10 years since the war in Syria began, Western media & pundits still eager to keep it going
By Eva Bartlett | RT | March 15, 2021
After many wars built on lies over the decades, people might have developed a good BS radar. Instead, in March 2011, when media and human rights groups pushed propaganda about Syria, the public once again fell for it.
Front page, round-the-clock headlines were pumped out, and transparently hollow Western pundits tut-tutted Syria’s president and claimed the Syrian government was cracking down on “peaceful protesters.”
But this is March 2021, and while Western lies and fake concern have dominated news on Syria, Syrians deserve to have the reality – their suffering under some of the most heinous terrorism the world has known – highlighted instead.
In reality, March 2011 in Syria saw well-armed thugs attacking not only government buildings, but killing soldiers and civilians too.
In the months and years that followed, some of those who had been dubbed as “peaceful protesters” committed massacre after massacre of Syrian civilians and security forces.
Independent observers like Homs-based Dutch priest Father Frans van der Lugt witnessed “armed demonstrators who began to shoot at the police first.”
Flemish priest Father Daniel Maes, based in Damascus’ countryside, said:
“I have seen with my own eyes how agitators from outside Syria organized protests against the government and recruited young people. Murders were committed by foreign terrorists, against the Sunni and Christian communities, in an effort to sow religious and ethnic discord among the Syrian people.”
From my own fourteen visits from April 2014 and over the next seven years, what I’ve heard and experienced in Syria only confirmed my early suspicions that what Al Jazeera and Western media were purporting were lies.
– While people did aspire to political change (and the government made changes), from the start there was violence from well-armed “protesters.”
– Contrary to what the media would have us believe, there wasn’t wide support for what was dubbed a “revolution,” and it wasn’t actually a revolution. Predominantly Sunni Aleppo rejected the non-revolution.
– The core message of the protesters who continued beyond the first few protests was not about democracy but about driving out Christians to Beirut and killing Alawites. A sectarianism promoted by the West and its Gulf allies.
Although mass media attempted to paint events in Syria as a “civil war,” both Israel and Western nations have long been supporting terrorists in Syria, including Al-Qaeda in Syria (reportedly providing them medical treatment), and even Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).
And as I detailed, the West has long been working to change the government of Syria, even decades prior during Hafez Assad’s time.
How I saw Syria vs. what it looks like through Al-Qaeda-tinted glasses
In April 2014, I met an American living in Latakia who recalled reading a LA Times blog post alleging a protest which had turned violent in her city three years prior, but which never happened. According to her, she had been to the places mentioned in the report that day, and there was no unrest.
Years later in Damascus, I met and interviewed a Syrian doctor who had been based in Dara’a province in March 2011. He described how his hospital operated at normal capacity at the time. At the same time, he says he saw a repeated report on another mainstream outlet that said the facility was overwhelmed, not enough doctors were available, and moreover, the hospital was denying treatment to civilians, when in fact the hospital directives were to treat civilians before soldiers.
Since a core message in regime-change reporting on Syria has been that the people want the president gone, it’s worth noting that President Bashar Assad is actually quite popular among Syrians. In fact, I was surprised to come across a January 2012 admission of this, one of the worst purveyors of lies and war propaganda on Syria.
Assad’s popularity has only steadily grown. From the early months of 2011 to late 2011, 2012, and beyond, Syrians held mass demonstrations in support of their president.
In Lebanon in 2014, I witnessed a mass show of support during the presidential election. These were people determined to vote, and the people I spoke with proudly declared their support for Assad.
From 2014 to my last visit in 2020, Syrians have maintained to me that while there are a host of changes they do want for the country, seeing Assad step down is not one of them.
The Syrian government issues visas to journalists from the worst propaganda outlets (including the BBC, Channel 4, the New York Times and CBC), yet they have reported a vastly different Syria than that which I or my colleagues know.
In their Syria, the suffering of civilians in government-controlled areas doesn’t exist. If mentioned, they are dubbed “regime supporters,” thus somehow deserving of the shelling and other abuse perpetrated by terrorist factions.
The outlets don’t take into account the millions of internally displaced Syrians who have fled terrorism or fighting elsewhere in Syria and taken shelter in government-controlled areas, frequently coming under attacks of terrorists.
When greater Aleppo, with around 1.5 million people, was for years being attacked with gas canister bombs, mortars, grad missiles and sniping by terrorists occupying areas of the city (by November 2016 resulting in the deaths of nearly 11,000 civilians), media downplayed this, or simply didn’t mention it at all.
Even when mixed Christian and Muslim areas of Old Damascus were shelled by terrorists occupying eastern Ghouta – and they were shelled for years, until Ghouta’s liberation – this terrorism, and the many maimed and killed, was underreported, if reported at all.
In one instance, after an elementary school was mortared (killing one child and injuring over 60 more) the BBC’s reporter later disingenuously wrote, “the government is also accused of launching [mortar shells] into neighborhoods under its control.”
In summer of 2016, I travelled around Syria, meeting Syrians who had started their lives anew, displaced by terrorists, and meeting Syrians who had survived terrorist attacks only to be living within a few hundred metres proximity to them and at daily risk of sniping and shelling.
And all the while, the same war propagandizing, script-reading media glossed over the horrific realities of life under terrorist rule, which included imprisonment, torture, starvation, rape of women and public executions of civilians by sword or point-blank assassination.
‘Fallen’ cities, ‘chemical attacks’ and other lies
I’ve gone to many key cities and towns post-liberation from terrorist factions. Western media inevitably said these areas had “fallen,” bizarrely trying to claim that life under the government would be worse than life under the extremists who easily and routinely murdered civilians in the street.
Civilians under terrorist rule were starving – not by the Syrian government, but by the terrorists – and were often imprisoned in ghastly often underground prisons.
From the old city of Homs, to the ancient Aramaic-speaking village of Maaloula, to eastern Aleppo, to Madaya and al-Waer, to eastern Ghouta and even areas of Idlib province, civilians I met spoke of the hell they had lived under terrorist rule, and of their relief at being liberated.
When mass media said those areas “fell,” they were lying. Those areas returned to peace and stability.
UN representatives may feign concern and neutrality in matters Syria, but the UN has been complicit in ignoring terrorists’ shelling of Damascus and in silencing the voices of suffering civilians and Syrian representatives at the UN.
Then there is the issue of the alleged and never proven “chemical attacks” by the Syrian army.
I’ve written about the chemical weapons accusations, noting even a lead member of the UNHRC Commission of Inquiry, blamed the “rebels.”
Many journalists, including myself, have gone to Douma, the location of the latest alleged chemical attack, and interviewed medical staff and civilians, concluding that a chemical attack did not take place.
Douma witnesses spoke at The Hague, including a boy featured in Western media’s claims. Instead of considering these Syrian sources, pundits and media sneered at the “obscene masquerade” regarding the testimonies.
Yes, the same media which uncritically endorsed the Twitter account of a seven-year-old English-illiterate Aleppo girl as gospel in the lead up to the liberation of Aleppo refused to consider the testimonies of seventeen civilians from Douma.
The same media refused the revelations of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) whistleblowers who spoke out, damning the final OPCW report for its glaring omissions – omissions that completely changed the narrative around Douma.
In October 2020, the UN Security Council itself refused to allow Jose Bustani, former general director of the OPCW, to speak. I urge people to read Bustani’s words on the cover up of OPCW expert findings around the Douma allegations.
Still lying after all these years
Even now, five years after his image was plastered across global media as the “face of suffering in Syria,” allegedly hurt in a Russian or Syrian airstrike, the UK’s Independent has a photo of Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh as its Twitter cover photo.
But this was a narrative debunked in mid-2017, when I met a healthy Omran and his father. The father specifically said there was no airstrike.
Still other lies that were debunked years ago are being recycled anew, in the West’s ceaseless attempt to criminalize Assad and legitimize the US coalition’s illegal presence in Syria.
But none of the media or pundits who claim to care about Syrians’ well-being address the actual causes (including terrorists) of their suffering, chief among which is the brutal Western sanctions against Syria, which directly impact on Syrian civilians’ ability to live and procure medicine, much less rebuild.
Also impacting on Syrians’ economy and sufficiency, the US’ theft of Syrian oil and cotton, and burning of wheat. And this, along with other US illegal policies in Syria, will only get worse under the Biden administration.
And if you peruse recent headlines, you’ll see the same old Western insistence that things won’t change until Assad is gone. They’ve blatantly said sanctions will continue until then.
And now they’re going after the first lady, a woman who is well-liked on the ground in Syria for dedicating her work to helping the country’s poorest through development and microfinance projects.
The West would have us believe she has “incited and encouraged terrorist acts,” a claim, emanating from the UK (which most definitely incited and encouraged terrorism), that would be laughable were it not so revolting.
Russia has called this “psychological pressure on the eve of the presidential election.”
A look at the legal entity behind the absurd allegations reveals this isn’t the first time they’ve attempted a legal attack against the Syrian government.
To adequately write about the past ten years of war on Syria would take volumes. For the sake of brevity: it need never have happened, nor the deaths and destruction accompanying it.
This was a premeditated and cruel war on the people of Syria, spurned forth by the media who truly do not care about the lives of Syrians.
To quote Father Daniel: “The media can either contribute to the massacre of the Syrian people or help the Syrian people, with their media coverage. Unfortunately, there are too many followers and cowards among journalists.”
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Russia calls on OPCW to unveil truth behind alleged 2018 chemical attack in Syria’s Douma
Press TV – March 7, 2021
Russia has called on the global chemical weapons watchdog, OPCW, to conduct an impartial and reliable investigation into an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma near the capital Damascus on April 7, 2018.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin underlined the need for launching a transparent technical inquiry aimed at clarifying the actual course of events in Douma in 2018, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported on Sunday.
“Successful work at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will be impossible until trustworthy circumstances behind the incident in the Syrian town of Douma in April 2018 are established,” the Russian official said.
Shulgin added that this sad page could be over and an international dialogue could be built at the OPCW only after receiving reliable conclusions on the issue.
Moscow has for months cited dissent by two former OPCW employees who leaked a document and an email as evidence that the OPCW doctored the conclusions of a report which found that a toxic chemical containing chlorine was used in a 2018 attack near Damascus.
According to the Russian official, the results which the two inspectors have reached and the violations they have uncovered have undermined the Western allegations.
In late 2019, whistleblowing website WikiLeaks published several batches of documents suggesting that the OPCW may have intentionally doctored its findings, notably avoiding revelations which may point to terrorists having been behind the alleged chemical attack.
One of the published documents showed Sebastien Braha, chief of cabinet at the OPCW, had ordered in an email that “all traces” of a report from Henderson be erased from the body’s registries.
Ian Henderson had found out that the gas cylinders at the site of the Douma incident had been placed there manually most likely by militants given that the area was not controlled by Damascus at the time.
Following the suspected chemical attack, Western countries were quick to blame it on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
On April 14, 2018, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s capability to produce chemicals.
Damascus, however, said that no chemical attack had happened and that the incident had been staged by foreign intelligence agencies to pressure the government in the face of army advances against militants back then.
The OPCW concluded that chlorine had most likely been used in the attack. However, Syria and Russia both rejected the findings, saying they believed the incident had been staged by the White Helmets, a group which claims to be a humanitarian NGO but has long been accused of working with anti-Damascus militants and staging false-flag gas attacks.
The Syrian government also surrendered its stockpiles of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry. However, Western governments and their allies have never stopped pointing the finger at Damascus whenever an apparent chemical attack has taken place.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in the country.
Syrian government forces have taken back many areas once controlled by the terrorist groups.
Russia on Wednesday also called for not politicizing and exploiting the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Syria.
The IAEA in recent years has been investigating US claims that Syria allegedly tried to build a secret nuclear reactor at a remote desert site in Dayr al-Zawr in 2007, which no longer exists.
Syria and some other regional countries have time and again denounced the US and its Western allies for helping Israel develop its nuclear facilities and adopting double-standards on the issue of non-proliferation policies when it comes to Israel.
How the US and Great Britain Instigate Coups Nowadays
By Vladimir Danilov – New Eastern Outlook – 06.03.2021
Recently, the United States and Britain, actively using the propaganda tools that they possess, have increasingly begun to accuse Russia and China of interfering in their domestic affairs and election campaigns, and of effectively preparing coups in these countries. However, apart from making proclamatory statements, neither Washington nor London has presented any facts or documents that confirm these accusations, nor can they present them, since these accusations are false.
Along with that, documented information about complicity on the part of United States and Britain in various coups that were being set up has begun to appear more frequently in publicly accessible reports in various media outlets.
For example, according to the recent publication in the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, UN investigators found out that in 2019 elite fighters from the American Erik Prince’s private military company Blackwater, infamous for their actions during the American occupation of Iraq and several other states, had to take action twice to eliminate the Government of National Accord, which is recognized by the international community. But this “Project Opus” failed…
A group of UN experts studying violations of the UN arms embargo against Libya learned that in the Libyan war in recent years there has been a second, secret front to directly get rid of officials and commanders of the Government of National Accord that rules in Tripoli. “Project Opus” specifically called for delivering 20 elite Blackwater fighters to sites near Tripoli in June 2019 to conduct operations. The officers contacted by the German newspaper in Benghazi confirmed the arrival of 20 fighters from England and South Africa, and one American, in June 2019. The second group, consisting of snipers and fighters trained to fight behind enemy lines, flew to Benghazi in April 2020 and then headed off to the front near Tripoli. On April 24, 2020, 13 French citizens reached the Libyan-Tunisian border and presented themselves as diplomats to the Tunisian border guards, even though they carried heavy weapons. They were arrested, but under diplomatic pressure from Paris they were allowed to leave for Tunisia.
In early May 2020, the world media exploded with reports: another attempt at a military invasion of Venezuela was thwarted, Washington’s mercenaries were captured by the Venezuelan authorities, the United States wanted to repeat the operation in Cochinos Bay (the so-called attempt by the US Central Intelligence Agency to land Cuban emigrants in the Bay of Pigs, something which was aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro). It is worth remembering how on May 3 mercenaries from the American private military company Silvercorp tried to land on the coast of Venezuela near the city of La Guaira, which is located just 32 kilometers from Caracas. Sixty armed, well-equipped militants with satellite phones and fake documents planned to reach the capital and capture the Venezuelan president for his subsequent transfer to the United States. Two of those arrested, Airan Berry and Luke Denman, were US citizens that had served in Afghanistan and Iraq. On May 4, American media interviewed the former US special forces fighter and the head of the Silvercorp PMC, Jordan Goodrow, who trained these fighters in Colombia. Goodrow declared that the goal of “Operation Gideon” was to organize raids into Venezuela to fight “the regime”. The former special forces soldier showed an eight-page $213 million contract signed in October 2019 by Washington-backed self-proclaimed Venezuelan “president” Juan Guaido and Donald Trump’s political advisers. On March 23, the Colombian authorities confiscated an entire arsenal on their territory that was specifically meant for the mercenaries. The mercenaries were equipped fairly well.
The Washington Post also published a document according to which members of the Venezuelan opposition, following negotiations, in October 2019 entered into a deal with the American private military company Silvercorp, located in Florida. The PMC employees were supposed to infiltrate the territory of Venezuela to overthrow the country’s legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro.
These events in Venezuela were recently well assessed by Bloomberg :
“One would hope that the Central Intelligence Agency could do better than a farcical scheme that was disowned by the Venezuelan opposition, penetrated by regime security forces and disrupted as soon as it began. Yet this trivial episode invites us to think seriously about the role of covert intervention and regime change in US policy.”
Exposing these subversive activities by Blackwater and other US and British mercenaries shows that they are usually committed by former military personnel and criminals involved in a wide variety of activities around the world. They act as bodyguards, protecting people and businesses in “hot spots” (like oil-producing areas off the coast of Nigeria and Sudan), as well as convoys and freight shipments in war zones, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since from the very beginning of hostilities in the region both public opinion in the United States and Democrats in Congress viewed sending their own soldiers to hot spots extremely unfavorably, they had to look for replacements elsewhere.
American wars in the beginning of the 21st century have become a real gold mine for these organizations, which have turned from bands of thugs that toppled shaky “cannibalistic” regimes in Africa during the Cold War into real international corporations. They represent a significant benefit for the United States and its Western allies leading the war, since they consist of veterans that are already experienced – military professionals who have not found a niche for themselves in civilian life. In addition, these organizations are considered private enterprises, and therefore are not accountable to Congress, so the losses these soldiers incur are not included in the total number of casualties for a country’s conventional army, which makes it possible to give a more favorable representation of the situation in a war zone at home. Public opinion in the United States has long called for rejecting the services these companies provide, and reinforcing transparency in their activities. The UN has repeatedly raised the issue of revising the definition of “mercenary”, and banning organizations like Blackwater, over the past several years – but so far it has not yet achieved any significant results.
Besides these examples of Washington’s attempts to instigate a military coup in other countries, nowadays a number of documents have been raised for public review related to the period of the height of the US intervention in Syria in 2014, when Assad’s forces were growing weaker and Damascus was under the threat of capture by Islamists that the West nurtured and supported. For example, the Middle East Eye agency has shown quite convincingly – and with documentary evidence – how during a British-supported operation called Sarkha (Scream), the media tried to turn the Alawites against Assad, and by doing so accomplish a coup in Syria. The publication gives official documents that attest to the social media “protest movement” that was actually created under the authority of the British government. The very same scenario for Operation Sarkha was developed by the American company Pechter Polls of Princeton (New Jersey, USA), which was working under a contract with the British government. The contract for subversive work in Syria was initially administered by the Military Strategic Effects department at the UK Department of Defense, and then by the British government-run The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, whose objective is to
“resolve conflicts that threaten the Great Britain’s interests.” The project’s budget was £600,000 ($746,000) per year. The published documents indicate that the goal of the operations was “supporting the activities of the Syrian opposition media to reach an audience in Syria… Platforms for this work were created jointly by the UK, USA, and Canada to strengthen popular resentment toward the Assad regime.”
In another issue of the Middle East Eye, documents obtained by the publication show how British contractors hired Syrian citizens who were journalists to promote “moderate opposition” – often without their knowledge. Contracts with these mercenaries were entered into by the British Foreign Office, and were managed by the country’s Ministry of Defense, sometimes by military intelligence officers, paying small amounts of money to the contractors.
After getting to know everything indicated above, the question naturally arises: who exactly is really interfering in the affairs of other states? And how objective is the propaganda coming from Washington and London, as well as their foreign policy as a whole?
Biden becomes the sixth successive President to bomb Iraqis: how far could this latest round of escalation go?
By Aram Mirzaei for The Saker | March 4, 2021
Another president, another act of aggression. For the past few decades, it’s almost like a mandatory rite of passage for US presidents to bomb Muslim countries. I don’t think many of us are surprised to see that current US President Joe Biden turned out to be no different to his predecessors, when Washington once more bombed Iraqis last week.
Continuing the same policy of terrorism and humiliation from the Trump era, Washington felt the need to show strength against the Resistance forces on the Syrian-Iraqi border area. What angers me most, is not just the terrorist act of killing people who are fighting US occupation and US backed terrorism, but the fact that Washington cannot and will not recognize that there is a growing local resistance to Zionist hegemony, instead resorting to degrading and humiliating legitimate resistance groups such as Hashd al-Sha’abi of Iraq (PMU) or the Houthis of Yemen by labelling them “Iranian backed proxies”.
Everything and everyone that oppose Washington and Zionist hegemony in West Asia are “Iranian backed”. Whether it is a Houthi attack on a Saudi airport, a Taliban attack on a NATO convoy or a suspiciously random rocket attack on a US base in Iraq, it is always Iran’s fault and somehow the Islamic Republic must be held responsible for these attacks. Both Washington and the Zionist entity keep attacking Resistance forces in the very area where ISIS remnants have been re-emergent for the past months, claiming their right to self defense. Self defense?! America is more than 10,000 kilometres away. US troops are occupying Syrian and Iraqi territory and Washington claims the right to self defense? This narrative has been drilled into the minds of so many people in the West that nobody even reacts when one of the Obama gang’s old crude liars, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby was telling the press that Washington acted to “de-escalate” the situation when it bombed Resistance forces on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
What Kirby really meant by “de-escalation” was that he believes that Washington sent Iran and its allies a “clear message”, that messing with Washington is unwise. The sad part is that he and the other psychopaths in Washington actually believe that the so called “message” will in any way deter the Resistance forces in West Asia. It is pretty clear what the US is doing with these random attacks on the Resistance forces. Washington knows the realities on the ground and acts in response to them. In Syria, it has become clear for Washington that Damascus won’t fall, that dream came down crashing when Russia entered the war in 2015. So, Washington is acting to deny Syria and her allies their well deserved victory through the occupation and looting of eastern Syria. Washington will act for as long as it takes to starve the Syrian people into submission.
In Iraq, Washington, being well aware that the Iraqi parliament has voted to expel US forces from Iraq, is desperately seeking new reasons to prolong their occupation. Be it through the magical re-emergence of Daesh terrorists in Western Iraq or through suspicious Katyusha rocket attacks on US interests in Baghdad’s green zone, which are then blamed on the Iraqi Resistance forces without any kind of evidence presented, Washington is seeking to undermine the Iraqi parliament’s decision.
In Iraq, Washington has a foothold in Baghdad not seen in Syria’s Damascus. It is through this foothold that Washington wields influence over many Iraqi politicians and thus has the ability to cause great internal disunity and animosity among Iraqis themselves.
Washington has both great influence over the Kurds in northern Iraq and over the Prime Minister’s office. PM Al-Kadhimi is known to be a close associate of Washington’s and is suspected to be cooperating with the US to prolong their stay in Iraq. During his tenure, tensions between Baghdad and the PMU have run high as government forces have made random raids on the PMU headquarters, arresting some members even. Yet even more dangerous is the escalating tension between Washington and the PMU. On Wednesday March 3rd, a new rocket attack on the Ain Al-Assad military base was reported. This is the same military base that was struck by the IRGC last year in retaliation for Washington’s murder of martyrs Soleimani and Al-Muhandis. Previously the PMU had vowed revenge for Washington’s attack last week, which makes it rather obvious that Washington will blame the PMU for this recent strike.
With this latest round of escalation, one wonders what will happen next? Of course I’m just speculating but I see some real dangers with tensions running this high. I believe that Washington could very well seek to push Iraq into a new civil war in a bid to eradicate the Hashd al-Sha’abi. Many of the groups within the PMU have threatened to wage war on US forces if Washington refuses to withdraw. Unfortunately, this threat by the PMU can easily be exploited by the US, giving Washington a casus belli, as they intensify their “defensive” airstrikes while claiming to support Baghdad’s campaign to bring “stability” to Iraq. Such an endeavour could risk dragging several regional countries into the conflict as the Islamic Republic could be forced to intervene on behalf of the Iraqi Resistance forces. It is clear that Washington cannot and will not attack Iran directly, such an adventure would be too risky for the crazies in the White House and Pentagon. However, fighting “Iranian backed” forces and rolling back Iranian influence could serve to both solidify the continued US occupation of Iraq in the short term, and prevent the Resistance forces from achieving complete victory, in the mid-to-long term. In order to manufacture consent, Washington must portray their actions as both “defensive” and in service of “stability and peace”. Having others fight Washington’s wars for them is a speciality for the Empire. This is why I believe the most likely scenario to be one where Washington attempts to pit Baghdad against the PMU, then sweep in to “help” Baghdad “preserve stability”. This strategy has been used in different ways before by the Obama regime when it unleashed the Daesh terrorist group in Iraq, then claimed to fight the same terrorists it had armed and trained, in a bid to continue their occupation of Iraq and pressure pro-Iran PM Nouri Al-Maliki to resign. Obama then did the same thing in Syria with the support of Kurdish militants in a bid to pressure Damascus into concessions. Trump continued on the same path but went even further when his administration began using phony attacks on “US interests” in Iraq as a pretext for direct confrontation with the PMU, a path that ultimately led to the murder of Martyrs Soleimani and Al-Muhandis. The then-secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Washington had acted to “stabilize” Iraq with the murder of these “terrorists” who were “hated among Iraqis”.
Iraq is key to the Resistance Axis and cannot fall into enemy hands. It is however also the most vulnerable of the countries where the Resistance forces are active, as not only does Washington have great influence over Baghdad, but also over the Kurdish autonomous region in the north.
Supporting Kurdish independence is another way that Washington could seek to attack the Resistance Axis. This can be seen in Syria as well where the Kurdish militants are acting as excellent proxy troops for Washington, occupying about a third of the country and helping US forces in the looting of Syrian oil. Kurdish parties also have excellent ties to the Zionist entity in Tel Aviv, as Zionist chieftain Netanyahu has on several occasions been a vocal supporter of Kurdish independence, often likening the Kurdish people’s cause with the Zionist one. The reactionary Kurdish parties, who are too ignorant and too greedy to understand and realize that they are being used as cannon fodder to further US imperial ambitions, will be more than happy to wage war on Syria and Iraq with US support behind them.
It’s been almost 10 years since the war in Syria began, and 18 years since the war in Iraq began, and still there seems to be no peace in sight for any of the Arab countries. Biden has been in office in less than two months, but in my opinion, the next four years seem to be rather clear in terms of Washington’s policies towards the West Asia region- the long wars will continue and more blood is to be expected. Bush bombed Iraq, [Clinton bombed Iraq, Bush Jr bombed Iraq,] Obama bombed Iraq, Trump bombed Iraq, and now Biden bombs Iraq. For our people, it never matters who or what occupies the White House, the bombings and wars will continue. Iraq has a rather young population, more than 60 percent of the population is under 25 years of age. This means that most Iraqis have known nothing else except the US imposed wars on their homeland. It is a tragedy and a shameful moment in human history where most people in the totally “advanced, civilized, democratic, morally superior” West don’t care about what their despicable governments are doing in Iraq or Syria, because they are stupid Muslim terrorists anyway. This is why Iraq cannot and should not rely on Western public opinion. Resistance is the only way, and the US Empire must be kicked out with force in order for Iraqis to finally have some peace.
US Foreign Policy: War Is Peace
By Stephen Lendman | March 1, 2021
A permanent state of war on invented enemies is longstanding US policy.
It’s been this way throughout most of the post-WW II period.
Terror-bombing Syria last Thursday was one of many examples — escalating US aggression against the nation and people by Biden.
The Syrian Arab Republic threatens no one. President Assad is supported by most Syrians.
Yet Obama/Biden launched preemptive war on the country in March 2011.
US forces illegally occupy northern and southern areas.
The Pentagon and CIA use ISIS and likeminded jihadists as proxy forces to advance US imperial aims in Syria and elsewhere.
Washington under both right wings of its war party intends permanent occupation of the country.
Sergey Lavrov noted the diabolical scheme, saying:
Washington is “making the decision to never leave Syria, even to the point of destroying this country” — more than already he should have added.
Lavrov also stressed the US forces occupy “Syrian territory illegally, in violation of all norms of international law, including Security Council Resolutions on reconciliation in the Syrian Arab Republic.”
“They continue to play the separatism card.”
“They continue to block, using their levers of pressure on other states, any supply even of humanitarian aid, not to mention equipment and materials necessary to restoring the economy in the territories controlled by the government, and in every way possible force their allies to invest in territories outside Damascus’s control.”
“At the same time, they illegally exploit Syria’s hydrocarbon resources” by stealing them.
Longstanding US plans call for partitioning Syria and other regional countries for easier control.
According to former Global Policy Forum director James Paul, partitioning Syria “is the Israeli solution,” adding:
The Jewish state’s “overarching goal is to weaken every Arab state by bringing religion and ethnicity into the equation.”
The plan for Syria is partitioning it into Kurdish, Alawite and Sunni states.
Balkanization of Middle East countries is also longstanding US policy.
Regional expert Mahdi Nazemroaya earlier explained that “(r)egime change and balkanization in Syria is very closely tied to the objective of dismantling the ‘resistance bloc’ formed by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the Palestinians, and various Iraqi groups opposed to the US and Israel.”
US/NATO/Israeli regional aggression aims to achieve this objective — what failed so far and won’t likely fare better ahead, but continues anyway.
In cahoots with Israeli interests, Obama/Biden launched preemptive war on Syria in 2011.
For hardliners in both countries, the road to Tehran runs through Damascus.
Control over the Syrian Arab Republic is seen as a way to weaken and isolate Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
According to Algerian academic Abdelkrim Dekhakhena, Bush/Cheney’s 2003 aggression against Iraq “metamorphosed into an apocalypse that swept the core nations of the region.”
“Chaos and destruction” followed with no end of it in prospect.
Washington’s notion of democracy building is suppressing its emergence everywhere and eliminating it wherever it exists.
Endless US Middle East wars created instability and human misery.
US regional aggression is aided by ISIS and other terrorist groups — created by the CIA to advance Washington’s control over regional countries, their resources and populations.
According to Biden’s doublespeak through his press secretary Psaki — paid to lie for her boss — he OK’d escalated US aggression in Syria to “protect Americans (sic),” adding:
Further aggression will aim to “deescalate tensions.”
The above doublespeak mumbo jumbo defines Washington’s war is peace policy.
Endless US wars by hot and/or other means have nothing to do with democracy building, pursuing peace, or protecting Americans.
They have everything to do with advancing Washington’s diabolical imperial agenda that prioritizes unchallenged global dominance.
Psaki also defied reality by claiming that preemptive terror-bombing of Syria on Thursday underwent a “thorough legal process (sic).”
There’s nothing remotely legal about naked aggression in Syria or anywhere else.
A decade of US war against the Syrian Arab Republic and its long-suffering people perhaps will continue in perpetuity.
The same diabolical agenda continues in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya, along with war by other means against numerous invented US enemies — notably China, Russia and Iran.
Washington’s rage to dominate other countries by brute force defines what the scourge of imperialism is all about.
There’s no end of it in prospect.
Biden’s longstanding support for wars on invented enemies suggests further escalation of hostilities on his watch.
Confrontation by belligerence and other means will likely be prioritized over pursuing peace and cooperative relations with other countries.
It’s the diabolical American way — addicted to warmaking, abhorring peace and stability.
US seizes UN aid allocated for Rukban refugees, distributes it among terrorists: Russia, Syria
Press TV – March 1, 2021
Syrian and Russian officials have warned that the United States is exploiting the deteriorating humanitarian situation at the Rukban refugee camp to seize UN aid consignments and distribute it among allied Takfiri militants after it turned the camp, located close to Syria’s border with Jordan, into a center for training terrorists.
“As usual, the United States hopes to acquire the aid in order to support terrorist groups operating under its command in the vicinity of al-Rukban camp. The camp has indeed become a seedbed for training extremist terrorists,” the Russian and Syrian Joint Coordination Committees on Repatriation of Syrian Refugees said in a joint statement.
The statement further noted that the US continues to impede all efforts aimed at the closure of the camp, prevents return of its residents to areas liberated from the grips of Takfiri terrorists and does not allow the life there to return to normal.
The joint committees then reiterated the Damascus government’s readiness to receive all Rukban camp residents, who are taken hostage by the US and its terrorist mercenaries, ensure their security, and provide them with decent living conditions.
This is not the first time that aid cargos delivered by the UN and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to al-Rukban are seized by Us forces or US-backed militants.
Russia and Syria have on numerous occasions also criticized the US for blocking aid deliveries to the refugee camp.
The Rukban camp, described by Russian and Syrian authorities as the “death camp,” is reportedly home to some 25,000 internally-displaced Syrians, mostly women and children.
Just a handful of humanitarian aid convoys have reached the camp in recent years.
In a joint statement on March 28 last year, the interagency coordination headquarters of Russia and Syria, attributed the humanitarian crisis in Rukban refugee camp to the illegal occupation of the area by American forces.
“We believe that the American side’s reluctance to exert influence on their [allied] militants in order to ensure unhindered departure of people from the camp and safe activities of humanitarian representatives in the At-Tanf zone is a clear evidence of its intention,” the statement noted at the time.
The camp lies within a 55-kilometer zone occupied by the US around its military base in the Syrian town of At-Tanf.
The headquarters stated that the US military is using Rukban as an “assembly line for training extremists.”
US military forces smuggle wheat crops from Syria’s Hasakah into Iraq
Meanwhile, a convoy of dozens of US trucks has left Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah for the neighboring Iraq carrying tens of tons of grain.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources in Rmelan town, reported that a convoy of 45 military vehicles loaded with wheat and barley crops departed Kharab al-Jir military base in the countryside of al-Malikiya town, and headed towards Iraqi territories after having passed through al-Walid border crossing.
Biden’s Syria Attack: An Actual Impeachable Offense
By Ron Paul | March 1, 2021
Last Thursday [proclaimed] President Biden continued what has sadly become a Washington tradition: bombing Syria. The President ordered a military strike near the Iraqi-Syrian border that killed at least 22 people. The Administration claims it struck an “Iranian-backed” militia in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on US installations in Iraq.
As with Presidents Obama and Trump before him, however, Biden’s justification for the US strike and its targets is not credible. And his claim that the US attack would result in a “de-escalation” in the region is laughable. You cannot bomb your way toward de-escalation.
Biden thus joins a shameful club of US leaders whose interventions in the Middle East, and Syria specifically, have achieved nothing in the US interest but have contributed to the deaths of many thousands of civilians.
President Trump attacked Syria in 2018 in what he claimed was retaliation for the Assad government’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. The Trump Administration never proved its claim. Logic itself suggests how ridiculous it would have been for the Syrian president to have used chemical weapons in that situation, where they achieved no military purpose and would almost certainly guarantee further outside attacks against his government.
Trump’s 2018 attack only added to the misery of the Syrian people, who suffered under US sanctions and then suffered President Obama’s “Assad must go” intervention that trained and armed al-Qaeda affiliated groups to overthrow the government.
Trump’s airstrike on Syria did nothing to further real American interests in the region. But sending in 100 Tomahawk missiles to blow up a few empty buildings did a great deal to further the bottom line of missile-maker Raytheon.
Interestingly, Biden’s Secretary of Defense came to the Administration straight from his previous position on the board of, you guessed it, Raytheon. Libertarian educator Tom Woods once quipped that no matter who you vote for you get John McCain. Perhaps it’s also fair to say that no matter who you vote for you get to enrich Raytheon.
The Democrats wasted four years trying to remove Trump from office under the bogus “Russiagate” lie and then the equally ridiculous and discredited claim that Trump led an insurrection against the government on January 6th. Yet when Trump started raining bombs down on Syria with no Congressional declaration of war or even authorization, most Democrats stood up and cheered. Left-wing CNN talking head Fareed Zakaria swooned, “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night.”
In fact, initiating a war against a country that did not attack and does not threaten the United States without Congressional authority is an impeachable offense. But both parties – with a few exceptions – are war parties.
President Biden should be impeached for his attack on Syria, as should have Trump and Obama before him. But no one in Washington is going to pursue impeachment charges against a president who recklessly takes the United States to war. War greases Washington’s wheels.
Isn’t it strange how we’ve heard nothing about ISIS for the past couple of years, but suddenly the mainstream media tells us the ISIS is back and on the march? When President Biden says “America is back,” what he really means is “the war party is back.” As if they ever left.
This is who they are: Biden’s Syria strike is a stark reminder it’s American Empire that’s back
By Nebojsa Malic | RT | February 27, 2021
Only someone who hasn’t been paying attention could have been surprised by the US airstrike on Syria, now that an establishment committed to a globalist Empire rather than a constitutional republic is back in charge in Washington.
Democrats love proclaiming one can’t “turn back the clock,” usually to argue against even attempting to undo whatever domestic policies they’ve rammed through when in power. Yet everything about the Joe Biden administration has been about just that: erasing the past four years of Donald Trump and picking up where Barack Obama left off.
Trump also bombed Syria, mind you – launching cruise missiles on two occasions, spurred by spurious reports of “chemical attacks” – as well as the “Iranian-backed militias” in Iraq. Just over a year ago, he ordered the drone assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani outside the Baghdad airport.
However, he was denounced at the time by congressional Democrats, Biden himself, and his now-spokeswoman Jen Psaki, as well as nearly all US media outlets – the same ones now praising Biden’s bombardment. It’s literally different when they do it, the narrative goes.
That may seem baffling. After all, the American Empire isn’t a partisan thing. The Obamas, Bidens and Clintons have eagerly been on board as much as the Bushes and the Cheneys. That is, until Trump came along and mocked the “endless wars,” spoke of “America first” and rejected the pompous platitudes used to sell overseas imperialism to the rapidly declining American heartland.
For that ‘crime’ he was denounced and rejected by the US establishment, which has repeatedly demonstrated it doesn’t give a damn for the little guy in “flyover country” but prefers the globalist agendas of coastal elites and the military-industrial complex.
One can’t blame Americans for not remembering that the only time Congress overrode Trump’s veto was to keep troops overseas forever, when the media they rely on for their opinions, feelings and values hardly bothered to mention that bit. Make no mistake, though, endless foreign wars is what Biden meant when he said last week that “America is back” and promised a crusade on behalf of “democracy,” whatever that may be.
Also back is the manufacturing of consent. When Trump bombed someone, he just tweeted about it. The “new” administration acts just like the ones of yore, first leaking the talking points to the media. Instead of Trump’s “cowboy” language, Biden’s people use carefully selected propaganda terms, such as “defensive precision strike” and “proportionate military response” that “aims to de-escalate” the situation. The media dutifully follow along, stenographers all.
This kind of smoke-and-mirrors perception management is how war has become normalized for Americans. Trump’s rejection of it – whatever his motivation – is one of the reasons he was so hated by the establishment. Biden was sold to the American people as a return to normal – and for the establishment, this is precisely what “normal” looks like.
This normalization of behavior that ought to be illegal, immoral and unacceptable is, frankly, quietly horrifying. Almost no one seems to care that the US has no legal right to be in Syria, or bomb Syria, or even keep troops in Iraq anymore.
Legal concerns? How quaint. The US bombing whomever, whenever and wherever has become the “dog bites man” of the old journalism joke – that’s not news, editors would say, come to me when “man bites dog.”
Instead, we have otherwise serious people dispassionately describing the strike as “solid persuasion” and noting – correctly – that it “probably doesn’t matter” who gets attacked.
There is another disturbing dimension to the “Obama restoration” the US establishment is so bent on effecting. It was the Obama-Biden administration that backed “moderate rebels” – many of whom turned out to be Al-Qaeda affiliates – in Syria in hopes of regime change in Damascus, kicking off a war there almost ten years ago.
Trump focused instead on defeating Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists, letting the same people who lied to him about troop numbers deceive him about abandoning (but not really) the regime change agenda.
If someone with a solid predictive record who claims to have sources within the Biden-Harris administration is to be believed, they want Syrian President Bashar Assad “gone by any means necessary and have no concern for the consequences.”
After all, those consequences are almost always borne by the foreigners that get bombed and the ‘flyover’ Americans who end up in the military – including the very same “underprivileged communities” the Democrats claim to be so concerned about – and not the powerful.
This obviously leaves those Americans who hoped for $2,000 stimulus checks, universal healthcare or higher minimum wage – those who believed the “that’s not who we are” Obama-era hype about empathy and decency – holding the empty bag and scratching their heads.
Which is why perception managers will no doubt feed them another manufactured outrage as a distraction, any moment now. Because that is who they are. Always have been.
Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator
Biden Bombs Syria: A New World Record?
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | February 25, 2021
According to breaking news reports, including by Reuters, [proclaimed] President Biden has ordered and the Pentagon has carried out military airstrikes on Syria, attacking a structure inside the country that the US government claims houses “Iranian-backed” militia.
US missiles struck tonight near the Syrian town of Al-Bukamal, on the Iraqi border. The strike is said to be in retaliation for recent rocket attacks against US facilities in Iraq. After another rocket attack earlier this month, the US State Department pointed the finger at Iran and threatened a US military response.
The Iraqi parliament voted in January, 2020, to expel US troops from the country after then-President Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. The US government ignored the vote of the democratically-elected Iraqi parliament, however Trump later announced his decision to pull US troops out of Iraq.
President Biden wasted no time in reversing Trump’s disengagement strategy for the Middle East. After just over a month in office, President Biden is re-igniting the failed US intervention launched in 2014 against Syria under the Obama Administration.
Within 24 hours of Biden being inaugurated commander-in-chief, US military convoys began pouring into northern Syria. His Administration, from Secretary of State Tony Blinken on down, enthusiastically supported the US “regime change” policy for Syria under President Obama – a policy that only benefitted al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region.
Earlier this month it was reported that the US was building a new military base in Syria, near the Iraq and Turkey borders. New military bases carry with them new missions, so there is plenty of reason to believe that Biden plans to return the US to the “Assad must go” policy of his former boss.
Biden coming out of the gate with bombs blazing should be of little surprise to those who have watched his early foreign policy appointments. For example, he tapped noted neocon and aggressive interventionist Dana Stroul to head his Middle East Desk at the Pentagon and no doubt this airstrike at least indirectly reflects her influence and that of many others like her who have taken up positions in the Biden Administration.
Stroul hails from the AIPAC-founded “think tank,” the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where, as former CIA official Phil Giradi writes, “she has been the Shelly and Michael Kassen Fellow in the Institute’s Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics.” She is an extreme Iran hawk and has advocated and worked for regime change in Syria and US retention of large areas of Syrian territory.
So within a month of assuming office, President Biden looks to be on the cusp of launching a new Middle East war.
Israel violates international law anew, again bombing Syria… to further indifference of Western media
By Eva K Bartlett | RT | February 16, 2021
Israeli missiles reportedly targeted Syria again on Monday. Usually carried out under the pretense of “targeting Iranian/Iranian-backed militias,” Israel’s strikes violate Syria’s sovereignty and breach international law.
Israel’s military chief of staff boasted earlier about hitting over 500 targets in just 2020 alone. Bearing in mind that Syria’s air defenses do intercept Israeli missiles, it is clear that Israel attacked Syria exponentially more than 500 times last year, and an untold number of times more in the many years that Israel has been bombing Syria.
This latest assault on Syria comes after an Iranian official clarified any Iranian forces in Syria are there at the invitation of the Syrian government to fight terrorists in Syria. This of course applies to all of Syria’s allies, but not to the illegal US and Turkish occupation forces.
Yet, one of the many ironies regarding reporting on Syria is that, while Syria and her allies are fighting terrorism, they are routinely lambasted by Israeli and Western officials, both Israel and Western nations have long been supporting terrorists in Syria, claiming they are “opposition forces” although they are either part of Al-Qaeda in Syria, closely aligned to them, or members of equally brutal factions, including even Islamic State ( IS, formerly ISIS).
If Israel’s routine bombings of Syria are reported in Western media at all, it is with the usual downplaying of (and normalizing of) Israel’s violations of international law.
A SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency) report on the February 15 bombings read as most reports prior over the years, noting the Israeli aggression and that Syria’s “air defenses intercepted the missiles and downed most of them.”
Reuters’ account, referring to the SANA report, put Israeli aggression in quotation marks, as though the bombings don’t amount to an aggression. Perhaps Reuters views them as late Valentine’s greetings…Google “Iranian” or “Russian aggression” and see how often quotation marks are used.
Did Reuters or similar media bother to speak with civilians terrorized by these and the many prior Israeli assaults on Syria? Would they ever mention the psychological component of bombing at night, which is inevitably when Israel usually bombs?
Unlikely. Their narrative is to establish that “Iranian militias” are overtaking Syria and pose a threat to Israel that justifies Israel’s incessant bombings of Syria.
Who do Israel’s bombs target besides “Iranian/Iranian-backed militias” ?
If Western media reported honestly on Israeli bombings of Syria, they would be forced to acknowledge not only that Syrian civilians, including children, have been killed in the bombings, but perhaps offer a human face. Given the frequency of Israeli attacks and disregard for civilians, it is likely that the number of civilians maimed or killed by such bombings is not low.
Even in media traditionally hostile to Syria, one can find reports of civilians killed by Israeli bombings in Syria.
Western media do periodically mention that civilians were killed, but always usurp that point with justifications, like Israel, “periodically attacks what it says are threats to Israeli security in Syria.”
In June 2019, I travelled to Quneitra, southern Syria. Standing near al-Baath City, with around 2,000 civilians living there, and around 4km from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, security there spoke of Israeli attacks in previous years and also just roughly two weeks before my visit.
While their emphasis was on the fact that every time Israel attacked it enabled terrorists (al-Nusra and other groups) to advance, the other take away was that the bombings took place next to or where civilians were living.
In July 2019, among the routine Israeli bombings of Syria was an attack that killed at least four civilians, including an infant, injuring many more. A France 24 mention of the bombings reported six civilians killed, including three children. The report was careful to also specify “pro-regime” for fighters killed, weighted lexicon so common in Western media.
Of that day’s attacks, the BBC ran with: “Israeli jets ‘hit Iranian targets in Homs and Damascus’’. The BBC justified, as the BBC does, Israel’s bombings with: “It periodically attacks what it says are threats to Israeli security in Syria.” Were the dead civilians Israelis, you can bet they would have made the BBC’s headline and not be buried in a justification.
More recently, on the morning of January 22, 2021, Israel (violating Lebanese airspace) bombed Tartous, Hama and Homs countryside. The bombings resulted in the deaths of at least five in one suburb.
Writing from Beirut and Gaza, AP cited the highly partial Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, who from their position afar in the UK attributed the cause of deaths to a Syrian air defense missile. The media ran with that.
And although the big corporate media networks have abundant “unnamed sources,” “citizen journalists” and other credible anonymous sources to support claims of Russian or Syrian atrocities, when it comes to attacks by Israel or the US or allies, these networks run strangely dry of sources and dry of empathy for the victims.
So it is that we never hear of the personal tragedies that come with such bombings.
Regarding the January 22 bombings, journalist Vanessa Beeley went to Kazu, Hama, which she wrote, “took a direct hit with four rockets landing in a narrow residential street.” Beeley reported on how five members of an internally displaced family from Idlib were killed in their sleep (one later dying of her injuries). And sharing horrifying nuances you will not find in Western corporate media, she wrote:
“Hossam was the first on the scene and to see the broken bodies, crushed by the debris of the blast. He told me that he later found the mobile phone of the daughter visiting from Tartous. Her husband had heard news of the attack and had been trying to call her, unaware that his wife had been killed alongside their daughter. Hossam told me that one family member had been sleeping when the shrapnel sliced into their face, tearing skin from bone…”
Now just imagine these were Syrian bombings killing Israeli civilians and children. There would be hell to pay, and the media would scream about it 24/7.
Because some lives matter, but most do not, when it comes to reporting on Syria.
I asked Beeley about the SOHR claims. She replied:
“All survivors of the attack that I interviewed were adamant that four Israeli rockets targeted the narrow residential streets, killing five members of one family and grievously injuring four other relatives living in the same house.”
Why does this hypocrisy matter?
Perhaps people far from the war in Syria and inundated with other terrible information and news wonder why I’m harping on about something that has happened a million times (figuratively) before, Israeli bombings of Syria. Yes, it isn’t news, yes it happens routinely. But it shouldn’t. That’s the bottom line. And it wouldn’t be accepted were a Western nation the target.
These are beyond hypocritical times, when repeatedly bombing a sovereign nation, killing civilians in doing so, merits no outrage, much less any UN or other actions against the offender.
But fighting designated terrorists in Syria warrants media indignation, accusations from Western politicians and the UN itself, and the cruel sanctioning of the people affected.
So why does the hypocrisy matter? Because every time Israel bombs Syria, it is either killing civilians, enabling terrorism (which kills civilians), or preventing the forces fighting terrorism from doing so.
And it matters because Syrians aren’t just numbers behind headlines about “Iranian-backed” fighters. They are people long-abused by Israel and the West’s backing of terrorism and by media complicity.
Jolani gets a make-over in Idlib
By Steven Sahiounie | Mideast Discourse | February 9, 2021
The administration of [proclaimed] President Joe Biden may use a new tactic to bring Damascus to its knees. The ‘regime-change’ policy of Obama, which spawned ‘forever-wars’ in Libya and Syria, has a new twist.
Biden could choose to solve the Syrian conflict through diplomacy, but he may have tasked Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with re-inventing a terrorist following Radical Islam, and with a $10 million bounty on his head, as the new leader of Syria.
Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, the leader of Syria’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which had been previously named Jibhat al-Nusra, and where the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, had changed their name in a previous bout of re-branding their image.
The US is now in the process of changing the mask on HTS in Syria, as the group is listed by the US, EU, Russia, the UN, and Turkey as a terrorist group. Jolani took off his guerrilla warfare uniform and switched to a business suit recently in a PBS “Frontline” interview with journalist Martin Smith. Western audiences may be fooled by the new look, but the residents of Syria know the true Jolani. Washing away the gallons of blood on his hands will take a much deeper sanitizing than a new suit. Biden may have a hard time explaining the support of Jolani to French President Macron, who has officially declared war on Radical Islam.
The US had justified their illegal occupation of Syria as necessary to fight Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. The group was successfully dislodged from the territory they had held in northeast Syria.
The sole remaining territory held by an armed group following Radical Islam is Idlib, in the northwest, an area which US officials once described as “the largest al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11”. Western media describes Idlib as ‘a last stronghold of Syrian rebel groups’. The US and its media outlets have used the terms ‘terrorists’ and ‘rebels’ interchangeably, which has effectively re-branded blood-thirsty criminals into freedom fighters.
Trump had inherited the Syrian conflict from Obama, and he did not work toward any solution but held the status-quo, which saw US troops illegally stationed in Syria to steal the oil. Trump allowed Saudi Arabia to write the US foreign policy on Syria, due to his tight relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The US refused to beat HTS, instead, they protected them in Idlib, and have denounced Syrian and Russian attacks on the group. Now, the US has joined with HTS leader Jolani as their new man to lead Syria, still committed to the US policy of ‘regime change’.
The names change, but the essence is the same. In Syria, there were many armed groups, from the Free Syrian Army to Al Qaeda, and IS. Each had a leader, and a name, but in essence, all were the same: men killing people in the name of God. Their goal is ‘regime change’ and the regime they seek to install in Damascus is an Islamic government, with Sharia as the constitution and rule of law.
Turkey invaded Idlib and has 20,000 troops there, but has been reluctant to publically support HTS, because of the ‘terrorist’ listing. The US may begin a process to remove HTS from the terrorist label, which would open up greater aid and western investment in Idlib. At the same time, this close cooperation in Idlib between the US and Turkey could strengthen a fragile relationship between the two NATO partners. However, Turkey is ruled by a Muslim Brotherhood party, AKP, and there are calls by many in the US and the Arab Gulf states, to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.
The sizable Christian population in Idlib has suffered greatly at the hands of HTS and other Radical Islamic terrorist groups. Not only physical suffering but their properties were seized and they were made destitute and homeless.
The Russian-Turkish ceasefire remains fragile, while joint patrols along the M4 highway have essentially halted since August from terrorist attacks on trucks and civilians. The March 2020 agreement between Russia and Turkey explicitly calls for both sides to “combat all forms of terrorism, and to eliminate all terrorist groups in Syria as designated by the UN Security Council, which includes HTS.
Jolani fought in the post-2003 Iraq war as a member of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI, which later became ISIS), and in 2011 brought ISIS to Syria. He left ISIS in 2013, and declared allegiance to Al Qaeda, and established their affiliate in Syria, Jibhat al-Nusra.
Al-Nusra became known for being more brutal than all others and was feared and loathed by the Syrian civilians who were their victims. The group carried out war crimes and massacres of unarmed civilians sleeping in their own homes near Latakia in 2013. Killing, maiming, raping, and kidnapping was their calling card.
Jolani has been recast as the local Syrian leader capable of governing Idlib. However, Syria is a much bigger place than Idlib, which is a small agricultural area, only known for its olives. What about the biggest city, Aleppo, or the capital Damascus: what would the residents there think of an ex-ISIS member being in charge of Syria? The Syrian people have lived under a secular form of government for 40 years, and have fought against Radical Islam for ten years. Morphing a terrorist into a leader is a fantasy conjured up in Washington, DC. but will not play well to a Syrian audience.
Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist.
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Three Reasons Macron is a Hypocrite when it Comes to Venezuela
By Jim Carey | Geopolitics Alert | January 29, 2019
Paris – French President Emmanuel Macron recently voiced support for protesters in Venezuela as his own country has been ground to a halt by protests every weekend.
There is an overused saying that “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” While these few words may be cliche there is definitely one man that they can be applied to after this weekend: Emmanuel Macron.
Even though the French President is into the third month of protests against his government, he has decided to weigh in on the legitimacy of another country’s government and his latest outrageous statements just highlight the hypocrisy of Macron and Western leaders in general. … continue
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