin is engaging every imaginable means of preventing a further deterioration of the situation into what easily could become another "world war by miscalculation." His activities in recent weeks involve active personal diplomacy with Syria's government as well as the so-called opposition "Syrian National Council." It involves intense diplomacy with Erdogan's Turkey regime. It involves closed door diplomacy with Obama. It involves direct diplomacy with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu.

Syria itself, contrary to what most western media portray, is a long-standing multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant secular state with an Alawite Muslim President Bashar Al-Assad, married to a Sunni wife. The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam which doesn't force their women to wear head scarves and are liberal by Sunni standards, especially in the fundamentalist places like Saudi Arabia where women are forbidden to even hold a driver's license. The overall Syrian population is a diverse mix of Alawites, Druze and Kurds, Sunnis, and Armenian Orthodox Christians. Were the minority regime of Al-Assad to fall, experts estimate that, like in Egypt, the murky Sunni (as in Saudi Arabia) Muslim Brotherhood organization would emerge as the dominant organized political force, something certainly not welcome in Tel Aviv and certainly not in either Russia or China.¹

According to an informed assessment by Gajendra Singh, retired Indian diplomat with decades of service in the Middle East and a deep familiarity with the ethnic mix inside Syria, were the minority Alawite regime of Al-Assad to fall, the country would rapidly descend into a bloodbath that would make estimates of 17,000 killed to date a mere prelude. Singh estimates, "A defeat of Assad led regime will lead to slaughter of Alawites, Shias, Christians, even Kurds and Druzes. In all, 20 % of a population of 20 Million."²

That would be some 4 million Syrians. That ought to be food for thought for those in the West cheering on a murky dubious opposition "Syrian National Council" that is dominated by the ominous Muslim Brotherhood, and an armed opposition "Free Syrian Army" that has been reported even by the New York Times as rife with factional armed splits. Moreover the conflict were it to descend into a Libya-like internal bloodbath, would spill over across the Syrian border into Turkey. Syrian coastal area has a significant Alawite population and a large number of Alawites live in the adjoining Turkish provinces of Hatay and Antakya.

To sort out fact from fiction inside Syria is daunting as media are limited and opposition spokesmen have been repeatedly caught lying about events. In one recent instance, a UK journalist claimed he was deliberately led into a potential death trap by rebel opposition forces to score propaganda against the Damascus regime. The UK Channel 4 News's chief correspondent, Alex Thomson, told AP that Syrian rebels set him up to die in no man's land near the Lebanese border, saying they wanted to use his death at the hands of government forces to score propaganda points.³ And in one brazen example of political manipulation, BBC was recently caught publishing a photograph it claimed was of a massacre at Al-Houla on 25 May 2012, in which 108 persons are known to have died including 49 children. It turned out the picture had been taken by Italian photo journalist, Marco Di Lauro in Iraq in 2003.⁴

The stakes in this geopolitical chess game are nothing less than survival first of Syria as a sovereign nation, whatever its flaws and defects. More, it ultimately involves the survival of Iran, Russia and China as sovereign nations together with the other BRIC states Brazil, India and South Africa. Longer term, it involves the matter of survival of civilization as we know it and avoidance of a world war that would decimate the world population not by tens of millions as seventy years ago but likely this time by billions.

The Syria stakes for Moscow

Russia's Putin has drawn a deep hard line in the sand around the survival of Al-Assad and Syria as a stable state. Few ask why Russia is warning of possible world war if Washington persists to demand immediate regime change in Syria as Hillary Clinton is doing. It is not because Russia is intent on advancing its own imperialist agenda in the Middle East. It's in little shape militarily and economically to do so even if it had wanted. Rather, it is about preserving port rights to Russia's only Mediterranean naval port at Tartus, the only remaining Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union, and its only Mediterranean fueling spot. In event of a showdown with NATO the base becomes strategic to Russia.

Yet there is more at stake for Russia. Putin and Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have made clear were NATO and the USA to launch military action against Assad's Syria, the consequences would be staggering. Reliable sources in Damascus have reported the presence of at least 100,000 Russian "technical advisers" in the country. That's a lot, and a Russian freighter carrying rebuilt Russian Mi-25 attack helicopters is reportedly bound for Syria, while several days earlier a Russian naval flotilla sailed for Tartus led by the Russian destroyer, Admiral Chabanenko.

An earlier attempt to send the rebuilt helicopters back to Syria which had earlier purchased them, was blocked in June off Scotland's coast when it sailed under a non-Russian freighter flag. Now Moscow has made clear it will tolerate no interference in its traffic with Damascus. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, announced that "The fleet will be sent on task to guarantee the safety of our ships, to prevent anyone interfering with them in the event of a blockade. I remind you there are no limits," he soberly added.5 In so many words, what Moscow is announcing is that it is willing to face a 21^st Century version of the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis if NATO foolishly persists in pressing regime change in Damascus.

As it has openly emerged that the so-called democratic opposition in Syria is being dominated by the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood, hardly an organization renowned for multi-ethnic democratic tendencies, a victory for a US-backed Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria, Moscow also believes, would unleash a wave of Muslim-led destabilizations across Central Asia into republics of the former Soviet Union. China is also extremely sensitive about such a danger, only recently confronted with bloody riots of Muslim organization in its oil-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province, quietly sponsored by the US Government.⁶

Russia has joined firmly with China since both nations fell into a catastrophic trap over abstaining in the UN Security Council from vetoing the US Resolution. That US resolution opened the door to NATO destruction of not only Mohammar Ghaddafi, but of Libya itself as a functioning country. This author has spoken personally in Moscow and in Beijing since the Libya debacle asking well-informed persons in both places how in effect they could have been so short-sighted on Libya. They both clearly have since concluded that further advance of Washington's agenda for what George W. Bush called the Greater Middle East Project is diametrically opposed to the national interest of both China and Russia, hence the iron opposition to the NATO agenda in Syria for regime change. To date Russia and China, Permanent veto members of the UN Security Council, have three times exercised their veto over new US-sponsored sanctions against Syria, the latest on July 19.

Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insist on a strict adherence to the proposed peace plan of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Unlike what Washington prefers to generously read into it, the Six Point Annan Plan calls for no regime change, rather for a negotiated settlement and end to the fighting on both sides, a ceasefire.

Washington's Janus-faced duplicity

Aligned on the side of violent regime change in Syria are a bizarre coalition that includes, in addition to Washington and its European "vassal states" (as Zbigniew Brzezinski called European NATO members),⁷ most prominently Saudi Arabia, hardly a regime anyone would accuse of being a paragon of democracy. Another lead role against Damascus is being played by Qatar, home to US military as well as the blatantly pro-NATO propaganda channel Al-Jazeera. In addition, the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is providing training and space to prepare armed mercenaries and others to flow over the border into neighboring Syria.

An attempt by the Erdogan government to send a Turkish Phantom air force fighter jet into Syrian airspace flying provocatively low, apparently in order to incite a "Gulf of Tonkin" incident to fan flames of NATO intervention a la Libya two weeks ago, fell flat when Turkey's general staff issued a statement saying: "No traces of explosives or flammable products were found on the debris recovered from the sea." Erdogan was forced to shift his line to cover face, no longer using the phrase, "shot down by Syria" and instead referring to "our plane that Syria claimed to have destroyed."⁸ NATO has established a command and control center in Iskenderun, in Turkey's Hatay province, near the Syrian border months ago to organize, train and arm the "anything but" Free Syrian Army.⁹ The Obama Administration, not wanting a full Syria war before US elections in November, reportedly also told Erdogan to "cool it" for now.

Most westerners who take their knowledge of world affairs religiously from the pages of the Washington Post or CNN or BBC are convinced the Syrian mess is a clear cut case of "good guys" (the so-named Syrian National Council and its rag-tag makeshift "Free Syrian Army") versus the "bad guys" (the Al-Assad dictatorship with its armed forces). For more than a year western media has run footage, some as noted, not even filmed in Syria, claiming that innocent, unarmed opposition civilian pro-democracy populations are being massacred ruthlessly in a one-sided butchery by the regime.

They never explain how it would serve Assad to alienate his strongest asset to survival, namely the support of a majority of Syrians against what he has accurately named foreign intervention into sovereign Syrian affairs.

Indeed numerous eyewitness journalist accounts from inside Turkey and Syria including RT have alleged that from the beginning the "peaceful democratic opposition" had secretly been provided with arms and training, often inside camps across on the Turkish side. Professor Ibrahim Alloush from Zaytouneh University in Jordan told RT,

"Weaponry is being smuggled into Syria in large quantities from all over the place. It is pretty clear that the rebels have been receiving arms from abroad and Syrian television has been showing almost daily shipments of arms being smuggled into Syria via Lebanon, Turkey and other border crossings. Since the rebels are being supported by the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] and by NATO it is safe to assume that they are getting their financing and weaponry from the same sources that are offering them political cover and financial backing." ¹⁰

One veteran Turkish journalist whom this author interviewed in Ankara in April, just back from an extensive tour of Syria, gave his eyewitness account of the capture of a small band of "opposition" fighters. The journalist, fluent in Arabic, was astonished as he witnessed the head of the rebels demand to know why their military captors spoke Arabic. When told that was their native language, the rebel leader blurted out, "But you should speak Hebrew, you're with the Israeli Army aren't you?"

In short, the mercenaries had been blitz-trained across the border in Turkey, given Kalashnikovs and a fistful of dollars and told they were making a jihad against the Israeli Army. They did not even know who they were fighting. In other instances, mercenaries recruited from Afghanistan and elsewhere and financed by Saudi money, including alleged members of Al Qaeda, make up the "democratic opposition" to the established regime of Al-Assad.

Even the ultimate US establishment newspaper, The New York Times, has been forced to admit that the CIA has been pouring arms into the Syrian opposition. They reported, "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. The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria's Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said."¹¹

The International Committee for the Red Cross now classifies the conflict as a civil war.¹² Peter Wallensteen, a leading peace researcher at the University of Uppsala and the director of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, stated that, "It's increasingly an internationalized civil war, and as we know from previous history, the more internationalized, the longer the conflict will be...there is a civil war, but now so many weapons are coming from the outside, that there is actually an internationalized civil war." ¹³

According to Mary Ellen O'Connell, a respected legal scholar and professor of law and international dispute resolution at the University of Notre Dame, "The International Committee of the Red Cross statement means that the Assad regime is facing an organized armed opposition engaging in military force, and it has the legal right to respond in kind. The Syrian military will have more authority to kill persons based on their being part of the armed opposition than when Assad was restricted to using force under peacetime rules."¹⁴ The rebel opposition groups claim it means just the opposite.

While the US State Department makes pious pronouncements of their supporting "democracy" and demanding Al-Assad step down and recognize the dubious and factionalized opposition of the Syrian National Council, an exile group dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, Russia is working skillfully on the diplomatic front to weaken the Western march to war.

Putin's shrewd diplomacy

Now, no sooner did Vladimir Putin again take the office as Russia's President on May 7 than he embarked on a complex series of diplomatic missions to defuse or hopefully derail Washington's Syrian game plan. On July 16 Putin hosted a Moscow visit of Kofi Annan where he repeated Moscow's unflinching support for the Annan Peace Plan. ¹⁵

Because of the considerable media distortions it's useful to read the actual text of the six-point Annan plan:

(1) commit to work with the Envoy in an inclusive Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people, and, to this end, commit to appoint an empowered interlocutor when invited to do so by the Envoy;

(2) commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilise the country.

To this end, the Syrian government should immediately cease troop movements towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centres, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centres.

As these actions are being taken on the ground, the Syrian government should work with the Envoy to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism.

Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism;

(3) ensure timely provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the fighting, and to this end, as immediate steps, to accept and implement a daily two hour humanitarian pause and to coordinate exact time and modalities of the daily pause through an efficient mechanism, including at local level;

(4) intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons, including especially vulnerable categories of persons, and persons involved in peaceful political activities, provide without delay through appropriate channels a list of all places in which such persons are being detained, immediately begin organizing access to such locations and through appropriate channels respond promptly to all written requests for information, access or release regarding such persons;

(5) ensure freedom of movement throughout the country for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them;

(6) respect freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed.¹⁶

There is no demand in the Annan Plan for Bashar al-Assad to step down before any ceasefire, contrary to what Hillary Clinton repeats after insisting the US also backs the Annan Plan. The Annan Plan calls for a diplomatic solution. The US clearly does not want a diplomatic solution. It wants regime change and evidently widening war across the Shi'ite-Sunni divide of the Muslim world.

Moscow and Beijing just as clearly want to draw the line and prevent chaos spreading from Syria. On July 19, again Russia and China, both veto members at the UN Security Council blocked a new US-backed resolution on Syria they insisted was designed to open the door to a Libya-like military intervention into Syria. The resolution had been drafted by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, and would have opened the door for a Chapter 7 resolution of the UN Security Council on Syria. Chapter 7 allows the 15-member council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.¹⁷ The Hague resolution demanded that the Syrian government in 10 days pull out all its heavy weapons from urban areas and return troops to barracks. Nothing was said about disarming the "Free Syrian Army." Washington claimed it would only be interested in economic or diplomatic sanctions, not military. Of course. Hmmmm...

Putin has more than a little leverage to use with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Erdogan was in Moscow just prior to the July 19 UN Security Council vote to discuss Syria with Putin.¹⁸ Turkey is the second-largest buyer of Russian natural gas, some 80% of its natural gas coming from Russia's state-controlled Gazprom. ¹⁹ Turkey's entire "energy hub" strategy of playing a key role in gas flows from Eurasia, the Middle east to Europe depends on gas from Russia and Iran. One year ago a $10 billion pipeline deal was signed between Iran, Iraq and Syria for a natural gas pipeline from Iran's huge South Pars field to Iraq, Syria and on to Turkey, eventually connecting to Europe.²⁰

Putin had also gone to Tel Aviv on June 21 to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.²¹ Russian influence inside Israel is not minor. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union some six million Russians, mostly Jews, have emigrated to Israel over the past two decades. Ultimately Israel cannot be overjoyed at the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood-run Syrian opposition coming to power in neighboring Syria. While few details emerged of the content of the talks, it is clear that Putin delivered the message that a "destroyed, disoriented and broken up Syria would not help Israel. Syria has the second, most well-organized Muslim Brotherhood organization after Egypt," according to former Indian Ambassador K. Gajendra Singh.²²

Then on July 11, Putin and Lavrov invited Abdel Basset Sayda, the new head of the US-backed opposition organization, Syrian National Council, to Moscow for "talks." Sayda, who is from the Kurdish Syrian minority and has lived twenty years in Swedish exile, is a curious figure as opposition spokesman, from the Kurd minority in Syria, a man with little or no active political experience, clearly chosen mainly to hide the dominant Muslim Brotherhood profile of the SNC. Russia reportedly made it clear to Sayda they would continue to block any attempts to oust Assad and that the opposition need seriously adhere to the Annan Plan and negotiate a settlement. Sayda for his part made clear no negotiations until Assad is gone, a stance that is feeding the bloodshed.²³

There are signs in all the bloodshed and escalation of violence that Putin reached some quiet deal as well with Obama to keep war off the table until Obama is past the November elections. Russia recently agreed to reopen supply lines for US military supplies in Afghanistan at the same time Washington orchestrated an "apology" for the recent killings of civilians in Pakistan with its drones.²⁴

Veteran roving journalist Pepe Escobar recently summed up the situation in all its grim reality:

"Turkey will keep offering the logistical base for mercenaries coming from "liberated" Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon. The House of Saud will keep coming up with the cash to weaponize them. And Washington, London and Paris will keep fine-tuning the tactics in what remains the long, simmering foreplay for a NATO attack on Damascus. Even though the armed Syrian opposition does not control anything remotely significant inside Syria, expect the mercenaries reportedly weaponized by the House of Saud and Qatar to become even more ruthless. Expect the not-exactly-Free Syrian Army to keep mounting operations for months, if not years. A key point is whether enough supply lines will remain in place - if not from Jordan, certainly from Turkey and Lebanon."²⁴

  Notes

1 David Harding, How a meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood offers new hope to Syria's rebels, The Daily Mail, 18 July 2012, accessed in http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2175295/How-meeting-Muslim-Brotherhood-offers-new-hope-Syrias-rebels.html#ixzz20zdHkpBv

2 Gajendra Singh, Syria: An update on internal, regional and international standoff, 18 July, 2012, email to author.

3 Raphael Satter, UK journalist Syria rebels led me into death trap, Associated Press, June 8, 2012, accessed in

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-journalist-syria-rebels-led-death-trap-195428598.html.

4 Richard Lightbown, Syria: Media Lies, Hidden Agendas and Strange Alliances, Global Research, June 18, 2012, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31491

5 Tom Parfitt, Russian ship with helicopters for Syrian regime sets sail again, The Telegraph, 13 July, 2012.

6 F. William Engdahl, Washington is Playing a Deeper Game with China, Global Research, June 11, 2009, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14327

7 The vassal quote by Zbigniew Brzezinski: "...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial (American-ed.) geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.", The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives , 1997, p. 40.

8 Adrian Blomfield, Syria: Turkey jet crash may have been accident, The Telegraph, 12 July, 2012, accessed in

9 Pepe Escobar, Why Turkey won't go to War with Syria, July 8, 2012, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/Why-Turkey-won-t-go-to-war-with

10 RT, Syrian opposition getting 'daily shipments' of arms, 08 February, 2012, accessed in http://www.rt.com/news/syria-opposition-weapon-smuggling-843/

11 Eric Schmitt, CIA Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition, The New York Times, June 21, 2012, accessed in http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all

12 Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon , Syrian forces surround rebels fighting in capital, Reuters, July 16 2012, accessed in http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/16/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120716

13 Victor Kotsev , Chaos in Syria overshadows rebels' hopes, Asia Times, July 18, 2012, accessed in http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG18Ak02.html

14 Ibid.

15 AFP, Russia's Putin to meet Annan for Syria talks, 15 July 2012, http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/109-world-top-news/67866-russias-putin-to-meet-annan-for-syria-talks-.html

16 "Six-Point Proposal Presented to Syrian Authorities", UN Security Council. 21 March 2012.

17 Voltaire Network, Russia, China veto UN resolution on Syria for third time, 19 July 2012, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/Russia-China-veto-UN-resolution-on

18 Rian.ru, Putin Meets Turkey's Erdogan Ahead of UN Syria Vote, 19 July 2012 accessed in http://www.turkishweekly.net/print.asp?type=1&id=138726

19 F. William Engdahl, The Geopolitical Great Game: Turkey and Russia Moving Closer, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/The-Geopolitical-Great-Game-Turkey

20 Pepe Escobar, op. cit.

21 AFP, op. cit

22 K. Gajendra Singh, Will Putin's Israel Visit Calm Middle East Tempest?, June, 2012, accessed in http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2012/06/will-putins-israel-visit-calm-middle.html

23 RT, Syrian National Council in Moscow for first-ever talks, RT.com, 11 July, 2012, accessed in

http://rt.com/politics/syria-russia-lavrov-moscow-talks-912/print/

24 Pepe Escobar, op. cit.

25 Ibid.

F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by F. William Engdahl

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
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pdf version here
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Putin%20Chess.pdf   

• Muslim Brotherhood is funded by & serves as the primary instrument of US, Israel, & Saudi Arabia.
• Lebanon was designated as staging ground to destabilize Syria with sectarian extremists.
• Saudi and Muslim Brotherhood anti-Israeli and American sentiments are feigned.
• US intelligence knew in advance unleashing sectarian extremists would result in genocide.
• Saudis & Americans admit sectarian extremists - the foundation of Al Qaeda - are under their control. 

As previously stated, the Muslim Brotherhood and various "hardline" sectarian political factions sweeping into power in the wake of the US-engineered "Arab Spring," have been feigning anti-Israeli and anti-Western sentiments in an attempt to swell their ranks with followers before ultimately forming a united sectarian-front against Iran.

The creation of a united sectarian-front was noted by geopolitical analyst Dr. Webster Tarpley who has from the beginning stated that the various possible governments resulting from these engineered revolutions "could then be used to support the fundamental US-UK strategy for the Middle East, which is to assemble a block of Arab and aligned sectarian countries (notably Egypt, Saudis, Gulf states, and Jordan) which, formed into a front with the participation of Israel, would collide with the Iranian Shiite front, including Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and various radical forces."   

Confirming this is a 2007 New Yorker article recently pointed out by a reader titled, "The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" Written by renowned journalist Seymour Hersh, it covers everything from admissions that the US, Saudis, and Israelis are working together, despite the Saudis and their sectarian proxies' attempts to portray themselves as "anti-Israeli," to admissions that the US is funding a region-wide network of militants and terrorists, many of whom have literally trained at Al Qaeda camps. The article also describes in great detail the role of the Hariri faction in Lebanon, working closely with the Saudis and Americans, and their role in creating a safe haven for terrorist organizations on Lebanese soil, now involved fully in destabilizing neighboring Syria.

Clearly, what has been recently portrayed by the West as mere "claims" by the Syrian government that the Saudis, Lebanese, and NATO were conspiring against them, is simply the fruition of the US policy exposed fully in the New Yorker in 2007. While many analysts have treated the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and their involvement in Syria's uprising as a somewhat nebulous phenomenon, the New Yorker's 2007 makes it clear that the Brotherhood is one of the primary instruments used by the Saudis as part of a US-Israeli-Saudi effort to eliminate Syria and Iran. Not only that, but the report indicates that the US itself has been funding and using the Muslim Brotherhood as well.

Just as the US State Department feigned shock and confusion at the "Arab Spring" it had been preparing for the last 3 years, it is likewise reacting with feigned confusion and dismay over the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the "Arab Spring's" wake. In reality it is a premeditated consequence of US foreign policy spanning both the Bush and now the Obama administrations.

While in 2007, all of this was, "soon to be," in retrospect we see just how devastatingly accurate Hersh's reporting was. It is clear now, with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the sectarian-extremist dominated, foreign-funded destabilization ravaging Syria, that this policy created during the Bush administration, has transcended presidencies and is being brought to its premeditated conclusion under Obama - yet another example of "continuity of agenda."

Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States Are Behind Syria's Violence.
The evidence trickling out of the corporate-media regarding who the armed Syrian opposition is, reveals that it is predominately an extremist sectarian-movement, not only including Syrian extremists, but militants crossing the border from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and even from as far as Libya. An alliance of Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia have pledged funds for Syria's militants and has repeatedly called for openly arming them. The US is likewise openly equipping Syrian militants.

This reality is not merely a spontaneous reaction by the "international community," but verbatim what was planned in detail amongst the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia years in advance to topple the Syrian government before moving on to Iran, according to Hersh's 2007 report:

"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 co�perated 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." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

Hersh's report would also include:

"the Saudi government, with Washington's approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

This mirrors sentiments included in the Brookings Institution's 2009 report, "Which Path to Persia?" where it was stated that reaching some sort of conclusion with Syria first was a prerequisite before attacking Iran: 

"...the Israelis may want to hold off until they have a peace deal with Syria in hand (assuming that Jerusalem believes that one is within reach), which would help them mitigate blowback from Hizballah and potentially Hamas. Consequently, they might want Washington to push hard in mediating between Jerusalem and Damascus." -Which Path to Persia? page 109 (.pdf)

Clearly, what we are seeing today in Syria is the full manifestation of this premeditated conspiracy against the government and people of Syria, and in turn, against the Iranians. It should be noted that a US intelligence professional interviewed by Hersh for his story, predicted that the sectarian extremists being prepared in 2007 for today's violence, would most likely go on a genocidal killing spree, as seen in Libya, and now being quietly reported by the Western press in Syria as well:

"Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, "we've got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it's going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites" -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

That the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia premeditated a regional conflict utilizing militant-extremists with full knowledge they would commit wide ranging, genocidal atrocities, is clearly as much in reality a war crime as the US State Department and US representative to the UN Susan Rice have claimed the Syrian government has committed as it desperately attempts to restore order in the face of an admitted act of foreign aggression.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a Tool of US-Israeli-Saudi Machinations.
The Muslim Brotherhood is often portrayed as being anti-Israeli, anti-US, and anti-West in general. In reality they are a creation of and have been ever since servants of expanding Wall Street and London's corporate-financier hegemony across the Islamic World. In Hersh's 2007 report, it is made clear that the Brotherhood was the tool of choice of the US, Israeli, and Saudi elite - with the US and Saudis reported as even then directly funding and backing them - backing that continues to this day, not only in Syria, but in Egypt as well.

The Muslim Brotherhood's rank and file surely believe in what they are being told by their leaders, but their leaders are professional demagogues peddling anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric solely for public consumption while being fully complicit in the West's designs against the Arab World.

Hersh reports that a supporter of the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government:

"[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be "the ones to talk to," Jumblatt said." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007 US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood:  

"There is evidence that the Administration's redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, "The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement." He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front's members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, also interviewed by Hersh for his 2007 article, perhaps described best the geopolitical gambit the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel were and are currently attempting to unfold:

"Nasrallah accused the Bush Administration of working with Israel to deliberately instigate fitna, an Arabic word that is used to mean "insurrection and fragmentation within Islam." "In my opinion, there is a huge campaign through the media throughout the world to put each side up against the other," he said. "I believe that all this is being run by American and Israeli intelligence." (He did not provide any specific evidence for this.) He said that the U.S. war in Iraq had increased sectarian tensions, but argued that Hezbollah had tried to prevent them from spreading into Lebanon. (Sunni-Shiite confrontations increased, along with violence, in the weeks after we talked.)" -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

Indeed, divide and conquer has been used by empires since the beginning of time, and it appears that the very radical extremists the West has featured as civilization's greatest enemy in their fraudulent "War on Terror" is a creation and perpetuation of their own design. The role of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood, betraying millions of Sunni Muslims by exploiting their justified outrage of US-British and Israeli foreign policy, has resulted in terrorism and violence, both spontaneous and engineered, that has destroyed millions of lives. The very "War on Terror" is the "management" of these exploited and cultivated extremists:

"...[Saudi Arabia's] Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that "they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was 'We've created this movement, and we can control it.' It's not that we don't want the Salafis to throw bombs; it's who they throw them at-Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

For Empire, not National Security.

The only fault that can be found in Hersh's tremendous journalistic accomplishment is perhaps the pandering to the notion that all of this demonstrative deceit and indeed, criminality, may be being done in the interest of protecting Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States. In reality, even the Brookings Institution, which was also included in Hersh's report, admits that containing Iran is not a matter of national security for either the US or Israel (let alone Saudi Arabia), but a matter of maintaining the status quo, namely Western hegemony across the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and Israel the principle dual benefactors.

While behind closed doors US policy makers admit Iran, even if it were to obtain nuclear weapons, is driven by self-preservation and protecting the influence it is steadily gaining throughout the Middle Eastern region it borders, the message they desperately seek to relate to the public is one of an irrational apocalyptic theocracy eager to usher in Armageddon.

However, reports out of the RAND corporation note that Iran has had chemical weapons in its inventory for decades, and other reports from RAND describe the strict control elite military units exercise over these weapons, making it unlikely they would end up in the hands of "terrorists." The fact that Iran's extensive chemical weapon stockpile has yet to be disseminated into the hands of non-state actors, along with the fact that these same elite units would in turn handle any Iranian nuclear weapons, lends further evidence to the conclusion that Iran is indeed driven by self-preservation and self-defense.

Brookings notes on pages 24 and 25 of their "Which Path to Persia?" report, that the real threat is not the deployment of these weapons, but rather the deterrence they present, allowing Iran to counter US influence in the region without the fear of an American invasion. The US and the West in general, have viewed the Middle East as nothing more than a divided, broken Ottoman Empire to be used and exploited, and when nationalism or resistance emerges, to be pitted against itself in destructive conflicts.

The fear of a powerful Iran overturning the status quo of Anglo-American hegemony expressed through proxies and multiple strategies of tension, Israel itself being one of them, would open the door for other nations to climb out from beneath the modern heirs of the British and French Empires and begin down the path of true self-determination. That includes freeing the people of Israel laboring under a hijacked government misleading them into a pointless and perpetual conflict with not only the Palestinians, but with the Islamic World itself.

Indeed, the ploy described in incredible detail by Seymour Hersh in 2007, and demonstratively playing out before our eyes today, is not to protect against existential threats to the people of Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the United States, but against existential threats to their leadership's self-serving hegemonic ambitions. It is being peddled by a coalition of Saudis, Americans, and Israelis lying not only to the world, their allies, and their enemies, but to their own people about the nature of the conflict they demand troops and taxpayers to facilitate.   

Balking these murderous machinations is accomplished by Sunnis and Shi'ia not falling into the traps laid out by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, and terror groups and "civil society" NGO's alike, cultivated by these admitted international manipulators. Christians and Jews must likewise avoid the contrived "clash of civilizations" between themselves and hordes of terrorists created and cultivated by their own demagogic leaders.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/05/syrian-war-prequel.html