SYRIA

LARRY C. JOHNSON touches on and clarifies numerous aspects of the confusing situation in Ukraine and Syria, noting that a rush to judgment is probably premature and conducive to huge errors. That said, he is severe in his evaluation of Bashar al-Assad, a man he thinks will go down in history as a “man without consequence.” Assad could have begged (and probably secured) economic and development help from China, Russia and Iran, thereby avoiding the rapid weakening of the Syrian nation. He could have accepted Moscow’s offers to train up and fortify his army, which he inexplicably turned down (and whose dilapidated and demoralised condition apparently did not concern him enough to properly ascertain). Instead, he sought readmission into the pro-West club of Arab states, many of whom are now busily betraying Syria.

LARRY C. JOHNSON—Turning to the situation in Syria. With each passing day I’m more convinced that Putin had good intel on the Western plan to take out Assad and, based on intel provided in part from China, correctly assessed that in light of Assad’s refusal to listen to Russian and Iranian advice that Turkey and the West were going to create for themselves a shit sandwich. Neither was prepared to deal with the consequences of a rapid collapse of Syria.

BRIAN BERLETIC and ANGELO GIULIANO discuss all the difficult to sort out and discern historical vectors that led to this point of Syrian collapse, a tragedy carefully planned for and scripted by US/NATO thinktanks, whose sponsors are now busily trying to implement the next part of their schemes to provoke and bring down Iran. How will Russia (and China) react to THAT domino is now the big question facing the world, and especially the BRICS alliance.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—There are many, many reasons to be absolutely certain that the little Syrian girl on the cover of “Dear World” is being exploited in the most brazen act of western war propaganda in modern history to manufacture support for military intervention against Bashar al-Assad, but many of these come from anti-establishment voices that mainstream establishment loyalists like Rowling will be quick to dismiss. The most compelling evidence in my opinion therefore consists of the following video footage of Bana herself.

KIM PETERSEN—What will be a surprise to most people is the solidarity shown by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) toward its longtime partner Syria. (Albeit this is no surprise to readers of another of A.B. Abram’s excellent books, Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power. Review.) Gains made by the invading forces would be substantially rolled back with the entry of Russia, an event deplored by some leftists. Among the reasons for a Russian entry was fear of Islamist terrorism approaching its frontier.