The sources for VIPS’ [a group led by Ray McGovern] most sensational claims, it turns out, are Canadian eccentric Michel Chossudovsky’s conspiracy site Global Research and far-right shock-jock Alex Jones’s Infowars. The specific article that Giraldi references carries the intriguing headline “Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?” (His answer, in case you wondered, is yes.) The author is one Yossef Bodansky—an Israeli-American supporter of Assad’s uncle Rifaat, who led the 1982 massacre in Hama. Bodansky’s theory was widely circulated after an endorsement from Rush Limbaugh. A whole paragraph from Bodansky’s article makes it into the VIPS letter intact, with only a flourish added at the end.
Giraldi references two more articles to substantiate his claim: one from Infowars and another from DailyKos. But both reference the same source, an obscure website called Mint Press which published an article claiming that Syrian rebels had accidentally set off a canister of Sarin supplied to them by the Saudis. The idea that an accident in one place would cause over a thousand deaths in 12 separate locations—with none affected in areas in between—somehow did not strike this intelligence veteran as implausible. But to its credit, Mint Press has since added a disclaimer: “Some information in this article could not be independently verified.”
What of VIPS’s “numerous sources in the Middle East,” then? It turns out they’re the same as Bodansky’s “numerous sources in the Middle East”—the sentence is plagiarized.
full: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114676/syrias-chemical-weapons-assad-not-blame-say-truthers
* * * *
So it would appear that the source of VIPS intelligence is not active CIA case officers speaking to old colleges like Ray McGovern, Philip Giraldi, Larry Johnson and Ann Wright on the q-t, it is Yossef Bodansky writing for the pro-Assad, pro-Qaddafi, pro-Russian website Global Research.
So who is Yossef Bodansky? David Kenner has done some interesting research there. What he’s come up with was published this week on Foreign Policy:
Bodansky is an ally of Bashar’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad — he pushed him as a potential leader of Syria in 2005. Rifaat is the black sheep of the Assad family: He spearheaded the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, but then was forced into exile after he tried to seize power from his brother, President Hafez al-Assad, in 1983. Despite his ouster, however, Rifaat is just as hostile to a Sunni Islamist takeover as other members of the Assad family — a position Bodansky appears to share. Ending Alawite rule in Syria, Bodansky wrote on another pro-Assad website, “will cause cataclysmic upheaval throughout the greater Middle East.”
The implication is that the real source of VIPS’s intelligence is CIA operatives chatting it up with old pals. That is just their cover story. The real source of their information on how the opposition gassed over a thousand of its own people with Obama’s help is the Assad Mukhabarat, the Syrian Security Services.
Guess who else likes this Bodansky/VIPS conspiracy theory that blames the rebels and lets the Assad dictatorship off the hook? Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh! On 3 September 2013, Limbaugh told his audience:
“There is evidence — mounting evidence — that the rebels in Syria did indeed frame Assad for the chemical attack, but not only that, but Obama, the regime, may have been complicit in it. Mounting evidence that the White House knew and possibly helped plan the Syrian chemical weapon attack by the opposition!”
He then goes on to cite Global Research and Bodansky as his source, which actually shows more integrity than Ray McGovern & VIPS!
It is a very sad day for the Left when we see Ann Wright and Rush Limbaugh united in supporting a fascist dictatorship against a popular revolution, and promoting the same lying Assad Regime propaganda to do it.
full: http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2013/09/secret-intel-source-of-ray-mcgovern.html
“…far-right shock-jock Alex Jones’s Infowars…”
Not that far right southern racist idiot Alex Jones and his John Birch Society BS again. He has been conning gullible people with far right garbage for years.
Is Alex Jones Racist? Is The Pope Catholic?
http://ozhouse.org/2013/08/17/is-alex-jones-racist/
Alex Jones, Robert Welch Jr 2.0
http://ozhouse.org/2013/06/08/alex-jones-robert-welch-jr-2-0/
Comment by Bankotsu — September 12, 2013 @ 4:13 pm
I believe American government support in Syria, if we had means to trace and quantify it, would be distributed all over the political spectrum: to the government, to the rebels, and within these categories, in varying amounts to factions. The strategy being used is the same as an American corporation’s support for political parties in “elections”: a little here, a little there. As a made-up example: 55% to the Republicans, 35% to the Democrats, 10% to the rest (including some amounts to very marginal political groups.) The bias (ideological, political, strategic) is discerned by the weighting. Cold, calculating, amoral, unprincipled. In the casino of the world, a shrewd shark hedging bets. As a fully corporatist entity, the American government acts as a corporation acts. Why is this so difficult to understand? If it is understood, why do we continue to make controversy over it?
Comment by Yusef — September 12, 2013 @ 6:05 pm
I believe American government support in Syria, if we had means to trace and quantify it, would be distributed all over the political spectrum: to the government, to the rebels, and within these categories, in varying amounts to factions.
—
I believe… I think… Probably… It seems…
I am fucking sick and tired of hearing this. Doesn’t anybody understand the need for hard evidence?
Comment by louisproyect — September 12, 2013 @ 6:16 pm
I am fucking sick and tired of hearing this. Doesn’t anybody understand the need for hard evidence?
In the absence of hard evidence “I believe, I think, probably and it seems” are about the only reasonable ways we can preface our comments you self-righteous half-baked twit.
Comment by Yusef — September 14, 2013 @ 11:38 pm
Yusef, instead of writing silly little mouse doody droppings, why don’t you make the case for Bashar al-Assad or whatever the fuck you are keeping secret to yourself.
Comment by louisproyect — September 14, 2013 @ 11:43 pm
Still shilling for American boots on the ground in Syria are we Louis? The shattering of Libya wasn’t enough for you? Wait, let me guess, Venezuela poses an existential threat to the US! Dude, when are you going to drop the pretence and just apply to produce copy for the US State Department?
Comment by Bill J. — March 14, 2015 @ 12:53 am
Stupid motherfucker, I am pro-Venezuela. And I’ll leave you to defend Baathist mass murder along with all the rest of the “anti-imperialist” human garbage.
Comment by louisproyect — March 14, 2015 @ 1:03 am