WSU professor, Grafton resident take opposite stands on Syrian conflict http://www.telegram.com/article/20120819/NEWS/108199868/1242/mobile&TEMPLATE=MOBILE

With a full-blown civil war looming and the United Nations cease-fire mission sidelined, there is mounting evidence of anti-regime foreign interference backing an armed insurgency to topple the sovereign Syrian government.The vociferous disagreement among world powers on what to do is mirrored locally — by two Central Massachusetts men with dissimilar views. There is also controversy about the legality of a recent U.S. government action permitting the Syrian Support Group, a private Washington-based entity, to raise money and send it to the Free Syrian Army.Worcester State University history professor Najib E. Saliba of Shrewsbury is a Middle East expert. He says the Syrian government enjoys popular support. Mr. Saliba says President Obama's ongoing efforts since last year to overthrow the government violates both national and international law. Grafton resident George Stifo, a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is a member of the Syrian National Council. The SNC is one of several groups coordinating violent and nonviolent methods to overthrow the Syrian government. Mr. Stifo is pushing for the U.S. to play an even greater role to topple the Syrian government.Mr. Saliba, who recently returned from a 35-day trip to Lebanon, which borders Syria, said: “I believe if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did not have good (popular) support, he would have been gone (overthrown) long ago.”The history professor said a poll taken this year shows more than half the population supports the Syrian president.In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Stifo said he is delighted the U.S. government recently gave a license to an organization formed last year — known as the Syrian Support Group — allowing it to funnel money directly to the Free Syrian Army. The license was approved by the U.S. Treasury on July 23.“It is extremely rare that the U.S. Treasury will allow this. The U.S. government has allowed this,” Mr. Stifo said. “To achieve that status while supporting a military group is very difficult to do. It is an extremely new thing and it is extremely difficult to achieve that status for an organization (the Free Syrian Army) fighting a battle.”The FSA is at war to topple the Syrian government. The license permits the FSA to use money raised — from U.S. citizens and corporations — by the Syrian Support Group to buy military hardware and weapons. The license exempts the SSG from sanctions President Obama has imposed on Syria forbidding trade and monetary transactions.According to Mr. Stifo, the psychological and military dimensions the U.S. license brings are key, because otherwise the FSA would be perceived as a terrorist organization.The U.S. license “means the Free Syrian Army is not a terrorist group; it (the license) gives the impression this group is legitimate and could be looked to as an ally of the U.S. government in the future,” Mr. Stifo said.A copy of the license says: “The Syrian Support Group, Inc. may export, re-export, sell, or supply to the Free Syria Army financial, communications, logistical, and other services.” It was approved by Andrea Gacki, assistant director for licensing for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, on behalf of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner[ED NOTES:US TREASURY AND GEITHNER ARE ZIONISTS!!!].The license shows that Mazen Asbahi, a lawyer with the Asbahi Law Group of Washington and Chicago, applied for the license on May 24. When President Obama first ran for president, he appointed Mr. Asbahi as the campaign's national coordinator for Muslim American affairs in 2008, and he served briefly in that position.The Syrian Support Group's director of government relations is Brian Sayers. He most recently worked for NATO and also the U.S. State Department.The two-year license is subject to monthly reports detailing who is getting the money, the amounts and what services are given. That information must be submitted to the Office of Terrorism and Economic Sanctions Policy at the U.S. State Department.Critics of the license say the United States has no way to prevent money raised by the SSG from going to other armed groups, including Al-Qaeda.“Syria is becoming like the Afghanistan of the 1970s and 1980s — when we (the U.S.) produced someone known as Osama bin Laden” as part of the country's policy of arming Islamic militants during the U.S. covert war against the former Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, Mr. Saliba said at an educational forum in Cambridge this month.Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass,

[ED NOTES:HES A SKULL AND BONESMEN MEMBER]

was asked on Thursday whether he believed it is lawful for the Treasury Department to hand out a license that permits the U.S.-based SSG to send money to insurgents fighting to topple a sovereign government. Mr. Kerry is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee,He did not address the question of legality, but provided a statement in support of the license.“I support the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Treasury to provide an OFAC license to the Syrian Support Group, a private Syrian-American organization, so they can legally raise funds for the Free Syrian Army,” Mr. Kerry said. “The Syrian people are fighting to overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Their revolution began peacefully, but with Iran and other countries providing ongoing military assistance that the Assad regime is using to indiscriminately terrorize its own cities and towns, I have supported responsible efforts to help both the political and military opposition to help level the playing field so that the Syrian people may prevail in their struggle for freedom.”Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert and professor of law at the University of Illinois, said in an email that the license “is clearly putting the United States government in violation of international law.”According to Mr. Boyle, the U.S. government has breached “the United Nations Charter article 2(4) prohibition on the threat and use of force in international relations and the basic principle of customary international law prohibiting the interference into the domestic affairs of another state.”Mr. Boyle also noted that earlier in his Senate career, Mr. Kerry opposed the clandestine funneling of weapons to the Contras, who were fighting a civil war against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.Mr. Kerry's support for the SSG license “reminds me of the support the Reagan administration gave to the contra forces in Honduras for use against the Government of Nicaragua that was condemned as violation of international law by the International Court of Justice in the case of Nicaragua v. United States of America in 1986,” Mr. Boyle said.The Obama administration accuses Syria of human rights violations, is calling for regime change and is helping coordinate a bevy of actions against Syria to achieve that goal, with NATO allies Britain, France and Turkey, along with the six-state Gulf Cooperation Council.The Gulf Cooperation Council, with its abundance of oil wealth, is sending money and mercenaries to fight the Syrian government, Mr. Saliba said. The GCC states are ruled by absolutist family dynasties — Al-Khalifa in Bahrain, Al-Sabah in Kuwait, Al-Said in Oman, Al-Thani in Qatar, Al-Saud in Saudi Arabia, and Al-Nahyan in the United Arab Emirates, he said.“These elements are in Syria to fight a Holy War against the Assad regime,” Mr. Saliba stated. “The conflict in Syria is not for democracy, human rights, freedom of expression — far from it. If it was you would not see Saudi Arabia or Qatar … supporting it. None of the GCC states has a constitution; none of them believe in human rights.”

[ED NOTES:WHO IS SNC?WHAT IS THE ROLE OF ZIONIST OWNED US TREASURY IN SYRIA? WHO'S WHO IN NEW SYRIAN NATIONAL ... - THENAKEDFACTS U.S. TREASURY PIRACY AND PLUNDER OF ... - THENAKEDFACTS  SYRIAN OPPOSITION CANCER DISSECTED,NOW NEEDS REMOVING..(RESPONSE TO ''' Who’s Who in the Syrian Opposition'' http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2011/07/syrian-opposition-cancer-dissectednow.html TO UNDERSTAND SYRIA CONSPIRACY WATCH THESE.. THE SYRIA CONSPIRACY- AN ISRAHELLI ZIONIST PROJECT ...   THE SYRIA CONSPIRACY THE FINAL NAILS IN THE - YouTube   SYRIA FALSE FLAG_0001.wmv - YouTube  9:28 THE SYRIA CONSPIRACY PART 1.wmv

         9:40 THE SYRIA CONSPIRACY PART 2  THESYRIACONSPIRACYARCHIVES