Robert Fords Shameful Support Of Terrorism In Syria And The Moderate Rebel MythBy Brandon Turbeville He was, as death squad expert John Negroponte once described him, a man who was not afraid to get his hands dirty. When Ford was first playing his role in fomenting the Syrian destabilization, he and his State Department cohorts presented every rebel as moderate freedom-loving fighters for democracy. After this incredibly deceptive faade crashed, largely thanks to the alternative media, Fords line became one that attempted to separate the fighters on the ground into two forces moderate rebel freedom fighters on one hand and al-Qaeda terrorists who somehow managed to slip in under cover of darkness and hijack portions of the rebellion. Now, however, Ford has been forced to admit that the overwhelming majority of his rebellion is indeed made up of terrorists, jihadists, and other Sharia-obsessed psychopathic killers. Yet, despite his recent admissions, Ford still refuses to admit that the entirety of the rebellion was always made up of these elements. This is, of course, despite the fact that we are now five years on and no one has yet to produce a sample of moderate rebels for evaluation. Yet Fords denial of reality, forced into the open only by the reporting of a number of alternative media outlets demonstrating the jihadist nature of his previous moderates, has itself been repeatedly debunked in the same outlets as well as a number of mainstream publications. There never were any moderates fighting against the government in Syria and, since the beginning of the crisis, the only tangible difference between the so-called moderates, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and ISIS has been a name. This is a fact that Ford is increasingly being forced to acknowledge publicly whenever confronted with even the slightest amount of critical thought. In a back and forth that took place on February, 2015 between Ford and a number of individuals questioning his statements and position on the moderate rebels, Ford was asked Do you deny knowing most moderates u directly backed fought alongside ISIS al-Nusra on front lines in Aleppo in 2013? Ford responded absolutely do not deny criticized them in 2013 and 2014 and publicly a month ago. Major problem for oppo. Robert Ford (@fordrs58) February 23, 2015 https://twitter.com/fordrs58/status/569957824371019776 In fact, Ford has supported jihadists and the aforementioned terrorist groups since the beginning of the conflict. Simply naming rapists, jihadists, and cannibals moderate does not change what they are. In another Twitter misstep, taking place on January 2, 2016 in the wake of the death of revered Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr who was executed by Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, Ford tweeted Nimrs execution raises questions, but wish Iranian govt also blasted Assad killing 200,000 civilians w/Iranian help. Robert Ford (@fordrs58) January 3, 2016 Fortunately, not all of Fords Twitter followers were so intellectually defunct as to take his statements seriously. Journalist and commentator on the Syrian Crisis, Vanessa Beeley, tweeted an article in response to Robert Fords assessment of the situation regarding Nimrs death. The article was one written by Alexandre Otrakji and it contested Fords own position on the Syrian crisis which he personally helped create. In her article, Disseminating Fake Information: Conversations With State Department Propagandist Robert S. Ford, Former U.S. Ambassador To Syria, Beeley states that Ford then responded to her tweet with a private message, prompting a conversation between the two. The conversation that Beeley says took place between the two is reproduced both in her article and here below: Ford: Vanessa rather than put a tweet out to thousands, in answer to your question, I do remember Camilles long piece. I agreed with some of it. Some of it badly distorted things I had said and misinterpreted American policy and some of it ignored realities on the ground and what the Syrian government does. I wrote him a long response last spring. You can ask him to share it if he wants. I note that he didnt publish it on his FB page, but thats his right Vanessa: Um did you not just tweet to thousands, utterly incorrect statistics from Syria. According to you Assad personally killed 200,000. That is a barefaced lie even by the US Government standards and to state that in conjunction with the heinous execution of Sheikh Nimr without even including his title out of respect for this visionary man of peace and unity and with no reference to the continuing policy of execution both in Saudi Arabia and globally by their Frankenstein monsters that your Government helped create..you are the propagandist sir, Camilles article is at least well researched. Your statement is a lie, that we have all stopped believing. You saw the execution of a Saudi Muslim faith leader and opposition speaker against the despotic Saudi regime as an opportunity for propaganda, both against Syria and Iran..shame on you. Where is your respect? All figures coming out of Syria are skewed by your propagandists on the ground and you know that. Where are the figures on the US Coalition bombing civilian deaths in Syria? Al Bab, Aleppo bombing of civilians covered up by Congress. Where are the figures for the rebel mortar victims in Damascus and Homs across Syria, the mod reb suicide bomb attacks across Syria, the moderate rebel snipers, the rebel hell cannon attacks in Aleppo? When are they ever mentioned by your pet UKFO CIA/Soros propagandists, aka the White Helmets? Ford: i take my figures from the syrian network for human rights which has activists inside syria and which documents victims by name. their estimates are lower than the syrian observatory. both have detailed reports on the internet that you can check if you wish. if you have more accurate data than these 2 organizations do, well, lets see it. and where is your respect for the hundreds of thousands of victims of the assad regime? sheikh nimr was one man. i have a colleague who once met him and said he appeared reasonable. but i also regret more the death of many thousands of civilians. and i make no apologies for that. Vanessa: If the SNHR is so reliable why has the UN stopped documenting victim figures from Syria because information from on the ground is so unreliable? I presume, if they record names, you will have all 200, 000 names that you are claiming Assad killed? Who are the activists supplying this information? Are they part of the agitprop shop set up by Avaaz in 2011 that included that bastion of truth, Danny Abdul Dayem and many other such embarrassing fakers..or the Syria Civil Defence, proven CIA/UKFO backed agents, embedded in Al Nusra and ISIS areas and allied with these terrorist factions against the Syrian people. I can demonstrate SNHR connections to Governmental agencies with a vested interest in Syria regime change, the SOHR has been universally discredited. You have failed to answer my question, where are the figures for the casualties of your proxy terrorist armies and gangs in Syria? Where are the figures of the mortar maimed and dead, fired by your moderate rebels into civilian areas? Where are your figures of civilians killed by your Coalition bombs or the essential infrastructure destruction by your bombs that ensures the starvation and privation of the Syrian people? Where are your figures for the SAA who make up the majority of the victims of this war on Syria, and they are the Syrian people. And your comment about Sheikh Nimr is a blatant and woeful example of American exceptionalism..your colleagues opinion of this courageous leader outweighs that of his tens of thousands of supporters and followers across the world. I have respect for the Syrian civilians who are losing their lives and enduring the horror inflicted upon them by your terror gangs and moderate rebels, I have respect for those raped, crucified, tortured, shelled, bombed and torn apart by these monsters you have unleashed upon Syria. You are right I have, not one iota of respect for one of those terrorist lives lost. Nor should you! Ford obviously took a well-deserved verbal thrashing at the hands of Beeley for his blatantly false propaganda against the Syrian government and his obfuscation of the facts on the ground. Yet a few words should be mentioned about the alleged moderate rebels of which Ford is so supportive. Namely, the Free Syrian Army, since it is this faction that Ford and the Western mainstream media attempt to portray as the moderate wing of the invasion and even the terrorist group Ahrar al-Sham. In an interview with Hardtalk (BBC) in October 2015, Ford vigorously defended Ahrar al-Sham in the following way: Stephen Sackur_BBC. Ok, let me ask bluntly, Ahrar al Sham (The Free Men of Syria) group, one of the most powerful groups you would call moderate, is it really moderate when a group like that proclaims its desire to see Sharia as the driving force of a future Syria.. which clearly makes comments which suggest that Alawites and Christians would find it very difficult to find a place in their Syria. Are these moderate?? You regard this as moderation? Robert Ford. This is how I define as a moderate in the Syrian context, Stephen; a moderate is a group that accepts there has to be a political negotiation and there has to be a political process after a transition government is set up.. a political process to determine the future permanent government of Syria.. That there must be pluralism in that process and its one that works with other groups/ factions in a pluralistic setting I dont agree at all with Ahrar al Shams desires to set up an Islamic State (in Syria).. but I have to admit that they accept the needs to be a political negotiation.. I have to admit theyre willing to work with other groups and they do on the ground with great effectThis is one of the reasons, theyre strong as they are, as you mentioned Its not a group I ever want my daughter to marry into I dont agree with their vision of societybut I would not call them Jihadis, theyre not looking to impose an Islamic State at sword point Different, theyre therefore, from alQaida Different therefore from the Islamic State..And theyre willing to accept even such things as Parliamentand some kind of government institutions So, yes they want Sharia but the kind of Sharia they want may in fact, in the end, not look like the kind of Sharia the Islamic State already imposing over most of central and Eastern of Syria Ford thus attempts to portray Ahrar al-Sham as the military equivalent of a deadbeat hoodlum not what he would want for his children but not exactly the end of the world either. But, far from being merely a group Ford wouldnt want his daughter to marry into, Ahrar al-Sham is thoroughly a terrorist, jihadist organization bent upon imposing Sharia law upon the unfortunate victims it is able to conquer. Ford claims that Ahrar al-Sham is not looking to impose an Islamic State at sword point. but the facts on the ground say that gun point is perfectly satisfactory to them. The fact that Ahrar al-Sham has given public lip service to being capable of understanding the concept of Parliament in the small acreage of the wasteland of their minds, the reality is that the group is as fundamentalist and jihadist as any other. Note that Ford even admits that AS (Ahrar al-Sham) does indeed desire Sharia. I have previously demonstrated in my article The Roots Of ISIS that what is ISIS is nothing more than what has been and still is considered al-Qaeda and al-Nusra. The three groups are one and the same and, despite the occasional dispute and even violent battles between the myriad of other brigades and groups in Syria, the whole of the Syrian opposition is nothing more than a branch and tentacle of the same united front of death squads, jihadists, mercenaries, and terrorists backed by the West, NATO, GCC, and Israel for the purposes of destroying the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. In regards to Ahrar al-Sham, the group has openly worked with, supported, and allied with al-Qaeda proper and al-Nusra on innumerable occasions. In fact, Ahrar al-Shams first publicized attack as an organized group was conducted in 2012 in coordination with and alongside al-Nusra. In 2013, in direct contradiction to Fords very liberal definition of moderation, Ahrar al-Sham worked closely with ISIS. For instance, Thomas Joscelyn of the Long War Journal reported in relative detail how Ahrar al-Sham and al-Qaeda have traded leaders, essentially with a revolving door existing between the two. According to Stanford Universitys database: Ahrar al-Sham (also Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya, or the Islamic Movement of the Free Men of the Levant) is one of the largest members of the Islamic Front, an umbrella organization of Sunni Islamist militants who are fighting the Assad regime in Syria and plan to replace it with an Islamic government. [1] The group was founded in late 2011 and it first emerged as a significant force on the Syrian battlefield in January 2012. [2] [3] . . . . . Ahrar al-Sham quickly became one of the largest military organizations operating in Syria, and it has been active in efforts to unite the Islamist opposition under a single banner. It rejects the idea of Western intervention but sometimes works alongside Free Syrian Army brigades. It routinely cooperates with al-Nusra and, until relations soured in 2013, also worked with ISIS. In February 2014, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence called Ahrar al-Sham one of the three most effective rebel groups in Syria. [8] . . . . . Ahrar al-Sham was founded by members of Al Qaeda and maintains links to AQs core leadership. [42] While neither group formally claims a partnership, senior AQ officials, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, openly mourned Ahrar al-Sham leader Abu Khalid al-Suri when he died. Additionally, AQ posted video of Suri attending an Afghan training camp and photos of him with Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. [43] Similarly, after Ahrar al-Sham leader Hassan Abboud was later killed in a bombing, senior AQ figures mourned his death on Twitter. One of those senior figures, Sanafi al-Nasr, has also claimed that AQ sent experienced jihadists to assist Ahrar al-Sham in Syria, while another senior leader claimed that Abboud had been in contact with Zawahiri. [44] It regularly cooperates with AQ affiliate Jabhet al-Nusra in battle and has coordinated military operations with them since mid- to late-2012. [45] [46] [47] The organization has been an active leader and participant in Islamist opposition coalitions in Syria. In December 2012, it led the formation of the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), an umbrella organization whose goal was to unite the Islamic opposition and ultimately establish a Syrian government under Shariah rule. [48]While the SIF refused to come under the command of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), it did regularly coordinate military maneuvers with SMC affiliates. [49] In January 2013 three smaller SIF members (Harakat al-Fajr al-Islamiya, Jamaat al-Taliaa al-Islamiya, and Kataeb al-Iman al-Muqatila) merged into Ahrar al-Sham.[50] Now, Ahrar al-Sham operates in Syria as a member of the Islamic Front, another umbrella organization of Syrian militant organizations that seeks an Islamic government to replace Assad. [51] As one of the largest and most influential members of the Islamic Front, Ahrar al-Sham leads both the Shariah Office and the Political Office of the organization. [52] Ahrar al-Sham commander Hassan Abboud also reportedly played a role in the creation of the Kurdish Islamic Front, the smallest member organization of the Islamic Front. The creation and inclusion of the Kurdish group in the Islamic Front may have been an attempt to draw Kurdish support for the umbrella organization, whose members, including Ahrar al-Sham, sometimes come into conflict with more established Kurdish militias. [53] Stanford describes the tensions that arose between Ahrar al-Sham and ISIS in 2013 and started growing in 2014. There have been a number of violent clashes between members of AS and IS but, in the grand scheme of things, AS and IS are merely two discordant factions of the same military invasion. Indeed, there is no hatred between the two that cannot be resolved using a few name changes and copious amounts of Gulf cash. The Free Syrian Army, of course, is no better. As Steve Chovanec writes in his article, Why We Must Not Arm Even One More Syrian Rebel, One of the most senior moderate rebel commanders to be backed by the US and main recipient of Western aid, Col. Okaidi, is seen in a video, which has been authenticated by Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma, speaking during interviews saying My relationship with the brothers in ISIL is good I communicate almost daily with brothers in ISIL the relationship is good, even brotherly. Okaidi admits al-Qaeda is not any different from the FSA They [al-Nusra] did not exhibit any abnormal behavior, which is different from that of the FSA. The video shows Okaidi with ISIS Emir Abu Jandal celebrating a victory, an ally ISIS fighter shouts I swear to Allah, O Alawites, we came to slaughter you. Await what you deserve![1] US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, who worked closely with Okaidi, himself admitted to giving material support to ISIS and al-Nusra, stating that he absolutely does not deny knowing that most of the rebels he backed fought alongside ISIS and Nusra.[2] The reason for all of this is simply that, as pointed out by the leading Western journalist in the region, Patrick Cockburn, In reality, there is no dividing wall between them [ISIS and Nusra] and Americas supposedly moderate opposition allies. According to Vice President Biden, there was no moderate middle because the moderate middle are made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers.[3] This means that apart from a plethora of substantially foreign terrorist jihadi lunatics, there is no other force willing to fight against the government. One of the FSA commanders, Bassel Idriss, has also admitted to openly collaborating with ISIS and al-Nusra, revealing yet another example of the fact that the moderate rebels are not moderate at all. In an interview with the Daily Star of Lebanon, Idriss stated We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Armys gatherings in . . . Qalamoun . . . Lets face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values. Idriss also admitted that many FSA fighters had pledged allegiance to ISIS. He said, [ISIS] wanted to enhance its presence in the Western Qalamoun area. After the fall of Yabroud and the FSAs retreat into the hills [around Arsal], many units pledged allegiance [to ISIS]. Abu Fidaa, a retired Syrian Army Colonel who is now a part of the Revolutionary Council in the Qalamoun, corroborated Idrisss statements by saying that A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra. In the end, people want to eat, they want to live, and the Islamic State has everything. Salem Idriss, one of the men seen in the famous photograph with John McCain, is the commander of the FSA, the opposition group touted as a moderate rebels. In reality, of course, the FSA is nothing of the sort. As Daniel Wagner wrote for the Huffington Post in December, 2012, In the outskirts of Aleppo, the FSA has implemented a Sharia law enforcement police force that is a replica of the Wahhabi police in Saudi Arabia forcing ordinary citizens to abide by the Sharia code. This is being done in a secular country which has never known Sharia Law. This type of action is currently also being implemented in northern Mali, where the West has officially declared its opposition to the al-Qaeda government that took control earlier this year. If what is happening near Aleppo is representative of what may happen if the FSA assumes control of Syria, the country may become an Islamic state. Is that really what the U.S. and other Western countries are intending to tacitly support? . Indeed, the FSA has also been targeting the infrastructure of the country. One of the main power plants in Damascus was knocked out for three days last week, impacting 40 percent of the citys residents. Do freedom fighters typically attack critical infrastructure that impacts ordinary citizens on a mass scale? The FSA long ago stopped targeting solely government and military targets. The FSA is no stranger to atrocities. The FSA is the moderate opposition that was filmed forcing a young child to behead a Syrian soldier. It is also the moderate opposition that maintained burial brigades, a system of mass murder and mass executions against soldiers and those who support the Syrian government. The burial brigades were only one small part of a much wider campaign of terror and executions implemented by the Free Syrian Army. Of course, the Free Syrian Army is merely the umbrella group of death squads carefully crafted to present a moderate face on what is, in reality, nothing more than savage terrorists. Thus, the FSA encompasses(d) a number of smaller brigades of al-Qaeda terrorists in order to cover up the true nature of its own ranks. One such brigade was the Farouq brigade, to which Abu Sakkar was a member. Sakkar, also seen in photographs with John McCain, was the famous rebel videotaped cutting the heart out of a Syrian soldier and biting into it. It is thus necessary to understand that there is no difference between the moderate rebels, ISIS, and Nusra in order to understand the deceptive nature of the narrative being promoted by mainstream media outlets regarding so-called rebellion. It is absolutely absurd, however, to paint the FSA, SRF, and other moderate rebels, as moderate in an effort to pretend that there is such a thing as a desirable faction of the rebellion, in Syria. In reality, it is nothing more than a false narrative cooked up in order to justify American and NATO involvement on behalf of Western-backed death squads. Robert Ford knows all of this information and he knows it well. After all, he was one of the principal organizers of the death squads themselves early on in the Syrian destabilization. Thus, it should be remembered that Robert Ford is no mere former Ambassador and terrorist cheerleader. Nor has his treachery been isolated to Syria. Robert Ford served in Iraq at the same time that the death squads were beginning to make their bloody mark on the cohesion of the Iraqi insurgency, after being appointed political counselor to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Ford remained in this post from 2004-2006 where he worked closely with John Negroponte, a death squad expert in his own right who was also heavily involved in the organization of the death squads in Iraq. Ford was instrumental in helping make contacts with these individuals as well as developing and maintaining relations with them for other purposes such as continued and future terror campaigns. In fact, Ford was once described by Negroponte as one of these very tireless people . . . who didnt mind putting on his flak jacket and helmet and going out of the Green Zone to meet contacts. In short, Ford acted as a foot soldier in death squad formation. Attempting to summarize the death squad plan that was devised years prior to the crisis in Syria but was eventually to be directed at Assads government, Michael Hirsh and John Barry of Newsweek wrote in 2005: [O]ne Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called snatch operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries. Commenting further on the Newsweek article, the Times Online added, Nor is it clear who would take responsibility for such a programme the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency. Such covert operations have traditionally been run by the CIA at arms length from the administration in power, giving US officials the ability to deny knowledge of it.[1] Although the focus of these articles revolve around the question of CIA/Pentagon death squads in Iraq, it is important to notice that, as far back as 2005, it was admitted that there were clear plans to create, fund, and operate death squads in Syria. Consider also the article entitled The Redirection by Seymour Hersh written in 2007 for The New Yorker Magazine. In this article Hersh wrote, 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 cooperated with Saudi Arabias 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. Fords later action in Syria served the exact same purpose as his presence in Iraq only a few years previous. This time, however, Ford took on a more central role in the affair. Indeed, many Syrians, if not aware of the more sinister acts of Ford, were at least aware that he had been instrumental in fomenting violent rebellion and negative Western public opinion against the ruling government. This is why Fords convoy was attacked by pro-government Syrians as he rode through town meeting with his terrorist pets. Fords very presence in Syria was nothing more than a destabilization tactic. Indeed, he drew quite a bit of international attention to himself by traveling across the country at will, meeting with protestors and turning terrorists into martyrs in the minds of the gullible Western public. Logically, by meeting with protestors one can read instigating terrorism. The mainstream media, however, reported Fords terror encouragement tour as a heroic act of solidarity with the people. Eventually, after a succession of terror tours the Assad regime finally slapped restrictions on Fords travel, requiring him not to leave the boundaries of Damascus. However, Ford openly disregarded those limitations and brazenly began traveling all over Syria, meeting with his terrorist brethren. Fords faux outrage at the deaths of 250,000 Syrians should thus be taken with a grain of salt. Ford, as Vanessa Beeley pointed out, knows full well that these numbers are overwhelmingly Syrian soldiers and civilians killed by his terrorist pets. Ford knows full well that the Free Syrian Army and Ahrar al-Sham are extremists bent on establishing a caliphate in the Middle East and implementing a nightmare scenario on the civilians unable to escape their wretched religious state. Ford knows all of this because he was one of the principal worker bees who helped create the situation on the ground. Ford may cry his crocodile tears for the loss of innocent Syrians if he wants but the jig is still up. He may launch propaganda assaults against the Syrian people and those who oppose the imperialist aims of the Anglo-Americans every chance he gets but the blood of 250,000 people from every side is so thick on his hands it will never wash off. When the conflict in Syria is over, Ford must be held accountable along with the other architects of the al-Qaeda invasion. Until then, we might be tempted to settle for his silence. Notes: [1] Joshua Landis, US Key Man in Syria Worked Closely with ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra.https://twitter.com/joshua_landis/status/504610185952784384. [2] In February 2015, he [Robert Ford] openly confessed to having given support to ISIS and Al-Nusra terrorists after being questioned by Al-Monitor News journalist Edward Dark. THE TWITTER HANDLE, @fordrs58 is indeed Ambassador Robert Fords account, as was confirmed to me in a personal email by Dr. Joshua Landis, Director of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the most well-known Syria scholar in the United States. Hoff, Brad. Levant Report, May 25th, 2015. http://levantreport.com/tag/robert-ford/. [3] Cockburn, Patrick, Preface The Rise of ISIS, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution (Brooklyn, NY, 2015). Pg. xx, 3. Print. Brandon Turbeville article archive here is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbevilles podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com. War Torn countrys are a breeding ground for extremism. This article is not surprising. The State Department and CIA covertly backing terrorists in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Libya, and Syria is well documented in the book CIA: Crime Incorporated of America. 