WORLD SOCIALIST WEBSITE
By Patrick Martin
04/08/2014
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Obama's CIA/FSA mercs with gas launcher |
The “red line” refers to President Obama’s threat to attack Syria if the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons.
The article describes efforts by the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to assist Syrian “rebels” of the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist force linked to Al Qaeda, in staging the poison gas attack on Ghouta on August 21, 2013.
The Syrian government denied responsibility for the Ghouta attack and blamed the “rebels,” who had every reason to carry out the action, which coincided with the arrival of United Nations weapons inspectors in Damascus to investigate previous gas attacks. At the time of the attack, Syrian government forces were retaking areas previously held by the US-backed opposition, which was in disarray and on the point of collapse. It desperately needed a supposed government atrocity to provide a pretext for direct US military intervention against the Assad regime.
Hersh’s report substantiates the Syrian government’s claims, using documents and accounts from US intelligence and military sources. It also provides evidence that President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and other US officials knowingly lied to the American people when they insisted that only the Assad regime could have carried out the Ghouta attack and that US intelligence agencies had proof that Syrian government forces were responsible. (See: New exposé by Seymour Hersh: Turkey staged gas attack to provoke US war on Syria).
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Erdogan with master Obama |
The latest account provides an important new finding—that the Turkish government worked with the al-Nusra Front to engineer the gas attack and blame it on Assad in order to provide a means for the Obama administration to override popular opposition to another US war in the Middle East and launch military action in Syria.
A former intelligence official told Hersh, “We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdogan’s people to push Obama over the red line … They had to escalate to a gas attack in or near Damascus … The deal was to do something spectacular.”
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Syrian child gassed by Obama's CIA/FSA mass murderers |
The main British dailies have also been silent. The Guardian, in addition to censoring Hersh, published a long account of a self-justifying interview on BBC Radio 4 by the notorious liar and war criminal Tony Blair, the former prime minister, defending the Iraq war and advocating military action in Syria.
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CIA/FSA gas victims |
The Turkish media has commented on the Hersh report with a blizzard of vituperation and attempts to defend the Erdogan government. This comes despite the fact that the government recently shut off access to YouTube after someone posted a video of a secret meeting of government officials at which the head of Turkish intelligence discussed staging another provocation inside Syria, such as an attack on a mosque, to provide a pretext for military intervention.
The web site of the Turkish newspaper Zaman published an email sent by the White House press office Sunday night, which read: “We have seen Mr. Hersh’s latest story, which is based solely on information from unnamed sources and which reaches conclusions about the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria that are completely off-base.” Zaman also cites “Turkish diplomatic sources” declaring, “These claims are baseless. We do not take it seriously.”
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CIA Al Jazeera whore Shiulie Ghosh covers for CIA/FSA mecs |
Also silent is the pseudo-left International Socialist Organization, which has campaigned relentlessly to portray the US stooges and Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in the Syrian “rebel” camp as a mass popular revolutionary movement. The ISO publication Socialist Worker swallowed the Ghouta provocation hook, line and sinker, and has not reported or commented on either of Hersh’s exposés on the question.
The author also recommends:
Seymour Hersh exposes US government lies on Syrian sarin attack. [10 December 2013]