New CIA Director John Brennan Cheers Torture

4 Years Ago Could You've Imagined We'd Let Banks Off Laundering Money For Terrorists & Drug Cartels?

Russian Military Experts Say The US Patriot Missiles On The Syrian Border Are Actually Pointed At Iran

Business Insider
Sergel Stroken
Yelena Chernenko

Russia is categorically opposed to the Turkey’s installation of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles along its border with Syria. Most have assumed that the Moscow's opposition was driven by its friendship with embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But Russian military experts tell Kommersant that Moscow is actually concerned that the missiles will be used in military action against Iran.

In spite of the fact that the planned location of the missiles is relatively far from the Iranian border, they could be easily deployed to any place in Turkey, and be used against Iranian rockets.

The experts Kommersant spoke with said that having the Patriot missiles in Turkey seriously increases the risk of armed conflict with Iran, which would not be able to strike back if the Patriot missiles are deployed.

“Turkey has explained its request to NATO to put the Patriot missiles on its border with Syria as exclusively related to its need to defend itself from a possible attack from the Syrian army.

"But according to our information, there could be a second motivation for this actions, which is a preparation for military action against Iran,” said one diplomatic source in Moscow.

Russia has reacted extremely negatively to Turkey’s plans to install the Patriot missiles. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that this “increases the risk of military conflict,” and evoked Chekhov’s gun syndrome: if there is a gun on the stage in the first act, then it will be shot in the third act.

Western countries have reacted extremely skeptically to Russia’s concern. NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen called it “baseless,” and Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey’s self-defense plans was none of Russia’s business.

The Syria Chemical Weapons Saga: The Staging of a US-NATO Sponsored Humanitarian Disaster?

Global Research
Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Modeled on the Saddam Hussein WMD narrative, the propaganda ploy concerning the alleged threat of Syria’s chemical weapons has been building up over several months.

Iskander Mach 6-7

The Western media suggests –in chorus and without evidence– that a “frustrated” and “desperate” president Bashar al Assad is planning to use deadly chemical weapons against his own people. Last week, U.S. officials revealed to NBC News that “Syria’s military has loaded nerve-gas chemicals into bombs and are awaiting final orders from al-Assad”.

Western governments are now accusing Syria of planning a diabolical scheme on the orders of the Syrian head of State. Meanwhile, the media hype has gone into full gear. Fake reports on Syria’s WMD are funneled into the news chain, reminiscent of the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The evolving media consensus is that “the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad appears to be entering its twilight” and that the “international community” has a responsibility to come to the rescue of the Syrian people to prevent the occurrence of a humanitarian disaster.

“... Fears are growing in the West that Syria will unleash chemical weapons in a last-ditch act of desperation”

Recent reports that the embattled government of Syria has begun preparations for the use of chemical weapons [against the Syrian people] . After two years of civil war and more than 40,000 deaths, events in Syria may be heading to a bloody crescendo. (WBUR, December 11, 2012)

The antiwar critics have largely underscored the similarities with the Iraq WMD ploy, which consisted in accusing the government of Saddam Hussein of possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

The alleged WMD threat was then used as a justification to invade Iraq in March 2003. The WMD Iraq ploy was subsequently acknowledged in the wake of the invasion as an outright fabrication, with president George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair actually recognizing that it was a “big mistake”. In a recent statement Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for ‘lying’ Blair and Bush to face trial in the Hague`s International Criminal Court

Syria versus Iraq

The Syria WMD saga is in marked contrast to that of Iraq. The objective is not to” justify” an all out humanitarian war on Syria, using chemical weapons as a pretext.

An examination of allied military planning as well as the nature of US-NATO support to the opposition forces suggests a different course of action to that adopted in relation to Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011).

The purpose is indeed to demonize Bashar Al Assad but the objective at this stage is not the conduct of an all out “shock and awe” war on Syria, involving a full fledged air campaign. Such an action would, under present conditions, be a highly risky undertaking. Syria has advanced air defense capabilities, equipped with Russian Iskander missiles (see image) as well as significant ground forces. A Western military operation could also lead to a response from Russia, which has a naval base at the port city of Tartus in Southern Syria.

Moreover, Iranian forces from its revolutionary guards corps (IRGC) are present on the ground in Syria; Russian military advisers are involved in the training of the Syrian military.

In recent developments, Syria took delivery of the more advanced Russian Iskander missile system, the Mach 6-7, in response to the deployment of US Made Patriot missiles in Turkey. Syria already possesses the less advanced E-Series Iskander. Syria is also equipped with the Russian ground to air defense missile system Pechora-2M. (see video below)

Iskander Mach 6-7

Description

The Pechora-2M is a surface-to-air anti-aircraft short-range missile system designed for destruction of aircraft, cruise missiles, assault helicopters and other air targets at ground, low and medium altitudes.

US Recognition of Opposition Syrian Coalition Contradicts Geneva Statement

NATO Appears to be Rushing for Syria Conclusion

Patrick Henningsen: Syrian Internet Shutdown Could Have Been American-Influenced

Gruesome footage has emerged apparently showing Syrian rebels executing loyalists while their victims pleaded for their lives. One of the gunmen is heard referencing an al-Qaeda-linked group behind several terrorist attacks in Syria.

News analyst Patrick Henningsen says the nationwide internet shutdown, that's now ended, could have been American-influenced.

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

Syrian government not to use chemical weapons

Times of India

DAMASCUS: The Syrian government on Monday said it would never use chemical weapons "even if they existed" against its people under any circumstance, Xinhua reported.
 
The Syrian foreign ministry's statement came in response to recent remarks made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who Monday warned President Bashar al-Assad against using chemical weapons and said the Washington was prepared to act if he ignored the warning.

"Syria has repeatedly stressed to the American side directly, or through the Russian friends, that it will not use such weapons, even if they existed, against its people under any circumstance," the ministry said.

The ministry said the US was known for fabricating such issues as it did in Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

Clinton, earlier in the day, said the use of chemical weapons " is a red line for the US," adding that "I am not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad administration has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people.

"But suffice it to say we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur."

Syria Has Just Been Taken Offline

Wired
Noah Shachtman

Updated 1:37 pm.

Syria has been largely cut off from the rest of the internet — just as rebel forces are making some of their biggest advances yet against the Assad regime.

“From what we are seeing,” information security specialist Chris Ginley tells Danger Room, “Syria is offline.”

The network monitoring group Renesys reported on Thursday that 77 networks — 92% of the country’s total — began experiencing outages at 10:26 Greenwich Mean Time.
But Syria’s apparently systematic disconnection from the internet actually began at least a week earlier, according to research by the SecDev Group internet analytics firm. Around the middle of the month, Syria’s ordinary handful of daily requests to withdraw from Syria’s BGP [Border Gateway Protocol] routes started to grow to a few hundred per. These connections are what enables one national network to interface with the broader internet. On November 22, the withdrawals suddenly jumped to more than 2000. An even greater spike occurred on November 29.

“When a country withdraws itself from the internet using BGP such as Syria has, it means that on a technical level no one knows how to get there anymore, because there are no longer any paths, effectively shutting off the internet in the region,” SecDev explains in a draft report.

“On some networks there are still some paths in place,” Ginley adds. “But this could be to maintain some limited communication or perhaps it’s just an error on their side.”
The communications blackout — which, according to some local reports, also briefly included cell and landline phone service – is hugely important to the war effort in Syria.

 The rebels don’t just use these networks to share information with one another. They train their forces and document regime atrocities with YouTube clips. The government has been known to shut down internet service in a particular city in advance of a major attack.

“But this is the first time are seeing it centralized (from what I can tell),” emails SecDev CEO Rafal Rohozinski, who has been working with Syrian opposition groups. “We are trying to ascertain whether this is a deliberate pulling of the plug, a technical error, or something else.”

Damascus International Airport has also reportedly disappeared from some flight radars.
“I would be a bit surprised if this was a long-lasting outage,” Rohozinski adds. “The Syrian government and security forces rely alsp on the internet as a means of coordination, propaganda, and ensuring a degree of satisfaction among its constituency. Also, Syria has seen increase in cell phone and internet subscribers during the period of the conflict. In other words, it’s a source of revenue for the economy and government, as well as a vital lifeline for most people.”

Syria’s information minister claims that the Damascus government had nothing to do with the shutdown. “It is not true that the state cut the internet. The terrorists targeted the internet lines, resulting in some regions being cut off,” Reuters quotes him as saying. One regime-friendly website calls the cutoff a NATO “psychological operation.”

Perhaps. But one thing is for certain: the communications clampdown comes as Syrian rebels are enjoying some of their most important gains of the war. They seized a major hydroelectric dam on Monday. And “in the past month,” the New York Times reports, “fighters have overrun a half-dozen [military] bases around Damascus, Syria’s capital; two in the country’s eastern oil-producing area; and the largest military
installation near the country’s largest city, Aleppo.” The AP reports that American officials are preparing to recognize the opposition as Syria’s legitimate government.

A chart from Akamai shows the drop-off of Syrian internet traffic.

The regime is continuing to bombard rebel-controlled bases and towns from the air. On Tuesday, the regime warplanes bombed an olive press factory near the Turkish border, killing at least 20 people. A day prior, air attacks on two rebel bases reportedly sent hundreds of people fleeing into Turkey. These attacks came just before a NATO team arrived in Turkey to scout potential sites for Patriot missile batteries, which could be used to defend against a regime attack across the border.

Syrian rebels have fought back with captured anti-aircraft missile launchers, days ago shooting down a regime helicopter. It’s all part of an increasing array of heavy weapons captured from army bases overrun by the rebels. Earlier in November, rebels seized a major military base near the northern city of Aleppo, capturing several tanks, multiple armored vehicles and long-range artillery guns. Perhaps more vital for the war against Assad is the situation near the capital of Damascus, which is now seeing signs of a “rebel siege,” opposition activist Fawaz Tello told Reuters. Rebel forces captured at least two military bases near Damascus in this month, and are are reportedly coming close to cutting off the city’s airport.

Syria’s networks have also become a central battlefield in the conflict. In recent months, pro-regime hackers are trying to gain access to activists’ machines — by tricking them into downloading fake security software. Once installed, the surveillance programs will “take screenshots of target machines, turn on the computer’s microphone or camera, log all your keystrokes — and then send it all back to Damascus,” Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation tells Danger Room. As Renesys notes, it may be no coincidence that one of the few networks to survive the Syrian blackout was implicated the May malware attacks targeting activists.

Both sides have leaked embarrassing emails belonging to the other. In August, pro-regime hackers broke into the Reuters news service, posting a fake news story about the crumbling of rebel support in Aleppo. In September, the Al-Jazeera news network had its websites defaced with messages calling the rebels “terrorists.”

Meanwhile, several hundred Syrian activists have traveled to Istanbul for training in secure communications, funded by the U.S. State Department. The rebel leaders received tips on how to leapfrog firewalls, encrypt their data, and use cellphones without getting caught, as Time magazine recently reported. Then they returned to Syria, many of them with new phones and satellite modems in hand.

In response, perhaps, the regime has detained tech activists like the open source advocate Bassel Khartabil. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has “launched a letter-writing campaign, hoping to flood Syrian officials and diplomats with physical mail demanding that Khartabil be formally charged and given access to a lawyer or released immediately.” Given the state of Syria’s networks, it may be the only kind of mail that gets through.

Ben Swann: "No Country Would Tolerate Missiles From Outside

The Osama bin Laden Myth

Daily Bell

Paul Craig Roberts

The interview below with Osama bin Laden was conducted by the Karachi, Pakistan, daily newspaper, Ummat, and published on September 28, 2001, 17 days after the alleged, but unsubstantiated, al Qaeda attack of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center twin towers and Pentagon. The interview was sensational. The alleged "mastermind" of 9/11 said that he and al Qaeda had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. The British Broadcasting Corporation's World Monitoring Service had the interview translated into English and made public on September 29, 2001.

Osama bin Laden's sensational denial was not reported by the US print and TV media. It was not investigated by the executive branch. No one in the US Congress called attention to bin Laden's refusal of responsibility for the greatest humiliation ever inflicted on a superpower.

To check my memory of the lack of coverage, I googled "Osama bin Laden's interview denying responsibility for 9/11." Some Internet sites reproduced the interview, but the only mainstream news source that I found was a 1 minute YouTube video from CNN in which the anchor, after quoting an al Jazeera report of bin Laden's denial, concludes that "we can all weigh that in the scale of credibility and come to our own conclusions." In other words, bin Laden had already been demonized, and his denial was not credible.
The sensational news was unfit for US citizens and was withheld from them by the american "free press," a press free to lie for the government but not to tell the truth.

Obviously, if bin Laden had outwitted not only the National Security Agency, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the FBI but also all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of Washington's NATO puppet states, Israel's Mossad and in addition the National Security Council, NORAD, US air traffic control and airport security four times on the same morning, it would be the greatest feat in world history, a movement-building feat that would have made al Qaeda the most successful anti-imperialist organization in human history, an extraordinary victory over "the great satan" that would have brought millions of new recruits into al Qaeda's ranks. Yet the alleged "mastermind" denied all responsibility.

I remember decades ago when a terrorist attack occurred in Europe, whether real or an Operation Gladio false-flag attack, innumerable organizations would claim credit. Perhaps this was the CIA's way of diverting attention from itself but it illustrates that every intelligence service understands the value to an organization of claiming credit for a successful attack. Although bin Laden denied responsibility, in 2011 some al Qaeda leaders, realizing the prestige value of the 9/11 attack, claimed credit for the attack and criticized Iranian President Ahmadinejad for questioning the official US story.

Although only a few Americans are aware of the September 28, 2001 interview in which bin Laden states his non-involvement with the 9/11 attacks, many Americans have seen post-2001 videos in which a person alleged to be bin Laden takes credit for the attacks. There are two problems with these videos. Experts have examined them and found them to be fakes, and all of the videos appeared after bin Laden was reported by the Pakistan Observer, the Egyptian press and Fox News to have died in mid-December, 2001, from lung disease.

Bin Laden also suffered from kidney disease. According to a CBS news report on January 28, 2002, Osama bin Laden was hospitalized for dialysis treatment in the Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi on September 10, 2001, the day before 9/11


Obviously, a man suffering from terminal lung and kidney disease did not survive for another decade to be murdered by a US Navy SEAL team in Abbottabad. A Pakistani TV interview with the neighbor of the alleged "bin Laden compound" exposed the assassination hoax. This sensational interview also went unreported by america's "free press." I had the interview translated, and it is available here. See also this video from the BBC.

Shortly after the alleged assassination 30 members of the SEAL unit died in a mysterious helicopter crash in Afghanistan, and now we learn that not a single one of the thousands of sailors on the aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, witnessed bin Laden's alleged burial at sea from that ship. The press reports with a straight face that for unexplained reasons it was kept secret from the ship's sailors. This is supposed to be the explanation of the sailors' emails reporting to family and friends that they witnessed no burial at sea. Some speculate that the SEALs were bumped off before their questions to one another, "Were you on that raid?", reached outside the unit. Apparently, it doesn't strike the media or the public as strange that the US government captured and killed the terror mastermind without interrogating him and without keeping any evidence or presenting any witnesses to support the assassination claim.

Adolf Hitler claimed that communists burned down the Reichstag and that Polish troops had crossed the frontier and attacked Germany. With 9/11, Americans experienced Washington's version of these grand lies. An omniscient bin Laden dying from terminal illnesses in distant Afghanistan defeated the American National Security State and drove his attack through the walls of the Pentagon itself, requiring for our defense a "war on terror" that destroyed US civil liberties and financially ruined the country in order to prevent the triumph of a man who died of natural causes in December 2001.

On May 9, 2011, Professor Michel Chossudovsky republished the September 28, 2001, Osama bin Laden interview in Global Research.


Interview with Osama bin Laden. Osama Denies his Involvement in 9/11

Israel's War on Truth | Brainwash Update

President Obama Gives Pakistan And Yemen Permission To Attack United States?

Sunday morning in Thailand, President Barack Obama exchanged the usual pleasantries and gave the usual declarations to the press one would expect when a president begins a three-day tour of Southeast Asia. When asked about the ongoing (and growing) Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president gave a full-throated defense of Israel’s decision to launch military strikes on Gaza in return for Palestinian rocket attacks.

But Reason‘s Mike Riggs noticed something particularly hilarious/sad about the president’s remarks: Obama accidentally satirized himself and American foreign policy with a few unwittingly ironic lines (emphasis mine):

Let’s understand what the precipitating event here that’s causing the current crisis and that was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated, and there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.

…So we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians.

…Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory.

Got that? No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down from outside lands. As Riggs wrote in his headline: “…says the man who regularly bombs Pakistan and Yemen.”

Of course, many people will cry “false equivalency!” or justify the double standard by noting that our bombings of Pakistan and Yemen are for targeted killing of militants effectively at war with the United States. If that’s how you see it, then fair enough. But one could easily say that Yemen would not tolerate missiles raining down on its civilians… like one particular 16-year-old boy… from outside lands.

But Obama’s comment is mock-worthy solely for the fact that the crux of his contribution to the “War on Terror” has been to… rain down missiles on civilians in Pakistan and Yemen from outside lands. This has also largely been the crux of American neoconservative foreign policy: outside bombings for me, but not for thee.

And if the leaders of those two countries actually stood up and threatened us with war because of our killing of their civilians, could they point to these remarks when we tell them to back off?

Watch the president’s remarks below, via NBC News

Puppet State America

Global Research
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

The United States government and its subject peoples think of the US as “the world’s only superpower.” But how is a country a superpower when its entire government and a majority of the subjects, especially those members of evangelical churches, grovel at the feet of the Israeli Prime Minister? How is a country a superpower when it lacks the power to determine its own foreign policy in the Middle East? Such a country is not a superpower. It is a puppet state.

In the past few days we have witnessed, yet again, the “American superpower” groveling at Netanyahu’s feet. When Netanyahu decided to again murder the Palestinian women and children of Gaza, to further destroy what remains of the social infrastructure of the Gaza Ghetto, and to declare Israeli war crimes and Israeli crimes against humanity to be merely the exercise of “self-defense,” the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, the White House, and the US media all promptly declared their support for Netanyahu’s crimes.

On November 16 the Congress of the “superpower,” both House and Senate, passed overwhelmingly the resolutions written for them by AIPAC, the Israel Lobby known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the only foreign agent that is not required to register as a foreign agent. The Global News Service of the Jewish People reported their power over Washington with pride. http://current.com/19su0kc Both Democrats and Republicans shared the dishonor of serving Israel and evil instead of America and justice for the Palestinians.

The White House quickly obeyed the summons from the Israel Lobby. President Obama announced that he is “fully supportive” of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told the media on November 17 that the White House “wants the same thing as the Israelis want.” This is an overstatement as many Israelis oppose the crimes of the Israeli government, which is not the government of Israel but the government of the “settlers,” that is, the crazed land-hungry immigrants who are illegally, with Netanyahu’s support, stealing the lands of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s Israel is the equivalent of the Lincoln Republicans 150 years ago. Then there was no international law to protect Southern states, who left the voluntary union, a right under the Constitution, in order to avoid being exploited by Northern business interests. Subsequently, the Union army, after devastating the South, turned on the American Indians, and there was no international law to protect American Indians from being murdered and dispossessed by Washington’s armies.

Washington claimed that its invasion forces were threatened by the Indian’s bows and arrows. Today there is international law to protect the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza. However, every time that the world tries to hold the Israeli government accountable for its crimes, Israel’s Washington puppet vetoes the UN decision.

Two Killed, 54 Wounded as Israel Cracks Down on Antiwar Protests

Israel Reacts Violently to West Bank Protests
 
AntiWar

Though most of the Israeli military’s killing these days is focused on the Gaza Strip, the military is also reacting more violently than usual toward West Bank protests, particularly antiwar rallies condemning the Gaza attacks.
Two protesters in the West Bank have been killed over the weekend, including 31-year-old Rushdi Tamimi, who was shot in the back with live ammunition and later died of his injuries. The other slain protester, 22-year-old Hamdi Mohammad Jawwad al-Falah from Hebron, was shot four times by Israeli troops, who claimed he attacked them, and that despite apparently being unarmed he put the troops in “immediate and present danger for their lives.”

54 other protesters were wounded in rallies, mostly shot by rubber bullets or suffering from tear gas inhalation. Though Israel is regularly quick to move against West Bank protests, the intensity of the attacks has surprised many.

Though Israeli forces have arrested many West Bank protest organizers, they will likely be detained without charges, and the bulk of the demonstrators don’t appear to have been accused of any crime, despite being attacked by troops to disperse them\

Ear to the Ground U.S. May Be ‘Filibustering’ Security Council Over Gaza

TruthDig
Peter Z. Scheer

Scott Garner (CC-BY-ND)

The Russian ambassador to the United Nations on Monday said an unnamed country (“I’m sure you can guess which”) was engaged in a “filibuster attempt” to block a statement condemning the violence in Gaza.

“Several Western diplomats” told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the statement, written by the Moroccan delegation, did not lay enough blame for the violence on Gazan rockets.

The Security Council has been a paragon of inaction in the Middle East. Russia may want to halt Israeli bombs in Gaza, but Moscow has steadfastly opposed international engagement in nearby Syria.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice is reported to have sided with Israel in a closed-door meeting, although she “deplored the violence.” Rice is rumored to be President Obama’s top choice to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Clinton is expected to step down in the second term.

The BBC reports that as of Monday, more than 105 people in Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.

Erdogan says Israel commits terrorist acts in Gaza

Albawaba

The State of Israel is committing "terrorist acts" in the Gaza Strip, said Monday the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the sixth day of the Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave. "Those who equate Islam with terrorism condone mass murder of Muslims and turn their heads against the killing of children in Gaza," he said at the Eurasian Islamic Council conference in Istanbul. "For this reason I say that Israel is a terrorist state and that its acts are terrorist acts," said the head of the Turkish government.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Palestinian movements of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank Monday called in Ramallah for unity and vowed to "end the division" in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

"From Ramallah, we announce with leaders of other movements that we end the division," said Jibril Rajoub, a senior Fatah figure, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, before a thousand of demonstrators waving Palestinian national flag . "Whoever speaks of the division after today is a criminal," assured Mahmoud Al-Ramahi, a Hamas leader in the West Bank.

Many clashes with Israeli security forces have erupted in recent days in the cities of the West Bank and Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem to denounce the Israeli offensive against armed groups in Gaza.

'US, Europe complicit in Israeli crimes'

Petraeus Switches Up His Story on the Benghazi Attacks

Wired
Spencer Ackerman

Former Gen. David Petraeus at a Fourth of July ceremony in Kabul, 2010

Former CIA Director David Petraeus knew all along that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked by al-Qaida-aligned terrorists this past September. Only he wasn’t so certain when he first briefed Congress on the Libyan disaster, just days after it occurred. And even the most Petraeus-friendly legislators find it odd that the former CIA director is retroactively editing his testimony.

Petraeus emerged from his compounding week-long fall from grace to testify behind closed doors to the House and Senate intelligence committees about what the CIA knew about the hours-long assault as it unfolded. The overarching and highly politicized question hanging over Benghazi is whether the Obama administration misrepresented the disaster by initially pointing to an anti-Islam video as the catalyst, rather than the complex terrorist attack that actually occurred. What’s begun to leak out of the Petraeus hearings is this: the former four-star general and spymaster was convinced from jump that this was the work of terrorists.

In his Friday testimony. Petraeus claimed “he thought all along that he made it clear there was terrorist involvement,” according to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). But, King said, “That was not my recollection” of Petraeus’ testimony.

Nor is it what Petraeus’ old boss was saying at the time. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, publicly explained on Sept. 28 that contemporaneous — and ultimately incorrect — intelligence reporting “led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” and “we provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress.”


Confusing matters further, Petraeus indicated to lawmakers that the “talking points” the CIA initially gave to the Obama administration and members of Congress omitted early references to terrorism. Those talking points, published on Thursday by CBS, say that the attack on the consulate was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.” They hold open the possibility that the intelligence picture will change — as, indeed, it did, significantly. Those talking points do not indicate the certainty that Petraeus now says he possessed to attribute the attack to Libyan militant group Ansar al-Sharia.

According to King, Petraeus couldn’t explain the discrepancy. King said the talking points went through an “interagency” review, but the CIA ultimately “said, ‘Okay for it to go.’”
The Obama administration’s explanation of the assault on Benghazi evolved from emphasizing an ultimately incorrect connection to the anti-Islam video to blaming Benghazi on a terrorist assault. Its defense is that the intelligence shifted; critics believe that Obama was covering up a terrorist attack to ensure his reelection. There are numerous unanswered questions about what happened in Benghazi: for instance, why security at the consulate was so light despite numerous precursor attacks that summer.

Petraeus, finally out the door of the administration and under investigation by his own former agency, just added a few more, rather than clearing up the existing ones.
We’ll update this post as more information from Petraeus’ testimony leaks out.

Update, 4:52 p.m.: According to the Associated Press, the CIA excised mentions of terrorist groups from the talking points “so as not to alert them that U.S. intelligence was on their trail.” Pentagon spokesman George Little had said the day following the attack that the U.S. would retaliate, but did not give any specifics as to who was responsible.

Bashar Al Assad Interview: ‘Syria faces not a Civil War, but Terrorism by Proxies’

Global Research

Sophie Shevardnadze

Assad: Erdogan thinks he’s Caliph, new sultan of the Ottoman

In an exclusive interview with RT, President Bashar Assad said that the conflict in Syria is not a civil war, but proxy terrorism by Syrians and foreign fighters. He also accused the Turkish PM of eyeing Syria with imperial ambitions.

Assad told RT that the West creates scapegoats as enemies – from communism, to Islam, to Saddam Hussein. He accused Western countries of aiming to turn him into their next enemy.

While mainstream media outlets generally report on the crisis as a battle between Assad and Syrian opposition groups, the president claims that his country has been infiltrated by numerous terrorist proxy groups fighting on behalf of other powers.

In the event of a foreign invasion of Syria, Assad warned, the fallout would be too dire for the world to bear.

‘My enemy is terrorism and instability in Syria’

RT: President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, thank very much for talking to us today.

Bashar Assad: You are most welcome in Damascus.

RT: There are many people who were convinced a year ago that you would not make it this far. Here again you are sitting in a newly renovated presidential palace and recording this interview. Who exactly is your enemy at this point?

BA: My enemy is terrorism and instability in Syria. This is our enemy in Syria. It is not about the people, it is not about persons. The whole issue is not about me staying or leaving. It is about the country being safe or not. So, this is the enemy we have been fighting as Syria.

RT: I have been here for the last two days and I had the chance to talk to a couple of people in Damascus. Some of them say that whether you stay or go at this point does not really matter anymore. What do you say about this?

BA: I think for the president to stay or leave is a popular issue. It is related to the opinion of some people and the only way can be done through the ballot boxes. So, it is not about what we hear. It is about what we can get through that box and that box will tell any president to stay or leave very simply.

RT: I think what they meant was that at this point you are not the target anymore; Syria is the target.

BA: I was not the target; I was not the problem anyway. The West creates enemies; in the past it was the communism then it became Islam, and then it became Saddam Hussein for a different reason. Now, they want to create a new enemy represented by Bashar. That’s why they say that the problem is the president so he has to leave. That is why we have to focus of the real problem, not to waste our time listening to what they say.

‘The fight now is not the president’s fight – it is Syrians’ fight to defend their country’

RT: Do you personally still believe that you are the only man who can hold Syria together and the only man who can put an end to what the world calls a ‘civil war’?

BA: We have to look at it from two aspects. The first aspect is the constitution and I have my authority under the constitution. According to this authority and the constitution, I have to be able to solve the problem. But if we mean it that you do not have any other Syrian who can be a president, no, any Syrian could be a president. We have many Syrians who are eligible to be in that position. You cannot always link the whole country only to one person.

RT: But you are fighting for your country. Do you believe that you are the man who can put an end to the conflict and restore peace?

BA: I have to be the man who can do that and I hope so, but it is not about the power of the President; it is about the whole society. We have to be precise about this. The president cannot do anything without the institutions and without the support of the people. So, the fight now is not a President’s fight; it is Syrians’ fight. Every Syrian is involved in defending his country now.

RT: It is and a lot of civilians are dying as well in the fighting. So, if you were to win this war, how would you reconcile with your people after everything that has happened?

BA: Let’s be precise once again. The problem is not between me and the people; I do not have a problem with the people because the United States is against me and the West is against me and many other Arab countries, including Turkey which is not Arab of course, are against me. If the Syrian people are against me, how can I be here?!

RT: They are not against you

BA: If the whole world, or let us say a big part of the world, including your people, are against you, are you a superman?! You are just a human being. So, this is not logical. It is not about reconciling with the people and it is not about reconciliation between the Syrians and the Syrians; we do not have a civil war. It is about terrorism and the support coming from abroad to terrorists to destabilize Syria. This is our war.

RT: Do you still not believe it is a civil war because I know there are a lot who think that there are terrorist acts which everyone believes take place in Syria, and there are also a lot of sectarian-based conflicts. For example we all heard about the mother who has two sons; one son is fighting for the government forces and the other son is fighting for the rebel forces, how this is not a civil war?