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30 Jan, 2014 03:59

Syria biological weapons scare another way to justify US ‘armed struggle policy’

The US continues to demonize the Syrian government while Washington is looking for ways to balance arms supplies to the rebels against Geneva talks, anti-war activist Brian Becker told RT, claiming that America’s ultimate goal is to remove Assad.

On Wednesday, US intelligence chief James Clapper abruptly warned senators that Syria possess the capability to produce biological weapons.

“We judge that some elements of Syria’s biological warfare program might have advanced beyond the research and development stage and might be capable of limited agent production, based on the duration of its longstanding program,”
Clapper, director of national intelligence, said in a written statement presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Clapper also warned that the Syrian conflict had become a “huge magnet” for Islamist extremists, claiming that those elements pose a direct danger to US and its allies, as around 7,000 foreign fighters are joined with 26,000 fighters deemed to be “extremists.”

Brian Becker, director of the Anti-War Answer Coalition, told RT that the US government is once again trying to keep up public rationales for carrying out an armed civil war policy in Syria.

RT:Does Clapper’s remark on potential biological arsenal open an new diplomatic problem for Syria, similar to the one we saw concerning the chemical weapons?

Brian Becker: Well, it is a clear indication that the Obama administration is looking for other rationales, other pretexts to keep the pressure on the Assad government. And when I say pressure, that is kind of euphemistic, what they are really doing, of course, is creating a great international crime by funneling arms and weapons and money to an arms struggle, in other words fermenting civil war so they can destroy an independent nationalist government in this region of the world.

Yes they need rationales. They can’t really say “Yes, we want to overthrow the Assad government because we want a puppet proxy regime in Syria.” So they have to say “We are doing all this for other reasons.” And the other reasons are always some noble cause, fighting terrorism, fighting chemical weapons, now fighting biological weapons. But beneath it all is the real driving force of US policy which is to rule the roost in this resource-rich part of the world.

RT:Of course chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, not only in Syria but also in Iraq, were used as pretext for military intervention, are you really saying this could be an excuse for something like that again?

BB:
I would suggest that everyone should consider this to be another false flag, another pretext, a rationale, an excuse to carry out US policy, which I consider to be a criminal policy because it is fermenting armed struggle in a nation that the US is technically not in war with.

Reuters / Ammar Abdullah


RT:And yet such a regime has proven to have chemical weapons, because they are removing them from the country now. Why not a biological threat now, is it not a valid accusation?

BB: Well, you know, even the US government says these are not weaponized components for biological weapons, that they are into research and development thing.

We have gone through this script before, we saw it in Iraq, we saw it in Libya, we’re seeing it in Syria. It does not mean that weapons of mass destruction don’t exist. But what I’m saying, is that the US government is carrying out an armed struggle policy, a civil war policy and they need to keep up public rationales. Also they need a way to balance against Geneva, they need to find a way to continue to demonize the Assad government because their ultimate goal is to get rid of Assad, not for a negotiated settlement.

RT:
Clapper also expressed deep concern over terrorism being supported in Syria, but also becoming a threat in US and elsewhere in Europe. Is that really a cause for concern?

BB:
I think we have there two inter-tangled agendas. The NSA and the US intelligence agencies need enemies, and they need enemies because Snowden’s revelations showed that they are actually spying on the people of America and the people of the world. So they need an al-Qaeda threat force. But at the same time the US has been the one funneling the arms to the arms opposition which in effect is strengthening al-Qaeda, just like they did in Afghanistan in 1979. Osama bin Laden was the precursor to al-Qaeda then, and the US/CIA supported him.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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