Seymour Hersh: Military to Military on Syria

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34216-focus-military-to-military

Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn’t adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington’s anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped.

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey.’ The assessment was bleak: there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’

[geek tragedy]

1. Seymour's fanfic, if true, would be perhaps the gravest attack

on our democracy and the constitution in the past 150 years.

Iran Contra X1000.

Which means it would take more than I corroborated claims from a single anonymous source with an axe to grind.

At this point he's a polite version of Alex Jones.

[eridani]

2. Let's see your link to show that his military contacts are wrong n/t

[TwilightGardener]

3. Well, for one thing, none of the joint chiefs have been fired for insubordination, let alone

sedition. I don't know who his source is, but it's extremely implausible that Dempsey, Odierno, etc. got together and decided to conduct their own foreign policy against the President's wishes--and no one filled Obama in? Come on.

[eridani]

4. The OP is about what the generals think, not what they did n/t

[geek tragedy]

5. Hersh's article claims they illegally usurped the authority of the elected head of state.

Doing that would mean not only losing their jobs if caught, but life in prison, if not a firing squad.

[eridani]

7. Way to miss the point--which is that there were extensive warnings from the military that trying to

--depose Assad would lead to chaos. I suppose you have evidence to the contrary?

[geek tragedy]

8. When Hersh peddles claims that are non-credible, that casts doubt

on the reliability of his source, who obviously has an ulterior agenda.

No doubt there was rigorous debate within the administration re: Syria. Knew that without reading Hersh's tall tales.

[eridani]

9. Nice that military advisers agree, no? n/t

[JDPriestly]

15. It's very credible, and it demonstrates the incompetency of Hillary Clinton when it comes to

foreign affairs.

Here is what Benghazi was about:

In July 2013, the Joint Chiefs found a more direct way of demonstrating to Assad how serious they were about helping him. By then the CIA-sponsored secret flow of arms from Libya to the Syrian opposition, via Turkey, had been underway for more than a year (it started sometime after Gaddafi’s death on 20 October 2011).​ The operation was largely run out of a covert CIA annex in Benghazi, with State Department acquiescence. On 11 September 2012 the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed during an anti-American demonstration that led to the burning down of the US consulate in Benghazi; reporters for the Washington Post found copies of the ambassador’s schedule in the building’s ruins. It showed that on 10 September Stevens had met with the chief of the CIA’s annex operation. The next day, shortly before he died, he met a representative from Al-Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services, a Tripoli-based company which, the JCS adviser said, was known by the Joint Staff to be handling the weapons shipments.

By the late summer of 2013, the DIA’s assessment had been circulated widely, but although many in the American intelligence community were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists the CIA-sponsored weapons kept coming, presenting a continuing problem for Assad’s army. Gaddafi’s stockpile had created an international arms bazaar, though prices were high. ‘There was no way to stop the arms shipments that had been authorised by the president,’ the JCS adviser said. ‘The solution involved an appeal to the pocketbook. The CIA was approached by a representative from the Joint Chiefs with a suggestion: there were far less costly weapons available in Turkish arsenals that could reach the Syrian rebels within days, and without a boat ride.’ But it wasn’t only the CIA that benefited. ‘We worked with Turks we trusted who were not loyal to Erdoğan,’ the adviser said, ‘and got them to ship the jihadists in Syria all the obsolete weapons in the arsenal, including M1 carbines that hadn’t been seen since the Korean War and lots of Soviet arms. It was a message Assad could understand: “We have the power to diminish a presidential policy in its tracks.”’

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34216-focus-military-to-military

If we nominate Hillary, the Republicans will point to her role in carrying out Obama's failed policy in Syria, and we will lose the election.

I remember arguing with a DUer about the wisdom of our helping the rebels in Syria. I remember warning that we could not know whether they were extremists or not.

Then after Benghazi I asked and have repeatedly asked why the Turkish and American ambassadors were meeting in Benghazi when Tripoli is the capitol of Lybia, and the embassies were most likely in Tripoli.

I have always suspected that we were somehow involved in arms trafficking out of Benghazi although I had no knowledge of the CIA center there at that time. I learned about that a more recently.

This was so obvious. And it is why the Republicans made so much out of their crazy Benghazi hearings. The members of Congress who held the hearings may or may not be in on the strategy behind it. And I could be wrong.

But I believe that they wanted the word "Benghazi" to be seared into the brains of Americans so that when they broke the news that we were, with the Turks, arming ISIS through Benghazi (and maybe through other places), Americans would think to themselves, "Aha! I know about that place. Aha!"

Now I realize that I may be wrong about this. I have no secret source of information. I'm just a little old lady sitting in my living room reading news reports and thinking. So I could be wrong.

I also know that I will rightfully be accused of presenting a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy theory. I have hesitated to share all my thoughts about Benghazi on DU knowing them to form a conspiracy theory.

But Seymour Hersh is corroborating my suspicions.

And I think it is really important that we on DU discuss this, and that Hillary be asked about whether she knew of weapon shipments arranged, discussed or planned from Benghazi before we nominate her for the presidency. Because if the State Department when she was in charge had anything to do with what I suspect was going on, it could really sink her candidacy very quickly. And rightfully so.

DUers. Please think about this and come to your own conclusions. This is my theory. Seymour Hersh's information corroborates my suspicions.

If this is true, and I think it probably is because it makes so much sense, then Hillary will never be president, and that is as it should be.

[nationalize the fed]

17. the "Chief Diplomat" of the United States wants a word with you

She learned well from her mentor, the first female SOS

That is NOT AMERICA and there's no statute of limitations on murder

[geek tragedy]

19. With respect, that's crazy talk.

President Obama is not trying to help ISIS.

[CJCRANE]

21. The MIC uses each party in different ways, but to the same ends.

Bushco gave us the "War On Terror" but after one term people had had enough of it.

So Rumsfeld resigned and the antiwar people started up and the war on terror slowly fizzled out.

So then the Dems came along with the "Arab Spring" and everything seemed fine and dandy.

These aren't neocons, these are neolibs, everything's going to work out fine this time, we thought to ourselves.

Then Bin Laden was killed and it seemed like the end of an era. Maybe we could now start spending all that war money on infrastructure and education and our own nation building.

But it turned out that the "Arab Spring" had destablilized the whole region enabling the creation of a whole new terrorist army.

So now the wars are starting to flare up again.

Since Bush left office we have come full circle to a War On Terror Reboot.

So this time, they'll blame the Dems and someone else will come along who will claim they can get us out of this mess...

[geek tragedy]

6. It's up to him to provide corroboration to his outlandish

claims. Hersh is batting .000 over the past decade.

[leveymg]

10. You are ignoring that the JCS also pushed back against Bush plans to extent the invasion into Iran

The military acts as a separate branch of government on policy issues that impact its own view of national security. That can be a good or bad thing depending upon the times and circumstances.

[geek tragedy]

11. They should vigorously debate these issues and provide their opinions.

But, their constitutional duty is to obey the elected president.

I highly, highly doubt these guys risked destroying our democracy itself in order to save Assad.

[leveymg]

22. I agree. The JCS actions reflect a split view within the NSC.

In neither case would the uniform military act without the support of at least part of the civilian leadership. In that case, this is not a mutiny or constitutional crisis as some are making it out to be. From what I have read, Obama was one of those who were most skeptical of regime change, and he did end up accepting Madam Secretary's resignation and the Justice Department's investigation of Petraeus.

[BlueMTexpat]

12. The more I think about this,

the more I think that something like it must have happened. The fact is that both Prez O and Kerry have backed off on the insistence that Assad must go. IMO, that has always been an incredibly stupid precondition.

But if things did happen as described, it is likely that the CIC was at least covertly on board with the overtures so it may not be so much the threat or betrayal to democracy as some seem to think here. From firsthand experience, I have learned that it is often - ironically - those who know most about making war who are the most determined to avoid its most serious consequences, so the military POV is seriously worthwhile considering when it advises against a certain course. This President, unlike his predecessor, does listen to alternative POVs and I am glad that their thinking prevailed in this situation, however we got there.

I have always believed, along with the military individuals mentioned here, that there are no "moderate" Syrian rebels and am outraged that we keep supplying them with weapons which then end up in Daesh's hands. It appears that we have not learned much at all from the experiences of supplying the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s and from ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

[CJCRANE]

13. Ex-DIA boss Michael Flynn: White House took "willful decision" to fund, train Syria Islamists

Short excerpt from an interview of Michael Flynn by Mehdi Hassan on Al Jazeera:

[CJCRANE]

14. This was foreshadowed in Seymour Hersh's article "The Redirection" in the New Yorker (2007)

Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

EXCERPT:

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

LINK to New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection

[nationalize the fed]

16. k&r

How many Americans have voted for committing yet another Coup d'etat?

Finally a Democrat no less has come out and said what even the sellout Rand Paul isn't saying- overthrowing Assad is illegal. And it's against international law. Who does the US think they are running around the world doing "regime changes" (which produce refugees btw) and dictating what leaders run what countries? Maybe Tulsi can be convinced to demand an audit of the $5 BILLION DOLLARS wasted on Ukraine by that filthy neocon woman Victoria Nuland- the wife of the co-founder of PNAC.

This is the Best Democrat in Washington DC right now. The future of the Democratic Party.

18 December 2015

How does she feel about violating Americans 4th amendment rights?

This woman would make a FINE president.

Official House Page: http://gabbard.house.gov/
More videos https://www.youtube.com/user/tulsipress
More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard
Website: https://www.votetulsi.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard

[Jesus Malverde]

18. She is impressive.

Her religious background might not make her a great presidential candidate, but she has the guts to go against the grain.