SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TOOL OF HYBRID WARFARE: THE CASE OF SYRIA. By Intibah Kadi 23 August 2017

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TOOL OF HYBRID WARFARE: THE CASE OF SYRIA.
Intibah Kadi

23 August 2017
"Nevertheless, this nefarious strategy that always targets “enemies” of the West, has not really succeeded in damaging Syria. The first few years of the online movement for the defence of Syria were the most crucial years where many journalists, political and academic figures and the like approached the movement for information and insights as the whole story was so new and hard to fathom as the media and information war on Syria had reached levels unprecedented. Syrians and their great friends worked feverishly and in a state of urgency, in unison, collaboration, with great professionalism and skill to provide the “outside” world with the real story about the War on Syria. This was the ground work and the essential work has been laid out already and these activists stand proud."

A link on The Saker has expired.
Here is an updated one 
https://www.stratcomcoe.org/social-media-tool-hybrid-warfare

http://thesaker.is/social-media-as-a-tool-of-hybrid-warfare-the-case-of-syria/http://thesaker.is/social-media-as-a-tool-of-hybrid-warfare-the-case-of-syria/

Re-published here:
https://www.therussophile.org/social-media-as-a-tool-of-hybrid-warfare-the-case-of-syria.html/

and
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/106251
and
http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/social-media-as-a-tool-of-hybrid-warfare/#sthash.mKb1miHQ.dpbs

Social Media as a Tool of Hybrid Warfare; The Case of Syria (IMPORTANT NOTE BY THE SAKER)

20453 ViewsAugust 23, 2017

Note by the Saker: I was frankly appalled at the ugly nastiness of some comments posted here in reply to this article.  First, I take no position whatsoever on the substance of the issue.  I do however, vehemently object to direct and personal attacks on Intibah Kadi and her husband.  Whatever the merits, or lack thereof, of her analysis, Intibah Kadi did not name a single person in this piece, and she for sure did not insult, pseudo-psychoanalyze, reveal personal information – all things which her opponents attempted to do.  Having been myself on the receiving end of such denunciations, I will not allow them on my blog.  I have therefore taken the decision to delete all comments posted here (with apologies to those commentators who did nothing wrong) and I am disallowing any further comments from anybody.  Intibah Kadi’s opponents had the opportunity to voice their opposition to the contents of this article, instead they chose to engage in ugly personal attacks.  They are thus entirely to blame for having their comments sent where they belong: to the trash bin.  Intibah Kadi did nothing wrong and this is why her article stays.

The Saker

PS: any attempts at further name calling, or any whining about my decision, on any other parts of this blog, including the café, will get your comment immediately removed and yourself banned from this blog.

By Intibah Kadi

August has been a month for exposing how the “Empire” works at the social media level, inside the activist communities and, in this case, through the social media movements aimed at defending Syria. Western governments have outlaid millions for this purpose and countless allied agencies are involved across various languages and media, from actual military personnel managing multiple fake characters [1], to other programs targeting online socio-political activism, even to the extent of online publications being created and “discovered” that appear as belonging to ISIS [2].

From mid-2013 it became obvious that the Syrian driven social media movement for the defence of their country was losing control to strange characters who had no links to Syria. A Lebanese-Syrian analyst, a guest on this blog [3], flagged this issue during that year. Opportunists and operatives poured in, forming strange, contradictory alliances and “attack packs”, succeeding in driving away much of the original Syrian activists who had volunteered, at great personal risk, to engage with the English speaking world in explaining the truth about Syria. Most of these retreated to Arabic language pages and were never seen again. Many of the high quality supporters from the West and elsewhere also were pushed out or silenced and replaced by a cabal who bludgeoned non-compliant Syrian activists and supporters, brought in the absolute taboo “values” of sectarianism, as well as political, religious and other agenda that didn’t belong in the movement or in Syria. A few of the original Syrians remained on but, alarmingly, two in particular, seemed determined to assist the process of surrendering the movement to these nefarious characters.

NATO, it is suspected, places “experts” in various fields of interest amongst the movement of “Empire” resisters as Trojan Horses, implants, ready to explode like cluster bombs, releasing their smaller submunitions in their midst when required. As a matter of fact, it would be rather naïve to expect the contrary. Standing in the way of this pernicious strategy were a few indigenous activists and leaders, primarily operating on social media and blogs in those earlier years of the war. Some chose to use pseudonyms for reasons of security and greater freedom of expression. In any resistance movement, all patriots and solidarists have the duty to protect the identity and safety of their colleagues and this betrayal of basic resistance protocol was used repeatedly when any of these activists refused to come under these forces’ control or clear the way for their total domination of the movement. Those activists who did not yield, were subjected to systematic vilification, disinformation campaigns and acts designed to cause harm or even worse, death. A concerted campaign ensued where those activists’ friends were given an ultimatum to disassociate with them or face excommunication from the activist community, to the point of even personal threats being made against some family members.

What happened to this budding indigenous social media movement makes sense when studying a NATO document and some of its references which discusses the importance of using social media in their suite of war strategies known as “Hybrid Warfare”. It is titled, “Social Media as a Tool of Hybrid Warfare”.[4] It focuses largely on tactics attributed to Russia, but reveals NATO’s own anxieties of such strategies commonly known as their own, ricocheting back to them. The third chapter, from page 18 onwards, becomes interesting as descriptions therein mirror identically, to the finest detail, similar observations of nefarious interlocutors in the Syrian social media defence movement. Here are some of the descriptions in that chapter; “minimize alternative voices.”; ” [s]aturating the information environment—the coordinated use of blogs, posts, articles etc. that are posted and reposted by opinion leaders, activists and fake personas.”; “[t]argeting and distracting the opponent: – Distribution of misinformation and rumours—to publicise an opponent’s alleged wrongdoing.”[5], and; “[t]argeting an opponent also involves any sort of personal attack, and can go so far as to acquire personal information and use it to defame, ridicule, threaten etc.”[6]

These strategies have been used by purported colleagues and solidarists in the Syria online defence movement to saturate and dilute indigenous voices with their own and to attack individuals, in some cases parties, entire nations and alliances. The NATO document discusses social engineering for military purposes such as espionage and information gathering and also that of “[d]eception—creating ‘noise’ or ‘informational fog’ around a topic in order to distract attention from more strategically important events.” [7] Discussed is the phenomenon of “trolling” and distinguishing the more common form from another type that NATO StratCom COE describes as “…the ‘hybrid troll’, who engages in the same patterns of behaviour as the traditional troll, but operates in the context of a particular political or military agenda.” [8]

Had there not been instances of alert and experienced individuals from the region, recognizing warning signs of infiltration of subversive elements into their movement and even into Syria itself, these concerted, seemingly co-ordinated responses that come straight out of the publications of NATO and the likes of Nissen from the Danish Military [9] would never have happened, nor would the realisation that, like any movement defending a cause under attack by “the Empire”, every aspect of resistance is infiltrated and in this day and age the information platform is of extreme importance.

From infiltrators who had fake threats published in purported ISIS magazines to lend them and their agents credibility in the Syria movement in order to hide their sectarian, Christian Zionist agenda, [10] to those who drown the native voices out with repetitive, scratched recordings of subjects of their own and attack with unusual viciousness any Syrian who merely questions them or wishes to remain independent and on the scene of defending their own country, the end result has been an almost total decimation of the English language social media defence of Syria movement.

Nevertheless, this nefarious strategy that always targets “enemies” of the West, has not really succeeded in damaging Syria. The first few years of the online movement for the defence of Syria were the most crucial years where many journalists, political and academic figures and the like approached the movement for information and insights as the whole story was so new and hard to fathom as the media and information war on Syria had reached levels unprecedented. Syrians and their great friends worked feverishly and in a state of urgency, in unison, collaboration, with great professionalism and skill to provide the “outside” world with the real story about the War on Syria. This was the ground work and the essential work has been laid out already and these activists stand proud.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
[2] The Clarion Project and the ISIS Dabiq Trail
https://evagonzalesthewriter.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/the-clarion-project-and-the-isis-dabiq-trail/
[3] http://thesaker.is/tag/ghassan-kadi/
[4] http://www.stratcomcoe.org/download/file/fid/5314
[5]Ibid; p 19
[6]Ibid; p 20
[7] Ibid; p20
[8] Ibid; p 27
[9] [8] Nissen T.E, The Weaponization of Social Media, Royal Danish Defence College,2015
[10] The Clarion Project and the ISIS Dabiq Trail https://evagonzalesthewriter.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/the-clarion-project-and-the-isis-dabiq-trail/

Cited here:
https://www.academia.edu/37864137/The_Purple_Revolution_U_S_Hybrid_Warfare_Coming_Home_To_Roost

OUR EARLIER WARNINGS ABOUT ORIENTALISTS, GATEKEEPERS, EVANGELISTS AND SUBVERTERS OF THE SYRIAN ONLINE MOVEMENT. By Intibah Kadi, 23 July 2017

OUR EARLIER WARNINGS ABOUT ORIENTALISTS, GATEKEEPERS, EVANGELISTS AND SUBVERTERS OF THE SYRIAN ONLINE MOVEMENT

Over a year ago, after many experiences of the issue discussed in the articles attached below, I decided to write about it and Ghassan did a follow up on it. The issue is about one of the forms of Orientalism that Syria has been subjected to. These two articles, one written by myself and the other by Ghassan, published in early 2016, caused a huge stir from the very people who are claiming they have no part in being Orientalists, Gatekeepers, Evangelists or Subverters. First, one of the characters, published it on her own blog and others wrote in to say how wonderful the article was and that they agreed with me. But rapidly when it sunk in what this article really said, the mode of reaction switched from "I'm sharing/publishing this to prove it is not about me", to damage control and then to outright attack. As they moved from one mode to another, they exposed themselves even more.

Under threat was their freehand they had been given to drown out the intelligent, diverse, local knowledge, lived history of indigenous writers who they could not secure or keep under their control. Instead they continued to flood the alternative media with repetitive, low quality news and analysis and one particular topic, which although the terrorists are almost destroyed, continues to be played repeatedly like a scratched old record. It is this event which really brought it home for many of us Syrians/Levantines and family members as to what was going on. Cheap, repetitive, catchy news was to be circulated widely and to impregnate the venues that supposedly are to give voice to the nation under attack.

We have learnt over the years about the varied and innovative forms the Empire has in waging war on "non-compliant" nations. With the explosion of activism using social media, millions and millions of dollars were injected into perverting it, controlling it, obstructing it and channelling it in the direction the Empire prefers. We have heard this about so many movements that ordinary, caring people support in the belief that it is a genuine cause only to find out that Soros and other specialists in this war strategy have cornered most of the protest movements all over the globe!

Our movement, since at least mid 2013, has been cornered, subverted and re-directed and the Syrians who took a lead in our online movement (talking about the English language one) either are part of this or were too inept to wake up to this and do something about it. The biggest offender, if truly a patriot, let it all slide due to personal failings of ego and vindictiveness.

Whilst the Palestine cause has had many decades of experience in working with Solidarists and with the West, this was all a new thing for Syria, a nation that only a few years before the War on Syria began was pretty much isolated from the rest of the Western world. Empire, knew this and knew that they could easily recruit a whole army to subvert the online fight. Even in the last few months a flood of new FB profiles are out and about making quite sophisticated pro-Syria posts, when only a while ago their profile has years and years of posts that are totally apolitical, sometimes totally banal and mindless and then, suddenly on an appointed day, they become hard core activists! What's the pay scale? Is there such a high degree of unemployment in some of the Western countries that undercover work as a purported activist is seen as lucrative work?

So we from the actual patriotic Syrian community, stand up and speak out, against the tide, warning about the continuation of the Empire's strategy to control the region including that of the alternative media. So it is the usual business; kill the people, try to unseat the government, and control the narrative from those people!

http://thesaker.is/orientalists-gatekeepers-evangelists-and-subverters-of-the-syrian-defense-community/

and Ghassan Kadi's follow up on this.

http://thesaker.is/western-evangelism-encroaching-on-syrian-orthodoxy/

Recently a member of the Syrian Orthodox Clergy also expressed similar concerns to that which Ghassan did and here is his interview.

http://www.pravmir.com/evangelicals-helping-destroy-syrian-orthodox-church-antiochian-priest-says-interview/

Here is an interesting article about the social media manipulator employees. It doesn't delve into the more tricky and pernicious problem of infiltration and tainting of alternative media and the protest political movements but it gives a good background. And, to think that when the whole world stands up against Syria and we find a successful on-line defence group, anyone who denies that such a group would not be infiltrated by agents and trolls, then they would have to be very, very naïve or worse!

https://www.rt.com/viral/396710-government-cyber-troops-social-media/

CHEHADEH WARNS OF THE DANGERS PRECISELY AS GHASSAN KADI HAD OVER A YEAR AGO By Intibah Kadi 17 July 2017

CHEHADEH WARNS OF THE DANGERS PRECISELY AS GHASSAN KADI HAD OVER A YEAR AGO

By Intibah Kadi 17 July 2017

A few of us warned about this over a year ago and the perpetrators and their tiny group of weak minded (or worse) Syrian supporters tried, but failed to shoot the messengers.

The organization the patriarch heads has got a lot of grants from UNHCR and FAO among other bodies for projects and all this is done by highly competent and professional Syrians; but you wouldn't ever hear about the thousands of Syrians who are doing great things. Interestingly if the "hijackers", "gatekeepers", "orientalist", opportunists and outright agents hear these Syrians do projects with UN funds etc they will most likely condemn them!

We in the English language Syrian pages who stayed on trying to salvage the online movement have spoken out repeatedly about what's going on. Much of this can be traced back to the disgraceful betrayal of a few Syrians who took on leadership of the online English language Syrian cause and were utterly responsible for enabling these agents to disrupt, hijack and redirect our social media movement in order to neutralise this part of the fight back strategy (via social media) of Syria. This is how the empire works.

The empire works in this way using a hierarchy of operatives, with the bottom rung often being unaware of their role in this hierarchy and just happy about the attention and free run of their colonialist, orientalist egos where they can pursue their own organisations agenda, their personal one too.

A few steps up the ladder the more smart ones take on a few pet topics which they flood the social media platform with, drowning out any other news or stories and indigenous writers/reporters that they don't have control over.

As they hijack and completely take over the space and the Syrians retreat, leaving a few who for various reasons stay around, they build up a narrative about themselves and present themselves as saviours and that without them Syria would cease to exist!

http://www.pravmir.com/evangelicals-helping-destroy-syrian-orthodox-church-antiochian-priest-says-interview/

THE MUSLIM SPRING TAKE II By Ghassan and Intibah Kadi 6 July 2017

THE MUSLIM SPRING TAKE II
By Ghassan and Intibah Kadi
6 July 2017

In a previous article titled “A Muslim Spring” published on the Saker, on the 12th of June 2017, the analysis of the then recent Qatar standoff took us into the direction of whether new Middle Eastern alliances were taking form and old ones dismantling.

Developments since then reveal that the distinctive parts of the new embryos are already differentiating and emerging. The initial article foresaw the formation of two new alliances in this manner:

http://thesaker.is/the-muslim-spring-take-ii/

The Muslim Spring, take II

13954 ViewsJuly 06, 2017 24 Comments

by Ghassan and Intibah Kadi

In a previous article titled “A Muslim Spring” published on the Saker, on the 12th of June 2017, the analysis of the then recent Qatar standoff took us into the direction of whether new Middle Eastern alliances were taking form and old ones dismantling.

Developments since then reveal that the distinctive parts of the new embryos are already differentiating and emerging. The initial article foresaw the formation of two new alliances in this manner:

1. Team One: America/NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE and perhaps Egypt.

2. Team Two: Russia, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey, Qatar and perhaps Egypt.

If the roles are played properly, “Team Two” is potentially a dream team, but realistically, it carries a latent danger; the unpredictability of Erdogan and the fact that he cannot be trusted.

The divisions are deepening and the polarizations are becoming more plausible by the day as team members grow closer. What the initial article was unable to analyse adequately at its early mark in time, was the stand of Saudi Arabia and the USA from one end, and that of Turkey from the other. It wasn’t till recently that it became clear that the USA is not trying to find a way to include Turkey, or at best appease it, but in fact is targeting Turkey and pushing it into a corner, with a bit of help from the hapless Saudi allies.

The USA has realized it can no longer achieve its ambitions in the region by working with Turkey and has now made the relationship with Saudi Arabia its key pivot to salvage what’s left of any hope to score a win in the region. If a win cannot be achieved, at least the mischievous duo will try to prevent Syria and Russia from clinching their win.

After the many warnings that Erdogan has given the USA, that the USA has to choose between being an ally of Turkey or an ally of the Kurds, the difference in aspirations and interests was insurmountable, and the USA seems to have made up its mind, albeit covertly, and decided to dump Turkey seeking its own agenda in Syria; which is totally incompatible with that of Turkey. Erdogan knows this, and he is not going to take this sitting down.

The unprovoked and unwarranted Saudi and GCC sanctions against Qatar, which came almost immediately after the historic and infamous Saudi-Trump visit, was the final pilot light that the USA and Al-Saud lit up in order to test how the new alliance is panning out. But the aim of that move was not only to punish Qatar for its own stand on its relationships with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, but to also put Erdogan on the spot, given that Turkey has a small military base in Qatar; and hence would see any intervention in Qatar as tantamount to meddling with Turkey.

Turkey on its part, was more than happy to be virtually offered a new export market on a silver platter, in which (together with Iran) all of Qatar’s needs were met, mainly food, which Qatar produces none of. But in capitalizing on the export opportunity, Erdogan has given the Saudis and Americans a message not to mess with him, and that he knows what they are doing.

This whole scenario has the hallmarks of America’s last ditched attempt to take victory away from Syria; however, in doing so, the Americans are in fact giving Erdogan an excuse to act solely on Turkish interests, even if this means military confrontation with pro-American forces on the ground; ie the Kurdish PYG, and perhaps even US troops down the track.

What cannot be overemphasized, no matter how much this statement is repeated almost in every article over the last year or so, Erdogan will never allow an independent Kurdish state to be created south of his border. Even if the events in Syria had taken a different turn a few years back and had Syria lost to the terrorists, and even if the Russian and Iranian help did not come and Syria had capitulated and was shredded to pieces, Erdogan still wouldn’t have allowed for an independent Kurdish state to be created south of his border. As it has been reiterated in several articles on many occasions two years ago or so when Erdogan had the upper hand in northern Syria, his whole objective of wanting to create an 80 km wide buffer zone, was in fact to dislocate the Kurds and replace them with Syrian refugees who were already in Turkey and loyal to him. With that plot foiled, he has no other current choice but to work with Syria and Russia on his common objectives with them, or act solely and have a much bigger and more insidious plan.

The one thing that must be kept in mind is that Turkey has a formidable army; a mighty force to be reckoned with. As a NATO member, Turkey has the second largest ground force after the USA, and if Sultan Erdogan moves his troops south in a big way, depending on how the “Dream Team” alliance is drawn, if there is such team at all, and how the strategies and tactics are established and who can guarantee(s) them, there is no telling as to how far he will go.

Being stubborn and self-conceited on one hand, and highly ambitious on the other, Erdogan is not one to be trusted, neither by Russia nor by Syria. He may even feel too humiliated to join efforts with Syria after his long history of hostility towards her President and people, and decide to go back to his original dream of 2011 and move into Syria himself against the Kurds, and even perhaps against Syria and President Assad, and this time, without the “help” of the Saudis and Americans and their crony terrorists. After all, those former allies proved to be more of a liability to Erdogan than an asset, and this time around, he would be after Al-Saud, using Syria as a corridor.

Yes, it is not at all unfathomable and unimaginable that the USA and Saudi Arabia are unwittingly pushing Erdogan to go as far south as Mecca and beyond. After all, has it not been his ambition to restore the Ottoman Empire? If anything, Erdogan would be praying that someone offers him a justification to put Mecca under Turkey’s control once again. His dismay with the Saudis may be utilized by him to generate a wave of discontent within the Muslim World against the custodians of the holiest of all Muslim shrines, focusing on how they have allowed the holy land to be subdued by American “infidels”, and hence use this as a pretext to launch a major offensive.

The irony here is that America will not be able to come to the help of Al-Saud without risking a huge wave of protest in the Muslim World. If Al-Saud find themselves having to ask America to protect Mecca from a Turkish invasion, they would be signing their own death warrant, because non-Muslims are not allowed in the area.

Erdogan may alternatively not go all the way to Mecca and resurrect his previous plan to create the 80 km buffer zone. Either way, if Turkey moves a huge number of troops into Syria in an all-out onslaught, the Syrian Army will not be able to resist it for long, and Russia will be forced to either escalate her presence, risking a confrontation with Turkey, or seek another alternative which is not foreseeable at this stage.

As for Israel, it is on good terms with Turkey, and in the event of a massive Turkish invasion east of its border, it will sit back and watch, and if anything sigh with relief to see Turkey “cleaning up a mess” that no one else could in this magnitude.

Iran will find itself in a difficult dilemma. On one hand, it will be happy to see Al-Saud getting hammered by Turkey, but its relationship with Syria will stipulate that it will have to decide to either confront Turkish troops, or find some other resolution.

Will a compromise resolution mean allowing Turkish troops a corridor in eastern Syria, an interim corridor that reaches south deep into Saudi territory without having to encroach on Syria’s sovereignty in Damascus? At the moment, this scenario seems unlikely, but it cannot be zeroed out.

Egypt will probably sit back and watch, and at the end, join hands with the winner of it all. President Sisi will most likely stay disengaged; despite his current pro-Saudi stance, which is mainly in response to his discontent with Qatar harbouring Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

This is why it must be said again, that much of what happens in Syria and to Syria, largely depends on Russia. At all possible cost therefore, the Kurdish situation must be contained, if it is not too late already, in order not to give Erdogan the excuse to act unilaterally. The first line of defence in averting this situation in the first place was to work with the Kurds to keep them away from striking deals with America and Israel. This could have been achieved by doing all that was possible to keep them under the roof of Damascus and thereby pulling the rug from underneath America’s and Israel’s feet. With rightful diligence, it is not too late to reverse this status quo, even though on the surface it looks like a fait accompli, but in reality, it shouldn’t be. But if time proves that this train had already been missed, Erdogan’s train must not be allowed to take off on its own.

For the “Dream Team” alliance to work and work effectively, the reins of the initiative must be jointly held by all the regional powers; namely Syria, Iran and Turkey; under Russian auspices and guarantee. This is the only way for the inter-secular Sunni/Shiite Muslim Spring to spring into success.

ISRAEL ALWAYS LOOKS FOR CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES By Intibah Kadi, 11 July 2017

ISRAEL ALWAYS LOOKS FOR CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES
By Intibah Kadi

11 July 2017

Earlier on in the War on Syria, an Israeli operative, an academic at the time based at Haifa University, filled his 5000 friends quota on FB with as many Syrians and their supporters as he could. He wrote private messages to all those he thought were Alawites. He made a private group for Alawites and Jews. He accidentally wrote to a Syrian Christian inviting her to his group and when she said she was Christian he apologized, saying it was only for those two groups.  My friend sent me the screenshots. They are placed below along with the cover details of the academic and his sneaky post in a patriotic Syrian group.

I did some research on this person and found out that he has written academic and policy position papers on how Israel can bring closer to them the Alawites and offer them a “better” alternative than being with their Sunni brothers. Here are some of his titles:
“The Alawites and Israel” and in the article says

“The current regime in Syria, terrified of a Sunni takeover, might appeal to the Jewish state for help…From personal contact with Alawites, I know that they are already beginning to discuss the possibility of appealing to Israel for help. If they do – and they probably will at some point – and the international community does not help them, Israel should step in to aid the Alawites, which would also mean helping their Shi’ite allies, who will by that point be similarly embattled .” 

We have had other nefarious characters all the way from Moscow to parts of the USA come among us, trying to sow sectarian discord and lies, trying to spark a nightmarish Sunni-Shia war. This attempt of the Israeli academic really puts it all out there quite openly whilst others have been far more covert, or so they think!

We have had other nefarious characters all the way from Moscow to parts of the USA come among us, trying to sow sectarian discord and lies, trying to spark a nightmarish Sunni-Shia war. This attempt of the Israeli academic really puts it all out there quite openly whilst others have been far more covert, or so they think!

The academic now works for a think tank associated with a Tel Aviv based university and appears to be climbing up the strategic ladder and that of national significance. He is one of the creative thinkers on how to advance Israel’s strategies.

Fortunately, this Israeli academic underestimated his targets in Syria and he gave up eventually. So, his next target became the people of South Sudan. The people who have for years now been telling stories to deaf ears of incredible atrocities perpetuated against them because they are either Christians or Animists. It seems the Israel academic hit the jackpot with these people and that his strategies are powerfully assisting the Israeli government to get into the heart of the intelligentsia, government departments, UN officials of South Sudan.

That was obviously the plan for Syria as well!

So to add the 5000 new South Sudan contacts on his FB page this academic had to drop all his Syrian ones (and Syria supporters). However he kept TWO. The interesting thing about these two contacts is that one is a proven operative of a cult, known to have engaged in efforts to convert Syrians, obsessed with getting intelligence, as typical of that cult which is still stuck in the days-gone-by mindset of the Cold War, a cult that built enormous armament and other business interests that intersect with the many dangerous entities that cause mayhem and murder on this planet, including a history of collaboration with US Intelligence.

This particular individual from a cult, the remaining friend of this Israeli academic, curiously, like a number of other proven nefarious characters, has cover and protection from a club who came as “friends” to defend Syria but who seem committed more to assuring their survival for their particular aims and objectives. At times we see them engaging in bizarre acts related to mutually assured support and no one dares ask the pertinent questions in case they get cauterized liked the Kadis did (and survived only to become stronger) in order to prevent the infection of “truth” spreading to those who need to hear it.

That cult member who remains on the Israeli academic’s list of friends, in the past became inconsolably hysterical when faced with the prospect of losing the money launderer of the project as he was being outed for his antics and wild stories. The most surprising was the reactions from a few others to this unravelling and, that is when the red flag went up. A host of other “friends” of Syria came from nowhere, like angry wasps swatting at myself, Ghassan and others who were busy completing the parts of the jigsaw puzzle that we gained from the tall stories in the private messages we had been given. Predictably, in times of war and hardship, a “useful boy” can be found who feels no concern about collaborating with these characters for as long as he got what he needed. Some others who used him no longer are allowed visas for Syria and others are under investigation.

The second one this Israeli operative academic kept has a Facebook profile adorned with Syrian flags and a Jewish sounding surname who also, like the cult member, has been busy defending the many shady and questionable “friends” of Syria in what seems to be a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” arrangement.

Why, whenever nefarious characters emerge and are exposed, a particular grouping of “friends” of Syria rush to protect them aggressively, is anybody’s question, as the variety and contradicting sets of agendas these “supporters” possess is mind blowing and mind boggling. The mutual support they display indicates a banding together to protect their individual agendas from being exposed, and they morphed into what is best described as soldier ants! Their attempts to silence and shut down patriots who obstruct their paths is futile and will only backfire as they fumble and make mistakes under the covert gaze of those patriots with keen observation skills.

As with the Israeli academic’s strategies, it is all about getting into the heart of the country and its institutions, via social media contacts, finding recruits, getting on with the sneaky divide and rule tactics, in order to achieve whatever aim has been set.  We have seen other examples of “friends” coming to us, whispering words we want to hear but in private uttering ugly sectarian words, and being completely caught out and then defended by the cohort group. 

Very strange “friends” of Syria indeed, “friends” for the unaware or naïve only!

SYRIA'S ONCE AVOIDABLE NEW BATTLE By Ghassan Kadi 3 July 2017

SYRIA'S ONCE AVOIDABLE NEW BATTLE

By Ghassan Kadi

In The Saker, 3 July 2017

"In an article published on the Saker titled “Kurdish Autonomy; Partition or Masterplan”, and as the unsavoury prospect of establishing an independent Kurdish state in Syria was taking form, I emphasised that this scenario is avoidable, and at worst, if it had to happen, and if all cards were played correctly, then a seemingly impending disaster could be turned around and that any potential harm could be mitigated. The first of many conditions I had put for this turn around to be successful, was that Syrian Kurds should stay under the roof of Damascus" (Ghassan Kadi)

http://thesaker.is/syrias-once-avoidable-new-battle/  

Syria’s once avoidable new battle

20455 ViewsJuly 03, 2017 61 Comments

by Ghassan Kadi

In an article published on the Saker titled “Kurdish Autonomy; Partition or Masterplan”, and as the unsavoury prospect of establishing an independent Kurdish state in Syria was taking form, I emphasised that this scenario is avoidable, and at worst, if it had to happen, and if all cards were played correctly, then a seemingly impending disaster could be turned around and that any potential harm could be mitigated. The first of many conditions I had put for this turn around to be successful, was that Syrian Kurds should stay under the roof of Damascus.

I warned loudly of the dire consequences of any resolution of the Kurdish issue going wrong. At the end of the day, I can only be responsible for my words, and not for how certain people may misunderstand them, or even worse, deliberately twist them to make them sound like they mean the opposite. On that note, and in hindsight, just like I warned, these Kurds should have been induced to stay under Damascus’s umbrella, and take advantage of the situation to bolster loyalty to Syria and national unity. Instead, we are now looking at a clear and present danger of having an independent Kurdish state being established under the auspices of Washington instead of Damascus.

Whether some Kurds – and not all are separatists – have been pushed into America’s nook or chose to, facts on the ground show all the signs of a would-be masterplan that has gone against, not for, the interests of Syria.

Over the last six years, each time Syria gained a new victory or came close to one, a new enemy arrived on the scene to set the war on a different course. Nothing is more despicable and transparent than the overt, uninvited and illegal entry of the USA and company on the ground in Syria. Syria and her allies were rapidly bringing ISIS to its knees and the war was coming to an end. Success after success ensued and after many unconfirmed news, recent reports emerged that Al Baghdadi has highly likely been killed by the Russian military and the mosque in Mosul where he declared his caliphate being abandoned and demolished by retreating ISIS terrorists.

At the analytical level, we need to unpack the various actions of the USA in Syria in order to make sense of their current aims, objectives and strategies, if any.

On one hand, the USA is fighting ISIS, and it is.

On another hand, the USA is helping ISIS by attacking the Syrian Army and Airforce among other things.

The USA has troops on Syrian ground, allegedly trying to fight ISIS only, but without the permission of the Syrian Government who has been fighting ISIS since its inception.

The USA is actively engaging with the Kurdish groups that they promised to assist with their separatist aspirations.

In reality however, the USA will not meet any of those above promises. America, especially Trump’s America, will only do what he deems is beneficial for America.

Much of what happens next in Syria is in the hands of Russia.

In its recent incursions inside Syria, the USA has been working on establishing difficult situations to resolve for both Syria and Russia. On the Syrian side, America is trying to add more variables to the “War on Syria” in an attempt to take Syria’s victory away, and on the other hand, the USA is trying to create a quagmire for Russia inside Syria.

America did not forget its successful strategy of bogging down the USSR in Afghanistan and how it managed to capitalise on this, including how the ensuing financial demise fuelled partly by this war crippled the USSR, enabling the USA to gain single world power status for at least three decades.

Seemingly, America is trying to turn Syria into Russia’s new Afghanistan. At the same time, America will do its best not to allow any party within Syria to score a real victory. And because America and the Syrian Government do not have any relationship with each other, America will use ISIS and the separatist Kurds to gauge its next steps. If ISIS is doing well, America will strike it, and if it isn’t, America will help it. This is America’s strategy which analytically-speaking is flawed. It is only based on creating a perpetual state of chaos and destruction that will continue to eat away at Syria.

It is patently clear that the USA has no interest to see peace established in the region and they make no attempts to conceal this fact. As has always been the case, they want destroyed, fragmented, failed states in the region with amenable, puppet rulers installed.

On the pessimistic side alone therefore, there is much to worry about. Many observers see that Syria could be on the cusp of getting fragmented and many pundits argue that the American plan to create a Kurdish state with the separatists is working.

Russia’s reluctance to engage directly against the US forces cannot be taken as a blanket reluctance to foil America’s plan and thereby allowing that plan to come to fruition. During the Cold War, America and Russia found many ways of engaging against each other indirectly, and they will probably find a way to do this in Syria without allowing the situation to escalate into an all-out confrontation between the two super powers.

But to avoid direct confrontation, both sides will need to find local allies, and if anything, the local allies of Russia are far bigger, stronger, and better prepared than those of America and this is the flipside that America does not seem to be taking into account.

To begin with, Russia can provide Syria with state-of-the-art defence and attack hardware and can train Syrian troops and allied troops to use them; and they have already done much of that. Much of such hardware, such as fighter jets, bombers, attack helicopters and tanks can only be handled by regular armies, and the USA will find it difficult to match such hardware by providing Kurdish militia with something equivalent.

Moreover, the Syrian defence coalition will not only include the Syrian Army with Russia on its side, but also Hezbollah, Iran, possibly Iraq and even Turkey.

In other words, without direct American and Russian engagement, American-backed Kurdish separatists will have a mighty coalition standing up against them, and the odds will not be in their favour.

On the other hand, if America escalates its own direct involvement as it did by downing a Syrian fighter jet recently, apart from risking a direct confrontation with Russia, it too will risk getting bogged down and end up falling into the trap that was meant for Russia.

No one knows how this will pan out and how the lines will be drawn if a major escalation were to ensue, but to conclude that Russia is giving north Eastern Syria to America and the Kurds on a silver platter is quite immature and even naïve at best. To begin with, Russia has always maintained that it will not make decisions about Syria on behalf of Syria. Secondly, when Russia decided to take action in Syria back in September 2015, that action heralded the end of the so-called ‘New World Order’ in which the USA stood as the world’s single super power. Russia cannot and will not allow the clock to be turned back and risk her initiative in Syria to be hijacked by America.

With the fight against ISIS all but over and with Qatar too busy extracting itself out of its own mess, let alone to continue with its support to fighters within Syria, any new major confrontation on Syrian soil, if it happens, will take the “War on Syria” in a totally different direction and with new allies on the ground. The Syrian Army will always be fighting for Syrian sovereignty, and the separatist Kurds are no match.

A lot will depend on which way Turkey will go, and I have always maintained that Erdogan, the Islamist with a bullish attitude, is also a nationalist, and he will never accept to have a Kurdish state south of his borders. His interests are now ironically converging with President Assad’s, and if all parties on the ground who have a good reason for opposing the creation of a separate Kurdish state, work together, the American plot will fail.

To sum up, Syria is now tragically facing the prospect of a new war, before the old one finishes, and this is all because some Kurdish separatists have decided to side with the USA against Syria’s national interests. The pilot light was lit not just at the time the afore-mentioned article was written, but much earlier on when separatist Kurds took similar wrong decisions in Iraq and other places. The reality is that at each and every occasion, Kurds are not allowed to win, and they always pay for their mistakes by way of brutal retaliation. They will soon realise that America’s nook was really a noose in disguise.

What is more tragic is the fact that the area that is already taken over by Kurdish separatists and the American supporters is a lure for a Turkish invasion. If Erdogan decides unilaterally to send troops into Syria to abort the creation of a Kurdish state south of his borders, Syria will soon have to contemplate dealing with getting rid of those Turkish troops.

Syria’s once avoidable new battle is increasingly becoming less avoidable. How and when was this allowed to get out of hand? No one really knows. What I do know is that when I saw in the re-emergence of the Kurdish question an opportunity to address this dilemma once and for all, when I made a clear warning about not allowing an impending catastrophe to turn into a missed opportunity, I said what I believed was right, and more than a year later, my conscience is clear that I did the right thing.

TRUMP'S SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY WORLD TOUR: By Ghassan Kadi, 2 June 2017

TRUMP'S SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY-WORLD TOUR: By Ghassan Kadi, 2 June 2017

Recently Ghassan has written many articles and some of them were seen as more urgent than others for publication on The Saker. This one was in the queue but keeps dropping out! It's here for anyone interested.

TRUMP’S SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY WORLD TOUR:
By Ghassan Kadi
2 June 2017

In my previous article titled “Al-Saud’s Only Gamble Option”, the focus of the analysis was Saudi Arabia, and how it was coerced to pave for Trump a golden highway or face dire consequences. But the game that Trump has more or less successfully played in Riyadh (pending Congress approval to the huge arm’s deal), is only a single act in a multi-act play that Trump is trying to enact with the rest of the world. For some reason however, the world does not seem to be reading Trump correctly.

As more evidence emerges, it is becoming increasingly clearer that the twists and turns that we have learned to experience from Trump are all financially motivated. The odds that favour any other speculation do not stack up in a manner that forms a comprehensive view.

Certainly, some analysts and observes are happy to simply see Trump as a madman and that he doesn’t know what he is doing. I beg to differ, and I see clear and obvious footprints in Trump’s recent overseas tour, and which should for fairness be dubbed; Trump’s show-me-the-money world tour.

It wasn’t by accident that Trump made of Riyadh his first stop. That strategy boosted the pathetic vulnerable ego of the Saudis. On the negative flipside of this, they were put on the spot, unable to gauge what reaction to give to his request of a whole third of a trillion dollar arm’s deal other than submission, with a smile, because they need those weapons to finish the war in Yemen and be able to stand up against Iran. 

In choosing Saudi Arabia as his first stop, Trump was also using his unsuspecting hosts to send a message to his future hosts; EU/NATO partners. The message was: You’re next.

His request that other NATO members lift their contributions was not received very warmly. The fact that Merkel was quick to announce that the EU should rely more on itself for its own defence, comes with a clear message that behind the scenes; Trump’s price was higher than a home-grown force to replace NATO down the track.

Then came Trump’s renegement of the Paris climate deal. This is yet another mere economic decision that will give American industries and economy the benefit of unfair advantage. But Trump cares only about money. This is how he led his life and succeeded in business.

Certainly, the EU/NATO leaders are not as foolish and/or desperate as their Saudi counterparts. They can and did give Trump the cold shoulder.
In every stop he made, every step he takes and every promise he breaks, every twist he makes, Trump’s actions and inactions are all centered on one single issue; financial pragmatism as perceived by the eyes of a businessman. This again points to the state of desperation of the American economy and its uncompetitive status quo.

America is no longer able to excel on a level playing field in its trading with other nations. It must therefore capitalize on its remaining edge; military prowess and hardware industry. It will use those advantages to put itself in positions of unfair advantage, and to bully other nations into doing military business with them.

It is for this reason and this reason alone that America sees Russia as a huge threat, not because Russia is interfering in Ukraine and/or American elections as alleged, but because America can only bully its way in by means of maintaining what is left of its status as the single superpower of the post USSR ‘New World Order’. But that order is no more, and the USA must always conjure up new ways to stay on top of the military industries.

China is Trump’s other huge nightmare, because China is not only an emerging military giant, but certainly an economic one. 

It is most ironic that America’s stand on South China Sea is done in the name of protecting trade routes. No nation on earth has a vested interest in protecting those particular routes more than China itself; after all, they are China’s trade routes, and for every shipping container that moves across those waters into China, at least ten move the other way, brining China wealth and more global significance.

To be fair to Trump, if he deserves any fairness at all, he has come to the stark realization that the innovative nature of American industrial economy is a thing of the past, and for him to stick to the election promise of jobs, jobs, jobs, he has to play dirty. With a decaying infra-structure, rusted factories and insufficient number of highly qualified and self-motivated young technicians, an American techno resurgence is unfathomable, and for Trump to create jobs and put the economy back on track, the only trick up his sleeve is to be a bully.

Given that America has no concrete reason for its anti-Russia and anti-China moves, it must create some to feed the media and the masses. This is a new-age unprecedented form of piracy. In the past, up till recently, nations were at least more transparent in demonstrating their reasons for war against each other, and the rule of the game was always for the stronger and more advanced nation to be in the position of having the upper hand. America however is not in a position to make admissions that it is in the process of conjuring up stories against Russia and China because it has lost its competitive edge; not whilst Trump is claiming to be making America great again. Such an admission would be tantamount to an athlete admitting that he cannot win without performance enhancement drugs. But such actions are actions of desperation and they cannot go very far. 

A few years ago, I wrote an article titled “How Far Will a Desperate Radical America Go?” http://intibahwakeup.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-far-will-desperate-radical-america.html). I predicted that such an America will likely blackmail other nations in a manner that coerces them to do business under the threat of nuclear attacks should they refuse. We have not seen this come to pass, but down the track, with more audacious advances from Trump and future presidents, this possibility cannot be zeroed out, because America will not sit down and watch its economy and world domination fall to pieces.

A few years ago also I predicted that one day America will elect a president that will make George W. Bush look like mother Teresa. I am not sure if Trump is that president, perhaps close. And now, it is not hard to predict that one day America will elect a president that will make Trump look like Socrates.

Editor's note:
Hear Trump for yourself
https://twitter.com/SamiRamadani1/status/879467761398943745