NEO – Will Americans serving inside Syria face prison at home?

by Gordon Duff, VT Sr. Editor … with New Eastern Outlook, Moscow

[ Editor’s Note: Gordon takes a long time “third rail” VT topic to NEO today – the wholesale, massive violations of “aiding and abetting terrorism” laws by Western state actors who have marketed themselves as anti-terror crusaders.

To rub our faces in their hypocrisy even more, they charge the targeted victims of their own terror campaigns as terrorists. And up to now, western media and most all western institutions have just lapped it up.

There has been the occasional isolated case, like the CIA officer in charge of the botched rendition in Italy, who was convicted but never turned over. There is literally an army of people eligible for similar charges, but no one to do the prosecutions.

There has been created this concept of state immunity for all these individuals, even for the huge private contractor murder-incorporated gangsters that have been let loose upon the planet.

As Gordon will lay out below, if they ever find themselves in shackles in the dock someday, they will find out that their “no accountability” status they thought they had was based solely upon a hope that those sworn to uphold the law would not do so in their case.

As Putin and Assad keep saying, someday the legal order which all have pledged to abide by must be restored. For that to happen, the guilty have to start dying so the innocent will not.

That is not a threat, just the mathematical equation wound up in any possible solution. The longer it takes to swing the pendulum back, the bloodier it is going to be… Jim W. Dean ]

Jim's Editor’s Notes are solely crowdfunded via PayPal Jim's work includes research, field trips, Heritage TV Legacy archiving & more. Thanks for helping. Click to donate >>

– First published … June 12, 2018 –

When governments decided to advance policies through mercenaries, private military contractors and terror groups, it was assumed that those who made the decisions that have led to the deaths of millions and a series of upheavals that has turned half a continent into refugees,would suffer no consequences.

This, quite simply, does not have to be the case.

We have seen the accusations that Americans and their allies are arming known terror groups. These acts, which deeply parallel the Iran Contra scandal which convicted 47 Reagan White House officials, are potentially crimes in violation of American law and may be prosecuted by Federal law enforcement officials under the Department of Justice and other organizations.

There is precedent for this and we will outline one such prosecution to better understand the lengths the US government can go to when it desires.

Only through such prosecutions can the rule of law be restored and the United States and its allies, Britain, be brought into line with the tenets of international law and the Articles of War as described in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Background: Mark Siljander’s Case

The United States government has, since 9/11, prosecuted select individuals it deemed as acting in support of terrorism. One such case involved former UN Ambassador and 3 term GOP Congressman, Mark Siljander.

Siljander was initially charged with 32 counts of aiding terrorism, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Siljander received a $50,000 advance from the Islamic American Relief Agency to write a book, now a best seller, on the commonalities between Islam and Christianity. The book, A Deadly Misunderstanding, is published in 32 languages around the world and has been used as a

roadmap for peace.

It sent Mark Siljander to prison. Let me explain how, and why his prosecution will make it possible for Americans who have served in Syria, Ukraine, Romania, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey or on ships at sea to be jailed as well.

This is what it took to charge Siljander:

The Islamic Relief Agency runs an orphanage in Peshawar, Pakistan, for children of terror victims. The building they rented for the orphanage was owned by several individuals including, they later found out, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a two-time former prime minister of Afghanistan.

Hekmatyar had worked closely with the US and Saudi Arabia, training and supplying fighters who opposed Soviet backing for the Kabul government. After 9/11, Hekmatyar openly opposed the Karzai government and American intervention.

However, sources in Afghanistan at the highest levels tell a very different story, of Hekmatyar as a regular visitor at Bagram Air Force Base and a secret relationship as advisor and confidant to US Commander, General Stanley McCrystal.

Thus, we have it, a “favorite” of President Reagan, a passionate peacemaker, imprisoned for a 3rd hand relationship with a terrorist leader he never met who, himself, is secretly working for the Pentagon as an advisor. As American humorist Jim W. Dean so often says, “You just can’t make this stuff up.”

President Assad Addresses the Issue

On June 9th, 2018, President Assad, in one of a series of London based interviews, directly accused, on their home ground, the British government for complicity in aiding known terrorist groups against the Syrian people. In particular, he noted the reputed gas attacks in Douma as being staged by the British government as a “PR stunt.”

His accusation went further, citing US backing for groups that the United States had named as terrorist organizations. From Sputnik News:

“Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, President Assad accused the three Western powers of using the White Helmets group to give them a pretext to attack Syria.

“The UK publicly supported the White Helmets that are a branch of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, in different areas of Syria. They [Britain] spent a lot of money, and we consider the White Helmets to be a PR stunt by the UK. So yes, definitely, it was staged by these three countries together, and the UK is involved,” Assad said.

Commenting on Prime Minister Theresa May’s statements that Britain’s participation in the attack on Syria was permitted under international law and aimed at alleviating suffering, Assad said that by her logic, “when Britain and the US attacked Iraq illegally in 2003, killed millions, caused mass destruction, let alone the number of widows and amputees… any government has the right to attack the UK or the US if it thought the act was justified, legal and allowed under international law to alleviate human suffering.”

Ultimately, Assad accused the West of attempting to carry out a “colonial policy” in Syria. “They have never changed this policy since the old way of colonialism that existed in the beginning of the 20th century and the 19th century and before, but today it’s covered by, let’s say, a new mask, or different masks,” he said.”

The Specifics

Were we to look at Syria alone, using both open source material and information made available through reliable private sources including members of the Syrian government speaking in confidentiality, it is more than clear that that the suffering of the Syrian people has been orchestrated as part of a regional destabilization project by western nations who share one commonality, their currencies are controlled by central banks with nearly identical ownership.

A safe hypothesis with the current terror/proxy wars would include motives almost entirely economic in nature thinly veiled behind a purported global terror threat that is increasingly appearing to be fabricated by nation state players.

That said, we begin to identify a cast or characters, as though orchestrated proxy war for profit was a theatrical production. Toward this end, nothing would have been possible without two key elements early on, both George W. Bush being appointed US president in a controversial election and the ever hungry “sidekick,” Tony Blair waiting in the wings to goad him on. All that was needed was a catalyst, which 9/11 provided.

Beyond that, institutions that normally maintained limited aspects of civilization or even limitations on abuse of power had to dissolve. In the US this began with the Supreme Court, now permanently deadlocked at 5/4 with control in the hands of our “stage director.”

To maintain that control, it was necessary to permanently paralyze the congress. This was done through gerrymandering after the 2000 census and the controversial election that followed. Bizarre redistricting made it impossible for opponents of permanent proxy war to get a foothold in government and in doing so, interfere with judicial appointments that made such control absolute.

Then in 2005, a 5/4 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. US ended all limitations on what extremist billionaires could spend bribing politicians. There is no other way of stating this. This is exactly what happened.

As a backdrop, an earlier Republican congress under Newt Gingrich had allowed an Australian billionaire extremist, Rupert Murdoch, to take over a major broadcast network and several media companies. This required changing laws and when that was threatened, giving Murdoch honorary citizenship.

By the time Bush and 9/11 came along, all media in America was totally controlled and marching in lockstep, asking no questions.

One of the first moves the Bush 43 presidency, led by the hardliner Donald Rumsfeld at Defense and Dick Cheney as Vice President, made was to “launder” the military, retiring or firing all senior officers that weren’t “Israeli firsters” or “morally flexible.”

As America’s service academies had been continually lowering standards for years, an influx typified by mediocrity mixed with ambition and greed, made replacing the “best and the brightest” with the “dim and gutless” an easy task.

All that was required to move into a permanent war footing was to disable America’s intelligence agencies, putting them under centralized control. This was done with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

Soon thereafter, the CIA and Pentagon were ordered to offload critical functions to private companies conveniently created by party faithful. Companies like Blackwater, commanded by Eric Prins but in reality managed by extremist billionaire Dick DeVos, changed the rules of war.

The services the Bush presidency really required were simple, fake intelligence, terrorism on demand even if the US or its allies were the victims, cashflow from narcotics and human trafficking and a runaway defense budget channeled into party insiders through privatization.

In an example, at one point a company formerly controlled by Vice President Cheney, Haliburton Corporation, supplied food, water and laundry for troops in Iraq.

The water was taken directly from the Euphrates River, infecting hundreds with hepatitis and other diseases. The means they served cost up to $200 each and laundry service for troops in the field ran up to $40 per day.

Haliburton, of course, is an oil company with no experience delivering water, clean or dirty, doing laundry or feeding anyone.

Syria

What Bush built after 9/11 continued through Obama and Trump, channeling high-tech weapons to terror groups, supplying poison gas for staged false flag terror attacks and feeding the public fake news, vilifying an ever-changing set of target nations.

Top of that list was Assad’s Syria, particularly as the Syrian Arab Army aided by Hezbollah along with Russian and Iranian advisors, was defeating the Western backed “freedom fighters.” Few in the West were told the truth, the Free Syrian Army dissolved in January 2014, its US trained and armed fighters joining ISIS and al Qaeda.

From then on, the US and its allies, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Ukraine, Britain and France worked closely with the most dangerous terror groups in history.

The NGO Crisis

Another issue that begs for investigation and prosecutions, with many involved being American and British citizens, are the NGO’s that have supported terrorists in Syria and elsewhere.

A key fact here is that the term NGO, which stands for “non-governmental organization,” must mean something entirely different.

In truth, many NGOs are government funded, with groups such as the White Helmets receiving direct payments for services now long exposed that involve staging gas attacks, faking videos showing victims of equally staged atrocities, and according to experts, using terror tactics and even murder on a mass scale to achieve their ends.

Other NGOs collect intelligence, some steal and trade stolen oil on a massive scale, others still steal ancient artifacts to be sold at the auction houses of London and New York.

NGOs, sometimes funded by security agencies, initially set up to “appear” to aid Palestinian refugees, have expanded their capabilities across the region, into North Africa and Europe.

Their real “business” is human trafficking, supplying Europe and Americas pedophiles and the brothels of Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Hamburg and every British city. Americans run most of these and of those that have been investigated, clear ties to the CIA have been found.

The Question of Law

Too many in America, Britain and the West believe their governments now are above the law. As broad powers dictatorial powers are now commonplace due to draconian anti-terror legislation, the public assumes the arms dealing, false flag terrorism and insane propaganda is legal. They are wrong.

No laws have abrogated criminal responsibility on behalf of military, intelligence agency, diplomatic or media personnel whose acts have led to broad slaughter around the world.

Similarly, the now massive world of private security contractors, with up to 2 million, often rag-tag mercenaries or armed criminals “serving” around the world, is not above the law.

As demonstrated earlier, precedent has been set that makes even passive acts and failures in due diligence prosecutable. Our actors go further, so much further and existing law should well have led to a beginning of this process.

Killers for Neighbors

After every war, those returning from combat are typically looked on as outsiders. Vietnam vets were seen as baby killers, those who served in combat against the Japanese in World War II were deemed by some unfit to live around others, violent and dangerous. Our problem today goes much further.

Many of those returning from war have drawn huge salaries, moving them to the top echelons of society. For Americans and British, now living among them, are thousands of assassins, gun runners, drug and human traffickers, men who trained and advised terrorists or even supervised mass killings, loosely “believing” they were serving their country.

Behind that, the think tanks that planned, the Heritage Foundation, Jamestown Foundation, Atlantic Council and dozen after dozen others, making support of world terrorism one of the most lucrative jobs in Washington and London. By current legal standards, all may be prosecuted as terrorists.

More than that, however, there is a generalized brutalization of society, not just rampant ignorance due to academic malaise and media control but the acceptance of terrorism and suffering as “normal” occupations.

There is no way of getting around it. The veil of secrecy that has protected those supporting terrorism who have concurrently become a generation of modern day racketeers on a global scale has to come down.

Every criminal act must be accounted for and no government can claim exceptionalism, no government, no agency, no military can be above the law, be it drone operators at Fort Huachuca, Arizona or the warmongers of Fox News.

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of  VT, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

• Gordon’s Archives:  2008-2015
• Gordon’s Archives:  2016-2022