WikiLeaks:
US Was Aware Of ISIS Threat & Sought Regime Change In Syria
‘We
saw that Daesh was growing in strength and we thought Assad wasn’t,’
Kerry said, admitting that he unsuccessfully argued for the use of
force in Syria.
26
November, 2014
MINNEAPOLIS
— WikiLeaks brought renewed attention to an audio
recording in which Secretary of State John Kerry admits not only that
he supported war in Syria for the purpose of overthrowing the
government, but that the United States knew about the strength of
terrorist groups in the region and allowed them to grow yet more
powerful.
Originally
leaked to The New York Times in late September and published
in its entirety by CNN shortly
after, the recording is of a meeting the secretary of state had with
Syrian civilians at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations in
September. CNN has since removed the audio, but left a description of
its contents along with an editor’s note claiming the file had been
removed “at the request of some of the participants out of concern
for their safety.”
However,
it’s rare that any content is truly scrubbed from the
internet. Clips
of Kerry’s discussion can still be found on the Times website,
and the complete audio file was published on Oct.
4 by YouTube user Angel North.
WikiLeaks
published a link to the recording posted on YouTube on
the organization’s Facebook page on Tuesday,
and that post had been reshared nearly 2,900 times by Thursday
afternoon.
The
Times and CNN reported that Kerry was speaking to a group of Syrian
civilians at the Dutch Mission during U.N. negotiations over a
proposed ceasefire. Taking an apologetic tone, Kerry admits that he
argued for military intervention in Syria as far back as 2013, when
rumors swirled that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad
had used chemical weapons against civilians.
“I’ve
argued for the use of force,” Kerry said. “I’m the guy who
stood up and announced that we’re going to attack Assad for the use
of weapons.”
The
chemical weapons attack, which was alleged to have taken place in
Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus, could never be
proven. MintPress
News reported in August of 2013 that
there was strong evidence suggesting the attack had actually been
carried out by so-called “moderate rebel” fighters who have the
backing of the U.S. government.
Despite
the questionable nature of the evidence, Kerry says in the leaked
recording that he used the alleged attack to urge the United States
to directly attack Assad, only to be rebuffed by Congress and
President Barack Obama. Kerry continued:“The
Under
the Obama administration, the United States has repeatedly
offered training and materiel to
rebel groups that are so closely linked to terrorist groups as to be
virtually indistinguishable from al-Qaida andDaesh (an
Arabic acronym for the terrorist group commonly known as ISIS or ISIL
in the West).
However,
Obama resisted calls by Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, and Pentagon insiders to more openly declare war on the
nation, including through the imposition
of a no-fly one.
In
the 40-minute discussion at the Dutch Mission, Kerry even admits that
the United States was well aware of the relative strength of Daesh in
the region. “We saw that Daesh was growing in strength and we
thought Assad wasn’t.”
The
2013 chemical weapons attack is one of many alleged war crimes used
by the White House and the mainstream media to support calls for
“humanitarian” military intervention in the region. The media
often relies on questionable
human rights “experts” and
even faked
or recycled photos to
justify the ongoing push for war in Syria.
However,
with Russia
leading the current peace process and
President-elect Donald Trump promising to end
U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war,
the opportunity for the United States to replace Assad with a leader
more friendly to the West may have passed.
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