People have this tendency to assume that their government is a united front. They think the courts, police departments, military command, political class, and god knows how many alphabet soup agencies, are all in it together. They’re all on “team government” so to speak.
In reality, that’s simply not the case, and it becomes less true as the government grows in size. If you examine any large, top-down organization, you will find that it is riddled with rivalries at every level. The DEA probably hates the ATF. The CIA hates the FBI, and the local police departments can’t stand the FBI.
The military doesn’t respect the White House, anymore than the White House respects the Pentagon. And within the military, there are tensions between different branches of the armed forces, between enlisted and officers, and between those who serve on the battlefield and those who work in logistics. You’ll find that these kinds of tensions are present all the way down the chain of command of every department in our government.
And though there’s no way for me to prove this, I like to imagine that everyone loathes the IRS.
You get the idea. Our government is not a united front. It’s a swarm of competing fiefdoms that are kinda sorta on the same team, but only when their collective existence is at stake. That’s why a recent report published by investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh (who is famous for exposing the My Lai Massacre and cover up during the Vietnam War) has an air of plausibility.
He has proposed the idea that the Pentagon is actually in open rebellion against the Obama administration over the war in Syria, and that not only are they trying to stifle Obama’s efforts to arm the rebels in the region, they are secretly trying to help Assad.
President Obama’s top military commander secretly orchestrated intelligence sharing with military leaders in Germany, Israel and Russia to thwart the president’s policy to remove Bashar Assad from power in Syria and lay the groundwork for Russia’s military entrance into the Syrian civil war, because he believed Obama’s anti-ISIS strategies were hopelessly misguided.
That is just one of the astounding takeaways from a 6,800-word expose by venerated investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh, that was just published in the London Review of Books. Hersh, whose sources include top senior aides to the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, which commands all U.S. military forces, also described in great detail how Turkey’s president Recep Erdoğan has deceived the White House by siding and arming ISIS and other extremist Islamic militias in Syria, in a gambit for Turkey to emerge as a regional power akin to the Ottoman Empire.
According to Hersh, Martin Dempsey had realized early on that the moderate rebels in Syria were all but destroyed. They had all been replaced by religious extremists, and that overthrowing Assad would lead to a power vacuum that these people could exploit. However, the White House didn’t care about this fact, and wanted to continue their disastrous covert war against Assad. So, Dempsey and the Pentagon started helping Assad by providing intelligence to Russia, Israel, and Germany, knowing full well that it would fall into Assad’s hands.
So the Joint Chiefs, under Dempsey, found a way around the president. Hersh writes, “The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success.’ So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.”
Those nations were Germany, Israel and Russia, which all had reasons for cooperating with Assad. “Germany feared what might happen among its own population of six million Muslims if Islamic State expanded; Israel was concerned with border security; Russia had an alliance of very long standing with Syria, and was worried by the threat to its only naval base on the Mediterranean, at Tartus.”
The Pentagon agreed to share this information on the condition that Assad would keep Hezbollah from attacking Israel, open negotiations with Israel for the Golan Heights, invite the help of the Russians, and after the war, he would have to hold open and fair elections. All of which Assad agreed to.
And in addition to providing intel for Assad, the Pentagon also arranged to send substandard weapons and equipment to the rebels, which helped the Syrian Army to stop the rebel’s progress. In the end, the Pentagon effectively orchestrated Assad’s continued reign, as well as Russia’s recent intervention. As a result, Dempsey was forced into retirement back in September and replaced with General Dunford, who is more compliant toward the Obama Administration.
I have to confess, it’s a pretty wild tale. The part about Obama being unaware of Turkey’s intention to arm ISIS, leaves me skeptical. And even though I know that governing institutions are often at odds with each other, it’s still a tough pill to swallow. Still, I wouldn’t ignore it completely.
What do you think? Is this report just too crazy to believe, or is there something to it?
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Contributed by Joshua Krause of The Daily Sheeple.
Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshua’s reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshua’s website is Strange Danger .
