William Van Wagenen | The Libertarian Institute

‘Sarin Doesn’t Slice Throats’: The 2013 Ghouta Massacre Revisited

by William Van Wagenen | Jun 14, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

"Germ and chemical weapons may often be weak in their battlefield applications but they are always strong in their emotiveness. Accusations of association with them have for centuries, even millennia, been used by well-intentioned as well as unscrupulous people to vilify enemies and to calumniate rivals. Can onlookers protect themselves against the possibility of such assaults upon their common sense today?"- Julian Perry Robinson On the morning of August 21, 2013, a flurry of videos appeared on social media alleging to show the aftermath of a mass chemical attack in Syria. The Obama...

Ambassador Ford Lied About Giving TOW Missiles to Al-Qaeda in Syria

by William Van Wagenen | Jun 1, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In September 2017, U.S. official Brett McGurk expressed concern that Syria’s northwest Idlib province had become “the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.” Idlib had fallen to al-Qaeda, in the form of a jihadist coalition led by the group’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, in March 2015. Despite acknowledging that Idlib, the last bastion of the supposedly democratic and secular Syrian opposition, was dominated by al-Qaeda, McGurk failed to also note that U.S. planners themselves had played a key role in the terror group’s successful capture of the province. Specifically, he failed to...

The Salafist Roots of the Free Syrian Army

by William Van Wagenen | Feb 28, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“At the same time, we see that there is almost no difference between the group called Free Syrian Army or other jihadist groups and ISIS. For instance, these ‘moderate’ opposition groups burned the churches down, when they entered Kessab. They entered Malula, where there is still an ancient Christian community speaking Aramaic. They destroyed that place too. There are many other examples like these.” - Harout Ekmanian In the Western press, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was viewed as a moderate, secular, rebel force fighting to topple the Syrian government and to establish a democratic state in...

Creative Chaos: How U.S. Planners Sparked the Anti-Government Protests of the So-Called Arab Spring in Syria

by William Van Wagenen | Jan 31, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“I have been a refugee for 37 years due to my political engagement against the ruling Baath party. I cannot go back to Syria without being punished. But I see what the western countries, Turkey, and the Gulf states are now trying to do to my country. It has nothing to do with human rights or democracy. They want to divide the country and get rid of an opponent to the US´ plans for the region.”- Saliba Mourad Introduction Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, President Bashar al-Assad has claimed that Syria was the victim of a plot by Western imperialist powers seeking to effect regime in...

Salafis Throwing Bombs: How American and British Planners Partnered With Al-Qaeda Affiliated Groups At the Start of the Syrian Civil War

by William Van Wagenen | Dec 28, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Introduction In the mainstream view, al-Qaeda did not play a role in the Syria conflict until Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched his deputy, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to Syria in August 2011 to establish a wing of the group there, called Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front. Additionally, al-Qaeda allegedly did not carry out any military operations until December 2011 and did not announce its establishment until January 2012. However, there is evidence that al-Qaeda affiliated militants were involved in the Syrian conflict much earlier. Saudi intelligence chief...

How Ambassador Robert Ford Attempted to Whitewash the CIA’s Dirty War on Syria

by William Van Wagenen | Mar 31, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In a recent essay for Newlines Magazine, former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford discussed the ways in which the so-called Syrian revolution went wrong. He does so by recounting his interactions with two prominent Syrian opposition leaders, political activist and lawyer Razan Zeitouneh and Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander Colonel Abd al-Jabbar al-Akaidi. Ambassador Ford argues that the...

The Salafist Roots of the Syrian Uprising

by William Van Wagenen | Apr 28, 2020 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In the mainstream view, the Syrian conflict began in the Spring of 2011 with a period of peaceful, pro-democracy protests, which were then brutally suppressed by the Assad regime. As the liberal-left Intercept describes it, “Syrian civilians rose up to demand political reform. That protest movement soon turned into open revolution after government forces met the protestors with gunfire, bombardment, mass arrests, and torture.”The Intercept, “Syria’s voice of conscience has a message for the West,” by Murtaza Hussein and Marwan Hisham, October 26, 2019. Accessed on November 22, 2019....

A Brief History of the Destruction of Yarmouk

by William Van Wagenen | Apr 3, 2019 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

How the CIA helped jihadist rebels invade and occupy the capital of the Palestinian diaspora Introduction The Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria was thrust into international conscientiousness in March 2014 when the United Nations published the now iconic image of “thousands of Palestinians waiting amid the rubble of crumbling buildings to receive food aid in Yarmouk.” When describing the tragedy in Yarmouk, most Western journalists and human rights groups have overwhelmingly highlighted the role of the Syrian army, which imposed a siege on the camp in January 2013. Philip Louter of...