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How the U.S. Government Lies About Syria & Ukraine

Eric Zuesse

From the moment it took power in the U.S. in 2009, the Barack Obama Administration was angling to overthrow Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad. And then, by the time of December of 2012, Obama’s team were relying mainly on Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch to lead the tens of thousands of the U.S.-Saudi alliance’s boots-on-the ground ‘moderate rebels’ in this overthrow-Assad war, fighters who have actually been fundamentalist Sunnis recruited from all over the world to come to Syria in order to replace the secular President of Syria, the Alawite Shiite, Assad. Propaganda in the U.S. portrays U.S. Government policy as being driven by a concern for the welfare of the Syrian people: to ‘protect their human rights’ — not to overthrow a government that refuses to cooperate with U.S. oil companies and other corporate interests in the U.S.

But even with the anti-Obama Donald Trump in the White House, there has been nothing really new about any of this U.S. Government scam, any of this attempted-but-never-publicly-acknowledged conquest against the Syrian people. The U.S. Government — along with the U.S.-aristocracy-allied fundamentalist Sunni Saud family, the world’s wealthiest family, who own Saudi Arabia, and who finance the fundamentalist-Sunni Al Qaeda and similar Sunni jihadist organizations — has been trying ever since 1949 to control Syria, and still tries. The main difference between now and 1949 is that the Saud family have become more brazen about conquest than they were, back in 1949, when they had wanted merely that the Syrian Government approve an American-built pipeline for their oil to go into Europe. In the present day, the Sauds are openly at war against Shiites everywhere, even inside Saudi Arabia itself, and are bombing the hell out of the Shiite (Houthi) areas of Yemen, basically trying to take over the entire Middle East, and to destroy Iran, which is the leading Shiite country. The U.S. is allied with the Sauds in all of this.

On 30 March 1949, the CIA, in a coup planned by James Hugh Keeley Jr. and Miles Copeland Jr., replaced the democratically elected Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, replaced him with France’s stooge, General Husni al-Za’im, who displeased King Saud of Saudi Arabia, and so got overthrown and killed on 14 August 1949, by a different France-stooge General, Sami al-Hinnawi. Za’im had left his mark on Syria, however:

The pro-Western Za’im remained in power for three months — long enough to grant [the Saudi-American] Aramco’s Tapline concession to pipe Saudi oil to the Mediterranean.”

But Hinnawi pleased the CIA and Sauds even more than Za’im did, so got the Presidency, and Za’im simply got killed. (The CIA and the Saud family are very demanding of their stooges.)

In December 1949, the CIA, in a coup planned by Miles Copeland (Syria’s third and final coup that year), carried out the desire of King Saud, and installed as Syria’s leader, Adib Shishakli.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia implemented a new policy towards Syria by giving financial support amounting to six million dollars.”

Shishakli’s barbarism was so great that four years later, Syria’s generals formed the secular Ba’ath Party and on 6 September 1955, restored to power Syria’s democratically elected President, Quwatli, who in 1958 joined Syria into the United Arab Republic, which lasted till 1971. However, while Quwatli was still Syria’s President, the CIA, yet again, in 1957, tried to oust him via a coup, but that coup-attempt had to be called-off.

A permanent result of that brazen attempt in 1957 was to cause Syria to sever relations with the U.S.; so, from that time forward, the U.S. regime works in Syria mainly by its agents and allies, such as King Saud who owns Saudi Arabia, and Emir Thani who owns Qatar. Both families are fundamentalist Sunni Arabs — the Saud family being Al Qaeda’s main financial backer, and the Thani family being the Muslim Brotherhood’s main financial backer. (Both Al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood are fundamentalist Sunni organizations, whereas Syria, at least after 1957, is strongly secular, anti-sectarian.) But now that King Saud wants to overthrow Emir Thani and take Qatar, and is trying to blockade Qatar, the U.S. regime has stayed with King Saud, but not to such an extent as to jeopardize Emir Thani’s willingness to host in Qatar America’s biggest Middle Eastern military base, Al Udeid Air Base, which the Thanis see as essential to their staying in power. So: the U.S., under Donald Trump, is mildly supportive of King Saud’s aggressions against Qatar, but not to such an extent as to withdraw from Al Udeid.

As a result of the Sunni Sauds’ attacks against the Sunni Thanis, the Thanis have turned away from the Sauds, who hate Iran and all Shiites. Thus, the Thanis now are non-partisan in the Sauds’ longstanding efforts to conquer Iran and other Shiite-majority areas; the Thanis have become more pan-Arabic than when they were allied with the Sauds; they’re no longer dedicated to war against Shia. They are no longer allies of the Sauds against Shia.

The U.N. ‘peace’ talks on Syria are between Syria’s Government and Saudi Arabia’s Government, not between Syria’s Government and any authentically representative native Syrians versus the Syrian Government. The Saud family selected the “High Negotiations Committee” who are negotiating against Syria’s Government there, as ‘representatives’ of ‘the opposition’. Even the U.S. subscription-only GlobalSecurity.org site admits:

The High Negotiations Committee is a Saudi-backed coalition of Syrian opposition groups. The High Negotiations Committee (HNC) was created in Saudi Arabia in December 2015.”

Non-sectarian — even secular — Syria is the odd-man-out, insisting on its own national sovereignty, and secularism, no matter what, and willing to do whatever they must in order to maintain their independence. And the majority of the Syrian people thus support Assad (55% did, even at the very height of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings throughout the Arab world), and 82% of Syrians blame the U.S. Government for the presence of ISIS and other jihadists in their country.

This is history. What can the U.S. regime credibly present to the world as being justification for continuing its decades-long effort to conquer Syria? The U.S. regime condemns Syria’s non-sectarian Government for ‘humanitaian violations’ fighting against the U.S.-Saudi imported terrorists who are trying to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government. The U.S. has thousands of its own troops in their invasion and military occupation of Syria, and condemns Assad for leading the fight against that invasion-occupation.

As regards Ukraine, you can either see this terrific video-compilation documenting how Obama perpetrated a bloody coup which in February 2014 overthrew and replaced Ukraine’s democratically elected Government, or you can read my “Are Michael Isikoff And David Corn CIA Agents?” which documents the lies by those two ‘investigative journalists’, who spread the falsehoods about Ukraine that the U.S. aristocracy want to be spread against Russia, and which lies go against the realities that that video shows.

Incidentally, on 10 February 2017, in the video shown here, Isikoff interviewed Bashar al-Assad, who took his stenographed transmission of quite possibly fabricated ‘evidence’ against Assad, and turned it instead against the regime whose agent Isikoff so clearly does represent.

Obama’s coup destroyed Ukraine. The World Happiness Reports, from the U.N. and Columbia University, have been published for 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018. Each year’s report covers, generally speaking, the surveys that were done worldwide during the preceding year. The American coup in Ukraine occurred in February 2014. So, the only pre-coup survey done was the 2013 publication, which covered the year 2012. As internationally ranked for happiness by the World Happiness Report, Ukraine went from #87 out of 156 nations, or 87/156 (the bottom 45%) in 2013, to 111/138 (the bottom 20%) in 2015, to 123/157 (the bottom 22%) in 2016, to 132/155 (the bottom 15%) in 2017, to 138/155 (the bottom 12%) in 2018. So: before the coup, Ukraine was in the worst 45%, but by 2018 it reached the worst 12%. That’s an enormous plunge. Barack Obama wanted the coup, he got it, and it destroyed Ukraine. The U.S. claims to be trying to save Ukraine from Russia, but the reality is the exact opposite: that the U.S. destroyed Ukraine in order to become enabled to bring Ukraine into NATO and position U.S. nuclear missiles less than ten minutes flight-time from Moscow. Ukrainians have every reason to hate the U.S. Government, for what it did to them. Like what it did to Afghans, and Iraqis, and Yemenese, and Hondurans — and Chileans, and Guatemalans, and so forth. And like what it’s doing to anyone who wants to avoid World War III — including the American people, who nominally (but not really) are represented by this rapacious Government, controlled by this rapacious aristocracy.

So: the documentation is unequivocally clear, that the U.S. Government lies shamelessly about both Syria and Ukraine — and Russia, and Iran, and much else.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Umar farooq
Umar farooq
Jan 28, 2021 6:57 PM

Many facebook user not like this type of post

10th class result 2020
10th class result 2020
Jul 3, 2020 12:11 PM

when we read post and feel this was out standing post.

Bilal
Bilal
May 4, 2020 7:46 AM

Obama and trump also the most clever they are.
thanks sharing nice history with us.

Bryan Farrow
Bryan Farrow
Jul 12, 2018 11:38 AM

I thought Australia would also have been painted red, after Gough Whitlam was sacked in 1975 for threatening to close Pine Gap, amongst other things the the U.$.A didn’t take kindly too.

vexarb
vexarb
Jul 12, 2018 10:47 AM

Cut/Paste from SyrPer re an MSM hack some of you might know (I dont):

Insiders Reveal 5 hours ago

Watched it. It’s great to be able to claim “I have sources very high up…” on a plan to overthrow the Iranian government,

anti_republocrat

I don’t waste my time with Sibel anymore. I watched a little over 5 min. Was surprised by nothing. Of course we’re warring economically on the Iranian people. It’s what we do. That doesn’t mean there will be a regime change,

maningi

Stopped watching/reading Sibel˘s blog since her vicious attack on Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett. Did not understand what was really going on with Sibel but she lost my confidence for sure.

2 hours ago

vexarb
vexarb
Jul 11, 2018 6:20 PM

Wiley Coyote moment for Uncle $cam. First throttle Iran’s economy; then threaten to throttle China’s economy; unexpected consequence:

http://www.irna.ir/en/News/82965505

vexarb
vexarb
Jul 10, 2018 12:36 PM

I nearly missed this cracker from Pepe. Uncle $cam is going blue in the face trying to deter Iraq from cementing the Shia Arch of Stability — Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran. Courtesy of Thylacine and Canthama in SyrPer:

SHOCK AND AWE, REVISITED – – Pepe Escobar posted on his Facebook page.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156420971366678&id=775051677

”Feel free to be intergalactically disgusted.
The US ambassador in Iraq, a nullity by the name of Sillyman, met with all the leaders of the winning Shi’ite bloc/parties – Abadi, Hakim, you name it. The “message” for all of them was unanimous – offer you can’t refuse-style.
These are Washington’s DEMANDS to the next Iraqi PM:
– 30% of all the oil in Iraq is American – and we do what we want with it.
– US must have full access and control of Iraqi banks.
– All business and trade with Iran must cease right now.
– The Hashd al-Shaabi a.k.a. People Mobilization Units (PMUs) must be disbanded right now.

This is NOT a joke. The source is a top Iraq official, who told my sources, including the awesome Yusra, in these exact same words.

NOBODY in Iraq trusts the Americans – Shi’ite, Sunni, Yazidis, even Kurds. Problem is Iraqi politicians are a bunch of worms who believe they need American “protection”. The Iraqi population, for all the divisiveness, must know about these “demands” – and repel them, unequivocally.

Shock and Awe lives – the Mafia way.”

vexarb
vexarb
Jul 10, 2018 11:52 AM

Not only the U$ regime; also the UK Independent’s star reporter. Reblogged on SyrPer by the Thylacine:

“The Truth According To Robert Fisk
[Ten Points for Fisk to Remember, When Scribbling His Lies]
Pinned to the noticeboard above Robert Fisk’s computer

Know Thy Audience
You do NOT write for the average well-informed Lebanese, Syrian or Iraqi, so don’t worry about the porkies you may tell…
Present Titbits
Present to your reader scraps of verifiable information they’re not likely to have picked up from the BBC. They will appear better informed on the ME when they are at a dinner party…
Avoid Revealing The Puzzle
Too much reality, too many pieces of the puzzle juxtaposed in the one article, may lead the reader to glean the bigger picture themselves. Don’t let this happen…
Present Convoluted As Sophisticated
Maintaining your circuitous Fiskian style when writing on Syria enables you to appear sophisticated while avoiding the need to present logical and substantiated arguments…
Stick To The Rhetoric
It is not difficult to convince the reader who the enemy is; the mainstream media has already implanted the cliches…
Present Claims As Fact
You can pull this off because you are Fisk…
Stimulate But Maintain Their Comfort Zone … Your titbits act like racy gossip … A familiar and convivial ‘boys own’ cynicism keeps them in their comfort zone, and on your readership list…
Don’t Mention The Christians
This can be tricky, but it is possible most of the time. You don’t want the reader to worry…
In Fact Don’t Mention Anything Worrisome
Neglect as much as you can the nastiness of the fatwas issued by extremist clerics…
Keep In Mind The Final Destination
Make sure the snakes and ladders game you play with your readers takes them all to the one conclusion: the Syrian president is a brutal dictator…

full piece here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180505005924/https://socratesandsyria.com/the-truth-according-to-robert-fisk/

vexarb
vexarb
Jul 10, 2018 6:51 AM

Pepe Escobar revisits Shock and Awe (aka Enduring Freedom) in Asia Times Online. Syria are the last items still outstanding, out of the 7 countries on Uncle $cam’s 2001 hit list:

Fifteen years ago, “Shock and Awe” was unleashed over Baghdad as the preferred method of bombing Mesopotamia into “democracy” – the birth pangs of a New Middle East.

I tried, in a report for Asia Times in 2003, to explain the geopolitical power play behind the US invasion of Iraq that led to so much death and destruction.

Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, who in 1991 filed a class-action complaint with the UN against President George HW Bush, concluded that no less than 3.3 million Iraqis – including 750,000 children – died as a result of economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted by the US government, and assisted by Great Britain, between 1990 and 2012.

Addressing an international conference on War-affected Children in Kuala Lumpur in late 2012, Boyle tallied the death toll as follows: 200,000 Iraqis killed in the first Gulf War; 1.4 million Iraqis killed as a result of Shock and Awe, the illegal invasion in 2003; plus 1.7 million Iraqis dead “as a direct result” of sanctions.

‘The Human Cost of the War on Iraq’ published in The Lancet in 2006 had already been universally acknowledged to be right on the mark. Nonetheless, both Washington and London sought repeatedly to discredit the study, undertaken by the academics from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.

Further estimates updating fresh information by British NGO Iraq Body Count eventually led to a probable toll of 2.4 million Iraqis killed as a direct and indirect consequence of Shock and Awe fifteen years ago.

And all that death and destruction for what?

In October 2007 – when the Petraeus surge in Anbar province was still unraveling – retired US General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark finally disclosed, in a book-promotion speech in San Francisco, the absolute non-connection between 9/11 and Shock and Awe.

Clark recalled two meetings he had in the Pentagon, shortly after 9/11:

“And then I came back to the Pentagon about six weeks later. I saw the same officer, I said, Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? “Oh, sir,” he says, “it’s worse than that.” He pulled up a piece of paper off his desk. He said, “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we are going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years. We are going to start in Iraq and then we are going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. Seven countries in five years.” I said, “Is that a classified memo?” He said, “Yes, sir”.

And the radical conservatives’ roadmap has never gone away. As it morphed into humanitarian imperialism, Libya was turned into a militia wasteland and a prime source of uncontrolled illegal immigration into the EU. Yet Lebanon resisted. And so did Syria.

Russophobia has everything to do not only with Crimea and the Donbass but also with Moscow preventing the fall of Damascus.

The proxy war in Syria, up to now, was all by the “4+1” – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah, with counter-terrorism intel HQ in Baghdad.

As for Iraq, for all the tragedy I personally witnessed during my last visit in late 2017, nevertheless that was the first time I actually felt the stirrings of hope – as in Iraq forging its own destiny.

The fifteenth anniversary of Shock and Awe should now be compared to the equally gruesome third anniversary of the US-backed [and UK backed] Saudi bombing of Yemen conducted by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, about to be given red carpet treatment at the White House [with genuflections by St Theresa in Riad].

In the end, the implementers of Shock and Awe in Iraq didn’t even get [all] the oil. Yet, like The Walking Dead, they never give up. For them, the notion that “Real men go to Tehran” still applies.

[For a sharp corrective to that last sentence, read Iranian socialist Ramin Mazaheri in today’s Saker. Revolutionary socialist Teheran has plenty of “Real Men” waiting to give the Man from Uncle a nasty Shock and Awe if he tries to “Bring it On”]

Robbobbobin
Robbobbobin
Jul 10, 2018 2:25 AM

I think it’s high time we pushed the United States of America into the ocean. The only problem is, which ocean? Do we start on the left and work rightwards, to pollute the Atlantic, or on the right and work leftwards to despoil the Pacific? Given the existence of the San Andreas fault and the possibilty it will unilaterally dump California on our behalf, perhaps working right to left would take less effort. On the other hand, that would leave DC dry until the end of the process. Probably inadvisable. Starting in the middle and working our way oceanswards on two fronts could be a solution, albeit one involving correspondingly more rigorous logistics. Probably need a GPS. Of course, a pilot project would be advisable, such as a smaller but equally or more fascistic entity with only a single, substantial seafront rather two ocean shorelines. Iron out the wrinkles, so to speak.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Jul 9, 2018 10:15 PM

Only colouring in Sulawesi, and not all of Indonesia, scene of one massive Imperial genocide, in 1965, and one smaller one, in East Timor after 1975, plus numerous smaller massacres, ongoing in West Papua, is an error, I fear. And what of the states terrorised by US stooges, like the graduates of the fascist factory, ‘The School of the Americas’? And Latin America is back under the jack-boot even now.

vexarb
vexarb
Jul 9, 2018 7:21 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-instructs-military-to-begin-planning-for-withdrawal-from-syria/2018/04/04/1039f420-3811-11e8-8fd2-49fe3c675a89_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.363a55f44a84

Trump finds Multi Trillion black hole in U$ Army finances. Someone is Lieing big time. [Remember how conveniently some U$ Army financial records were burnt in the Bush regime’s 911 Holocaust?]

vierotchka
vierotchka
Jul 9, 2018 4:40 PM

No comment yet, but subscribing for notifications of new comments. 🙂

Bilal
Bilal
May 4, 2020 7:44 AM
Reply to  vierotchka

how to join the guardian ?

Einstein
Einstein
Jul 9, 2018 2:53 PM

The Kiev régime is a typical product of CIA action.
Take the “investigation” into the MH17 atrocity.
Kiev has control of what is publicly released (why??):
1. They refuse to release MH17’s “black box”.
2. They refuse to hear the eye-witness testimony of the pilot who saw the plane shot down.
3. They refuse to question the air-traffic controller who diverted the plane to the conflict zone.
The “investigation” is a tawdry attempt by Kiev to plant a false flag on this incident.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Jul 9, 2018 10:17 PM
Reply to  Einstein

All perfectly kosher with the Austfailian and Dutch regimes, and the Western fakestream media sewer-rats, of course.

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Jul 9, 2018 2:30 PM

Fantastic Eric. This is the most straightforward and accurate description of the US criminal class destruction and domination of sovereign foreign countries that I have yet read. This slaughter and destruction is carried out to assist the corporate aristocracy that rules over the US people and their Government as well as most of the rest of us no matter where we live on this planet.
All people who desire freedom and peaceful coexistence with our fellow earthlings must stand up against our own subjugation by the international Western Super Deep State that is fucking up all of our lives. The immediate shutting down of the institutions of the Deep State should be our aim and the first institution to be annulled is the CIA.

wardropper
wardropper
Jul 9, 2018 1:23 PM

Both Trump and Obama have always served the same masters.

candideschmyles
candideschmyles
Jul 9, 2018 2:55 PM
Reply to  wardropper

And yet even here people forget that fact. Trump has one purpose and one purpose only. Distraction.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Jul 9, 2018 10:18 PM
Reply to  wardropper

In Tel Aviv.

John
John
May 4, 2020 7:42 AM
Reply to  wardropper

agree

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Jul 9, 2018 1:11 PM

Lying comes as easily as breathing.
For psychopaths.