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Syria, Intervention and the Path to WWIII – GRTV Feature Report

by James Corbett
Global Research TV
September 2, 2011

Welcome. This is James Corbett with your Global Research Feature Report from the Centre for Research on Globalization at GlobalResearch.ca.

As the world focuses its attention on the siege of Tripoli in the NATO-led overthrow of the Libyan government, those very same western powers who are responsible for the war crimes against the citizens of Libya are working behind the scenes to set the stage for yet another potential military intervention, this time with embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The strategic value of Syria to the balance of power in the region is evident in Russia’s recent warning that it would veto a proposed UN Security Council resolution imposing further sanctions on members of the Assad government. Syria is an important strategic ally of Russia, with the Russian navy making use of the port of Latakia for access to the Mediterranean.

Iran also counts Syria as a strategic partner in the so-called Shiite crescent, providing Tehran with a vital connection to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Although predominately Sunni, Syria is ruled by its Shiite minority and maintains close ties to Iran, where President Ahmadinejad has recently denounced “imperialist agression” by NATO in Libya and Syria.

Earlier this week, a new report from Amnesty International accused the Syrian government of the deaths of as many as 88 of the detainees from recent protests. The report, like almost all of the reportage on alleged government actions during the wave of violence, is based solely on second-hand accounts and contextless video snippets provided by the very opposition who are attempting to overthrow the Assad government. An establishment media eager for yet another war in the name of humanitarian intervention is all too eager to overlook this point, however.

Despite the complete lack of substantiation of these claims, the establishment media is now once again rallying the public into a blood-letting mentality under the guise of the so-called “Responsibility to Protect,” a doctrine that allows marauding imperial armies to invade countries at will and commit war crime bombing campaigns against civilian populations under the guise of protecting those self-same civilians.

These calls for action echo previous calls by Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and other stalwarts of the American military-industrial-political establishment to step up pressure on Assad and to keep military intervention “on the table.” In recent weeks, all of the leaders of the NATO bombing in Libya, including Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and Harper, have come out calling for Assad to step down, once again raising the specter of a Libya-like escalation of events by the Western powers.

The possibility of military intervention in Syria is especially worrying because it is a potential powder keg threatening to set off a larger regional war that could even spark a confrontation between the NATO powers and China or Russia.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, has been writing a series of articles on the potential of military action in Syria to spark a World War III type scenario. Last week I talked to him about developments in the region and the possibility of military escalation amidst the current crisis.

[INTERVIEW]

That the protest movement is not the spontaneous people’s uprising that it is claimed to be in the establishment media is evident from reports demonstrating long-time US government support for opposition groups in the country and those seeking to destabilize the region.

In April, US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor admitted an ongoing two year, 50 million dollar US government program to equip protesters with “new technologies” to help them evade detection and capture by their government and admitted to organizing training sessions for activists from many of the Arab Spring countries, including Egypt and Syra, shortly before the Arab Spring began.

Earlier this year, the Washington Post published leaked US diplomatic cables demonstrating the the US has been secretly funding the Syrian opposition since at least 2005 and continues to do so under the Obama administration.

Why exactly an embattled and isolated government facing the prospect of a NATO-led invasion would be sending snipers to kill innocent civilians at the funerals of unarmed protesters has never been made clear by the anonymous, second-hand, unverified sources that are claiming this to be the case.

Last year, however, a group called Gen Next which has been involved with Alliance of Youth Movements in organizing youth-led destabilization campaigns in countries that are not friendly to American and Israeli interests delivered a training program in which participants were taught how to handle high-powered sniper rifles and shoulder-mounted grenade launchers. Reports in Arabic media that the snipers in Syria are in fact being sent in from other countries in a false flag ruse to blame the violence on Assad have gone unreported in the west.

Last month, DEBKAfile reported that NATO headquarters and the Turkish high command were drafting plans for the beginning of a military campaign in Syria, which would involve arming the opposition with large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns.

Now, some are worrying that should conflict arise, led by the same Western imperial interests that led the charge for Libya’s oil and trumpeted by the same establishment media that praises every military campaign, the so-called Responsibility to Protect will henceforth be enshrined as a convenient tool for the globalist oligarchy to use whenever it is convenient to overthrow uncooperative governments.