World Politics

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Opposition parties in Turkey demanding the referendum vote be annulled due to several reports of the vote being tampered with (i.e. people being intimidated to vote yes and inadequate transparency in how the count went) and going to court with it (possibly going in appeal in the European Court of Human Rights if the Turkish constitutional court doesn't work out). OCSE which was present to check whether the elections were fair is also voicing some concerns over the referendum......

With a large part of Turkey not ready to give up their democracy to that lunatic and with that lunatic holding a firm grasp over other strata of Turkish society, I imagine things can get pretty ugly over their. I can't imagine the Kurds on the one hand and the more liberal groups on the other side in Istanbul and so forth are prepared to give Erdogan more power on the basis of a possibly manipulated referendum and I can't imagine Erdogan treating dissenters very kindly. Throw in Europe who through the OCSE has already cast their suspicion (and if the opposition parties go to the European Court of Human Rights and get what they want from there); things could get very ugly there very quickly, methinks.

 

[python]

I would not be surprised if turkey may soon sink into a wide-ranging civil war. it seems there is a potent - and growing - mix of the internal and external enemies/adversaries to suggest such a sad eventuality. still shaking from a recent military coup and making multiple enemies via the harsh cleansing and arrests, i can't see a shortage of the anti-erdoganists. all it would take is an outside state actor with resources to mass arm the opposition.

who could that be. from the list below, only vlad and trump would seem to fit. yet to get there, either turkey will have to do something stupid (like to shoot vlad in the back in syria) or for the erdogan anti-nato rhetoric to turn practical, like his threats to kick off germany from the turkish airbases...

if i'm not mistaken, turkey is currently involved in the following military conflicts or strained relations:
-internal civil war with their own kurds in the south-east
-northen syria fighting ypg
-northern iraq
-isis

turkey has strained or very strained relations with:
-egypt
-armenia
-greece
-cyprus
-russia (recently improved)
-israel (recently improved)
-germany and the eu going from bad to worse
-the us (over the extradition of the alleged coup head gulen)

if you ask me, that's way too much to handle for the power maniac.

 

[Brullnux]

A civil war seems depressingly likely. Of course if you ask some in the UK a 52/48 majority is an incredible mandate to undertake very important constitutional changes and do it however you like (tongue in cheek).

But too many, especially in Ankara, Kurdistan and on the west coast are very fervently anti-Erdogan. However, if Erdogan succeeds in reinstating the death penalty, he might pull a Stalin and purge any potentially unfaithful officers and generals and take complete control (of a fairly powerful) miltary. Upgrading the state of emergency to martial law might follow too. I fear that he will have such a tight grip on Turkey that it will be near impossible for Turks to get rid of him until his death. We shouldn't forget that he has a large base if extremely loyal supporters, extending as far as Germany and the Netherlands. Erdogan love is real.

Should a civil war happen, at least this time there appears to be a multitude of better, less megalomanic replacements. Maybe the Kurds will finally stop being killed too and create their own nation. But things don't seem positive at all for Turkey, unfortunately for them.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I would not be surprised if turkey may soon sink into a wide-ranging civil war. it seems there is a potent - and growing - mix of the internal and external enemies/adversaries to suggest such a sad eventuality. still shaking from a recent military coup and making multiple enemies via the harsh cleansing and arrests, i can't see a shortage of the anti-erdoganists. all it would take is an outside state actor with resources to mass arm the opposition.

who could that be. from the list below, only vlad and trump would seem to fit. yet to get there, either turkey will have to do something stupid (like to shoot vlad in the back in syria) or for the erdogan anti-nato rhetoric to turn practical, like his threats to kick off germany from the turkish airbases...

if i'm not mistaken, turkey is currently involved in the following military conflicts or strained relations:
-internal civil war with their own kurds in the south-east
-northen syria fighting ypg
-northern iraq
-isis

turkey has strained or very strained relations with:
-egypt
-armenia
-greece
-cyprus
-russia (recently improved)
-israel (recently improved)
-germany and the eu going from bad to worse
-the us (over the extradition of the alleged coup head gulen)

if you ask me, that's way too much to handle for the power maniac.

I think the writing was on the wall when the Turkish government seemingly manufactured a coup, arrested civil servants and defense personnel en masse, starting closing newspapers critical of the government and had already been arresting local writers for the same thing. It seems another Putin is in the making. At least the Kurds can't be blamed for the bombings ISIS has claimed as their own.

 

[blutto]

....important anniversary....

Israel is to hold lavish celebrations over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of what it calls the “liberation of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights” – or what the rest of us describe as the birth of the occupation.

The centrepiece event will take place in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. The West Bank settlement “bloc” enjoys wide support in Israel, not least because it was established long ago by the supposedly left-wing Labour party, now heading the opposition.

The jubilee is a potent reminder that for Israelis, most of whom have never known a time before the occupation, Israel’s rule over the Palestinians seems as irreversible as the laws of nature. But the extravagance of the festivities also underscores the growth over five decades of Israel’s self-assurance as an occupier.

Documents found this month in Israel’s archives reveal that, when Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, its first concern was to hoodwink the international community.

The foreign ministry ordered Israel’s ambassadors to mischaracterise its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem as a simple “municipal fusion”. To avoid diplomatic reprisals, Israel claimed it was necessary to ease the provision of essential services to the occupied Palestinian population.

Interestingly, those drafting the order advised that the deception was unlikely to succeed. The United States had already insisted that Israel commit no unilateral moves.

But within months Israel had evicted thousands of Palestinians from the Old City and destroyed their homes. Washington and Europe have been turning a blind eye to such actions ever since.

One of the Zionist movement’s favourite early slogans was: “Dunam after dunam, goat after goat”. The seizure of small areas of territory measured in dunams, the demolition of the odd home, and the gradual destruction of herding animals would slowly drive the Palestinians off most of their land, “liberating” it for Jewish colonisation. If it was done piecemeal, the objections from overseas would remain muffled. It has proved a winning formula.

Fifty years on, the colonisation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank is so entrenched that a two-state solution is nothing more than a pipe dream

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/19/israel-celebrates-50-years-as-occupier/

Cheers

 

[Jagartrott]

Another Putin critic is found dead.
Nothing to see here, move along people.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re:

Another Putin critic is found dead.
Nothing to see here, move along people.

DUDE brah.

He was or is? NKGB.

 

[aphronesis]

Woo hoo.

God bless global capital and spectacle culture.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/19/ferryland-iceberg-newfoundland-canada

Stay frosty.

 

[Bustedknuckle]

Re:

Another Putin critic is found dead.
Nothing to see here, move along people.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/23/europe/ukraine-former-russian-lawmaker-denis-voronenkov-killed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?utm_term=.0bb36ecf3152

but scott will say fake news..

 

[ToreBear]

Its confirmed that Sarin or a sarin-like substance was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39648503

I haven't been keeping up on Russian disinformation lately. But the story about hitting a weapons store containing Sarin seems to require even more leaps of logic than usual. AFAIK the nature of these substances is that they are stored in binary form. That means the Syrian bombs supposedly were able to mix the substances to make Sarin with an explosion, which likely would have destroyed one or two of the chemical components. Perhaps the Russians have given them some powerful new blender bomb.

Oh well, I'm sure the Russians will come up with another explanation as to why Syria didn't do it. They always do.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re:

Woo hoo.

God bless global capital and spectacle culture.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/19/ferryland-iceberg-newfoundland-canada

Stay frosty.

That is a big one. Funny or not the largest iceberg I saw while in Newfoundland was also in Ferryland. I have some pictures of it, it was foggy the day I was there and it was not as big as this one.


Ferryland is the sight of an archaeological dig. The Coloney of Avelon is the site's name. Seem lord baltimore stopped there before his family jewels got tooooo cold and went further south.

Stay Frosty

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

Another Putin critic is found dead.
Nothing to see here, move along people.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/23/europe/ukraine-former-russian-lawmaker-denis-voronenkov-killed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?utm_term=.0bb36ecf3152

but scott will say fake news..

Fake news.

:geek:

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Its confirmed that Sarin or a sarin-like substance was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39648503

I haven't been keeping up on Russian disinformation lately. But the story about hitting a weapons store containing Sarin seems to require even more leaps of logic than usual. AFAIK the nature of these substances is that they are stored in binary form. That means the Syrian bombs supposedly were able to mix the substances to make Sarin with an explosion, which likely would have destroyed one or two of the chemical components. Perhaps the Russians have given them some powerful new blender bomb.

Oh well, I'm sure the Russians will come up with another explanation as to why Syria didn't do it. They always do.

Just let Lord Stoltenberg do his thang and move out the way!

 

[blutto]

Re:

Its confirmed that Sarin or a sarin-like substance was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39648503

I haven't been keeping up on Russian disinformation lately. But the story about hitting a weapons store containing Sarin seems to require even more leaps of logic than usual. AFAIK the nature of these substances is that they are stored in binary form. That means the Syrian bombs supposedly were able to mix the substances to make Sarin with an explosion, which likely would have destroyed one or two of the chemical components. Perhaps the Russians have given them some powerful new blender bomb.

Oh well, I'm sure the Russians will come up with another explanation as to why Syria didn't do it. They always do.

....you mean something like what ISIS' good friends in Merikah have developed....

the M687 155 mm field artillery shell, which was a binary sarin weapon system developed by the US Army

....or this one...

The M134 bomblet was designed for the M190 Honest John rocket warhead.[1] The bomblets carried sarin nerve agent and when the missile was fired the bomblets were released 5,000 feet above their target.[1] When the time came for the sub-munitions to be released a mechanical time fuze would cut the warhead's skin and the bomblets were released.[1] The weapon could effectively saturate an area 1,000 meters in diameter with chemical agent.[1]

The Honest John held 356 of the 115 mm M134s.[1] The spherical M134 was 4.5 inches around and constructed of ribbed steel; its interior held about 1.1 pounds (0.50 kg) of sarin (GB).[2] The U.S. Army Chemical Corps originally planned to use the M134 as a VX dissemination method as well, but later regarded this use as ineffective and scrapped the plan

....or this one....

The M139 bomblet was a U.S. sub-munition designed for use in warheads as a chemical cluster bomb. Each bomblet held 590 grams (1.3 lb) of sarin nerve agent

In 1964, a new warhead size was standardized for the 318 mm Honest John rocket. The warhead held 52 M139 bomblets.[1] When the MGM-29 Sergeant was deployed in the 1960s, it had the capacity to deliver a warhead carrying 330 M139 bomblets.[1] Subsequent missile systems, including the Pershing missile, had the capability to carry warheads with the M139 inside.[1] In total, about 60,000 M139s were produced and stored...

Cheers

 

[python]

the all-important french presidential elections are tomorrow...will europe continue to slide right ?

no poll predicts that le pen can win the 2nd round, but neither they - notoriously - got trump or the brexit right :surprised: more than 30% are still undecided. cant quite explain it, but i tend to take the french pollsters more seriously than anglo saxon.

as the french are preparing to vote their country - understandably - looks more like a military camp than a vibrant democracy... under the provisions of several times extended emergency powers, armed uniformed people can stop and search anyone; they can conduct a raid on a property or seize your cell phone all w/o a judicial approval.

sad times

 

[Brullnux]

I'm not sure about all this 'we can't trust polls, look at Brexit and Trump' viewpoint. The polls in the US were giving Clinton a 3 point lead, and she ended up with a two point one. There were also many undecideds who the pundits stupidly decided to ignore.

Brexit on the other hand was purely down to pundits. Until the 16th of June, Brexit was ahead in the polls. Then something happened and the polls went the other way, but the more reputable pollsters (opinium, survation, yougov and ipsos) all had polls within the margin of error. There were some complete outliers but they should have been ignored as anomalies normally are.

I think undecideds probably will decrease with Le Pen in the second round. The best case scenario for her is a second round against the Thatcherite Fillon - a lot of the left will not turn up to vote, apart from some Macron supporters and some Melenchon supporters might go to Le Pen, I feel. Macron vs Le Pen should be fairly comfortable for Macron, unless he gets indicted for something.

 

[blutto]

....there is this Assad quote I found in an article about the recent cruise missile attacks....its a little weird and hard to understand ( context hard to pin down precisely ) but it seems to imply that way early in the Syrian conflict there was a concerted effort by the terrorists to neutralize the Syrian air defence system....a campaign that wouldn't help the terrorists but would definitely help if outside air support was brought in....so right from the beginning of the Syrian conflict there was an expectation that the terrorists would get air support and they devoted effort to facilitate that....so this conflict had a very long range plan that had outside players involved, and this was from before the actual beginning of the conflict.....

.....read, this conflict was neither spontaneous nor done on a napkin in a coffee shop one lazy afternoon...

"At the very beginning of the attacks, they started by destroying the Syrian air defense, which has nothing to do with what they called it that time the "peaceful demonstrations." Most of the air defense are outside the cities in outlying areas, so they started attacking that air defense and it was affected dramatically during the crisis," he said

.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704211052843978-assad-air-defense-us-missiles/

Cheers

 

[ToreBear]

Re: Re:

Its confirmed that Sarin or a sarin-like substance was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39648503

I haven't been keeping up on Russian disinformation lately. But the story about hitting a weapons store containing Sarin seems to require even more leaps of logic than usual. AFAIK the nature of these substances is that they are stored in binary form. That means the Syrian bombs supposedly were able to mix the substances to make Sarin with an explosion, which likely would have destroyed one or two of the chemical components. Perhaps the Russians have given them some powerful new blender bomb.

Oh well, I'm sure the Russians will come up with another explanation as to why Syria didn't do it. They always do.

....you mean something like what ISIS' good friends in Merikah have developed....

the M687 155 mm field artillery shell, which was a binary sarin weapon system developed by the US Army

....or this one...

The M134 bomblet was designed for the M190 Honest John rocket warhead.[1] The bomblets carried sarin nerve agent and when the missile was fired the bomblets were released 5,000 feet above their target.[1] When the time came for the sub-munitions to be released a mechanical time fuze would cut the warhead's skin and the bomblets were released.[1] The weapon could effectively saturate an area 1,000 meters in diameter with chemical agent.[1]

The Honest John held 356 of the 115 mm M134s.[1] The spherical M134 was 4.5 inches around and constructed of ribbed steel; its interior held about 1.1 pounds (0.50 kg) of sarin (GB).[2] The U.S. Army Chemical Corps originally planned to use the M134 as a VX dissemination method as well, but later regarded this use as ineffective and scrapped the plan

....or this one....

The M139 bomblet was a U.S. sub-munition designed for use in warheads as a chemical cluster bomb. Each bomblet held 590 grams (1.3 lb) of sarin nerve agent

In 1964, a new warhead size was standardized for the 318 mm Honest John rocket. The warhead held 52 M139 bomblets.[1] When the MGM-29 Sergeant was deployed in the 1960s, it had the capacity to deliver a warhead carrying 330 M139 bomblets.[1] Subsequent missile systems, including the Pershing missile, had the capability to carry warheads with the M139 inside.[1] In total, about 60,000 M139s were produced and stored...

Cheers

So you are saying IS had a 155 mm cannon, that they used to fire the shell at the area the Syrians were bombing without anyone noticing?

When the shell was fired the force of the acceleration would cause the disk between them to breach and the spinning of the projectile facilitated mixing.

Or are you saying the Russians had a Bomb that could facilitate all this without destroying any of the precursors?

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

Its confirmed that Sarin or a sarin-like substance was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39648503

I haven't been keeping up on Russian disinformation lately. But the story about hitting a weapons store containing Sarin seems to require even more leaps of logic than usual. AFAIK the nature of these substances is that they are stored in binary form. That means the Syrian bombs supposedly were able to mix the substances to make Sarin with an explosion, which likely would have destroyed one or two of the chemical components. Perhaps the Russians have given them some powerful new blender bomb.

Oh well, I'm sure the Russians will come up with another explanation as to why Syria didn't do it. They always do.

....you mean something like what ISIS' good friends in Merikah have developed....

the M687 155 mm field artillery shell, which was a binary sarin weapon system developed by the US Army

....or this one...

The M134 bomblet was designed for the M190 Honest John rocket warhead.[1] The bomblets carried sarin nerve agent and when the missile was fired the bomblets were released 5,000 feet above their target.[1] When the time came for the sub-munitions to be released a mechanical time fuze would cut the warhead's skin and the bomblets were released.[1] The weapon could effectively saturate an area 1,000 meters in diameter with chemical agent.[1]

The Honest John held 356 of the 115 mm M134s.[1] The spherical M134 was 4.5 inches around and constructed of ribbed steel; its interior held about 1.1 pounds (0.50 kg) of sarin (GB).[2] The U.S. Army Chemical Corps originally planned to use the M134 as a VX dissemination method as well, but later regarded this use as ineffective and scrapped the plan

....or this one....

The M139 bomblet was a U.S. sub-munition designed for use in warheads as a chemical cluster bomb. Each bomblet held 590 grams (1.3 lb) of sarin nerve agent

In 1964, a new warhead size was standardized for the 318 mm Honest John rocket. The warhead held 52 M139 bomblets.[1] When the MGM-29 Sergeant was deployed in the 1960s, it had the capacity to deliver a warhead carrying 330 M139 bomblets.[1] Subsequent missile systems, including the Pershing missile, had the capability to carry warheads with the M139 inside.[1] In total, about 60,000 M139s were produced and stored...

Cheers

So you are saying IS had a 155 mm cannon, that they used to fire the shell at the area the Syrians were bombing without anyone noticing?

When the shell was fired the force of the acceleration would cause the disk between them to breach and the spinning of the projectile facilitated mixing.

Or are you saying the Russians had a Bomb that could facilitate all this without destroying any of the precursors?

....no, and in case you have forgotten, you have said that....all I was pointing out was that one of the primary suppliers of arms to the ISIS project, Merikah, had munitions that had the capability to do what you unequivocally stated earlier was impossible ...

...and no they wouldn't have to fire the shell....just lay the shell in the middle of the road and put a small detonation device on it to simulate impact ( see photo and related comments in Postol article posted earlier )....and they would have known when the air strike is coming, so simply co-ordinate the two, cue the world wide outrage, and the cruise missiles are away...easy peezee...instant tragedy....

Cheers

 

[Echoes]

The good thing about the French Presidential elections is that many French (as far as I could tell) no longer even believe in polls themselves. The failure to predict Brexit nor Trump's win has often been repeated on the French MSM but also their failure to predict wins by Hamon & Fillon at the Socialist or the Republican primary elections. Polls at the very negative impact on the elections at previous elections. I vividly remember some Frenchies explaining to me that it was no use voting for smaller candidates because polls predicted them no choice while they would agree with much of these candidates' agendas. So to speak it was just voting for a lesser evil and voting against a candidate rather than for another. A bit like Pozzato chasing Gilbert to make him lose rather than win himself.

When I see that Asselineau is constantly making meetings in all corners of France in front of a thousand people (halls were constantly full, they had to refuse people), online polls saying he won pretty much every debate (OKAY online polls might not be representative but still it's an indication) and he's still 1% in official I'd say there's a problem. I don't think he will qualify but pretty sure he can make a better score than just 1%. Besides he impacted on the debate. He brought the European issue to the centre of the debate, he showed that how Marine Le Pen was wishy-washy about Europe, some journalists even took his arguments when interviewing her. I think he could have been better during the BFM debate with the 11 candidates but still the bigger candidates (Mélenchon first in line) were so scared of him that they refused a second debate which had been planned on France TV last Thursday and instead they turned it into a series of interviews... He could have shown that most candidates had agendas that were inapplicable under the European treaties (Mélenchon's or Le Pen's) while candidates such as Macron or Fillon assume the agenda provisioned by the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines of the European Commission : reducing the minimum wage "to make it compatible with job creation", removing workers' protection, reducing unemployment benefits, raising VAT and reducing taxes for big corporations, etc.

By the way if Fillon is Thatcherite, what about Macron? Both men are simply feeding from the BEPG, so obviously they both look "Thatcherite". In 2014 Mr Macron passed a law to scrap SNCF train lines in order to favour private bus lines... The guy is simply dismantling a 70 year old public train network that worked pretty well (not even talking about the effects on the environment). Nonsensical...

 

[Brullnux]

Macron seems like Renzi or a 1997 Blair. Fillon is much more similar to Thatcher and is also very corrupt. Even more so than Le Pen.

I like to look at the minimum to maximum likely results. The ones that have a range of 4 or 5 percent to see what is possible.

 

[mcduff]

If Le Pen wins the Presidency she will likely be hamstrung by a lack of support in the French congress. Could be fun to watch...

 

[Dan2016]

....there is this Assad quote I found in an article about the recent cruise missile attacks....its a little weird and hard to understand ( context hard to pin down precisely ) but it seems to imply that way early in the Syrian conflict there was a concerted effort by the terrorists to neutralize the Syrian air defence system....a campaign that wouldn't help the terrorists but would definitely help if outside air support was brought in....so right from the beginning of the Syrian conflict there was an expectation that the terrorists would get air support and they devoted effort to facilitate that....so this conflict had a very long range plan that had outside players involved, and this was from before the actual beginning of the conflict.....

.....read, this conflict was neither spontaneous nor done on a napkin in a coffee shop one lazy afternoon...

"At the very beginning of the attacks, they started by destroying the Syrian air defense, which has nothing to do with what they called it that time the "peaceful demonstrations." Most of the air defense are outside the cities in outlying areas, so they started attacking that air defense and it was affected dramatically during the crisis," he said

.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704211052843978-assad-air-defense-us-missiles/

Cheers

Interesting. As you say, it was not spontaneous...or I would say it's very unlikely to have been. We have well documented CIA involvement, Saudi, Quatar, Turkey, Israel, huge amounts of weapons from Eastern Europe and Libya etc . It's all out there in black and white, as you know. As to when exactly the spooks got involved I'm not sure, but before it all started seems more than plausible. The US was openly planning direct intervention to take out Syrian air-force/air-defense relatively early into the conflict, in 2012. And as we know, when plans are being openly talked about then something along the same lines is often already taking place...which ties into your sputnik article.

We also know, well documented, that rebels took out many Syrian air defenses in 2012. My understanding is most of these rebels were the Nusra-Front (Al-Qaeda offshoot). Maybe they did so in 2011 too but I haven't seen it reported. It's certainly possible. The ex-FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the story in early 2011 of Syrian rebels being trained for war by the CIA in Turkey. No US MSM would publish the story. It was published elsewhere, including in Turkey apparently (to their credit). I don't know how credible Sibel Edmonds is yet, I've just discovered her today. Quick google results below...

US plans in 2012 and rebels taking out air defenses:

A partial no-fly zone, Hashem reckons, can now be imposed over Idleb and Aleppo provinces more easily because the rebels are already doing much of the heavy-lifting themselves. There are seven airbases in total in those two provinces, at least two of which—one in Taftanaz, one in Abu Duhur—have been raided in recent weeks, their materiel confiscated or destroyed. Even without surface-to-air missiles of their own, rebels have managed to shoot down or neutralize MiG warplanes and helicopters and blow up T-72 tanks; in the battle over the Abu Duhur airbase, they took out between 8 and 12 helicopters on the ground, and downed two more mid-flight. But their struggle is still David-and-Goliath while the regime can drop barrels of TNT onto civilian neighborhoods and its howitzers can shell entire cities into dust.

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2012/10/12/12419/


Sibel Edmonds:

I can give you a recent example, in fact my website boilingfrogspost.com or for short bfpreport.com. In 2011, months and months before Syria came in the headlines – anything about Syria was written on the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN – we broke a story based on my sources here in United States military but also in Turkey about the fact that special CIA/NATO forces in a NATO base in Turkey, which is in the southern portion of Turkey very close to the Syrian border, they were bringing in, in Turkey, the CIA/NATO Gladio unit, they were recruiting and bringing in people from northern Syria into these camps, part of the US air force base in southern Turkey. They were training them – military training – they were arming them, and they were basically directing them towards create terror events inside Syria, not only against Assad, but also in various villages and regions against the people, against public.

When we broke this story and decided all this, nobody from the mainstream media even looked at it, in fact several of my sources, before approaching me at Boiling Frogs Post, they had gone with evidence, with documents, aerial pictures to some of the top publications such as the New York Times, but they did not print any of this, not because of lack of supporting documents, because at that point they were not ready in the United States to make Syria the real case, they were still in the midst of training and taking these people down, funneling them back into Syria. These are really pourus borders between Syria and Turkey. Then seven, eight months later suddenly Syria started entering the news headlines in the United States.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/silencing-a-whistle-blower-gladio-b-and-the-origins-of-isis-sibel-edmonds/5475126

 

[blutto]

....there is this Assad quote I found in an article about the recent cruise missile attacks....its a little weird and hard to understand ( context hard to pin down precisely ) but it seems to imply that way early in the Syrian conflict there was a concerted effort by the terrorists to neutralize the Syrian air defence system....a campaign that wouldn't help the terrorists but would definitely help if outside air support was brought in....so right from the beginning of the Syrian conflict there was an expectation that the terrorists would get air support and they devoted effort to facilitate that....so this conflict had a very long range plan that had outside players involved, and this was from before the actual beginning of the conflict.....

.....read, this conflict was neither spontaneous nor done on a napkin in a coffee shop one lazy afternoon...

"At the very beginning of the attacks, they started by destroying the Syrian air defense, which has nothing to do with what they called it that time the "peaceful demonstrations." Most of the air defense are outside the cities in outlying areas, so they started attacking that air defense and it was affected dramatically during the crisis," he said

.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704211052843978-assad-air-defense-us-missiles/

Cheers

Interesting. As you say, it was not spontaneous...or I would say it's very unlikely to have been. We have well documented CIA involvement, Saudi, Quatar, Turkey, Israel, huge amounts of weapons from Eastern Europe and Libya etc . It's all out there in black and white, as you know. As to when exactly the spooks got involved I'm not sure, but before it all started seems more than plausible. The US was openly planning direct intervention to take out Syrian air-force/air-defense relatively early into the conflict, in 2012. And as we know, when plans are being openly talked about then something along the same lines is often already taking place...which ties into your sputnik article.

We also know, well documented, that rebels took out many Syrian air defenses in 2012. My understanding is most of these rebels were the Nusra-Front (Al-Qaeda offshoot). Maybe they did so in 2011 too but I haven't seen it reported. It's certainly possible. The ex-FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the story in early 2011 of Syrian rebels being trained for war by the CIA in Turkey. No US MSM would publish the story. It was published elsewhere, including in Turkey apparently (to their credit). I don't know how credible Sibel Edmonds is yet, I've just discovered her today. Quick google results below...

US plans in 2012 and rebels taking out air defenses:

A partial no-fly zone, Hashem reckons, can now be imposed over Idleb and Aleppo provinces more easily because the rebels are already doing much of the heavy-lifting themselves. There are seven airbases in total in those two provinces, at least two of which—one in Taftanaz, one in Abu Duhur—have been raided in recent weeks, their materiel confiscated or destroyed. Even without surface-to-air missiles of their own, rebels have managed to shoot down or neutralize MiG warplanes and helicopters and blow up T-72 tanks; in the battle over the Abu Duhur airbase, they took out between 8 and 12 helicopters on the ground, and downed two more mid-flight. But their struggle is still David-and-Goliath while the regime can drop barrels of TNT onto civilian neighborhoods and its howitzers can shell entire cities into dust.

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2012/10/12/12419/


Sibel Edmonds:

I can give you a recent example, in fact my website boilingfrogspost.com or for short bfpreport.com. In 2011, months and months before Syria came in the headlines – anything about Syria was written on the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN – we broke a story based on my sources here in United States military but also in Turkey about the fact that special CIA/NATO forces in a NATO base in Turkey, which is in the southern portion of Turkey very close to the Syrian border, they were bringing in, in Turkey, the CIA/NATO Gladio unit, they were recruiting and bringing in people from northern Syria into these camps, part of the US air force base in southern Turkey. They were training them – military training – they were arming them, and they were basically directing them towards create terror events inside Syria, not only against Assad, but also in various villages and regions against the people, against public.

When we broke this story and decided all this, nobody from the mainstream media even looked at it, in fact several of my sources, before approaching me at Boiling Frogs Post, they had gone with evidence, with documents, aerial pictures to some of the top publications such as the New York Times, but they did not print any of this, not because of lack of supporting documents, because at that point they were not ready in the United States to make Syria the real case, they were still in the midst of training and taking these people down, funneling them back into Syria. These are really pourus borders between Syria and Turkey. Then seven, eight months later suddenly Syria started entering the news headlines in the United States.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/silencing-a-whistle-blower-gladio-b-and-the-origins-of-isis-sibel-edmonds/5475126

....not really sure about Edmonds....she was a translator with some spook operation, or so the story goes....overheard stuff about 9/11 and kept teasing about what she overheard but to my knowledge never produced a smoking gun....keeps popping up in the alt-press....is she still "an asset", or is she for real but constrained by confidentiality agreements or threats or just an Alex Jones type ??????....do read her stuff when it comes across my bow but have never sought her out....

Cheers

 

[Dan2016]

Yeah she's definitely for realz. She is an ex-FBI counter-intelligence spooky person who was translating the top classified really spooky stuff. She made allegations about a cover-up in 2001 I think, and was quickly fired. She was later vindicated to some extent, years later, after a court battle. The court hearings were private...even she was excluded from hearing much of it. Top secret spooks only. You know how it goes. At the end of it the Inspector General released a statement saying her allegations had basis in fact and should have been fully investigated, and she was wrongly fired (I'm paraphrasing). So she earned some creds there.

Her story has subsequently gotten mixed-up with Alex Jones types but I don't think she was ever suggesting 9/11 was an inside job in the way they've interpreted her - but my reading of her words might be wrong. Anyway, yes! she is silenced by the all encompassing State Secrets act. She can't say a word for fear of...I don't know, water-boarding and Justin Bieber on eternal repeat, or something...

Getting back to Syria, what she has to say is interesting - the covert training of Syrian rebels from April 2011 onwards, the weapons smuggling into the country and covert ops a year prior, the deliberate false-flag operations and suchlike, all planned to create war in the country. Regime change was the aim from the start. The trouble is, I haven't seen her providing evidence yet on this covert training. She has intimated she has it, or knows people who have it, but she doesn't seem to be publishing it. Maybe it's a protecting-her-sources thing...or thingee. I'll have a better look and see if it's out there. In my opinion it would help her credibility on this, and/or help inform us punters, if she can corroborate her claims. Not that any of this covert mission info is in the least surprising of course, but it would be good to see supporting evidence. Anyway here's a start:

The joint US-NATO secret training camp in the US air force base in Incirlik, Turkey, began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. Since then, in addition to Col. Riad al-Assad, several other high-ranking Syrian military and intelligence officials have been added to operations’ headquarters in the US base. Weekly weapons smuggling operations have been carried out with full NATO-US participation since last May. The HQ also includes an information warfare division where US-NATO crafted communications are directed to dissidents in Syria via the core group of Syrian military and Intelligence defectors.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/11/21/bfp-exclusive-syria-secret-us-nato-training-support-camp-to-oust-current-syrian-president/