Where reality is very different from what the BBC and CNN are telling you.
———————————
My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.
Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.
Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.
I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.
Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
In respect of the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES, also known as Rojava), the US is supporting the communities because they have allowed access to the oil fields in Deir El Zorr for US company Delta Crescent. The communities also struck a similar deal with Russian company Gazprom, which you don’t mention. NATO are indebted to them because they defeated Daesh but Turkey is currently trying to bomb them out of existence and claim their land.
The autonomous communities of Rojava operate a true democracy, unlike the representative scam practised in the West, and they deserve our support.
#riseup4rojava
Any group that deals with the US is not democratic. The Kurds always back the wrong horse and I fear that they are soon going to be surplus to American Caesar’s requirements.
The communities of Rojava are far more democratic than the US or UK, here is their manifesto:
https://www.freeocalan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ocalan-Democratic-Confederalism.pdf
no in effect they are tools of the US and Israel.
I must confess that I didn’t follow through on Assad/Syria getting rid of its chemical weapons, but at the time concluded that they did. So is Israel lying – yet AGAIN – when it claims that it’s bombing/destroying chemical weapons depots across Syria. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it is. Anyway, I will at some point research the issue more fully, but when I did a search a short while ago I found the following, from January, 2015:
Destroying Syria’s chemical weapons
In less than 12 months, 97% of Syria’s declared chemical weapons programme has been destroyed. Ben Merrick, Head of Arms Control and Proliferation in the Ministry of Defence, explains how outstanding cross-governmental co-operation made this possible.
Amid the gloom of the Middle East over the past few years, one of the many dark moments was the use of sarin by the Assad regime in Damascus in August 2013. This caused some 1400 deaths, mainly of civilians.
But, largely as a result of this action, the international community has been able to achieve one undoubted success: the destruction – now largely complete – of Syria’s declared chemical weapons programme. In less than 12 months, of the 1300 tonnes of chemical weapons that Syria admitted to possessing, more than 97% was destroyed, as well as the associated munitions and production equipment….
And it actually finishes by saying the following:
The declared Syrian stockpile included only a small quantity of actual chemical weapon agent – some 20 tonnes of mustard. All the rest comprised a range of “precursor” chemicals: these varied from basic chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, used in early stages of the manufacture of chemical weapons, to more complex chemicals which could be used in the very final stages of manufacturing agent for immediate use on the battlefield. The US destroyed the mustard and one key precursor for nerve agent on board a specially adapted vessel
https://quarterly.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/27/destroying-syrias-chemical-weapons/
But I also came across the following when I did a search, published just last Thursday, and obviously just coincidentally (irony alert!):
Syria’s Declaration on Chemical Weapons Programme ‘Cannot Be Considered Accurate’, Disarmament Chief Tells Security Council, Citing Gaps, Inconsistencies
https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15923.doc.htm
And thanks Craig for yet another great report.
Afterthought: Is it possible that Israel is trying to provoke HTS into reacting so that they – Israel – can then start the process of killing them and, as such, getting rid of them, so that Israel can add most of Syria to its Greater Israel project?
Greater Israel: an Ongoing Expansion Plan for the Middle East and North Africa
https://mepei.com/greater-israel-an-ongoing-expansion-plan-for-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/
I believe you’ll find that the West knows fairly accurately who has what in terms of chemical and biological weapons by the simple fact they are heavily involved in the supply and manufacture for these regimes. They rarely come out of original research.
Actually, chemical weapons are not difficult to make. Any competent second-year chemistry student would know how to make phosgene, one of the deadlier chemical weapons used in WW1. As for the super-deadly Novichok, a final-exam question at a UK university some years ago required candidates to outline a synthesis of Novichok starting from readily-available compounds (sorry I don’t have a link).
One of the odd features of the “chemical attack” the Assad regime was alleged to have carried out is that it was said to use chlorine. Chlorine has been obsolete as a chemical weapon for more than a century – if you’ve got chlorine, it’s but a simple step to make phosgene, which is much more deadly.
True, but never the less the west did supply chemical weapons into the ME.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/03/foreign-office-did-not-stop-iraq-making-weapons-due-to-british-firms-presence
Thank you so much Mr Murray for this exciting trailer. We are sure your full report will be very interesting, since as you demonstrate in front of camera, the official narrative has nothing to do with reality. We can’t wait to see more, and watch how badly the great nation of Syria is being disintegrated and what are the prospects in terms of Middle East balance of powers, or lack of it.
I don’t understand the media’s redolent ‘cautious optimism’ regarding the ‘rebels’ in Syria. For sure they are delighted Assad and his henchmen have fled, but to be deposed and replaced with well armed and seasoned fighters from across the Levant, may not be the panacea for peace some commentators are hoping for. Far from being a humiliation for Iran and Russia, it could well be their own version of the Trojan Horse. What is slowly being revealed in Syria makes Hezbollah and Hamas just like Dad’s Army. One suspects – and hopes – that the Zionist plan for a greater Israel is soon to be redundant.
It becomes understandable once you appreciate the British media is meticulously suppressing the pivotal UK role in the Gaza Genocide — and has always hidden Britain’s more general role in the world from viewers and readers.
Britain backs most of the world’s repressive regimes new analysis shows
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-11-britain-backs-most-of-the-worlds-repressive-regimes-new-analysis-shows/
Do you think the British media actually cares about Syrians?
Even less than they care about Palestinians – if that were possible.
Well of course there are some families going to Syria.
They are the families of the HTS fighters who have been promised homes and land in Syria.
But sure not tens of thousands and not many are actually Syrian.
Just checked Jonathan Cook’s website to see if he’s posted about ‘Syria’ yet, and he now has, yesterday:
«The day the media decided militant jihadism was respectable
Suddenly, after years of misrepresenting Hamas, western politicians and media are desperate to clarify – if only in Syria – the difference between jihadists and Islamic nationalists
Here is a very strange thing. For years, western media outlets and politicians have been recklessly indifferent to the fact that Hamas is not a jihadist movement, like al-Qaeda or Islamic State, but a specifically *Palestinian* national resistance movement – if one underpinned by an Islamist ideology that distinguishes it from secular Palestinian national movements like Fatah.
Shortly after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 2023, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood alongside US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and claimed unchallenged: “Hamas is ISIS [Islamic State]… and Hamas should be treated exactly the way ISIS was treated.“
But Hamas, unlike al-Qaeda and Islamic State, is not seeking to recreate a caliphate embracing all Muslims wherever they live, indifferent to national borders. It wants to create a Palestinian state in Palestine. Israel is determined to stop any Palestinian state emerging, even it means committing genocide.
Hamas does not demand strict adherence to religious law, and it does not prioritise Islam over Palestinian national identity…»
And Jonathan finishes with a Legal Disclaimer. Here’s some of it:
«LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The above observations are made for purely analytical purposes and are not intended in any way to “encourage support” for Hamas…
Who are we to question why the British media, upholders of a glorious tradition of press freedom, are not reporting on the arrest and investigation of independent journalists by police for supposedly violating Section 12 in relation to Hamas when the police appear utterly unwilling to enforce Section 12 in relation to HTS?
None of the foregoing should be seen in any way to suggest that Britain is not fully democratic, or that it is exhibiting any signs of becoming a police state.»
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-12-10/media-militant-jihadism-respectable/
NB Funny, isn’t it, how we didn’t hear anything more about the ‘Hamas members’ who were arrested in Europe last December (which just about the whole of the MSM covered and played along with). I wonder why not!:
«‘Hamas members’ arrested over plans to attack Jewish sites in Europe»
https://news.sky.com/story/hamas-members-arrested-over-plans-to-attack-jewish-sites-in-europe-13030426
It was so transparent (to free thinkers, and right-wingers no doubt) it was laughable. But it no doubt served the purpose it was contrived to do, and hundreds of millions of people swallowed it.
And I just checked The Grayzone, and came across this from a few days ago:
«‘House of horrors’: Israeli journalist-turned-intel officer confirms widescale torture of Palestinians
Wyatt Reed·November 8, 2024
A well-known Israeli journalist and former soldier has offered the first apparent acknowledgement of wide-scale torture by his country’s military, describing “masses” of Palestinians who were left “lying… in handcuffs” while subjected to never-ending Israeli music at the Hakirya military compound. He referred to the facility as “some kind of house of horrors, with screams coming from all directions.”
The admission came during a Hebrew-language podcast appearance by Amichai Attali, who works as the Knesset correspondent for Israeli outlet Ynet…»
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/11/08/israeli-journalist-intel-officer-torture-palestinians/
Caitlin Johnstone…
«US Government: It is great and wonderful that the dictator Assad has been deposed and the people of Syria have been freed!
Press gallery: Do you oppose Israel grabbing Syrian land?
US government: No way man, don’t you know Syria’s just been taken over by a bunch of terrorists?»
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/terrorist-organization-means-whatever-the-us-wants-it-to-mean-09e75907bb62
One honest person on the ground is enough to show us that the mainstream-media narrative is just propaganda.
To really understand what is going on in Syria is much more difficult. The US wants all the oil, Israel wants a lot of land and the elimination of any kind of functioning national government in Syria; what Turkey wants is unclear.
Whatever is developing won’t be good for ordinary Syrians. The BBC (etc) pictures of Syrians celebrating in the streets are going to look pretty hollow before long.
Thank you for effortlessly exposing one of the big lies (and for your honest assessment of the situation in Syria). Donation made.
More and more summary and sectarian executions coming out of Syria now – as the Western backed terrorists begin their slaughter – of course the whores in the Western media, are trying to instill in us that a peaceful transitional government will find its way into government in Syria – and that everything will be hunkydory now that Assad is gone – when the truth is – the West, Turkey and Israel are reveling in a bloodfest in Syria – whilst upping their asset/land stealing activities.
The West are the real bad guys.
Yasmine Yassin reports on Alkhalij24 that Suleiman al-Assad was found murdered in his prison in the countryside of Latakia
https://newsi.alkhalij24.co/world-news/143651/بعد-اعدامه-علنًا-من-هو-سليمان-هلال-الأسد-وما-علاقته-ببشار-الأسد.html
Craig,
IS A NEW WAR ON THE HORIZON IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
I am not clairvoyant but hopefully have sufficiently clear understanding to discern what is likely to happen?
It is about events currently unfolding between Israel/Palestinians/Syrians/US upon which I reflect.
What of Netanyahu, Biden, Trump?
Netanyahu is presently facing court and is in trial. Does he have motive to distract from his plight? What better way than prolonging an existing war or starting a new one.
Biden is on his way out of the US presidency and what better way to help Israel than to give support to Israel in wartime? What if there is renewed hot conflict between Israel and Iran just now – would Biden go all in to support Israel and bequeath to Trump a dilemma of an existing war situation?
Trump, to his credit, has professed peace as his desire and bragged that he can end the Russia/Ukraine conflict in a day. But, can Netanyahu play Trump to cause him to go further in confronting Iran than other US Presidents have gone? After all, didn’t Trump order and approve the killing of Iranian General Soleimani in his previous term as president. So, now, with cause, why not go further if Trump thinks that the situation is justified by way of a need for immediate very active US involvement?
All of the above considerations are within the realms of probability and Netanyahu has every reason to provoke confrontation. Following immediately upon the success of removal of Assad in Syria, what if Netanyahu uses the nuclear issue with Iran – argues that it is now or never to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb and convinces Trump of the wisdom of a timely attack? Would Trump bite bait?
The Middle East just now is volatile and very fluid. Trump sometimes is unpredictable and not a studied person in his actions. Capable pundits describe Trump as ‘transactional’.
So, is it more likely than not that there is war on the horizon, given the main considerations and facts on the ground in the Middle East?
The Middle East shouldn’t be seen in isolation.
Am still going with the idea that someone cyberwhacked the Syrian government, leading to everything being open for HTS to walk in and take.
Curiously all services supplied by Meta – including Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram – suffered an outage today.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/facebook-down-instagram-meta-outage-b2662836.html
In the very short term, chemical and biological weapons may be a bit of red herring.
Ex-UK Ambassador Peter Ford tells BBC Radio Scotland of the atrocities that are taking place in Syria – the executions, the rapes the murders, now that the Western-backed proscribed terrorists are in charge.
Ford added that countless former ISIS/Al-Qaeda members have been set free from prisons and are now roaming the streets of Syria – waving ISIS flags, and murdering, pillaging and raping those in minority groups such as Christians.
Understandably the radio host couldn’t wait to get Ford off the air.
RoS, please post a link to that interview of Peter Ford; so far, I have not been able to find it..
Here is Peter Ford speaking on CNN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ummHx9FRnto
I was saddened by the pictures of the shacks and tents forming the refugee camp behind Craig with so many small children and youths with evidently so little to occupy them and help with their education and development. Of course there is little point in anyone returning to what are equally economic benighted conditions in Syria until the dust has settled and presumably those who do will be allowed back only because of their compatibility with the new regime.
There is an interesting article in the Tehran Times suggesting that much of Al-Assad’s failure was down to his attempt to introduce neo-liberal economic policies into Syria, which destroyed his father’s Ba’athist-led socialist-developed societal infrastructure with free education right through and comprehensive health care. The results of the reforms were to the benefit the few and not the many sowing the seeds for the discontent that has allowed all these dissident movements to flourish.
That neo-liberalism is corrosive of a society that governs in the interests of the many and not the few is a self-evident truth. Since this looks as if it will be the way forward for Syria one way or another, I can see no end in sight to the dismantling of the tents in the background of Craig’s excellent film for decent housing and living conditions. And this is not even taking the plight of the Palestinians into account who still need to be the centre of attention.
Crispa,
I believe that you are correct in what you state – yet the problem is even bigger than what you say.
While the US professes a desire for a democratic, inclusive and tolerant Syrian government – the reality speaks differently.
The power and strategic interests of the US, Israel and Turkey have dictated the course of events within Syria. The Syrian people in the majority, no doubt, want peace and tolerance within their society – but with neo-Jihadists set to govern there is also the conflict with external interests.
The US has long since occupied the oil-rich part of Syria and is unlikely to cease extracting this benefit; Israel wants a weak and disjointed Syria and parts of Syrian land for itself; Turkey has its beef with the Kurds and land-grab interests of its own. Put all of this together and the best interests of the Syrian people simply have to take a back seat.
In short – the forces at play do not auger well for a bright, democratic and inclusive future for Syria.
Given the zionist invasion and the ISIS attacks on Shia, Alawites and Christians, there is much more likely to be another big migrant wave OUT of Syria. There will be no giddy BBC reportage as it does not fit the narrative.
Keep up the great work! Thanks Craig.
The immediate big picture is the US/Israel combo ensuring the control of, as Jimmy Carter said ‘the vast resources of the middle east’. He did say the US would wage war to keep it. Israel ‘the landed aircraft carrier’ also has its longer-term interests in mind to include from the ‘Nile to the Euphrates’. The last week has seen stunning victories for this plan. The US/Israel have the satrapies Egypt, Jordan and most of the Gulf counties in their pocket, Lebanon and Palestinian territories hanging by a thread and Iraq beholden to the US federal reserve whose own oil receipts are doled out to them on a monthly basis (if they are good boys).
The US/Israel and the West in general, who can preside over an ongoing Genocide and now with approval, a take-over of Syria by head-chopping Jihadis is a proven fact that they mean business, as if there was any doubt. Paul Craig Roberts thinks Iran and Russia have been pusillanimous and that both had seen the loaded gun of thousands of head-choppers arming up in Idlib for years but failed to do anything about them. A major defeat for the ‘axis of resistance’. Will the US/Israel go on to greater things, now they have the momentum? The Neocons will demand it.
If you are positing a defeat for the “axis of resistance”, how does Hezbollah fit in?
Great and Brave Reporting Craig..Stay Alert and Safe.
Keep up the good work, Craig. The contrast with the media’s virtual silence on Israel’s human rights abuses and its condemnation of other governments is particularly striking today after the Saudi Arabia’s success in securing the 2034 World Cup. I have no brief for the Saudi regime at all, and have always opposed the death penalty, but look at how today the Guardian allows its readers to witter on about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record while banning and censoring anyone who highlights the far worse abuses recently perpetrated by Netanyahu’s regime.
Thank you, Craig, for your insights and reporting. Certainly nothing like I see reported on any news channel or read anywhere either. It’s almost like they don’t want the facts to be known..
El Dee…
It’s A Fact…that they don’t want the Truth to be Known… Re all their recent wars… and Slaughter and Genocides… THE MSM ARE COMPLICIT in the Evil… in fact… the war mongers would never get away with but for LIES Omissions, Silence of BBC, NYT, CNN, SKY … etc.
And Owen Jones Is Fake too… Where does he get his info to rant on about? Oh, the guys he won’t share a stage with.
I was wondering about this the past few days, and Alastair Crooke just happens to mention it, in passing, in an interview with Chris Hedges:
Now we’ve seen that the Syrian army sort of were declined to fight. A conscript in the Syrian army is currently paid $7 a month. A general in the Syrian army receives $40 per month. The HTS and the others of the militia received $2,000 a month.
I was referring to the last part in respect of the HTS, and as I say, he just mentions it in passing and, as such, doesn’t mention who’s paying them the $2,000 a month… But WHO the hell *IS*?!
The transcript is really long (the vid of the interview is 70mins in length), but here’s a link to it anyway:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-assad-and-what-it-means
PS I should point out that I only read as far as the above passage, and it is of course quite possible that one or the other of them mentions who is – and HAS been – financing HTS further on in the interview.
During my protesting for the Palestinians over the past year, I made the acquaintance of a man from southern Lebanon. I have spoken with him since the fall of the Syrian government. He is extremely worried about the new power in Syria, saying that he and his people regard them as “worse than Israel”.
I have never spoken to him for very long at a time, but I have come to regard him as a friend. When Israel started bombing Lebanon he had to cancel the trip he was planning to visit his family. Since then, two of his cousins have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
An aerial view of Northern Gaza – the Zionists are wiping out all elements of Gaza – it reminds me of parts of Libya.
https://nitter.poast.org/kennardmatt/status/1866615270690988398#m