How a US and Qatari regime change deception produced ‘Caesar’ sanctions driving Syria towards famine
Like the mysterious figure it is named for, the Caesar sanctions bill is the product of an elaborate deception by shadowy US- and Gulf-backed operatives. Instead of protecting Syrian civilians, the unilateral measures are driving them towards hunger and death.
by Max Blumenthal
Part 5 - “Caesar” goes to Capitol Hill
On April 13, 2014, an anonymous man completely cloaked in a blue Patagonia hooded jacket from Hudson Trail Outfitters, purporting to be “Caesar” and claiming to bear photographic evidence of “genocide,” appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Audio and video recording of the testimony was strictly forbidden, supposedly to protect Caesar’s safety.
Caesar’s handlers spun an elaborate tale to neoconservative Daily Beast writer Tim Mak about the “counter-surveillance techniques” they employed to protect their star witnesses identity in the days and hours before the hearing.
Somehow, no one covering the appearance of “Caesar” stopped to consider that the Syrian military might have already known the identity of one of the most high-profile defectors to emerge from its ranks. Were they protecting him from the Syrian Mukhabarat (which has no presence in the United States) or from public scrutiny?
As the anti-war activist and writer Rick Sterling pointed out, “how many military photographers took photos at Tishreen and Military 601 Hospitals during those years and then disappeared? According to the [Qatari] Carter Ruck report, Caesar’s family left Syria around the same time. Considering this, why is ‘Caesar’ keeping his identity secret from the Western audience? Why does ‘Caesar’ refuse to meet even with highly sympathetic journalists or researchers?”
When “Caesar” appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on August 4, 2014, he was seated beside the man who had brought him to Washington. The handler was Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian-American regime-change lobbyist who served as the director of the State Department-funded Syria Emergency Task Force.
A key figure pushing for more arms to extremist militias inside Syria, Moustafa fervently opposed the State Department’s listing of Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, as a terrorist group. “It was a mistake,” he said to Foreign Policy of Nusra’s blacklisting.
A year prior, Moustafa escorted Arizona Sen. John McCain on a trip inside Syria to meet with members of the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army — including kidnappers of Shia pilgrims — during a failed stunt to stimulate US military intervention.
Testifying alongside Caesar was David Crane, the author of the Qatar-sponsored Caesar report, who accused the Syrian government of “crimes the likes of which we have not seen since Auschwitz.”
Next, Frederic Hof of the Atlantic Council’s Saudi-funded Rafic Hariri Center demanded that Congress respond to Caesar’s testimony by allocating more US tax dollars to purchase weapons for anti-Assad extremist militants in Syria.
The stage was set for Congress to sign off on crushing sanctions on Syria, in bipartisan fashion and with negligible opposition. But first, the regime-change lobby mobilized to build a public case for its agenda by cynically linking the crisis it had helped foment in Syria to the Jewish genocide that took place in mid-century Europe.
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