Brandon Turbeville
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.
