Occupy Wall St. Activist Hired to Lobby For Syrian Opposition

Carne Ross. Photo credit: OccupyAstorialic.org

Occupy Wall Street activist Carne Ross and his consulting firm, Independent Diplomat, have a new job. Rather than champion for members of the world's 99 percent, Ross and co. will now be lobbying for the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, which TheBlaze revealed this week may have ties to al-Qaeda.

Russia Today reports that legal registration papers provided by the U.S. Department of Justice this week confirm Independent Diplomat's role advising the Syrian rebel forces opposing the Bashar al Assad regime.

According to lobbying papers filed on April 8, 2013, Independent Diplomat "will provide information on and analysis of Syria’s diplomatic situation, for example, at the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the European Union and provide advice on diplomatic strategy to achieve the goals of the Client."

Independent Diplomat will also, according to the lobbying papers, "offer assistance with using diplomatic tools and techniques to help strengthen the client’s diplomatic outreach. This will include the facilitation of meetings, the preparation of significant diplomatic communications, including drafting Aide Memoires and preparing letters to the Security Council, as well as facilitating international visits and giving support to the drafting of speeches.”

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces had been pleading for international assistance and Ross, who has openly criticized both the UN and the U.S. for what he claims was their failed policies in Syria, seemed an obvious choice for the rebel faction.

Disturbingly, however, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed earlier this week that al-Nusra Front, the Syrian rebel faction, is indeed part of its network fighting to establish an Islamic state in the country.

Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi acknowledged in a statement that the al-Nusra Front "is but an extension of the Islamic State in Iraq and part of it.”

How Ross reconciles aiding and lobbying for al-Qaeda militants remains unclear, but if we are to consider his recent remarks on Syria (featured below), the greater risk may be "to do nothing at all."