Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
May 27, 2012
As the
destabilization effort against Syria
continues, the connections between the terrorist “opposition” forces
and Anglo-American, pro-NATO governments are becoming more and more
obvious, even as the mainstream media refuses to address the issue in
any manner other than direct obfuscation.
Thankfully, a sizable portion of the alternative media, along with outspoken Syrians like YouTube blogger
Syrian Girl
have played a major role in exposing the “rebels” for what they are –
foreign terrorists and criminal Syrian elements that are being backed by
Anglo-American and pro-NATO governments and intelligence agencies. Many
of these individuals are admittedly al-Qaeda, much like the Libyan
“rebels” who, after taking power with the help of NATO, immediately
began restricting freedoms and slaughtering black Libyans. Indeed, a
sizable portion of these terrorists have actually traveled from Libya to
Syria, with some
working from across the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.
As author and historian, Webster Griffin Tarpley, has aptly
stated before, it is now widely apparent that al-Qaeda is nothing more than the United States’ Arab legion.
In addition, due the increasing level of brazenness with which the
Anglo-American empires are engaging in their operations, the actual
players involved in the destabilization efforts are also becoming more
visible as well.
One individual who is receiving uncharacteristic levels of press attention is Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria.
Of course, all of the reporting by the mainstream media is glowing and supportive, making it seem as if Ford were a
bona fide people’s hero fighting for an oppressed population.
Yet the reality is that he is nothing more than a globalist
destabilization expert who is merely taking over from his mentor John
Negroponte, who became quite refined as a enabler of mass slaughter in
Central America and Iraq. Indeed, Negroponte’s Iraq affair is where Ford
himself was able to hone his skills in the arming and assistance of
ruthless death squads who target innocent people in campaigns of terror
and mass murder.
Now, however, questions must arise over possible connections to destabilization agents and potential
participation
in these efforts by General Robert Mood, the Norwegian general which
has recently been appointed head of the United Nations Supervision
Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) as well as the ever-present David Petraeus in
the background.
First, however, some background might be necessary for those who are not
familiar with the connections between the prominent “officials” like
Ford and Negroponte and how they are relevant to the situation in Syria.
It should be noted that Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of
GlobalResearch.ca
has provided an excellent historical presentation of the connections of
Negroponte, Ford, and Petraeus in relation to death squads and
destabilization in his article “
The Pentagon’s ‘Salvador Option’: The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria.” I encourage everyone to read this excellent piece for context and analysis as a companion to my own article.
John
Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. In
this role, he was instrumental in supporting and overseeing the
Nicaraguan Contra killers who, although based in Honduras, engaged in
horrific acts of terrorism inside Nicaragua. Ultimately, this operation
claimed the lives of approximately 50,000 innocent civilians. This is
the origin of the term “Salvador Option” when speaking of the formation
of “death squads” for political purposes, an option that has become a
hallmark of Negroponte and the system which he represents.
Negroponte was also responsible for the formation of the Honduran death
squads who engaged in a mission of terror against opponents of the
US-backed Honduran regime as well as the Sandinistas and civilian
populations in Nicaragua.
As Peter Roff and James Chapin write in their article “
Face-off: Bush’s Foreign Policy Warriors,”
The Sun described the activities of a secret CIA-trained Honduran army
unit, Battalion 316, that used 'shock and suffocation devices in
interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer
useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.'
On August 27, 1997, CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz released a
211-page classified report entitled “Selected Issues Relating to CIA
Activities in Honduras in the 1980s.” This report was partly
declassified on Oct. 22, 1998, in response to demands by the Honduran
human rights ombudsman.
In 2005, Negroponte was appointed as ambassador to Iraq. In this role,
he again oversaw the formation of death squads who targeted both the
civilian populations and the Iraqi insurgency. The goal here was to
foment division within the insurgency and turn it into a fragmented
front. A divided opposition is obviously much easier to defeat than a
united one. This theory has been proven accurate time and time again.
Indeed, in 2005, a story was leaked to
Newsweek where the Pentagon
confirmed
that it was “considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia
fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift
borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in
Central America 20 years ago.”
[1]
The Pentagon did more than “consider” this option. Not very long after
this information was leaked, Iraq began to see the results of its
implementation. As
Dahr Jamail of Antiwar.com wrote in 2007,
Under the 'Salvador Option,' Negroponte had assistance from his
colleague from his days in Central America during the 1980s, Ret. Col
James Steele. Steele, whose title in Baghdad was Counselor for Iraqi
Security Forces supervised the selection and training of members of the
Badr Organization and Mehdi Army, the two largest Shi'ite militias in
Iraq, in order to target the leadership and support networks of a
primarily Sunni resistance.
Planned or not, these death squads promptly spiraled out of control to
become the leading cause of death in Iraq. Intentional or not, the
scores of tortured, mutilated bodies which turn up on the streets of
Baghdad each day are generated by the death squads whose impetus was
John Negroponte. And it is this U.S.-backed sectarian violence which
largely led to the hell-disaster that Iraq is today.
Of
course, the fact that the death squad option was implemented so quickly
after the release of the report suggests that the mercenaries were
being organized and applied long before
Newsweek was made aware of them.
Nevertheless, serving in Iraq at the same time that the death squads
were beginning to make their bloody mark on the cohesion of the
“insurgency,” was Robert Ford who, at the time, had been appointed
political counselor to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Ford remained in
this post from 2004-2006 where he worked closely with Negroponte. He was
also heavily involved in the organization of the death squads. Ford was
instrumental in helping make “contacts” with these individuals as well
as developing and maintaining relations with them for other purposes
such as continued and future terror campaigns.
In fact, Ford was once described by Negroponte as “one of these very
tireless people . . . who didn’t mind putting on his flak jacket and
helmet and going out of the Green Zone to meet contacts.” In short, Ford
acted as a foot soldier in death squad formation.
Attempting to summarize the death squad plan, Michael Hirsh and John Barry of
Newsweek wrote in 2005:
[O]ne Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise,
support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish
Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents
and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria,
according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains
unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or
so-called 'snatch' operations, in which the targets are sent to secret
facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries. [emphasis added]
Commenting further on the
Newsweek article, the Times Online
added, “Nor is it clear who would take responsibility for such a
programme – the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency. Such covert
operations have traditionally been run by the CIA at arm’s length from
the administration in power, giving US officials the ability to deny
knowledge of it.”
[2]
Although the focus of these articles revolve around the question of
CIA/Pentagon death squads in Iraq, it is important to notice that, as
far back as 2005, it was admitted that there were clear plans to create,
fund, and operate death squads in Syria.
Ford and Negroponte are not the only high-profile US officials in the
trenches of death squad development however. General David Petraeus ,
now Director of the CIA, established and subsequently assumed command of
the
Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq
(MNSTC) under the auspices of training and equipping the Iraqi army,
police, and security forces. Petraeus’ personal command of the MNSTC
began in 2004, at virtually the same time Negroponte was appointed
ambassador.
In reality, MNSTC was not merely about training Iraqi forces, but about
establishing death squads. Indeed, it was a true counterinsurgency
strategy that was instrumental to the Iraqi “Salvador Option” employed
by the Pentagon and, likely, the CIA.
Although Petraeus is now Director of the CIA, his military connections
are no doubt intact. Indeed, relationships of this nature do not change
with the mere presentation of a new title on one operative or another.
Likewise, Robert Ford’s 2009 appointment as ambassador to Syria is
merely the insertion of yet another destabilization agent into the
Syrian landscape.
Ford’s current action in Syria serves the exact same purpose as his
presence in Iraq only a few years previous. This time, however, it seems
that Ford is taking on a more central role in the affair. Indeed, many
Syrians, if not aware of the more sinister acts of Ford, are at least
aware that he has been instrumental in fomenting violent rebellion and
negative Western public opinion against the ruling government. This is
why Ford’s convoy was
attacked by “pro-government” Syrians as he rode through town
meeting with his terrorist pets.
Ford’s very presence in Syria has been nothing more than a
destabilization tactic.
Indeed, he has drawn quite a bit of international attention to himself
by traveling across the country at will, “meeting with protestors” and
turning terrorists into martyrs in the minds of the gullible Western
public.
Logically, by “meeting with protestors” one can read “instigating
terrorism.” The mainstream media, however, reports Ford’s terror
encouragement tour as a heroic act of solidarity with “the people.”
Eventually, after a succession of terror tours the Assad regime finally
slapped restrictions on Ford’s travel, requiring him not to leave the
boundaries of Damascus. However, Ford
openly disregarded those limitations and brazenly began traveling all over Syria, meeting with his terrorist brethren.
Of course, one should not forget that Petraeus, as CIA Director and a
direct connection and common denominator between U.S. military and NATO
contacts, is also a major player in the Syrian “Salvador Option” which
is now taking shape. The death squad strategy is largely useless without
at least of one these institutions, a relatively easy accomplish since,
at the top of both, the establishment merges to form the same shadow
government.
Nevertheless, there is one more major player in the Syrian
destabilization that should be drawing some more attention for his
potential role in the early development of the Syrian death squads.
General Robert Mood, the Norwegian general who is now the
head of the United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS), is not without his own potential for connections to destabilization efforts in Syria.
Ironically, Mood has extensive connections with NATO, the organization
(by virtue of its member nations) which is responsible for the Syrian
destabilization to begin with. So, as it stands, we now have NATO being
sent in to Syria to observe and report on the actions of NATO (the death
squads). One can already assume what observations will be made to the
general public in the coming days (or weeks).
It is worth noting that
General Mood
holds a Master’s Degree in Military Studies from the U.S. Marine Corps.
University as well as attending his own countries Norwegian Army Staff
College and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Defense
College located in Rome – truly a citizen of the world.
From 2008 to 2011, Mood was the Commander in Chief of the
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
(UNTSO), an organization whose stated purpose is to provide a military
command structure for UN peacekeeping functions in the Middle East. Mood
was also
Operations Officer for the Norwegian Battalion of UNIFL (United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon) during the 1980s.
However, interestingly enough, Mood, in his position as Commander in
Chief of UNTSO, oversaw the various established groups of UN
“observers,” some of which were (and still are) located in Syria. One of
those groups OGG (Observer Group Golan) is split into two different
substations with one of those stations headquartered in Damascus (OGG –
Damascus). Other outposts of UNTSO are based in Israel, Lebanon (which
borders Syria), and Egypt.
Mood’s position then, would put him squarely involved in Syria at the
same time as Robert Ford and presumably, David Petraeus via his
personally delegated presence. With that in mind, one must wonder what
role Mood might have had in the formation of the death squads being
developed at the time. Webster Tarpley alluded to this possibility in an
interview conducted with PressTV when he said:
Any analysis that doesn’t start with the death squads and the role of
[American diplomat John Dimitri]Negroponte in Baghdad and then Robert
Ford in Damascus I would actually ask [Head of United Nations
Supervision Mission in Syria, Major] General Robert Mood if you were
there from 2009 to 2011 in Damascus what did you know about the
formation of these death squads. That would be a really interesting
question.
The fact that the “rebellion” in Syria is actually a
NATO/Anglo-American/Arab puppet state fostered destabilization effort is
not debatable to anyone who has even a basic grasp of the events now
transpiring in the region. Although it is taking much longer to do to
Syria what these same forces
accomplished in Libya, the game plan remains exactly the same.
In fact, many of the players that
took part in the dismantling the Gaddafi regime are now involved in the destruction of Assad’s government. The same
al-Qaeda terrorists that emerged in Libya have now
traveled to Syria
for round two of imperial moves to establish puppet governments and
reduce the living standards of an entire nation. The infamous Libyan
“rebel” leader Belhaj is now reportedly
conducting operations in Syria as well.
Of course, all of these forces work with the direct aid of the Anglo-Americans and the
de facto world army known as NATO. It has even been
reported by Thierry Meyssan
of the Voltaire Network that French agents acting as mercenaries/death
squad participants were captured by the Syrian government early on in
the “rebellion.” All the while, the mainstream Western media reported
the events as “peaceful protest” and a grass-roots level organic Syrian
uprising against an oppressive regime.
In examining the behavior and writings of the world elite, it is
abundantly clear that Syria exists as the last stepping stone before war
is launched against Iran. It seems almost certain that the Assad regime
must be replaced by a puppet government more favorable to the
Anglo-American imperial powers or, at the very least, one that is
incapable of resisting them. While Syria has lasted much longer than its
counterparts Libya and Egypt, it is unlikely that it will be able to
hold out much longer, particularly with the acceptance of the UN
“observer” forces inside its borders and an ever-growing pro-war
sentiment expressed by Western governments.
If war is launched on Iran, whether by the Western powers or by Israel,
World War Three is likely to follow. While the United States and hence
the rest of NATO will undoubtedly follow the footsteps of the mad dog of
the Middle East, Russia will likely take the opposing side. China and
India are likely to follow Russia. A direct clash of these world powers
has the potential to produce more destruction than the previous two
world wars put together.
Although not the architects of the war, it is important that the names
of Negroponte, Ford, Petraeus, and Mood be remembered for posterity as
the
worker bees who facilitated it.
Notes:
[1] “El
Salvador-style ‘death squads’ to be deployed by US against Iraq
militants.” Times Online. January 10, 2005. As quoted and sourced by
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of
GlobalResearch.ca in his article, “ The Pentagon’s ‘Salvador Option’: The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria.”
[2] Ibid.
Read other articles by Brandon Turbeville here.
You can support this information by voting on Reddit HERE.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Mullins, South Carolina. He
has a Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author
of three books, Codex Alimentarius -- The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, and Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident. Turbeville
has published over one hundred articles dealing with a wide variety of
subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil
liberties. Brandon Turbeville is available for podcast, radio, and TV
interviews. Please contact us at activistpost (at) gmail.com.
