36

Syria, Then and Now: Liberated of Western-backed Terrorism

Max Parry

In a surprise turn of events, last month U.S. President Donald J. Trump made the abrupt unilateral announcement that American troops would begin to withdraw from Syria. The unexpected decision provoked the wrath of the foreign policy establishment and bipartisan ‘war party’ in Washington who immediately denounced it as a premature, reckless move that would lead to a resurgence of ISIS. As anticipated, the Beltway blob also claimed it was another sign of Trump’s perceived untold allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin. None of the warmongers in Washington would dare admit that the real gains made against ISIS were by the Syrian army with Russian air support, let alone that their own policies were responsible for its manifestation. Sure enough, a suicide bombing in Kurdish-controlled Manbij killed four American personnel just a month later and Daesh, which has a history of taking credit for attacks perpetrated by others, immediately claimed responsibility. It is almost as if the strategic asset themselves did not desire an American pullback— could it be another ‘false flag’ to keep the war machine in Syria going?

The neocons within the administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, contradicted Trump’s statements on the pullout citing the need to ‘protect the Kurds’ before any such removal. The degree of sincerity behind Trump’s decision has drawn a range of speculation — is it a superficial appeasement of his base to whom he made ‘anti-interventionist’ pledges as a candidate, when the U.S. is conducting a bait-and-switch with no plans to really leave Syria? Perhaps Blackwater private contractors will be taking their place. If Trump is genuine, then his decision-making is being circumvented by the Pentagon who Pompeo and Bolton arguably have demonstrated more allegiance to than their Commander-in-Chief, as not a single U.S. soldier has left Syria since Trump stated his intentions. The ‘deep state’ strikes back.

Meanwhile, increasingly difficult to differentiate from the neocons are the ‘humanitarian interventionists’ of the Democratic Party. A recent poll by Politico and the marketing research firm Morning Consult indicates that 30% less Democrats than Republicans favor the removal of U.S. forces from Syria, while just as many are opposed to an end to the nearly two decade occupation of Afghanistan as well. For years, the American people have been sold a bill of goods that the U.S. has been divinely appointed as the world’s policeman in order to protect ‘human rights’ in sovereign states around the globe. Despite military aggression being its essential feature, such newspeak enables many self-declared progressives to support U.S. interventionism abroad. A quote attributed to comedian George Carlin comes to mind based on protest signs against the Vietnam War that read “fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”

The suffering of populations under governments deemed enemies of the United States, usually exaggerated or invented, is the go-to method of persuasion rallying support for such militarism. The liberal opposition to the troop withdrawal is a testament to the power of the Syria propaganda campaign where the lengths the West has gone to invert reality is without precedent. Since the conflict began, mainstream reports of the war have repeated verbatim disinformation from dubious organizations that heavily favor the Syrian opposition, like the MI6-sponsored Syrian Observatory for Human Rights run by a single individual based in the UK that is somehow relied upon for ‘on the ground’ fact-gathering.

Even more sickening has been the media’s love affair with the Syrian Civil Defense, AKA the “White Helmets”, a shady organization purported by the yellow press to be neutral first-responders volunteering to save civilians. Anything but impartial, the White Helmets operate exclusively in opposition-controlled territory, specifically that of Tahrir al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front or al-Qaeda in Syria),while receiving tens of millions of dollars from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Some of its members may even be combatants themselves, splitting time between waging jihad and crisis acting as humanitarian aid workers. Founded by an ex-British intelligence officer and Blackwater-affiliated mercenary, they dispense staged footage of their activities to the fourth estate for circulation who invariably never bother to ask — what kind of search and rescue group travels everywhere they go with a movie crew ready for use? Disturbingly, the Netflix-produced “documentary” on the White Helmets even received an Academy Award and its members a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

Recently, even the Western art sphere has gotten in on the act. Saudi soft power and the U.S. art elite have joined forces in a troubling alliance for a cultural campaign of disinformation aimed at U.S. art-going audiences. From this past October until January 13th, on view at the Brooklyn Museum in New York was the exhibition Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart, featuring the work of three contemporary artists centered on Syria’s ongoing humanitarian crisis. On the surface, the display championed the plight of the millions of displaced Syrian citizens who fled the conflict to both surrounding countries in the region and the West. Unfortunately, the showcase featured a heavily biased pro-opposition and Russophobic narrative while the enormous conflict of interest behind the organization and sponsorship of the exposition was undisclosed to visitors.

The exhibit is one of several ventures organized by the Arab Art Education Initiative (AAEI), a huge project in collaboration with some of the wealthiest and most illustrious art institutions in New York City, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and Columbia University. The AAEI’s anodyne endeavor is to “connect contemporary Arab culture with diverse audiences across the five boroughs of New York City, bringing together a coalition of artists and institutions to build greater understanding between the United States and the Arab world.”

It may sound innocuous, but unmentioned in the gallery text is the Saudi government’s funding of the AAEI and visitors would have to look elsewhere to learn of the incompatibility between its stated aims and subsidies.

The primary donor to the AAEI is the arts initiative Edge of Arabia and its subsidiary the Misk Institute, an art-centered cultural diplomacy organization founded by none other than Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) himself. The AAEI’s program was organized in 2017 at the the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, also known as ‘Ithra’, in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and was financially developed by its state-owned petroleum and gas enterprise, Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company. The initiative was anticipated to be a success until an inconvenient controversy suddenly stirred, though not by the abysmal human rights record of the gulf state theocracy or its ongoing war on Yemen that has killed tens of thousands in the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. No, the establishment and media were unmoved by those atrocities and saved their feigned concern about human rights for Syria.

It was only the untimely torture, killing, and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi of The Washington Post, allegedly ordered by MBS himself, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey which unexpectedly embroiled the absolute monarchy in scandal and brought embarrassment to anyone connected to the dictatorship. In the aftermath of Khashoggi’s grisly murder, the dozens of political and financial figures who had championed MBS as a ‘reformer’ immediately began to distance themselves from the 33-year-old presumptive heir to the throne. Immediately, the museums involved in the AAEI’s program went into damage control mode, stating they would no longer be accepting Saudi funds in the wake of the fallout. However, it is unclear how this is even possible in the case of the Brooklyn Museum, considering Khashoggi was killed just a week prior to the exhibition debut and the entire coordination of the display was by the AAEI.

The art on view itself is a combination of ceramic artifacts from the Northern Syrian city of Raqqa dating back to the 13th century and modern three-dimensional sculptures depicting the refugee crisis. However, the artistic billing is misleading as the three artists featured are only loosely connected to Syria today— artist Mohamed Hafez was born in Damascus but raised in Saudi Arabia, Issam Kourbaj has not lived in Syria since 1985 and is a UK-based artist, while the third — sculptor Ginane Makki Bacho, is Lebanese. The curators begin by reducing the enormously complex conflict to a single sentence for an explanation of its cause:

Today, a new generation of refugees seeks to escape Syria itself, after the regime of Bashar al-Assad used violence to put down pro-democracy protests and civil war broke out in 2011.”

Taking a cue from its House of Saud paymasters, according to the curatorial account it was the Syrian government’s enlarged response alone that transformed protests calling for democratic improvements into a sectarian, violent insurrection led by religious extremists denouncing Alawites and Shias as heretics to be forcibly converted or slaughtered. We are then supposed to believe a conflict where CIA operatives trained Syrian ‘rebels’ with weapons supplied by the Saudis, Israel, Turkey and the other Gulf monarchies at the cost of billions of dollars per year is a ‘civil war’, not a proxy war. Sure, some of the insurgency have been ‘moderate’ in the beginning, such as the short-lived Free Syrian Army composed of AWOL Syrian soldiers, but most quickly defected back to the government or became radicalized as the Islamist influence grew. Consequently, credulous museum visitors would have no idea the destabilization of Syria using religious-fundamentalist auxiliaries was carefully prepared by Pentagon strategists for decades and that most Syrians actually support Assad.

More interesting is the inclusion of the exhibit focus on Syria’s ethnic Circassian population, who allegedly discovered the medieval ceramics on display when they arrived in the Levant and present-day Syria following their expulsion from the North Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire after Tsarist Russia’s victory in the Caucasian Wars in 1864. Regrettably, the gallery text disingenuously attempts to draw a historical parallel between Circassians expelled from the Russian Empire in the 19th century to Syrian refugees fleeing the current war:

Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart recounts the changing stories of refugees in Syria over time — then and now — and places their differing experiences, a century apart, in a global context. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Syria gave shelter to refugees from Russia — ethnic Circassians, displaced by the Russian conquest of the Caucasus.”

If it isn’t completely obvious, the political implication is that the conflict in Syria is another case of ‘conquest’ by Moscow — or as Joseph Goebbels allegedly said, “accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.”

Circassians in the Army of the Levant during the French Mandate

The war in Syria has given the West another opportunity to utilize propaganda to vilify Russia, including for the “Circassian question.” Circassian is an umbrella term for the interrelated language and cultures of the Kabardians, Cherkess, Adygs and Shapsug peoples of the North Caucasus region who are predominantly Sunni Muslim. There are actually twelve different Circassian tribes, but during the Soviet era the official designation was reduced to four groups. Many within the diaspora around the world have expressed their desire to eventually return to the region, including the 80–120,000 based in Syria. Some Circassians (or Adyghes) have unofficially labeled their mass deportation by the Russian Empire as a case of ethnic cleansing and even ‘genocide.’

The g-word is a heavily politicized term and for this reason in 2011 the parliament of the U.S. client state of Georgia under the puppet government of Mikheil Saakashvili made the declaration that the Russian Empire was guilty. Circassian nationalists who have advocated its qualification for their forced migration over a century ago have been exploited by anti-Russian neoconservative organizations in the West who represent the interests of oil conglomerates seeking to gain a monopoly on the more than $4 trillion worth in oil beneath the Caspian Sea basin.

In The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,former National Security advisor and ex-board member of the Jamestown Foundation, Zbiegniew Brzezinski admitted:

For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional domination and reached out for global power. Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia — and Americas global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.”

The primary neocon organization tasked with destabilizing the Caucasus is the Jamestown Foundation, an NGO co-created by former CIA director William Casey in 1984 during the Reagan administration. Its original stated purpose was to assist defectors after high-ranking Soviet diplomats had turned traitor. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, like all outdated Cold War organizations it had to reinvent itself, though its objective remains the same — to undermine what anti-communist hardliners once labeled ‘captive nations’ behind the Iron Curtain. Most of the former Soviet republics were granted their independence, but one exception was the North Caucasus which remained within the Russian Federation to the dissatisfaction of the West which seeks a complete balkanization of post-Soviet Eurasia.

Jamestown and other right-wing NGOs like the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya have spent the last thirty years stirring-up Wahhabist-oriented ethnic separatism in the region, which produced two wars in the Chechen Republic that only officially ended after the ascension of Vladimir Putin. Jamestown is the owner of several Eurasia-oriented publications such as Caucasian Knotwhich peddles anti-Russian propaganda to instigate secessionist turmoil.

Vladimir Lenin reputably once called the Russian Empire ‘a prison house of nationalities’. In the Soviet Union, to address the ‘national question’ the second chamber of the legislative body guaranteed representation for all of the different ethnic groups in the federation, including the more than 50 residing in the Caucasus. Those with social vestiges and low literacy rates like the Circassians were even provided preferential treatment by the People’s Commissariat for Education. Since the reinstatement of the free market in Eastern Europe, the U.S. has fomented separatist and nationalist causes across Eurasia and attempted to undo the progress made during the Soviet era. The neocon effort to exploit the Circassian issue is a pretext for advocating their repatriation to the region and use of them as a geopolitical chess piece.

This culminated in protests by Circassian nationalists against the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on the basis that the games would be taking place on top of the graves of their ancestors during the 150th anniversary of their exiling. Few would doubt the brutality of the Tsarist absolute monarchy, which was just one of the many reasons it was overthrown in the Russian Revolution. However, whether or not what happened over a century and a half ago to the Circassians, a nationality so culturally backwards their marriage practice consists of bride kidnapping, was genocide is irrelevant considering another infamous holocaust in the Caucasus perpetrated upon the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks is still unrecognized by the U.S. and Georgia to this day. Their deceitfulness could not be more obvious and the West has a long history of mobilizing the grievances of ethnic groups for its own political gain against Moscow.

To give it perspective, the U.S. interference in the Caucasus is akin to Moscow advocating separatism for the dozens of federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States, as well as independence for territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Especially in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Washington would surely stand up to such outside meddling and any country which supported it. Nonetheless, the dangerous ideological myth of American exceptionalism permits the United States to support factionalism in Russia and other countries around the world to the detriment of international peace. The U.S. is already experiencing blowback from this interference with the Boston Marathon bombings, as suspected Chechen perpetrator Tamerlan Tsarnaev was reportedly radicalizedat a Jamestown-sponsored program while traveling abroad in Tblisi, Georgia.

The Russian intervention was at the request of the Syrian government and unlike the American foray was not in violation of international law. Moscow’s participation turned the war back in Assad’s favor, from the liberation of Aleppo from al-Nusra to the defeat of ISIS in Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor. The close proximity of Russia to the Middle East coupled with the history of terrorism exported to the Caucasus by the Saudis made Russian involvement in Syria an obligation in order to prevent a resurgence of jihadist-led breakaway violence in its southern border region. One can argue over the degree of the bombing campaign to rescue areas under militant control, but what is indisputable is that today Syria’s many religious minority groups, including Circassians who generally support Assad, are back under the protection of a secular state that is tolerant of all sects. It surely would have ended up just like Libya as a lawless failed state overrun by salafists if Moscow hadn’t interceded, and the oil-rich Caucasus once again in danger of being fragmented.

Perhaps no issue has been more divisive in recent years than the war in Syria. The propaganda barrage has misled many into forgetting that we are still living in the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism, where to generate profits wealthier nations are driven to conquer others on a global scale in order to have dominion over their markets and subjugate the labor power within them.

In this context, the national question takes center stage and so does defending the right of individual nations to self-determination, even if that country is under a government that is less than ideal. While no one can deny the extremism of the opposition at this point, instead of supporting Syria itself some have naively chosen to throw their support behind Kurdish nationalist militias in Northern Syria that have established an ‘autonomous federation’ based on a self-proclaimed ‘libertarian socialist direct-democracy’ style of government that it somehow reconciles with its participation in the U.S.-created Syrian Democratic Forces and permitting the occupation of nearly a dozen American military facilities in its territory.

It is clear that the Kurds are being used as pawns to establish a Kosovo-like protectorate bound to U.S. interests in balkanizing Syria, and Rojava supporters on the Western left are suffering from what Lenin called an infantile disorder.

The establishments collaborating with the medieval Saudi regime in its artistic scheme are disguising their lucrative motivations as building bridges between civilizations. In the case of the Brooklyn Museum, a simulated concern for refugees which is liberal politics at its worst. The art world has long been tainted by the power structures it is situated in and the museums involved have allowed their space to be occupied by war propagandists in exchange for blood money from the military-industrial complex and a totalitarian theocracy.

Coincidentally, recently a controversy was generated over an art installation in lower Manhattan featuring sculptures of pieces of candy draped in the flags of the G20 nations, including that of Saudi Arabia which provoked anger due to its proximity to Ground Zero. It is no secret that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11th attacks were of Saudi origin and hundreds of American families have been mired in a long legal battle to sue the kingdom for damages for its alleged role in 9/11. The installation is appropriately due for removal and one wishes the same level of outrage had been elicited by Syria: Then and Now.

SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN

If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

36 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
mark
mark
Jan 26, 2019 1:06 AM

There are no depths that the US and its satellites will leave unplumbed, there are no crimes that they will not commit, there are no moral standards they will not discard, there is no evil they will not embrace, to further the interests of the tiny, morally bankrupt criminal elites who control them.

Criminal wars of aggression no different from Hitler’s invasion of Poland, slaughtering millions and destroying entire countries.
Creating and sustaining the most barbaric, subhuman terrorist filth in history, either Nazi filth or jihadi cannibal throat slitting filth, it makes no difference to them, so long as they provide useful cannon fodder for the mayhem they inflict on the world.
Economic strangulation causing mass starvation throughout the planet.
False flag terrorism directed against their own people, butchering thousands.
Destroying elected governments and murdering elected leaders as a matter of course.
Supporting the most reactionary dictators and repressive regimes on the planet.
Imposing poverty and suffering on their own people wherever profitable and expedient.

The psychopathic, sadistic filth who rule over these countries are a thousand times worse than any Jack The Ripper, Dahmer, Bundy, or Hindley and Brady. Their crimes pale into significance by comparison.

Stephen Morrell
Stephen Morrell
Jan 25, 2019 8:16 PM

Thanks Max for another informative piece. It appears the White Helmets are even worse than we’ve been given to believe: Vanessa Beeley has uncovered emerging evidence of the White Helmets perpetrating organ trade across the Turkish border. They’ve been targetting and kidnapping children in particular. Truly disgusting stuff. See:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/449431-syria-white-helmets-organ-traders/

mark
mark
Jan 25, 2019 10:31 PM

The UK has played a leading role in the creation of the White Helmets and their 150 strong PR operation. Together with the SOHR and the Gas Attack Hoaxes. Probably a dry run for Skripal. Cameron, Clegg and May have bankrolled the cannibal head choppers and throat slitters with £3 Billion of taxpayers money. So much better than squandering the cash on the NHS.

Maggie
Maggie
Jan 26, 2019 1:59 AM
Reply to  mark

Yes, it was James le Mesurier ex SAS psychopath mercenary who recruited and trained a bespoke army of terrorists in Turkey,… to be deployed where ever they were required to spread terror that would cause the sheep to scream for the Government to help, and effect the regime change demanded by the US/UK and Israel.. Funded by $230 million in USAID
https://21stcenturywire.com/2017/08/01/james-le-mesurier-the-british-mercenary-who-founded-the-white-helmets/
The name is irrelevant – al Qaida -Daesh – alNusra.- alShabbat – WhiteHelmets… they are all the same people regurgitated..

Stephen Morrell
Stephen Morrell
Jan 26, 2019 6:38 AM
Reply to  Maggie

And as Vanessa Beeley points out this pattern has a recent history:

James Le Mesurier, the former private security and “democratization” expert who founded the White Helmets in Turkey and Jordan was also present in Pristina, Kosovo in 1999 when he worked under the direction of the notorious Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) and former French foreign minister.

Kouchner’s tenure in Kosovo was plagued by controversy and accusations of involvement in human and organ trafficking masterminded by the Albanian mafia gangs within the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Jan 26, 2019 10:47 PM
Reply to  mark

Hollywood plays its part too – can’t let George Clooney forget his support of the WhiteHelmets!

Haltonbrat
Haltonbrat
Jan 25, 2019 7:02 PM

The “Ann Frank of Syria”? Well YES!

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 6:59 PM

At the moment I view SyrPer to get some of the best info on Venezuela. Confirms my take on John Pilger video that was Linked on prev thread re Venezuela:

“PacificNorthWest #285603

The political reality in Venezuela exists because it is the expression of a mass peoples’ movement of the poor and the marginalized … who never had a voice before under the rule of the fifty families.

This mass popular movement is in power and it is highly politically active, fighting to build an equal society, and this movement backs and voted for Maduro for a role as President, but the center of power and the motive force sustaining the movement is both popular and politically active.

This is not about Maduro & inner circle’s political (and actual physical) survival, which is how US imperialism wants to portray it… i.e “Maduro BAD” [but We came, We saw, and now He Dead]

Venezuela has a powerful & indigenous mass popular movement that is insisting on a more equitable society than the society that existed before it rose to power.

US imperialists are trying to involve the USA in a war against a mass people’s movement in a tropical country covered by dense jungle…. another Vietnam!

rtj1211
rtj1211
Jan 25, 2019 5:25 PM

Bait n switch: ‘pull out’ of Syria, organise a coup in Venezuela.

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 7:13 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

Classical Einstein definition of Quantum Insanity: Trumpety repeating Obomba’s experiment and expecting a different outcome.

But Trump might tweet an equally classical response, “Quod duo faciunt, Idem non est Idem”.

George cornell
George cornell
Jan 25, 2019 8:54 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

It’s kind of like not eating, or not breathing for a while. Americans are unable to do peace for more than a few days/months and the longer they forgo the sick pleasures of invading, stealing, killing and maiming, the more ravenous they become. They have now learned to set up for the next meal before finishing the present. The topic of discussion at breakfast is what they will have for lunch.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Jan 25, 2019 11:24 AM

“It is no secret that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11th attacks were of Saudi origin” – in neocon circles perhaps, but to the best of my knowledge there is no evidence that any of the accused Saudis boarded the plane (film footage, boarding cards, etc) while it has been claimed that those allegedly killed in the attack were reported to be alive after. 9/11http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

Of course it has hard to be certain because the US never properly investigated 9/11 – FEMA, NIST, and the 9/11 commission were all hopelessly inadequate, and even anti-scientific.

The highjackers passport turning up in the WTC ruins was nothing short of comedy gold.

pasha
pasha
Jan 25, 2019 2:56 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

It’s a well known feature of “terrorists” everywhere that they always carry their passports, drivers licenses, car hire agreements, or other solid documentation, just in case anybody wonders who they are.

Haltonbrat
Haltonbrat
Jan 25, 2019 6:22 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

Then the lead hijacker’s suitcase went onto the wrong aircraft so not only did that mean it was not destroyed, but it also conveniently contained a list of all the other hijackers. LOL!

John
John
Jan 25, 2019 10:13 AM

If they info that ISIS carried out the attack and Rita Katz organisation broke the story then ISIS didn’t do it

Maggie
Maggie
Jan 31, 2019 1:20 AM
Reply to  John

@ John, I think we should explain who Rita Katz is for those who don’t know?
This’ remarkable’ woman Rita Katz who had direct access to and has been leading the U.S. intelligence and news establishment around by the nose for decades,with strategically timed releases, of strategically produced terror videos..
Rita Gubbay Katz and her SITE organization releases ISIS terror videos “BEFORE ISIS WAS ABLE TO.” She also produced all the damming videos about Osama bin Laden with about 10 body doubles that she thought people were just too stupid to compare?
Internet researchers to date have been satisfied to distract us by ”dismissing” Katz as a wacky, lying ‘Jew’ and to criticize her appearance. This was simply an obfuscation and not helpful at all.
What we really need to know is why this particular woman was ever given the platform and extreme latitude to advance the particular agenda that she has.

Some background information on Rita Katz was given in an interview for Hadassah Magazine, SINCE WIPED FROM THE INTERNET,,,, but which can still be found at archive.org. Here we find that Rita Katz was born Rita Gabbay in Basra, Iraq to the wealthiest families from Iraq: A Sephardic surname Gabbay (also spelled Gubbay, Gabay, Gabbai, etc.) is a title which means “rabbis’ warden and tax collector.”

Her mother’s family had been one of the wealthiest in Iraq for generations. When Rita Katz’ mother Salima turned 18, she married her next-door neighbour, who was “young, rich and respected.” (“Profile: Rita Katz,” Rahel Musleah, Hadassah Magazine, November 2003 Vol. 85 No.3) So, Rita Katz is an Iraqi Jew! Her father was a Jewish businessman in Iraq and was sentenced to hanging after being caught SPYING FOR ISRAEL in the 1967 war.
After her father was hung, Rita and her mother fled to Israel where she served in the Israeli army, which is compulsory, and went to university in Tel Aviv!

A lot of the stuff about Katz has been removed from the internet, which proves without a doubt IMHO that she was a Mossad agent working for/with the CIA creating false flag videos to excuse/advance the War on Terror.

http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2015/03/who-is-rita-katz-al-baghdadi-isis-pr.html

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 7:55 AM

Another post from SyrPer underlines Ziad’s phrase: Venezuela is Syria Redux.

“idiocracy #285515

This is the best article on Venezuela I have read yet, and I have been at it all day. Thank you Ziad.

Strange that I should have to come to Syrian Perspective to get some proper information about Venezuela.”

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 6:26 AM

More in SyrPer, posted by a Syrian supporter from Brazil:

“Canthama #285506

Ziad, it is a shame the Brazilian Gov is supporting this coup in Venezuela, that only 4-5 countries in America voiced support for Maduro is extremely bad [for the continent]. Venezuela will need help from abroad since its industries are not enough to produce the basic needs of the population, from food to high value items most are imported. If most countries in America do sanction Venezuela, the people there will suffer privations like the Syrians have been suffering for 8 years. The fact that the Venezuelan military backed Maduro is a very good sign … but the country’s friends must step up and ship basic goods as soon as possible, and in quantities.

Over 3 millions Venezuelans already left the country, putting a lot of refugee pressure on neighbours. As you said, Syria Redux.

I’ve know Venezuela for decades, since the hay days back in the 80’s and early 90’s where it enjoyed GDP per capita of a European country. I witnessed the [Chavez] revolution then the tough [AZC response to Venezuela, Syria, Iran and Russia]: the sharp decline in oil prices, reducing credit lines, plus the sanctions all pushing the country toward break point.

It is a rich country, and Venezuela can weather this storm if its friends stand by all the way.”

[Vexarb’s comment on last sentence: Venezuela needs friends, a few but staunch; then, with good Leadership, Venezuela can be Syria Redux]

Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
Jan 25, 2019 6:20 AM

While on a business trip to L.A. before Christmas, I treated myself to the King Tut exhibit. Not only was it a showcase of art at the highest level mankind had ever achieved, it revealed how royal pharaohs enjoyed life, and also how they mastered the art of death in the here after. What other civilizations has it’s rulers tour the world five thousand years after their death with some of the greatest treasures known to mankind?

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it was not the CIA who screwed up Egypt and the Middle East. That’s one conspiracy theory reserved for sci-fi time travel enthusiasts.

Then came Mohammadans and Islam and we all know how that’s turned out.

Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
Jan 25, 2019 6:22 AM
Reply to  Royal Doulton

Sorry for the grammatical errors, I’m unable to edit on this site.

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 6:45 AM
Reply to  Royal Doulton

No, “it was not the CIA who screwed up the ME” but our Royal Anglo Zio Capitalists who unleashed WW1 to get their greedy, grasping hands onto the oilfields of Mesopotamia. Who wrote “Dear [English] Lord Rothschild, His Majesty’s Government [having conquered Palestine on your behalf] looks with favour on your project of A National Home for the Jews.”

[Vexarb found a codicil to the Balfour Declaration: PS thanks for the war loan.]

John A
John A
Jan 25, 2019 7:59 AM
Reply to  Royal Doulton

Plus, the pharoahs married within the family. A sure pointer to eventual genetic decay. As shown by all the royal families in Europe, all related to Victoria, all marrying cousins or similar. Just a pity the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas continue to limp on.

George cornell
George cornell
Jan 25, 2019 3:27 PM
Reply to  John A

Haldane and others have examined the genetic/reproductive cost of first cousin marriages. It is surprisingly small, contrary to common “wisdom”. This should be no surprise given that interbreeding was rife for many thousands of years in our developing history. But just think John A, if you believe what you said, you can slag off the Muslim world. Isn’t that exciting.

mark
mark
Jan 25, 2019 10:37 PM
Reply to  George cornell

The pharaohs didn’t just marry their cousins, they married their sisters.

George cornell
George cornell
Jan 25, 2019 11:45 PM
Reply to  mark

True but there is little human data for obvious reasons. In dogs and chickens father daughter mating results are complex with some health advantages, outweighed by the deleterious effects. Empirically, most unfortunate human father-daughter and brother-sister matings result in normal offspring but the question is not amenable to systematic study.

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Jan 25, 2019 1:04 PM
Reply to  Royal Doulton

You utter narrow minded dingbat! “Art at the highest level..”
Duh! Ever wonder how your pseudonym came to be famous?
What about ‘Suk my Angkor’?
The Moghuls?
The great sub saharan African states?
Hey they even had pyramids and absurd death cults in Central and South America.

The absurd exceptionalism of supremacists of one sort or another is pathetic.

Haltonbrat
Haltonbrat
Jan 25, 2019 7:11 PM
Reply to  Royal Doulton

It is Israel demanding all these conflicts in the Middle East just as they are organising attacks on the leader of the UK Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn. They are terrified of a UK PM who would support Palestinians.

George cornell
George cornell
Jan 25, 2019 8:42 PM
Reply to  Haltonbrat

They are just exporting democracy.

mark
mark
Jan 25, 2019 10:35 PM
Reply to  Royal Doulton

Mohammed didn’t turn up till the 7th century AD. Your glorious pharoahs disappeared long before that.

Frankly Speaking
Frankly Speaking
Jan 25, 2019 5:50 AM

Very thoughtful piece, thank you.

I don’t normally resort to religion when discussing politics, however, it’s pretty clear to me that the Anti-Christ is alive and kicking, and that his spawn continues to weave their way through and destroy all opposition.

It also helps to explain all the bile and venom against Russia, an Orthodox Christian nation, perhaps the last bastion of original Christianity.

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 5:44 AM

From Ziad Fadel’s Leading Article in SyrPer: SYRIA REDUX IN CARACAS.

“Nicolas Maduro… has not been the greatest leader of Venezuela. That honor goes to his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. But, he needs to do something radical to change the course of his country’s descent into anarchy.

The army has today declared its loyalty to the government and constitution. But, be careful here. That’s the army that’s known. There may be elements which have been compromised by the CIA maybe, we can think of Syria which was at first haunted by the short-lived defections of officers like Hussayn Hamloush and ‘Abdul-Jabbaar Al-‘Ukaydi. The U.S. should have waited until it had its ducks all in a row before inciting this violence. It [the U$A] failed in Syria but the neo-cons may be trying to redeem themselves in this hemisphere.

Folks, I am very familiar with Venezuela. My uncle from Palestine married a Venezolana about 50 years ago when he and she were students at Florida State University. My uncle, a red-haired Arab with a million freckles… married Aunt Yolanda who got a Ph.D. in Sociology and worked for the government in Caracas at Silencio. I visited them over 5 times and got a good idea about how the country was heading.

…Caracas is a typical South American capital. … It is surrounded by mountains, the highest being Avila to which you can travel by the fabulous Teleferico. But as you ascend to the summit of the mountain, you notice that the gap between rich and poor is wide and stark. The rancheros live on the sides of the mountains in abject poverty while the wealthy are packed inside the city or the plush, guarded foothills…. This disparity is what brought Hugo Chavez to power. It’s a classic study in class warfare befitting a nation now led by Marxists.

If Maduro wants to protect his country and stay in power, he must do this:

Expel all Western journalists or propagandist.. spies or terrorism enablers;
He must give China favored nation status and conduct trade with that country in order to bolster the one currency of Venezuela, the Bolivar. A refinery on the Pacific coast would be very attractive to the Chinese;
He must try to bring Russia into a mutual defense pact which the Russians might tweak nervously in order to avoid confrontation with the U.S.;
….
He must study the Syrian model….”

https://www.syrianperspective.com/2019/01/syria-redux-in-caracas-with-american-hypocrisy-lit-up-on-the-billboards.html#comments

John A
John A
Jan 25, 2019 8:02 AM
Reply to  vexarb

Venezuela is not on the Pacific coast

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 9:23 AM
Reply to  John A

JohnA, Oops! reposted your correction on SyrPer.

vexarb
vexarb
Jan 25, 2019 2:37 PM
Reply to  vexarb

SyrPer Editor’s reply to JohnA’s comment: I know that. But, it [Latin America] still needs a refinery on the Pacific to reduce the costs of transporting its oil to China. I used to swim in the Caribbean and visit the island of Margarita when it first became a tourist site. I even stayed at the first hotel on the island called “Hotel Pompatar”. Ziad

DuGroanin
DuGroanin
Jan 25, 2019 1:26 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Refineries there – would mean an end of selling the oil cheap and importing it back expensive.

It would mean a secure supply of petrochems to that part of the continent – the Colombians especially. They have plenty of spare $.

A Chinese aircraft carrier group permanently parked in the caribbean, would provide all the air cover.

A few hundred thousand boots on the ground would easily help secure the border points and the major cities.

Trump may personally not want to start another conflict on his door step – he’d rather build golf courses and hotels with his name to live on in perpetuity. But he is limited by his back office billionaires.

Hey even the Nicaraguans may throw in their lot!

The neocon highwater mark reached in the ME now approching the same in Latin America.

A miscalculation by the dingbats will throw Russia and China further together – the other two BRIC’s are not yet settled.

The Brazilian proxy nazi is the only country that may go down the drain with the neocons – remember it’s history is Portugese and they speak a different language than the rest of SA!

India… well that is the unsettled question, a rapid rapproachment with Pakistan – playing ‘cricket’ soon – it is the only solution to Afghanistan in my opinion.

bevin
bevin
Jan 25, 2019 5:17 AM

“Vladimir Lenin reputably…..” reputedly