‘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.
WikiLeaks
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 bottom line is
that Congress refused even to vote to allow that. We have a Congress
that will not authorize our use of force.”
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
and Daesh (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 zone.
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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