New Report: American-Backed Rebels Began Preparations For Big Event In The Days Prior To Chemical Attack Blamed On Assad

Allegations that our own government had a hand in the chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people on August 21 is getting credence from a very unlikely source. Yossef Bodansky, an Israeli-American political scientist who served as Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1998 to 2004, penned an alarming story today. According to Bodansky, the American-backed rebels began advanced preparations for a big event happening within Syria on August 13-14 in Turkey, which was followed by truck loads of weapons and supplies flowing into Syria from Turkey where the CIA has been covertly training and arming rebels to wage a civil war against the Syrian government that had already claimed more than 100,000 lives and resulted in the displacement of nearly 2 million refugees over the past two years. The advance knowledge of the chemical weapons attack and possible participation by our own government has Bodansky describing the "horror" of President Obama being placed in "a different and disturbing light." Here's part of what Bodansky wrote at Global Research today:

On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development” which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria.

The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive.

Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machineguns. The weapons were distributed from store-houses controlled by Qatari and Turkish Intelligence under the tight supervision of US Intelligence.

These weapons were loaded on more than 20 trailer-trucks which crossed into northern Syria and distributed the weapons to several depots. Follow-up weapon shipments, also several hundred tons, took place over the weekend of August 24-25, 2013, and included mainly sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles and rockets. Opposition officials in Hatay said that these weapon shipments were “the biggest” they had received “since the beginning of the turmoil more than two years ago”. The deliveries from Hatay went to all the rebel forces operating in the Idlib-to-Aleppo area, including the al-Qaida affiliated jihadists (who constitute the largest rebel forces in the area).

Several senior officials from both the Syrian opposition and sponsoring Arab states stressed that these weapon deliveries were specifically in anticipation for exploiting the impact of imminent bombing of Syria by the US and the Western allies. The latest strategy formulation and coordination meetings took place on August 26, 2013. The political coordination meeting took place in Istanbul and was attended by US Amb. Robert Ford.

More important were the military and operational coordination meetings at the Antakya garrison. Senior Turkish, Qatari, and US Intelligence officials attended in addition to the Syrian senior (opposition) commanders. The Syrians were informed that bombing would start in a few days.

“The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days,” a Syrian participant in the meeting said. Another Syrian participant said that he was convinced US bombing was scheduled to begin on Thursday, August 29, 2013. Several participants — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that the assurances of forthcoming bombing were most explicit even as formally Obama is still undecided.

The descriptions of these meetings raise the question of the extent of foreknowledge of US Intelligence, and therefore, the Obama White House. All the sources consulted — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that officials of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” actively participated in the meetings and briefings in Turkey. Therefore, at the very least, they should have known that the opposition leaders were anticipating “a war-changing development”: that is, a dramatic event which would provoke a US-led military intervention . . . .

It should be abundantly clear for all to see that the military industrial complex is now engaged in a major PR push to convince members of Congress that they had better go along with starting another aimless war in the Middle East if they know what's good for their political futures. It's so obvious that members of Congress are scared to death of these forces, knowing the expansive reach of the NSA spying apparatus allows those advocating another war to gather every imaginable piece of dirt on them for blackmail purposes if they don't go along with providing congressional authorization for another war in the Middle East. This isn't a Republican versus Democrat issue. This goes far beyond partisan politics as the tentacles of these forces reach deep into the leadership of both political parties. There is no independent legislative branch left to act as a constitutional check on their power. It makes no difference that polls show that the overwhelming percentage of Americans and rank-and-file military personnel oppose going to war in Syria.

It comes as no surprise that the left-wing Mother Jones publication quickly put out a story denouncing Bodansky's evidence of our own government's complicity, if not direct hand, in the Syrian chemical weapons attack as "another right-wing conspiracy theory" like Hillary Clinton's murder of Vince Foster. Mother Jones' Kevin Drum accused Bodansky of being an "Assad sympathizer" because he "previously suggested that the 1995 Oklahoma bombing was orchestrated by Iran and that Saddam's WMDs all ended up in Syria." Actually, I thought that was the basic premise of our government as to how Assad's government could have ever come to possess chemical weapons, a premise it has never been able to provide any credible evidence to prove, just like its premise that Hussein possessed nuclear weapons as our rationale for going to war in Iraq turned out be totally false. Once again, anyone who questions the judgment of this president will be immediately excoriated by the Left regardless of the legitimacy or seriousness of the concerns that are raised, even if that means starting yet another war under false pretenses. Only last week we learned that Secretary of State John Kerry was touting photo evidence of the victims of Syrian chemical attack published by the BBC which turned out to be photos taken from a 2003 attack in Iraq. There is plenty of reason for healthy skepticism in questioning our government's veracity on any matters concerning the Middle East.

Please, don't forget that our President and his supporters in Congress are using your military dollars to support Al Qaeda in this effort to topple the Assad government. It's now come full circle. First, we created and funded Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, who we're told turned on us and perpetrated numerous terrorist attacks on U.S. military forces, U.S. consulates and our country on 9/11. We then allied with them in Egypt to drive out a moderate government in Egypt friendly to the U.S. and in Libya to topple Gaddafi. Now we're allying with them in Syria. This road down memory lane needs to be revisited time and time again before Congress votes to spend trillions more that we don't have to spend and sacrifices the lives of even more American soldiers. Why anyone would volunteer for service in our military in these times is beyond me.