CARTOON FROM BRUCE PETTY. C1980s?....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

18 December 2024, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

On December 18th, Alexander Mercouris, who has the best predictive record on the widest range of international-relations issues, headlined his 12-minute summary analysis on Syria, “Russian bases in Syria. Erdogan in control”, and he portrayed the situation as being a probably uncontrollable chaos, but nonetheless dominated by Turkey’s President Erdogan, upon whom the Al Qaeda leader in Syria, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, depended the most in order to win whatever control of Syria he now has after defeating Syria’s former Government. Erdogan’s top objective is to defeat the U.S.-backed Kurds in Syria, whom Erdogan fears because they might join with the PKK Kurds in Turkey so as to carve out a Kurdistan from both countries. Israel is the big winner because it is taking all of Syria’s Golan Heights now, and because the former flow of weapons from Iran through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon for Hezbollah has now been cut off so that Israel will be able to take whatever it wants in Lebanon. Russia is conducting “a very orderly withdrawal, in contrast to the chaotic disorganized withdrawal that the Americans carried out in Afghanistan back in 2021.” He says that Jolani was wanting the Russians to stay but didn’t offer terms that were acceptable to him and so this organized peaceful withdrawal has been agreed upon and is now occurring. Israel is preparing to invade Iran; Turkey is preparing to invade the Kurdish part of Syria; Iran is deepening its relationship with Russia. The Kurds are hoping that America’s forces will stay in order to protect them from the invasion that Turkey is preparing.   

PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.). I am not asking for money, but I am asking my readers to spread my articles far and wide, because I specialize in documenting what the Deep State is constantly hiding. This is, in fact, today’s samizdat.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

https://theduran.com/mercouris-says-syria-will-now-be-controlled-by-erdogan-jolani-is-fronting-for-erdogan-russia-is-leaving-syria-israel-is-the-big-winner-iran-kurds-the-biggest-losers/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

Claims that Russia is weakened by the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad are “greatly exaggerated,” President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, paraphrasing a quote by Mark Twain.

The government in Damascus fell earlier this month, after government forces and Iran-backed militias declined to protect it from advancing armed groups. Moscow has provided asylum to Assad and his family.

During Putin’s marathon Q&A session on Thursday, NBC correspondent Keir Simmons confronted Putin, claiming that the recent development, as well as the cost of the Ukraine conflict, have left him the “weaker leader”ahead of likely interactions with US President-elect Donald Trump. The premise is false, the Russian leader responded.

“You and the people who pay your salary in the US would very much like to see Russia in a weakened state,” he said. “I believe Russia has become much stronger over the past two to three years.”

Russia’s invigorated defense industry and experience gained by its troops have made the country’s armed forces the best in the world in terms of war preparedness, Putin stated. As for Assad’s fall, it was not a defeat of Russia, contrary to what Simmons suggested, he added.

Moscow intervened in Syria almost ten years ago when the country risked becoming a hotbed for terrorism, he said. Anti-government groups have since “undergone internal transformation,” as evidenced by the willingness of Western nations to engage with them, he said, arguing that the core Russian objective in Syria was achieved.

The Russian government is considering the future of its two military bases in Syria, according to the president, and Khmeimim Airbase is currently being used to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to Syria.

The Russian military never had ground forces deployed in Syria and had withdrawn its special operations forces from the region, Putin noted. Its role in the recent crisis was highly limited and included helping Iran airlift 4,000 of its troops out of Syria to Tehran, he went on to say.

“Since you are American, I’d like to bring up the world-famous man and writer who once said: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’. And if we meet with President-elect Trump, I am sure we’ll find things to discuss,” Putin said.

https://www.rt.com/russia/609640-russian-goals-syria-putin/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

The US will no longer offer a $10 million reward for information leading to the capture of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, following Washington delegation's meeting with the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Damascus on Friday.

Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by HTS jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing several major cities, including the capital, Damascus. In response, Syrian President Bashar Assad resigned and was granted asylum in Russia.

As part of a broader diplomatic “engagement” with the new Syrian leadership, Barbara Leaf, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, led the delegation to Syria on Friday, marking the first visit by American diplomats since 2012, when the US embassy in Damascus was closed.

During her meeting with al-Sharaa, Leaf discussed several key issues, including the need to prevent terrorist groups from operating within Syria and to ensure the protection of minority and women's rights.

“We also discussed the critical need to ensure that terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region,” Leaf said during a telephone briefing from Jordan. “Based on our discussion, I informed him that we would not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice offer that has been in effect for some years.”

Despite this move, HTS remains designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, and sanctions stemming from this designation are still in place. Leaf emphasized that the decision to withdraw the bounty was a policy shift aimed at legitimizing engagement with the group.

“If I’m sitting with the HTS leader and having a lengthy, detailed discussion, it’s a little incoherent to have a bounty on his head,” she noted. “Otherwise, I should ask the FBI to come in and arrest him or something.”

The US delegation also included Roger Carstens, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, and Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser handling relations with the new Syrian forces. They discussed the fate of missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria in 2012, among other issues.

This week, the US military revealed it had doubled its forces in Syria to approximately 2,000 troops before Assad's fall, aiming to prevent Islamic State (IS) terrorists from exploiting the upheaval. The Pentagon conducted airstrikes in northeastern Syria on Thursday, allegedly killing one of the terrorist group’s leaders.

While the immediate reopening of the US embassy in Damascus is not planned, Leaf indicated that future diplomatic recognition would depend on the actions of the new Syrian authorities.

https://www.rt.com/news/609718-us-syrian-leader-bounty/

WE COULD SUSPECT THAT THE USA GAVE THE TEN MILLION DOLLARS BONTY PLUS A BONUS TO Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, SO HE COULD TOPPLE ASSAD....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus
by Thierry Meyssan

With surprising aplomb, the international press assures us that we are not witnessing a military change of regime in Syria, but a revolution overthrowing the Syrian Arab Republic. The presence of the Turkish army and US special forces is hidden from us. We are bombarded with propaganda that has been denied several times about the crimes attributed to “Bashar”. Cannibal throat-cutters are transformed into respectable revolutionaries. Once again, the international press is consciously lying to us.

In 11 days, the Syrian Arab Republic, which had valiantly resisted attacks by jihadists supported by the largest coalition in history since 2011, was overthrown. So what happened?

First of all, since October 15, 2017, the United States has organized a siege of Syria, prohibiting all trade with it and prohibiting the United Nations from participating in its reconstruction [1]. This strategy was extended, in 2020, to Lebanon with the Caesar Act [2].

We, members of the European Union, have all participated in this crime. The majority of Syrians were malnourished. The pound had collapsed: what was worth 1 pound before the war, in 2011, was worth 50,000 when Damascus fell (the pound was revalued three days later thanks to an injection of Qatari money). The same causes always have the same effects, Syria was defeated like Iraq before it, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright congratulated herself on having caused the death of half a million Iraqi children from disease and malnutrition.

On the other hand, if it was the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) who took Damascus, they were not the ones who won militarily. On November 27, HTC, armed by Qatar and supervised by the Turkish army disguised as the "Syrian National Army" (SNA), took control of the M4 highway which served as a ceasefire line. In addition, HTC and Türkiye had very high-performance drones operated by Ukrainian advisers. Finally, HTC took with it the Uighur colony of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) which had been entrenched in al-Zanbaki for 8 years [3]. The Israeli, Russian and Chinese theaters of operation have therefore merged.

Then, these forces attacked Aleppo, until then defended by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The latter withdrew without a word, leaving a small garrison of the Syrian Arab Army to defend the city. Faced with the disproportion of forces, the Syrian government ordered its troops to withdraw to Hama, which they did on November 29, after a brief battle.

On November 30, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went to Russia. Not to attend the exam that his son Hafez was taking at Moscow University where he is continuing his studies, but to call for help. The Russian forces in Syria could only bomb the jihadists’ convoys because they are only airborne. They therefore tried to block the road to HTC and Turkey. They could not intervene on the ground against them. Aleppo was well and truly lost. Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following his country’s tradition [4], has never acknowledged the loss of the Ottoman territories of Greece (Thessaloniki), the island of Cyprus, Syria (Aleppo) and Iraq (Mosul).

With dormant jihadist cells having been reactivated by Türkiye, the already exhausted Syrian Arab Army had to fight on all fronts at once. This is what General Maher el-Assad (the president’s brother) tried to do, in vain.

Ali Larijani, special envoy of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went to Damascus to explain the withdrawal of the Revolutionary Guards from Aleppo and to set conditions for military aid from the Islamic Republic of Iran; astonishing cultural conditions for a secular state. In a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, President Bashar al-Assad said that the “terrorist escalation” was aimed at “trying to fragment the region, to crumble its states and to redraw the regional map in accordance with the interests and objectives of America and the West.” However, the official statement does not reflect the mood of the conversation. The Syrian president wanted to know who had ordered the Revolutionary Guards to abandon Aleppo. He did not get an answer. He then warned President Pezeshkian about the consequences for Iran of a fall of Syria. Nothing worked. Tehran continued to demand that it be given the keys to Syria to defend it.

On December 2, General Jasper Jeffers III, commander in chief of the United States Special Forces (UsSoCom), arrives in Beirut. Officially, he comes to monitor the implementation of the oral Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire. Given his functions, it is obvious that this will only be part of his mission. He will supervise the capture of Damascus by the Turks behind HTC.

On December 5, the United States relaunches at the United Nations Security Council their accusations against President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons to repress his own people. They ignore the very many objections, testimonies and investigations that have shown that they are nothing more than war propaganda. Chemical weapons are the first argument of the gigantic Anglo-Saxon persuasion machine. They are what allowed the number 2 of the United Nations, Jeffrey Feltman, to prohibit the reconstruction of Syria. They were the ones who convinced Western public opinion that "Bashar is the executioner of Damascus" and blamed him for all the deaths in the war launched against his country.

Simultaneously, the Pentagon told HTC and the Turkish army that they could continue their advance, take Damascus and overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic.

On December 6 and 7, the Doha Forum was held in Qatar. Many Middle Eastern figures participated alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. On the sidelines of the Forum, a guarantee was given to Russia, which represented President al-Assad, that the soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army would not be pursued and that the military bases of the Russian Federation would not be attacked. Another guarantee was given to Iran that the Shiite shrines would not be destroyed, but it seems that Tehran was already convinced of this.

According to Hakan Fidan, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden considered that the operation should end there. It was the Pentagon that decided, with the United Kingdom, to continue until the overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic [5].

In New York, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2761 [6]. It authorizes disregarding sanctions against jihadists during “humanitarian operations”. The United Nations, which has never authorized relief for populations crushed under the yoke of Daesh, has suddenly authorized trade with HTC. This turnaround by the Security Council corresponds to the instructions of the United Nations advisor, Noah Bonsey, as he had already put forward in February 2021 when he worked for George Soros [7].

Abou Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of HTC, gives an interview to Jomana Karadsheh for CNN. She highlights it while the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website still offers $10 million for any information leading to the arrest of the jihadist leader [8]

On December 7, HTC and Türkiye take Saidnaya prison. This is a major issue for war propaganda that has nicknamed it “the human slaughterhouse.” It is claimed that thousands of people were tortured and executed there and that their bodies were burned in a crematorium. For three days, the White Helmets, an NGO that has both saved lives and participated in massacres, search the prison and its surroundings in search of secret underground passages, torture rooms and a crematorium. Alas! They find no evidence of the crimes denounced. Ultimately, journalist Clarissa Ward stages for CNN the release of a prisoner who has not seen the light of day for three months, but is clean, well-dressed and has well-groomed nails [9].

The accusations of torture and summary executions are all the more difficult to bear since Bashar al-Assad gave instructions in 2011 prohibiting all forms of torture and created a Ministry of National Reconciliation responsible for reintegrating Syrians who had joined the jihadists, and finally implemented general amnesties about forty times.

On December 8, President Bashar al-Assad ordered his men to lay down their arms. Damascus fell without a fight. The jihadists immediately unfurled pre-printed banners and affixed the symbol of the new regime to their uniforms. Former Al-Qaeda fighter and then Daesh number 2, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, real name Ahmad el-Chara, seizes power. Surrounded by British communications advisers, he gives a speech at the Great Umayyad Mosque, modeled on that of the Daesh caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, at the Great Al-Nouri Mosque in Mosul in 2019.

HTC now treats Christians as mustamin (Islamic classification for non-Muslim foreigners who reside on a limited basis in Muslim territory), sparing them the dhimmi pact (a series of rights and duties reserved for non-Muslims) and the payment of the jiziya tax. In September 2022, for the first time in a decade, a ceremony in honor of Saint Anne was held in the Armenian church of al-Yacoubiyah, in the countryside of Jisr al-Shugur, west of Idlib.

3,000 soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army go into exile in Iraq. They are disarmed and housed in tents at the Al-Qaim border crossing, then transferred to a military base in Rutba. Baghdad announces that it is trying to obtain guarantees so that they can return home [10].

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launch an operation to destroy the equipment and fortifications of the Syrian Arab Army. In four days, 480 bombings sink the fleet and set fire to armories and warehouses. Simultaneously, ground teams assassinate the country’s leading scientists.

After showing journalists around the empty Syrian fortifications along the coast, Benny Kata, a local military commander, tells his guests: "It is clear that we will stay here for a while. We are prepared for it."

The IDF is already invading Syria a little more, beyond the Golan ceasefire line that it occupies. It announces that it will create a new buffer zone on Syrian territory, to protect the current buffer zone, in short to annex it. In addition, they annexed Mount Hermon so that they could monitor the entire region.

On December 9, General Michael Kurilla, commander-in-chief of the US forces in the broader Middle East (CentCom), traveled to Amman to meet with General Yousef Al-H’naity, chairman of the Jordanian Joint Chiefs of Staff. He reaffirmed the US commitment to support Jordan if threats emanated from Syria during the current transition period.

On December 10, General Michael Kurilla visited his troops and those of the Syrian Democratic Forces (Kurdish mercenaries) in several bases in Syria. He developed a plan to ensure that Daesh would not leave the area assigned to it by the Pentagon and would not interfere in the regime change in Damascus. Immediately, intense bombardments prevented Daesh from approaching.

HTC appoints Mohammed al-Bashir, former jihadist “governor” of Idlib, as Prime Minister of the new regime. He is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, sponsored by the British MI6. France, which had negotiated with its special envoy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the appointment of Riad Hijab (former secretary of the Council of Ministers in 2012), realizes that it has been cheated.

That same evening, there is no longer any question of making Jean-Yves Le Drian Prime Minister in France. On the contrary, the Élysée invites the anti-terrorism prosecutor of Paris to the France2 news. He puts an end to the acclamations of the new power in Damascus and deplores that HTC is involved in the assassination of the French professor Samuel Patty (2020) and in the massacre in Nice (86 dead, in 2016). The French press then changed its tune and began to question the new power that the international press continued to present as respectable.

On December 11, the main Palestinian factions present in Syria (Palestine Liberation Front, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad Movement, Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, General Command) met in Yarmouk (Damascus) in the presence of delegates from HTC (Military Operations Department). Fatah and Hamas did not participate in the meeting. They were asked to make peace with their Israeli ally. It was decided that no faction would have a privileged status and that all would be treated identically. Each group agreed to lay down their arms.

General Michael Kurilla traveled successively to Lebanon and Israel for three days. In Beirut, he met with General Joseph Aoun, commander of the Lebanese armed forces, and especially his colleague, US General Jasper Jeffers III. In Tel Aviv, he met with the entire Israeli Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Minister Israel Katz. On this occasion, he said: “My visit to Israel, as well as to Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon over the past six days, has underscored the importance of seeing today’s challenges and opportunities through the eyes of our partners, our commanders on the ground and our service members. We must maintain strong partnerships to confront current and future threats to the region.”

On December 12, Ibrahim Kalin, director of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı - MIT), is the first foreign high-ranking official to visit the new government in Damascus. On the same day, the Kurdish mercenaries, who administer northeastern Syria for the US occupation army, raise the country’s new green, white and black three-star flag, that of the French mandate. Kalin will be followed on December 15 by a Qatari delegation.

To validate the accusations of torture attributed to the former regime, Clarissa Ward, who is definitely in great shape, stages for CNN corpses found in the morgue of a hospital in Damascus, as the same CNN had staged those in a morgue in Timișoara, during the overthrow of the Ceaușescu, in 1989 [11].

Meanwhile, according to the United Nations, more than a million Syrians are trying to flee their country. They do not believe that the HTC jihadists have suddenly become civilized.

The author of this article, Thierry Meyssan, was an advisor to the Libyan and then Syrian authorities for nine years. From this experience, he produced a fundamental work on Western policy in the Middle East: Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump.

Thierry Meyssan
Translation
Roger Lagassé

https://www.voltairenet.org/article221625.html

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

SEE ALSO: https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/ 

Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria
Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements were sent before the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government

AHAHAHAAAAA......