MEMO | ISIS & the Assad Regime: From Marriage of Convenience to Partnership

Issued by the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. Translated from the PDF version to HTML by LinuxBeach
See also Man behind the Curtain for al-Qaeda in Syria is Assad for more on the connection between the ISIS and the Assad Regime.

Since the FSA declared war on this group on 3rd January 2014 and took over many of their bases, significant evidence has been uncovered which has confirmed circulating testimony and rumors about the links between the regime and ISIS.

This memo is just a small sample of testimony from FSA fighters that describe events on the ground where regime forces have been protecting and assisting this group. Accounts go further, saying that regime forces are intimately intertwined with this group, whose objectives are one and the same: to destroy moderate Opposition forces and establish control over as much of Syria as possible. Accounts of this kind are so widespread, most Opposition fighters can add their own personal accounts to this collection. We would encourage those interested to independently reach out to Syrians inside the country to hear their testimonies first-hand.

Regime-ISIS non-confrontation, protection & assistance:

• Non-confrontation: The ISIS headquarters in Raqqa are distinctive and famous buildings (the governorate building and Armenian Catholic Church). When the regime shells the city, the aircraft fly down very low to target FSA held areas, however they never bomb the ISIS HQ or target areas under its control. Syrian – Turkish borders and the HQ in Al-Danna (Idleb)

• In turn, ISIS has never attacked Jisr Al Shughour, a regime-controlled area of strategic value in Idlib or the regime-controlled areas of Dier Ezzor or Aleppo City. A US official has recently testified to this.ii

• During the battle between ISIS & FSA in the northern suburbs of Homs (January 10th 2014), regime aircraft were heavily shelling the FSA, avoiding ISIS, which assisted them to move forward in battle.

• During the last battle between the Islamic Front and ISIS when ISIS was defeated in Aleppo, two days prior to this a convoy lead by an ISIS military leader, Emir Omar Shishani, drove (January 2014) from Raqqa to Aleppo, there are many eye-witness accounts saying this convoy was protected by regime warplanes. In contrast, the next day, another convoy from Liwa Al Tawhid drove a similar route north and was heavily bombarded by the regime planes.iii

• As recently revealed in westerns media, ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra is selling fuel to the Assad Government in return for electricity.

• ISIS upholds a systematic policy of assassinating the strongest and most highly respected FSA commanders, such as Abu Rayan, responsible Tal Abyad border checkpoint who was tortured and killed by ISIS, Abu Basir in the coastal front- Latakia suburbs, who was a highly prominent officer in the FSA.v

ISIS-regime fusion:

• Current emirs in ISIS were serving officers with the regime. E.g. Muhanat Juneidi was serving with the regime in Dier Ezzor during the Iraq war where he was responsible for the section following and investigating those who went to fight in Iraq and returned. He is an Alawite and until recently was an Emir with ISIS in Idlib suburbs where he was seen wearing the Afghani dawb, with a long beard. He was responsible for security issues inside ISIS in this area before FSA defeated ISIS and drove them out of Idlib (January 9th 2014). Similarly, Abu Anas al-Iraqi leads an al-Qaeda brigade in the province of Raqqa: “Abu Anas is financed directly by the regime, through Iran and Iraq”, confessed an ISIS detainee.vi

• Accounts from FSA fighters of seeing the same faces fighting with the regime as fighting with ISIS.

• Accounts from torture survivors – who were subject to the same torture techniques under the regime as under ISIS. There are pictures and videos available demonstrating this. Similarly when ISIS commit massacres, they employ the same methods as regime forces employ.

• During military clashes between FSA and ISIS, ISIS ammunition cases have been recovered by the FSA. Empty cartridges are labelled as having been manufactured in the Institute of Defence Factories, the regime Ministry of Defence factory or from Russia.

Documents:

• As the FSA have taken over ISIS areas, much evidence has been gathered and is being held with FSA brigades inside Syria. IDs of from Syrian intelligence agencies have been discovered in ISIS bases. Youtube videos, exhibit evidence which is currently held by the Jaish Al Mujahediin. It shows belongings found when ISIS bases were taken over by the FSA in Idlib. The evidence includes Iranian visas, Russian passports, Iranian simcards, photographs showing ISIS ‘emirs’ making fun of Arabs and posing with their scantily clad western unveiled girlfriends. Free Syrian Army uncovered in January the passport of Abu Hafs al Masri, senior commander of ISIS in the northern city of Jarablus, containing an Iranian visa stamp. vii

Civilian Syrian testimony:

• Masarat media and activist organization collecting these views showed that 70% of respondents believe that the Assad regime supports ISIS. The same study showed that 79% of respondents believe that ISIS has not played an effective role in opposing the Assad regime in their area. Social media sites of late, especially Twitter, have seen a marked increase in the discussion surrounding the relationship between Assad and ISIS, fuelled by material such as leaked Youtube videos of fighters affiliated with the Assad regime posing as ISIS fighters.viii

Conclusions

As the Assad regime tried to crush the revolution, conditions of turmoil and lawlessness allowed these groups to originally enter Syria as they snatched power within a vacuum. The Assad regime has been protecting, supporting and facilitating ISIS within Syria. Allowing this group to thrive is his ultimate protection from the international community who has been led to believe he is fighting terrorism in Syria. As ordinary Syrians would testify, Assad is the biggest force of terrorism inside Syria, not only through this partnership but through his systematic state policy of war crimes which continues to crush what started as a peaceful call for freedom.

We ask regional and international players: is it in your strategic interest to allow this regime to aid extremism, cause mass displacement & regional turmoil? The regime is allowing such groups to thrive on your borders whilst simultaneously perpetuating regional chaos by creating the greatest humanitarian crisis the world has seen this this century. It is time for a bolder policy to address this shared problem with final resolve.

---

Remarks

Ahmad Jarba, President of The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, “Connection and collusion between the regime and ISIS runs deep. When the world hears Assad's empty talk of terrorism, they must think again and ask themselves, who in Syria is the true terrorist?"

FSA fighter from Homs, “It is so obvious to all of us on the ground. The West must see the extent of the deceit of this regime, it has no limits to the tricks it will play to save itself.”

Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkish Foreign Minister, “There is a partnership between them [ISIS] and the regime”

Western Intelligence source, The Telegraph, “Assad’s vow to strike terrorism with an iron fist is nothing more than bare-faced hypocrisy… At the same time as peddling a triumphant narrative about the fight against terrorism, his regime has made deals to serve its own interests and ensure its survival.”ix

About this information & further enquiries

This memo is mainly sourced from the testimony of FSA fighters, it is a small sample of a wealth of evidence that is being gathered by the SOC, SMC, FSA & local coordination committees. A lot of evidence has recently been uncovered following the FSA surge against ISIS which was originally declared on 3rd January 2014.

All of the information contained in this memo can be corroborated by first hand sources. Please email this address with your enquiries and we will put you in touch with a relevant witness: ISISevidence@gmail.com

SMC Media Office: SMCSyriaSyria@gmail.com

About this information & further enquiries

This memo is mainly sourced from the testimony of FSA fighters, it is a small sample of a wealth of evidence that is being gathered by the SOC, SMC, FSA & local coordination committees. A lot of evidence has recently been uncovered following the FSA surge against ISIS which was originally declared on 3rd January 2014.

All of the information contained in this memo can be corroborated by first hand sources. Please email this address with your enquiries and we will put you in touch with a relevant witness: ISISevidence@gmail.com

SMC Media Office: SMCSyriaSyria@gmail.com

Further reading

- Yalla Souriya, ‘ISIS Assad Links’, https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/tag/isis-assad-links/

- Michael Kelley, ‘It’s Becoming Clear That Assad Fueled The Al-Qaeda Surge That Has Kept Him In Power’, Business Insider, 21stJanuary 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/assad-helped-build-al-qaeda-in-syria-2014-1#ixzz2soGvT05q

- ‘Al-Qaeda detainees reveal ties with Assad’, Al Arabiya, 20th January 2014, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/01/21/Al-Qaeda-detainees-reveal-ties-with-Assad.html

- Ruth Sherlock & Richard Spencer, The Telegraph, ‘Syria's Assad accused of boosting al-Qaeda with secret oil deals’, 20th January 2014

- Hassan Hassan, ‘It is Syria's mainstream rebels who are best fit to face down extremists -- not the Assad regime’, Foreign Policy, 9 January 2014

- ‘Syrians launch new "revolution" against ISIS’, Now, 4th January 2014, https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/nowsyrialatestnews/528566-syrians-launch-new-revolution-against-isis

- Mohammad Habash, ‘Radicals are Assad’s Best Friend’, The National, 1st January 2014

- Report, Al Jazeera, Yasin al-Suri – top AQ financier transferring money & people from Pakistan to Syria. Released by Iran to continue his work of transferring people to Syria. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/01/us-says-al-qaeda-financier-operates-from-iran-201412923044810857.html

- Michael Weiss, ‘Assad’s no enemy of al- Qaeda’, 31st July 2013, https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/assads-no-enemy-of-al-qaeda


Notes on terminology & acronyms

- ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq & Sham

- FSA: Free Syrian Army

- SMC: Supreme Military Council (of the FSA)

- Emir: commander and ruler of an area – both a military and Islamic position.

---

i ‘The End of the Beginning in #Syria 2013 Round Up’, Yalla Souriya, 1st January 2014, http://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/the-end-of-the-beginning-in-syria-2013-round-up-h/; ‘Syria: the struggle continues - “day of rage against Al-Qaeda & Assad”’, Guerre de Classe, 13th January 2014, http://libcom.org/news/syria-struggle-continues-13012014

ii Background Briefing on Geneva II Process and the Overall Situation in Syria, State Department Special Briefing for Senior Administration Officials, 31st January 2014, Washington, DC, Background Briefing on Geneva II Process and the Overall Situation in Syria, State Department Special Briefing for Senior Administration Officials, 31st January 2014, Washington DC, http://m.state.gov/md221121.htm

iii Emir Omar Shishani driving from Raqqa to Aleppo on 5th January 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SRPcV4TZwg

iv Ruth Sherlock & Richard Spencer, The Telegraph, ‘Syria's Assad accused of boosting al-Qaeda with secret oil deals’, 20th January 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10585391/Syrias-Assad-accused-of-boosting-al-Qaeda-with-secret-oil-deals.html; Ben Hubbard, Clifford Krauss & Eric Schmitt, ‘Rebels in Syria Claim Control of Resources’ New York Times, 28th January 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/world/middleeast/rebels-in-syria-claim-control-of-resources.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=2

v ‘Western-backed Coalition accuse ISIS of serving Assad’s interests’ Thursday, Asharq Al-Awsat, 2nd January 2014, http://www.aawsat.net/2014/01/article55326385

vi ‘Al-Qaeda detainees reveal ties with Assad’, Al Arabiya, 20th January 2014, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/01/21/Al-Qaeda-detainees-reveal-ties-with-Assad.html

vii https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8lQpI3h7fs; https://twitter.com/JadBantha/status/421263516301926400/photo/1; Andrew Parasiliti, Al Monitor, 23rd January 2014, ‘SOC member Michel Kilo claims evidence of Assad links to ISIS’ http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/michel-kilo-syria-opposition-regime-terrorists-isis.html

viii https://www.facebook.com/MasaratSyria

ix Ruth Sherlock & Richard Spencer, The Telegraph, ‘Syria's Assad accused of boosting al-Qaeda with secret oil deals’, 20th January 2014

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria

Would Arizona's anti-gay SB1062 also apply to interracial marriages?

I don't see why not as nothing in the wording of the bill says that it applies exclusively to religious objections to gay marriage. The drafters were careful to avoid such obviously discriminatory targeting, and while laws against miscegenation are a thing of the past and most religions that had objections in the past have dropped them, there are still a handful that cloth their bigotry, not only against gays, but also against people of color, in religious garb.

This bill, named the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which went to Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer on Monday, has been justified as protecting small businesses like bakeries and florists from being forced to provide services to gay couples when they have religious objections to same-sex marriages. Wikipedia describes the content as follows:

SB 1062 is intended to amend Section 41-1493 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which prevents "any law, including state and local laws, ordinances, rules, regulations and policies" from "substantially burden[ing]" a person's exercise of religion, unless the burden is the least restrictive means of furthering a "compelling government interest". SB 1062 revises it by expanding the definition of person in the article from "a religious assembly or institution" to also include "any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church," "estate, trust, foundation or other legal entity",^[6] and allows for religious-freedom as a claim or defense in lawsuits "regardless of whether the government is a party to the proceeding."^[6]

The pro-SB1062 Center for Arizona Policy supports the bill with these talking points:

• Arizona needs SB 1062 to protect the religious freedom rights of every citizen.
  
• In America, people should be free to live and work according to their faith. Our nation was founded upon the ideal of religious freedom and the right to freely walk your faith. 
• People don't forfeit their religious freedom rights simply because they go to work or start a business.
• No one should ever be forced to choose between their conscience or religious beliefs and their profession. The Constitution doesn’t only guarantee our “freedom to worship” but our freedom to practice and promote our faith. Americans don’t have to leave their faith and convictions at their church door; we have the right to carry it with us in all aspects of our lives.

In the United States, laws against interracial marriage first raised their ugly heads with Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law of 1691 and such laws had been applies in more than 40 states before they were finally found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1967. The religious institution, Bob Jones University didn't remove its rules against interracial dating until 2000 and a 2011 article published by Christianity Today began:

This month marks the 44th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. A 1968 Gallup poll found three-quarters of whites disapproved of a whites and blacks marrying. Today, opposition to interracial marriage is low, but it still lingers. Among religious groups, evangelicals remain the most opposed to interracial marriage, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (Pew).

That Pew research poll revealed that in 2011, 16% of all evangelicals were still opposed to whites marrying non-whites and most of them based that opinion on their religious beliefs and and their interpretation of the Bible. Given that many of these people live in a world so small that they don't even have room to change their mind, it is likely than a significant percentage still feel the same way. Consider the 2011 conclusion of Nil Desperandum who blogs on Faith & Heritage, Occidental Christianity For Preserving Western Culture and People. In his On Interracial Marriage: The Moral Status of Miscegenation he concludes:

Miscegenation is unnatural and works against God’s purposes, especially when racial admixture occurs in large quantities. Therefore its default status is one of moral wrongness. In unordinary situations, the unnatural may be morally permissible, particularly when it is kept in small numbers (so as to not destroy the distinctiveness of a people or culture), but in ordinary situations, the default status of miscegenation cannot be overturned. We ought not to value the natural and the unnatural equally, and we also ought not to treat race as meaningless or insignificant.

Given that in 2013 he published a four part series with the title Christianity as a Necessary Foundation for White Nationalism, I find it extremely unlikely that his opposition to interracial marriage, based on his religious views, have changed either. So why wouldn't Arizona's SB1062 allow him to discriminate against interracial marriage just as it was designed to allow discrimination against same-sex marriage?

I hope this analysis will help to bring home the reactionary and chauvinist content of SB1062 to those that that don't already see it. As important as religious freedom is, it must never be allowed to trump human rights or be used as a cover for bigoted views and institutionalized discrimination. This bill must be rejected by all.

Moments ago, I vetoed #SB1062. pic.twitter.com/gdQn0dG2vB

— Jan Brewer (@GovBrewer) February 27, 2014

In vetoing the bill, Gov. Brewer echoed the concerns of this blog:

The bill is broadly worded and could result in unintended and negative consequences. After weighing all of the arguments, I have vetoed Senate Bill 1062 moments ago.

Rest In Peace Harold Ramis, the Activist

I never knew Harold Ramis, although at different times we were both members of what we later called the Washington University Liberation Front, the relatively small click of leftists at WU in St. Louis. 

I started at WU in 1966-1967 as a double E major, but soon fell in with "the wrong crowd" and they set me on the course I'm still on almost 50 years latter. Although I didn't know it at the time Harold Ramis, who left WU the year before I got there, was also a member of this same click.

In 1970 I was indicted for my leadership in the WU anti-ROTC protests and ended up serving 4 months of a one year sentence for unlawful assembly in the St. Louis County Jail. It was widely thought that I was the first one indicted and jailed because I was a past president of the campus SDS chapter, had organized and led a march of thousands against the ROTC buildings (one of which was burned down before I went to jail, and one that burned down while I was in jail [the FBI suspected me for the 1st one, but as we said about the 2nd burning - I had an iron-clad alibi]) and because I am Black. This was just weeks before Kent State, which lit the fuse on just about every campus in the country.

A few years earlier four of us were brought up on campus charges for protesting Dow for napalm

George Lipsitz, Clay Claiborne, Joel Allen & Terry Koch

With Donna, my first wife

In one sense, I was lucky to be first because later the charges for other members of our group became stiffer until by the time they got to Howard Mechanic, they charged him under federal felony statues. Facing five years in jail, he jumped bail and took it on the lamb. He made a good long 28 year run of it, but as the FBI agent in the commercial for "Without a Trace" answers the kid who asks "How long do you look before you give up?", "We never never give up." That is certainly true for anti-war activists, so in 1998 they caught up with Howard and threw him in the hoosegow.

This prompted a new gathering of the tribe as we came together to campaign for a pardon for Howard, which Clinton granted as he was leaving office. To celebrate, we had a reunion in St. Louis of what we were then calling the WULF. That was April 2001 and we naively congratulated ourselves with the thought that because of our opposition to the Vietnam War, the US wouldn't repeat that mistake again. We didn't know it at the time but 9/11 was just months away. At that reunion, I was interviewed extensively on my student protest days for WU's American Lives Project, and I learned that Harold Ramis, now famous, was a part of our group. But I didn't meet him there either. He had left the reunion the day before I arrived. He was due to return before it ended but then my brother died and I had to leave suddenly.

Photos from the WULF reunion April 18-23, 2001 - these are pictures of Harold the activist that you won't see anywhere else.

The above caption misnames Bruce Roger for Howard Mechanic

Buzz Hirsch was our other Hollywood hero.

Anyway, I always loved "Animal House" [written by Harold Ramis] and always thought it reflected my college experience in a way that was eerily familar. It was only then that I realized why.

From Wikipedia on Harold Ramis:

He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School and Nicholas Senn High School in Chicago,^[6] and, in 1966, from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri,^[2][7] where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.^[8]

Rest in Peace Harold Ramis, You will be missed.

Clay

 

	HOWARD MECHANIC'S COVER STORY Cover Story THE ACCIDENTAL FUGITIVE A CLINTON PARDON ENDS SHAKER NATIVE HOWARD MECHANIC'S 30-YEAR NIGHTMARE by Sandeep Kaushik Published March 21 - 27, 2001 It's been a long, strange trip for Howard Mechanic. From the quiet, leafy streets of Shaker Heights, to the conflicts on American college campuses during the height of the Vietnam War. From being arrested after a campus protest he merely attended to the courtrooms of the early 70s, where judges channeled the near-hysterical perception of an onrushing tide of youthful lawlessness by making examples of those they saw as dangerous subversives. From life as a fugitive, living under an assumed name in a new town, to a prison cell and 15 minutes of infamy. And last, but certainly not least, from the lows of oblivion to the heights of redemption, as documented on one thin sheet of paper a presidential pardon a gift from a recently departed bigwig who himself knows a little bit about highs and lows, mistakes and forgiveness. Ingrid Gold could not sleep a wink the night of January 19, she was so nervous. First thing in the morning, she called a Phoenix news radio station. They had just received the list and hadn't fully processed it yet. Still, they made a quick check and told her his name was not on it. "I was crushed, absolutely devastated," she says. It felt like her entire world was collapsing around her. But minutes later, Janet Grossman, a close friend, called and dropped another bomb. It was difficult to understand her at first, she was so giddy, but then she yelled clearly, "He is on the list," and with those magic words, Ingrid's suffering faded away like a half-remembered nightmare. The list in question, the cause of so much suspense and excitement for the two women, contained the names of those fortunate souls President Clinton had chosen to pardon in his final days in office. It was long, more than 150 names, but the only one they saw that morning was that of Ingrid's ex-husband, Janet's current boyfriend, Howard Lawrence Mechanic. He was a 60s antiwar radical who in 1972 had fled his home and family in Shaker Heights rather than go to prison for allegedly throwing a cherry bomb at firefighters during a student protest. His sentence: five years in a federal penitentiary. Following his conviction, Mechanic's case drew the attention of a polarized nation. For some, he was a symbol of all that had gone wrong with American youth. For others, he was a victim of the law-and-order hysteria sweeping the country, a scapegoat for a regime desperate to suppress any dissent against its immoral and illegitimate policies. All Howard saw, however, was his life slipping away; he made the fateful decision to go underground rather than serve what he believed was an unjust sentence. Skip forward to the morning of the pardon. Mechanic received word of his good fortune in a cell in the minimum-security federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California. He'd been incarcerated there (as well as another prison) for more than 11 months. It wasn't that the feds had caught up with him, exactly during 28 years on the run, he had succeeded in creating an entirely new and stable life for himself under an assumed name. But in February 2000, a reporter for the Scottsdale Tribune, conducting a routine get-to-know-the-candidate interview with a first-time city council hopeful, discovered there was a lot more to her subject than he let on. Yes, bizarre as it may seem, the fugitive "armed and dangerous," according to the government had run for office. Howard Mechanic, aka Gary Tredway, then surrendered voluntarily to authorities, who promptly sent him back to the pokey. But that reporter's expose also set in motion a chain of events that culminated in Mechanic's presidential pardon.Within 12 hours of receiving word of his release, he was back in Arizona, savoring a joyous reunion with family and friends. THE FIRST THING you notice about Howard Mechanic is that he just doesn't look the part. You'd expect the self-described last political prisoner of the Vietnam era, a man who spent all those years on the run, to look just a little more scruffy, a little more, well, countercultural. Aside from a fondness for Birkenstocks, the ubiquitous sartorial symbols of the 60s on the tye-died T-shirts, Guatemalan serapes, and so on are noticeably absent. There isn't even a whiff of patchouli within 100 yards of him. Rather, what you get is a nondescript, though still youthful-looking, middle-aged man (he turned 53 in February) with neatly combed short black hair and receding hairline, impeccably if unostentatiously dressed in a button-down shirt carefully tucked into a pair of khakis. He looks every inch the average Joe, normal, conventional, unthreatening. Maybe that's really not very surprising, and not just because as a fugitive he was compelled to make every effort to blend in and escape notice. Mechanic will tell you, in measured, thoughtful tones, that the life he led over those 28 years was not that different from anyone else's. That being a fugitive didn't keep him from working hard to build the kind of existence he could be comfortable with, in spite of the assumed name, the constant lying about his past, the ever-present fear of exposure. That if all the weirdness had never happened the arrest the felony conviction, the prison sentence, the decision to go on the lam he would have still turned out to be the same guy. But despite his normal appearance, Mechanic's story is anything but ordinary. It is the story of justice denied and justice delayed, and perhaps, after 30 long years, of justice finally being served, providing reassuring proof that no matter how badly the wheels of justice become untracked they can eventually be set right again. It is also a much sadder tale the story of the warp and woof of one man's life, and how a succession of mistakes (both his own and those perpetrated upon him) magnified and compounded each other until the trajectory of that life was forever altered. And with all the controversy surrounding some of President Clinton's other last-minute pardons, Mechanic's story stands as a salutary reminder of why the founding fathers invested the presidency with the pardoning power in the first place. Given the circumstances of his conviction this is one pardon that's hard to protest (but, of course, some still do). For these reasons and many others, the media has once again found the Howard Mechanic story irresistible, and he has accommodated them accordingly. Besides making appearances on Dateline NBC and A&E's American Justice, his case became something of a cause celebrate in Phoenix and St. Louis, and even attracted the interest of the august New York Times Magazine, which gave him the cover treatment last April. But though his story has been told several times in different media, questions and inaccuracies regarding its details have persisted. Mechanic lied for 28 years to protect his identity, and, at least to some extent, continued to lie even after his re-emergence, in order to protect the select few who knew his secret. Indeed, it is only now, since his pardon has come through and the threat of further legal sanction has been lifted, that we can pierce the veil of deception and secrecy to assemble a truer picture of the circumstances that drove Mechanic to go on the run, and of the second life he led for so long as Gary Tredway Arizona businessman. Flier I wrote that kicked off anti-ROTC protest

For the Record - More Pictures of Harold Ramis from the 2001 WULF collection so they will be available to the world

Dreyfuss on Obama Plans to Escalate the War in Syria

What is happening in Syria is the first holocaust of the twenty first century and far too great a tragedy to serve as the playground for another western activist's U.S. centered delusions, but such delusions are the basis of the view expressed in this Bob Dreyfuss piece on Syria. Obama Plans to Escalate the War in Syria, 18 Feb 2014, is entirely driven by United States concerns and United States chauvinism, which should surprise no one given that it is posted to an opinion blog in the Nation. The Syrian people, their suffering, or their struggle, play no role in his assessment as he advises "It's time for the United States to surrender on Syria." But the US isn't even in this fight, not like the Syrian people are. They are the ones that were gassed in greater Damascus; they are the ones that are barrel-bombed in Aleppo and Idlib; they are the ones being starved in Yarmouk and Homs. They are the ones that are being asked to surrender. Assad is refusing to end the 43 year-old bloody fascist police-state dictatorship and he is demanding that they surrender. This is the surrender demand that Bob Dreyfuss is really supporting but those people resisting dictatorship are invisible to him so instead he calls upon Obama to "surrender" which is a way of opposing any support for Assad's unnamed opposition and implying that Obama has been behind the war all along.

You see, you don't need a knowledge of facts on the ground in Syria to understand the "logic" of the Nation piece but you should be familiar with the moonscape of conspiracy theories that credit western spies with just about everything connected with the Arab Spring. Those people think the Arabs have no agency themselves, they are simply proxies for the Central Intelligence Agency. So never-mind about them, they are Obama's proxies, so we''ll just tell him not to escalate the war in Syria and just surrender.

In advising surrender, Dreyfuss shows us he has no problem with seeing Assad win, but then he isn't in Syria, is he? Most Syrians may have a big problem with surrendering to Assad. He has run a brutal police-state, infamous worldwide for its torture facilities, and now he has topped it off with a murderous sectarian war against Syrian civilians that has killed 130,000 and made another 7 million homeless. Assad has always been a vindictive dictator and there's no reason to think the killing will end once people stop fighting back. The recently released pictures of thousands of tortured corpses of Assad's detainees shows how he treats those that have surrendered to him.

But never mind Assad's, shall we say, "blemished" record as a leader, Bob Dreyfuss wants to keep him on the job because "The rebels, increasingly dominated by hard-core Islamists and Al Qaeda types, aren’t fit to take over." Like I said, knowledge of facts-on-the-ground can only get in the way. What the Nation requires here is suspension of disbelief. If you are aware of the open warfare between the Free Syria Army with the Islamic Front on the one hand, and the "hard-core Islamists and Al Qaeda" ISIS on the other, that has itself cost over 1700 lives, then Bob Dreyfuss's unified rebels that are increasingly dominated by them, just doesn't make sense. Please understand that he is in some alternate universe were the ISIS and al Nusra haven't been exposed as agents of Assad. He still hopes to use them to tarnish all of Assad's otherwise unmentioned opposition as not "fit to take over."

Bob Dreyfuss wants Bashar al-Assad to win. He doesn't have a problem with what he's done to his people or how he's run the country, at least he doesn't express it in this paper. That is his basis stand. He doesn't speak of Assad's escalation. How he started out with with snipers shooting protesters and then escalated to tank fire, and then attack helicopters, heavy artillery, cluster bombs, napalm, barrel bombs and poison gas. This is not the escalation that Bob Dreyfuss is concerned about. He is concerned about a possible Obama "escalation," and, in all honesty I have to admit, going from zero to anything at all would constitute an "escalation."

This is were Dreyfuss's total dis-regard for Syrian lives struck me the most:

it appears that the Obama administration has given the green light to Saudi Arabia to supply the rebels with heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles. Until now, Washington has been reluctant to send these devastating weapons to the anti-Assad forces because they will inevitably fall into the hands of Al Qaeda and its allies, who will use them against El Al and Western airlines.

Civilians are being slaughtered on the ground by Assad's air force because they have no defense against his planes. In this context, anti-aircraft missiles will save lives. This is the "escalation" that Dreyfuss is worried about. His assertion that al Qaeda will get them and use them against El Al, is just so much speculation and fearmongering. There are ways, including technical, to guard against that. What they will do now is save lives by stopping Assad's planes from bombing people unopposed.

In his very last sentence he re-asserts his alternate world view that "it’s the United States that is creating the problem, by using the CIA and its covert allies to wage a war of regime change." The Syrian people have nothing to do with it so never mind about their suffering and their aspirations, its just a great game being played by great powers and Dreyfuss thinks Obama should throw in the towel.

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On Rob Prince's hostility towards intervention in Syria

Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi published an op-ed in the New York Times, 10 Feb 2014, with the simple, self-explanatory title Use Force to Save Starving Syrians. This caused some non-interventionists, who would rather see [other] people starve than force open a blockade, to get their panties in a twist. One result has been published on Foreign Policy In Focus, 14 Feb 2014, Military Humanitarian Intervention: the Shock Doctrine Applied to Syria by Rob Prince. It responds to Postel and Hashemi in its subtitle "What’s needed in Syria is not military intervention, but a global peace offensive."

In the comment section I made a number of extensive critiques of this piece, which also meant critiquing the standard-issue pro-Assad Left reasons for opposing intervention in Syria, and frankly, I thought some of them were pretty good. Then I thought "All that work on somebody else's blog?!?" So I figure I'll reuse them and make a blog post here out of them:

10:25 He starts with an assumption that is by no means proven no matter how many times it is repeated, the "only viable path open to resolving the Syrian conflict lies in a negotiated settlement between the Assad government and the legitimate opposition." One could have just as well said that about dealing with Hitler and ending WW2. In fact many Hitler supporters made exactly that argument as soon as it became clear the Nazis weren't going to win militarily. Rob Prince may believe a negotiated settlement is the only way forward but clearly Bashar al-Assad doesn't. He could have opened negotiations when the peaceful protests first started. Instead, he choose to respond with violence, time and time again, until those who were demanding change were forced to go over to armed struggle. Assad has never negotiated in good faith, witness the lack of progress on getting rid of his CW. Then there is the question of who Rob Prince considers the "legitimate opposition," or did he intend to leave that decision to Assad? Presumably he believes the Assad regime is the legitimate government of Syria or at least that Bashar al-Assad, a mass murderer of ten thousand Syrian children, a legitimate partner for a peaceful settlement. Does he really think the bloodshed will stop as long as Assad is in power? More, later...

Rob Prince complained "they place the blame for the Syrian human débâcle almost entirely at the feet of the Assad government[, blaming it] for virtually all of the violence."

03:17 The Assad government is responsible for virtually all of the violence. Certainly it is responsible for turning peaceful mass protests into an armed conflict. In three years it is responsible for every bomb cropped from aircraft, every shell or shot fired from an aircraft, the dropping of sarin from a helicopter in one case and the uses of poison gas fired from rockets on more than a dozen occasions. Its completely responsible for the uncounted thousands it has starved and tortured to death in its prisons. Its responsible for all the Scuds fired and the vast majority of all the other rockets and shell fired that have taken so many Syrians in the past three years. One could also make an argument that Assad is responsible for the deaths caused by his looted arsenals, which is the main way his opposition has armed themselves, because his government had the responsibility to see that they were properly secured, which they could have easily done had they not been so busy killing Syrians. I prefer the argument that the attacking party, the party engaged in criminal conduct, the one who sets out on the murderous rampage, is responsible not only for the deaths it caused directly, but also the lives taken by those practising self-defense and even "innocent bystanders" killed by either side. I blame the Nazis not only all the deaths their soldiers caused but also for the lives of those young Germans they turned into cannon fodder. I blame US imperialism not only for the millions of Vietnamese killed but also the 58,000 Americans it drafted to do its dirty work, and I apply the same standards to the Assad government, so I hold it responsible for 100% of the deaths caused by his war to stay in power, even it that power rests upon elections in which he got 97% and 97.6% of the vote! If you believe those were free & fair elections, I've got a deal on a bridge for you. You can make so much money..call me. Finally there is this: Accidentally, civilians have been killed by all parties to this conflict, such is the nature of war, but Assad is the only party to this conflict that actively targets civilians. He bombs neighbourhoods, hospitals and schools. He shells breadlines. His bottom line strategy is to make the price of overthrowing him, in terms of Syrian lives, unbearably high. More, later...

Comment in response to greenman615 Excuse me, but would you advocate pleas of mercy in place of anti-aircraft weaponry as a response to aerial bombardment generally or is this a special case designed to increase the suffering of the Syria people? For example, did you oppose the US providing England and the USSR with anti-aircraft weaponry when the Nazis were bombing everywhere? Did you also oppose Russia and China giving anti-aircraft weaponry to Vietnam when the US was bombing everywhere? And when a mad gunman is on the loose in one of our cities, killing anybody in sight, do you demand that the police just stick to bullhorn tactics, i.e. attempting to negotiate a peaceful settlement? Because assuming that the problem "can be solved by an application of military force," i.e. taking out the killer with lethal force before he kills another person, "would only be adding to the violence?" Do you not believe in the right of self defense? Are you "non-violent" to the point of not raising a hand against your would be murderer? Are you one of those? Do you oppose a people's right to an armed self-defense or their right to ask for assistance when they are attacked generally? Or is just special for Syrians?

03:55 "Salafist Islamic militants (trained and funded by the Saudis, Qatar, Turkey, and ultimately supported and manipulated by Washington)" All of that is a stretch, based largely on conjecture. While it can't be denied that what could be called Salafist Islamic militants have received some funds from individuals and organizations based in Saudis, Qatar, Turkey and dozens of other countries, that tiny bit of truth doesn't spin-out to a grand conspiracy run from Washington. I fear your US chauvinism is showing. The truth is the US is really at a lost for a workable, even from its pov, strategy to deal with events that are almost completely out of its control. If by "Salafist Islamic militants" you mean the ISIS and al Nusra, then why leave out the Assad government's payments to them, in the millions of dollars, for oil, or the fact that he let a thousand Salafist Islamic militants out of prison at the start of the revolution, and many of these are now even in the leadership of ISIS and al Nusra, or the Syrian special service agents that have been identified as "emirs" in the ISIS, or Assad's bragging that he had agents inside the opposition? Are those connections and many more [See Man behind the Curtain for al-Qaeda in Syria is Assad for details.] problematic for your narrative? Finally, how can you blame those countries for having "internationalized the struggle" when you don't mention Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbullah, all of which have soldiers fighting in Syria and are militarily supporting Assad's bid to stay in power no matter how many Syrian lives it costs? More, later...

7:53 Calling for military intervention as a way to end or at least reduce the bloodshed in Syria does pull at certain ethical heartstrings. A less colorful way to say that is coming to the defense of civilians being bombed is the right thing to do. I'm sorry to see you seem to revel in the idea that it is "a desperate appeal." Why? Because you think that there is no chance the world will intervene even if Assad kills a million? 236 people are being killed every day now in this conflagration and you refuse any meaningful intervention to stop it now in the name of "humane long-term geopolitical considerations." Please! You ask: Are they forgetting Washington’s long record of supporting totalitarian regimes in exchange for oil in the Middle East and elsewhere, and whose involvement in the Syrian tragedy is, incidentally, far from innocent? Assad's opposition certainly aren't forgetting, and those that have been disillusioned as to any US claim to fight for justice and so on have been given a hard lesson; they have been seeing Obama's betrayal of his claim of support for their democratic struggle and his real support for Assad's totalitarian regime develop over the last three years. But I think you are right about this: No matter how many times the US imperialists may claim humanitarian excuses for intervention, doesn't mean they will intervene when humanity really does call for it. I'm just sorry to see you revel in it. Naive and self-centered Americans may think Obama was really for "regime change" in Syria just because he said he was, but few Syrians, on either side of the fight, harbor such illusions themselves, even if one side finds it makes for useful propaganda. See: Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad among others. More, later...

10:16 You say: One must make a distinction between “humanitarian intervention” in times of war, and military intervention using humanitarian pretexts. And I say that goes without saying. So what's your point? In all things, and not just "humanitarian intervention" one must make a distinction between the real thing and its counterfeit. Is this bit of wisdom your way of telling us that you don't think that there is a genuine need for humanitarian intervention in Syria today? Or is it your view that Bashar al-Assad should be free to fire Scud missiles at major population centers in Syria for as long as the Russians will supply them and still be free to drop barrel bombs on his people when they won't? Is that the position you are fighting for? More, later...

10:44 You assert certain U.S. political activities in Syria: — publicly calling for a negotiated solution — less openly training, arming, and financing some of the most dastardly elements in the Middle East to bring down the Assad Regime (or getting regional allies to do so). This may be were we differ the most. You want to see the Assad Regime survive whereas I think they are the most dastardly elements in the Middle East. But the rest of this sentence is twisted as well. First US training. arming and financing of opposition fighters has always been far more myth than reality. In the best of times, a few small arms, radios and MREs, A training program in Jordan that recently started turning out 50 trainees a month. Much has been talked about and promised but almost nothing has been delivered. What has been delivered has gone to the Free Syrian Army, and some may now go to the Islamic Front, so unless you consider that they are the most dastardly elements in the conflict and not even the jihadist, Assad inspired and supported ISIS and al Nusra, which have gotten zero support from the US, that is another twist in your tale. More, later...

11:16 You say: The military situation on the ground over the past year has shifted dramatically in favor of the Assad government and its allies reducing Washington’s goal of regime change in Syria considerably. You also say Obama's goal in Syria is regime change. And yet there have been no heavy weapons or anti-aircraft missiles given to the opposition, no anti-tank weapons or the hundreds of other weapons in Washington's arsenal that could have changed the game dramatically, There have been no NATO air operations against Assad, not even a single drone strike. Not even semi-military moves like Israel mobilizing along the Golan Heights, thus forcing Assad to tear some of his soldiers away from their current task of killing Syrians and put them back to defending the country. There are hundreds of very real measures that NATO et al could have taken to support the overthrow of Assad that they haven't taken, but you still believe they are for "regime change" because they keep publicly asking Assad to step down. The inner workings of the Obama Administration’s decision not to attack Syria last September remain hazy. Caught up in the fog of war are we? Maybe the reasons is because it was an empty threat meant for public consummation in the first place. He never meant to strike Assad. Remember what he said? If Assad used "a whole bunch of" CW. What kind of ultimatum is that? So Assad used CW a dozen times in small quantities with no response from Obama. Then he calls Obama's bluff completely by clearly crossing even the "whole bunch of" line, and Obama still didn't strike him. This should have only surprised those that weren't looking. Get the net: Obama wants Assad to win. See also: Obama's Dilemma and Assad's Opportunity Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad Exposed! Obama "green lights" Assad's slaughter in Syria SecState John Kerry and his "dear friend" Bashar al-Assad Obama: Did the CIA betray Assad's opposition in Syria? More, later...

11:42 You say: the Obama administration’s decision not to initiate military action last September [was] to the relief of much of the world. Well it certainly wasn't to the relief of the 30 thousand Syrians killed since then was it? You say: the Russians have played a positive, if not decisive, role in moving the Syrian crisis from big power military confrontation to negotiations What alternate universe are you writing about? Don't you know that Russia is the number one weapons supplier and financier of the Assad regime? Since none of your "Peace offensive" proposals have any force behind them, they all amount to pleading with Assad to stop murdering his people, and demanding that they stop trying to defend themselves. 136,000 dead and you still demand a course which keeps Assad in power at all costs. Finally, in #5 you tell us more about what you consider the "legitimate Syrian opposition," those whose grievances against the government are long-standing (and genuine) and whose roots in Syrian society are organic and undisputed. I like the way you throw the sly word "undisputed" in your description. Doesn't that give Assad unlimited exclusions?

anti_reublocrat asked me: "How long do you require the world to experiment with forcible, military regime change before you accept the truth that it will not work?"

Response to comment from anti_repulocrat: I won't hold my breathe waiting for you to speak out against "forcible, military regime maintenance"? That is what is going on in Syria today, because if not for massive financial and military support from Russia and Iran, Assad would have been out on his ear a long time ago. And by now, I should think that "regime change" in Syria should be the demand of every caring, thinking, person in the civilized world. After all the crimes that Assad has committed in the past three years alone, he should be in prison for life without the possiblity, not running a country. Mass murderers should be ineligible to hold high office, particularly when they have used the instruments of government to commit those murders. And what kind of "man" makes such a principle of his presidency that he refuses to step down even after over a hundred thousand have died, when he knows removing himself from the struggle would greatly defuse it and save lives? Answer: The same kind of "man" who would drop barrel bombs on schools and fire sarin gas rockets into the bedrooms of sleeping children. So yes, most definitely, get him out of the Presidential Palace and into lock-up awaiting trial. How legit is his presidency in the first place? He runs a fascist police state. He hangs it on two elections, 2000 & 2007. That he got 97% & 97.6% of the vote tells you all you need to know about how "free & fair" those "elections" were. He's so popular that he's afraid to use his regular working class soldiers, those that he's got left, against the revolution. He's seen time and time again that they will defect, often en mass, when given half a chance. That is the bloody little secret of this war. That is why he must rely on long range weapons like aerial attacks and artillery, or on foreign fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon or sectarian driven fascist gangs with a tendency to "go too far." Their is almost no real popular support for Assad in Syria. His support comes from foreign countries and sectarian gangs and he is waging a campaign of terror against a popular uprising. Were he has not been able to shell them, bomb them, or gas them into submission, he now tries to starve them into submitting to his rule. But the people still resist. That is what is going on in Syria, and you are still for "regime keep?"

Response to comment from anti_repulocrat: I'm my own staff and I do my own research but I'm also use to these sorts of attacks and innuendo coming from Assad supporters so never mind about that. I also have a long history of opposing US imperialism. You can Google that. See my film Vietnam: American Holocaust and don't even bother to reply to my comments before you are willing to engage with me.

Response to comment from anti_repulocrat:  I didn't say you were an Assad supporter, just that you argued like one. It would be helpful if you could direct me to a well researched piece similar to what I have written in Man behind the Curtain for al-Qaeda in Syria is Assad that lays out the evidence of SA and Qatar support for ISIS or al Nusra. No doubt there are a few rich jihad supporters in their populist that contribute to al Qaeda but I do doubt that such support comes through official channels given al Qaeda's avowed purpose of bringing down the Kingdom. Support for the revolution is necessary for them to maintain bourgeois leadership in the Arab nation and it is understood that they have contributed significantly to brigades in the FSA and IF and have shown considerable independent from the US in doing this. Once Obama had secured his re-election, they started violating the restrictions Obama and the CIA were trying to put on their support for the revolution. You say: Yes, I've heard before that he supposedly freed many extremists before all this started, Wrong he freed a thousand jihadists, many now in the ISIS and al Nursa, AFTER the protests started, as I wrote in the above piece: After mass democracy protests broke out in March 2011, Assad declared three separate amnesties between March and June of 2011. Al Jazeera reported, 21 Jun 2011: Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, has ordered a new general amnesty for all crimes committed in the country up until June 20, in another apparent attempt to calm months of protests against his rule. The state news agency, SANA, announced the move on Tuesday, nearly a month after Assad issued a similar amnesty for all political crimes. "President Assad has issued a decree granting a general amnesty for crimes committed before the date of June 20, 2011," SANA reported, without giving details. The president ordered a reprieve on May 31 for all political prisoners in the country, including members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds of detainees were released, according to rights groups. That last was a big deal because in Assad's Syria, mere membership in the Muslim Brotherhood could get one the death penalty. Bashar al-Assad said these amnesties were meant as concessions to the democracy movement, but that explanation just doesn't stand up to scrutiny because while he was releasing Islamic terrorists and even common criminals from his prisons, he was shooting unarmed peaceful protesters in ever increasing numbers. And wrong again on R2P. R2P properly executed means "Never Again", it means no more Rwanda’s, no more Dafur's, it means I am my brother's keeper. Do you really want a world order in which any fascist dictatorship that has the support of one of the 5 permanent UNSC members can get financing and military support from any country willing to help it stamp out domestic resistance by any means necessary, including CW and aerial bombardment on population centers, and can just start killing and starving its people into submission? Or do you want a world that will draw the line somewhere and says you are not free to commit genocide within your borders, a world that does recognize a responsibility to protect? Certainly the term and the concept has been misused, so has the term and concept "socialism," should we abandon that too?

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