Investigation Into When The US Decided To Bring Down The Assad Government Of Syria

Hi folks. I will attempt to document the US involvement in the overthrow of the Syrian government. I am doing this due to the almost blackout on the MSM of what the US has been doing. Please understand that it is almost impossible to find Western MSM reports on this. This interview of Abdul Halim Khaddam is dubed in English. In this interview Abdul Halim Khaddam admits that he has accepted funds from the US and others to overthrow the government of Syria, led by Assad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-F0jwD0qxg The embedding feature has been disabled. http://lebanonspring.com/2011/05/17/khaddam-the-idiot-traitor/ Khaddam: the idiot traitor 17 Tuesday May 2011 Posted by Zak in Media Monitoring, Politics, Syria, TV Al-Manar, a Hezbollah controlled Lebanese TV channel, broke the news last Friday to the Lebanese & Arab audience, about the interview Abdul Halim Khaddam, the Syrian ex-Vice President, gave to the Israeli TV Channel 2 from his exile. Al-Manar closely monitors the Israeli media sources. Their monitoring proved to be efficient in managing the physiological and military war with Israel. I think they made a scoop this time, but I have a view on it! At the first instance, I thought that can’t be right. Why the ex-Syrian senior official wants to do such an interview. What’s the benefit for him? As if, there are no enough Arab stations to go for. Why he wants to prove something, he is being accused of – a ‘traitor’! I know traitors are not usually idiots, and can well stay undercover. Khaddam’s office issued a statement on the following day explaining that he didn’t know anything about an Israeli channel, and the interview was supposed to be done by a Spanish channel. They quoted too, some email exchanges to prove their point. Al-Manar TV picked on two main points against Khaddam: the first one was that he knew/involved with the NATO to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. Fair enough, although it was not shown in his own words in Arabic, only in Hebrew through the Israeli commentator. The other point was that Khaddam thought a potential new Syrian regime should adopt the King Abdullah peace initiative with Israel (which is based on 1991 Madrid Conference). Hence, Al-Manar TV proved his treason. Note how the video is edited to make the talk on peace follow the talk on ‘priorities’ (@ 3:01). Anyway, I got baffled here with the attack on the ‘peace’ with Israel: isn’t this the official line of the Lebanese and Syrian governments, with the rest of Arab states, which was adopted and repeated in many Arab League summits? The funnier thing was when the Syrian State TV copied Al-Manar’s tone, and he became a ‘traitor’ on the Syrian Tv. Of course I am not defending Khaddam here, but I am just seeking some objectivity in reporting the news from our Lebanese stations (at least). If I want to be mild, I would say it’s often based on emotions and instinct – sadly. I don’t defend Khaddam because he is indefensible. He held what was called then the ‘Lebanese file’ in the Syrian leadership, so we know him well in Lebanon! He was the Syrian Foreign Minister (1970) and Vice-President (1982) and stayed until 2005. So he pretty much covered the Lebanese Civil War. According to a recent Syrian drama series Laanat El Toeen (the mud curse) – approved by the Syrian government - he was the ultimate master for all the crimes and corruption in the regime. Ironically, he is a great ally now for Saad Hariri, America and other Western governments, instead of trialing him. If I go to the Israeli reporting side, I see Channel 2 was hypocrite. They conspired on their guest to get the interview, without making it clear where this interview will end up. I base my view on what the interviewer Henryk Zimmerman said @ 3:34 in the enclosed video (in Arabic & some Hebrew), that Khaddam ‘practically’ knew. What does that mean? This means they haven’t discussed it, and he hasn’t made it clear to Khaddam that they are from the Israeli TV. I couldn’t e-search a related profile for Henryk Zimmerman (not sure about the spelling too), but it would be useful to see his CV! If Khaddam didn’t know about interview identity (which is likely), then he is an idiot because he should have known. However, if he knew about it directly or indirectly, then he is an idiot ‘traitor’! ................... http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33487_20100426.pdf Although it is difficult for opposition activists to organize inside Syria, an array of dissident groups freely operate abroad, particularly in Western Europe. In March 2006, former Syrian VicePresident Abd al Halim Khaddam and Sadr al Din al Bayanuni, the London-based leader of Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, formed The National Salvation Front (NSF), a coalition of secular and Islamist opposition activists based primarily outside of Syria. The NSF, which attempts to bridge the gap between religious and secular Syrians, is non-sectarian though its membership appears to be mostly Sunni. It has called for the peaceful removal of the Asad regime without outside intervention, though some analysts doubt that the NSF will be able to make inroads within Syrian society due to the regime’s effective security apparatus. Syrian authorities have prevented many dissidents from leaving Syria. Reportedly, the NSF held regular meetings with Bush Administration officials from the State Department and National Security Council in order to discuss ways of promoting democracy in Syria.5 ................ . http://news.intelwire.com/2011/05/declassified-state-department-cables-on.html Another cable dated May 10, 2002 described a meeting between former U.S. Ambassador Theodore Kattouf and former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam: The Ambassador interjected that the U.S. was not concerned about Hizballah's past resistance activities inside Lebanon. Although we strongly disagree with Hizballah's aims, we did not take issue with it playing a social and political role in Lebanon. But Hizballah was implicated in the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings in Saudi Arabia, something the ambassador knows firsthand, since he was the charge, and in bombings in Argentina in the early 90s. Beyond this, the U.S. would neither forget nor forgive Imad Mughniyeh and his associates for their attacks on U.S. personnel in Lebanon during the 1980s. .... what this report fails to mention is his family relationship with harii and his taKING FUNDS FROM THE us TO DESTABILIZE sYRIA AND OVERTHROW aSSAD. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/former-syrian-vp-set-to-form-government-in-exile-1.62220 Asked in an interview with the Spiegel news magazine if he was forming a government-in-exile, Khaddam said: "That is correct." He said he was willing to cooperate with all political forces in Syria, from Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood to disenchanted members of the ruling Baath Party. .... .... http://www.voltairenet.org/article176401.html THIERRY MEYSSAN The war against Syria was decided by George W. Bush in a meeting at Camp David on September 15, 2001 only a few days after the attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon. At that time, they prepared a list of the countries they would be attacking, and now it’s time for Syria. During the past 11 years, the U.S. has been trying to start a war with Syria, and you remember that they had accused President Bashar al-Assad of being responsible for the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. This war against Syria began in February 2011, at the same time with the war against Libya, and many people are confused, because quite at the same moment, we have the revolutionary events in Tunisia, and some may think that the revolution in Tunisia is equal to the imperialist wars in Libya and Syria. Of course, when the U.S. sent some troops to Syria to wage a war, it didn’t send men in uniform; they used secret agents to make trouble inside Syria and justify an international military action. Because Russia and China vetoed their draft resolutions at the UN, they weren’t able to enter Syria with the assistance of NATO, as they did in Libya. So they choose the plan b, and this plan was to send mercenaries with the financial aid of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and destabilize the country and to provoke a military coup d’etat inside Syria, and Ms. Clinton repeatedly talked about such a coup in Syria. But as this plan failed, we saw two big operations; one being the July 18 when they bombed the residence of the main leader of the National Security Council of Syria, and also September 26 plan when they tried, but failed, to kill the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. A great resistance by the army hindered their plans for a military coup. So, they don’t have any other solution, and probably they will accept the peace plan of Russia. ............ TEHRAN TIMES Some critics of President Assad have said that the government has been killing unarmed civilians and opening fire on its own citizens since the beginning of unrest in the country. Is this true? THIERRY MEYSSAN This is absolutely wrong. During the first days of the unrest in Syria, President Assad gave the instruction to the army not to use firearms when they think they could harm the civilians and I have definitely carried out some research and conducted several interviews with different military officials in different places of the country and all of them can testify that during the first period of the unrest, the army never used firearm against the civilians; never. Because of that, during this period, the army has suffered many loses and the number of army people killed was far greater than the number of army people killed during the war with Israel. So, that belief is absolutely wrong. However, things changed a little bit after the July 18 bombing of Damascus. After that, President Bashar al-Assad gave the order to army to kill the terrorists, and the army now has the mission to kill the rebels, instead of imprisoning them. So of course now, the action is now much more deadly and some civilians will naturally be killed during the fights. There’s no other choice. Another point is that the strength of the national army is about 400,000 soldiers and of course there may be some war criminals inside the army; it’s possible. They have to be arrested, prosecuted, condemned and put in jail. But the president has not so far given such an order, although some war criminals of the army have been arrested, but it’s difficult in this situation to make the whole things clear. .............. Please do check links under Syria on the left hand side, as embeded links can be found, such as this one... http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/Report_of_Arab_League_Observer_Mission.pdf ...........