The Syria Chemical Weapons Saga: The Staging of a US-NATO Sponsored Humanitarian Disaster?
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Author’s Note and Update
The following article first published in December 2012 [scroll down] documents how the Pentagon not only provided chemical weapons to Al Nusra, an affiliated Al Qaeda terrorist organization, but also provided training to the rebels in the use of these weapons.
While Washington points its finger at president Bashar al Assad, a United Nations independent commission of inquiry has confirmed that the rebels rather than the government have chemical weapons in their possession and are using sarin nerve against the civilian population:
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
The Geneva-based inquiry into war crimes and other human rights violations is separate from an investigation of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria instigated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which has since stalled [discredited]. See “U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator,” Chicago Tribune, May, 5 2013, emphasis added)
Ironically, when the chemical weapons pretext was first launched by the Pentagon in August 2012, the accusations were not directed against President Bashar al Assad to the effect that he was underhandedly conniving to use WMD against Syrian civilians. Quite the opposite. According to the Pentagon, the operation was to ensure that Syria’s WMDs, which allegedly had been “left unguarded” in military bunkers around the country would not fall in the hands of opposition jihadist rebels who are fighting government forces:
Pentagon planners are more focused on protecting or destroying any Syrian stockpiles that are left unguarded and at risk [of] falling into the hands of rebel fighters or militias aligned with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or other militant groups. ( U.S. has plans in place to secure Syria chemical arms – latimes.com, August 22, 2012
What the Pentagon was saying in August 2012, is that these WMD could fall in the hands of the “pro-democracy” Al Qaeda rebels recruited and financed by several of America’s close allies including Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, in liaison with Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels.
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