By John Chuckman | Aletho News | November 30, 2015
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, is a man of genuine integrity and honesty in his opposition to British bombing of Syria.
Indeed, he is everything the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, is not.
I think we see from the storm in the British press against Corbyn just how much the establishment values integrity and honesty, which is to say, not at all.
Almost every word of Cameron’s on the subject of bombing is deliberately deceptive.
He is in fact an intimate part of “the club” which privately regards ISIS and other murdering rogues as tools to an end, and that end is to destroy Assad and turn Syria into a rump state. The club’s members always falsely describe the situation in Syria as a civil war rather than what it truly is, an invasion of a peaceful land by the creatures of outside powers.
They freely admit ISIS is horrible, innumerable propaganda videos having established the fact for the public, but they make no move to do something genuine about it. They portray the only man who is doing something to help Syria’s brave army, Vladimir Putin, as some kind of evil figure with dreams of empire. There is a stream of propaganda and lies about everything Russia does, from its cruise missiles hitting Iran to its planes bombing hospitals, all offered with zero evidence.
Cameron’s every word on Syria is inappropriate. A British Prime Minister has no business pronouncing on the legitimacy of this or that government, especially one supported by the majority of the country’s people, clans, and armed forces. Cameron himself, posing as some cheap knock-off defender of democracy, positively Churchillian in his own eyes, enjoys the support of about 35% of British voters.
Assad’s government has fought bravely against monsters shipped in by Turkey and supplied by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and America for years now, while David Cameron sat back and pontificated.
Assad is not an angel, but he runs a state with tolerance for all religious groups in a region where that is not common, and he has often been generous in helping those badly hurt by the likes of David Cameron – for example, the millions of refugees created by the criminal invasion of Iraq. The reason Assad is hated by Cameron and his associates in “the club” is his independent-mindedness in not following Washington’s dictates. Cameron functions as a noisy little lap dog yapping and snapping at anyone ignoring his master, always in expectation of another approving stroke on the head. It truly is that simple, and all the rest we read and hear is just noisy propaganda.
Washington and Tel Aviv are determined to see Assad gone. And you must ask yourself why that should be a shared goal of the two most violent societies on earth today, each of them in a state of perpetual war and oppression of millions.
Yes, Turkey and Saudi Arabia hate Assad, too, but they mostly do as they are told by Washington.
And remember, one of those countries, Turkey, is run by a lunatic who assassinates journalists and any Kurdish person he can get his hands on, and the other, Saudi Arabia, is run by a senile absolute monarch who regularly cuts off heads and crucifies people and is conducting an illegal war in Yemen, killing civilians daily.
Those are the characters with which David Cameron shares his bed.
What is really at stake here is virtually never discussed in public: the right of countries to exist in peace without outside interference from aggressive states like America and Israel. The United Nations should be in the forefront of demanding just that, but it has been reduced to servility through internal manipulations and threats, especially threats of withholding American financial support as was done some years back. Ban Ki-moon is perhaps the most ineffectual Secretary General in memory, sometimes sounding like a pope enjoining peace with no one listening.
Britain’s bombing in Syria would be just plain old-fashioned aggression adding to that already being done by ISIS, al-Nusra, and other cutthroats. We don’t know what targets Cameron has in mind, but he simply has no business in the country, and we can be sure that if he were sincere about only attacking terrorists, Syria would have welcomed him in its desperate fight. Cameron just keeps repeating, like an unpleasant child who thinks repetition makes something so, that the government of Syria must go.
The government of Syria has not sought Britain’s help, and contrary to arrogant people like David Cameron, Syria does indeed have a government, as legitimate as most in the world.
The only people doing any bombing with the permission of the government are the Russians, and they are supporting the only people doing any real fighting, the Syrian army.
This is not a small point for all those concerned about the rule of law, which you might think would be a prime concern for those who claim they oppose terror.
It took centuries to establish some rule of law in international affairs, and today states like America and Israel and Turkey ignore it completely.
Good old David Cameron wants to join the mob, getting his bit of attention.
And it can’t have escaped Cameron’s attention how handsomely the war criminal, Tony Blair, has been rewarded for doing his dirty part in tearing apart Iraq. He has been showered with gold and sinecures.
Wouldn’t it be natural for Cameron to expect a bit of that for dropping bombs on Syria?
November 30, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Da’esh, David Cameron, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Syria, Turkey, UK, United States |
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US and British leaders love to invoke the concept of human rights when promoting their latest neoliberal crusade. UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s career has consisted almost entirely of this strategy: creating human rights propaganda, demonizing countries that assert their independence and justifying the next NATO bombing campaign.
One great example of the human rights hypocrisy of western leaders can be found in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Bahrain is not a democracy, but an autocratic monarchy. The constitution ensures members of the ruling Al-Khalifa family the final say on all matters. The country is rated by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other humanitarian and international legal organizations as one of the most repressive societies on earth. According to Human Rights Watch, “Torture is a regular part of the legal process in Bahrain.”
Half of Bahrain’s population are not citizens, and have no rights at all. Guest workers from the Philippines and Southeast Asia live as modern-day slaves. Even among the Bahraini citizens, there are conditions described in testimony to the US House of Representatives as similar to apartheid. Shia Muslims, who constitute a 70% majority of the country’s population, are routinely discriminated against.
In 2011, when people in Bahrain revolted as part of the Arab Spring, they were rounded up and tortured. After Saudi Arabia sent in its troops to defend the monarchy and put down the mass uprising demanding democracy, a number of Bahraini dissidents were “disappeared” and later killed without even a trial.
A Hotbed of Terrorism and Hate
The crimes of the Al-Khalifa family that rules Bahrain are not only domestic. Bahrain has a made a point of sending weapons and funding to anti-government fighters in Syria. As Syria grows more unstable, and ISIS has emerged, horrifying the world with its criminal acts of terrorism, the Bahraini autocracy continues to send weapons and money to jihadist groups.
Abdul Rahman al-Hamd, a leading influential Bahraini Salafist religious leader, relocated to Syria in 2013 in order to join anti-government terrorism. Members of the Bahraini parliament have very publicly delivered funds and money to armed Salafi terrorists in Syria on multiple occasions. It has been established that training camps for Salafi terrorist groups exist within Bahrain itself.
A significant number of Bahrainis are known to be members of ISIS. Abu Hamza al-Bahraini, a 23-year-old Bahraini also known as Ali Yusuf, very publicly participates in ISIS terrorism on social media. Social media has also widely circulated a photo of an ISIS flag being displayed at the largest mosque in Bahrain on the Islamic Holiday of Eid.
The repression of the majority Shia population in Bahrain, universally condemned by the world, is consistent with the Bahraini foreign policy of supporting Salafi terrorists. In Saudi Arabia and the aligned surrounding countries including Bahrain, children are taught to view Shia Islam as a “Jewish Conspiracy Against The King.” The jihadists in Syria, including the Al-Nusra Front and ISIS, call for slaughter of the “Shia apostates.”
Takfiri fighters, armed with weapons manufactured in the United States and supplied by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, and Jordan, openly intend to slaughter Shia Muslims. Many takfiri, Salafi, and Wahhabi fighters believe that if they kill seven Shias they will be guaranteed admission to paradise.
The primary ideological motivation for the amassing of takfiri terrorists in Syria is contempt for the country’s Alawite religious minority. Bashar Assad and many leading members of the ruling Baath Arab Socialist Party in Syria are Alawites. Takfiris, Wahhabis, and Salafis consider Alawites to be “Shia apostates” worthy of execution.
A Terror-Linked Apartheid Regime
The Kingdom of Bahrain hosts of the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy. When Baghdad was ripped to shreds with “shock and awe,” the cruise missiles were fired from aircraft carriers that had docked in Bahrain. The Pentagon’s forces of destruction, no longer officially operating within the borders of Saudi Arabia, are stationed in the tiny Kingdom of Bahrain.
The British Navy has announced that it is also setting up shop in the terrorism-linked autocracy. Soon, the US Fifth Fleet will be joined by a division of Her Majesty’s Navy.
Extremely anti-democratic practices, hatred and repression of Shia Muslims, and violent terrorism are not things that western leaders proclaim to believe in. As they seek to isolate and attack countries like Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, People’s Korea, China, Russia, and Iran, they pretend to be believers in “freedom,” “human rights,” and “equality.” Furthermore, they claim to be fighting a “war against terrorism,” and seek to protect their citizens and the world from the menace of takfiri terrorists like ISIS.
However, western leaders have done everything they can to prop up the terrorism supporting the repressive, autocratic, apartheid regime in Bahrain.
Consider these facts the next time you see western leaders on TV, lecturing the world about human rights and terrorism.
Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College.
November 29, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Bahrain, Human rights, ISIS, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK, United States |
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National Demonstration
12 noon – 2pm | Downing Street | London
Protests will take place this Saturday around the country against the imminent threat of bombing of Syria by British forces. This is in response to the proposed vote in Parliament by David Cameron which is likely to take place within the next week. The vote is more likely following the terrible events in Paris. Yet this bombing will not stop terror attacks.
Stop the War is opposed to this military response. There is already bombing in Syria, conducted by the US and French forces. Its net effect has not been to weaken ISIS. The cumulative effect of 14 years of western bombing in the region has been to increase the scale and spread of jihadi terrorism.
When Russian bombing of Syria began, nearly two months ago, David Cameron and Barack Obama warned that it would be counter productive, increase the threat of terrorism and create instability in the region.
Exactly the same applies to UK and any other bombing.
The London protest will be at Downing Street on Saturday 28 November between 12 and 2pm.
Details of action in over 30 cities and towns nationwide…
November 27, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | UK |
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Whether it’s the color of his tie, his suit – or shell suit – his beard, his position on Trident or airstrikes in Syria, the Labour party’s new leader Jeremy Corbyn has been “systematically” undermined by the British press.
New research by the Media Reform Coalition found there was a “barrage of overwhelmingly negative coverage” written about him.
Sixty percent of the total number of articles written about him, including comment pieces and editorials, were negative, A mere 13 percent of articles on Corbyn were written in a positive manner. Just 27 percent offered a neutral position on the man voted to lead the Labour party.
Further scrutiny of individual papers by the Media Reform Coalition revealed that in the Sun and the Sun on Sunday, one of Britain’s most popular right leaning publications, 32 out of 36 news stories about Corbyn were negative. In the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, 50 of the 52 news stories were negative.
One hundred percent of the editorials in the Sun, Mail and Express didn’t say anything nice or positive about the Labour leader.
“Let’s not forget that Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of this country’s main opposition party by 250,000 people, which is 100,000 more than the number of people who elected David Cameron as leader of the Conservatives,” Dr Justin Schlosberg, chair of the Media Reform Coalition said.
November 27, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Jeremy Corbyn, UK |
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UK Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a political crisis after calling for support for airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, but failing to gain the support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who has now caused a major rift in the opposition.
Cameron told lawmakers in London Thursday that Britain should join a coalition of forces in airstrikes against ISIL in Syria. The country is already bombing ISIL in neighboring Iraq, but Cameron needs a mandate from parliament to extend the operations into Syria.
The issue is politically sensitive as Cameron lost a vote to launch airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013, with cost him political value. This time around — in a vote on bombing Assad’s enemies — he cannot afford to lose political face again.
However, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has indicated that it will vote against action in Syria and Cameron needs the support of the Labour opposition to confirm his policy. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — who has long been an anti-war campaigner — has written to his party lawmakers telling them he cannot support airstrikes in Syria.
The move has caused chaos within his party, with many members supporting airstrikes against ISIL. If Corbyn exercises his leadership right to demand all his lawmakers follow his lead — in what is known as a three-line whip — he stands to face a mass revolt in his party, which could force a leadership challenge, which would throw the party into chaos.
If — on the other hand — he allows his lawmakers a free vote, then he would remain leader of his party, and lawmakers would be allowed to vote whichever way they wish. Either way, Corbyn’s leadership will have been damaged.
Lesson Not Learned From Iraq
Cameron has other headaches too. Public opinion was strongly against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and there are many who believe the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein was based on flawed intelligence, with some — including Corbyn — believing the invasion was illegal.
The Chilcot Inquiry into the reasons for going to war, and its aftermath, has yet to be published and there are many lawmakers who believe its findings will be critical of the invasion because it lacked any exit strategy for Iraq, which has been plunged into civil war ever since. Few want to repeat the mistakes in Syria and are calling for an exit strategy and a strong commitment to support a rebuilding of the country following any invasion to erase ISIL.
If Cameron fails to gain a parliamentary majority on a vote — due next week — over bombing in Syria, he will be politically damaged among his NATO allies, leaving him out in the cold on the global stage. He is also facing calls for the UK not to put itself further at risk than it already is from reprisal terrorist attacks.
Others believe bombing in Syria will play into the hands of ISIL. Jürgen Todenhöfer, the German politician and journalist who, in 2014, spent time with ISIL in both Iraq and Syria, wrote in the Guardian :
“A bombing strategy will above all hit Syria’s population. This will fill ISIL fighters with joy.”
With Corbyn’s party in disarray, the SNP set to vote against bombing and his political worth on the line, Cameron is facing a difficult time in the week ahead and can only hope public opinion in the wake of the Paris attacks on November 13 can save him.
November 27, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | Jeremy Corbyn, Scottish National Party, SNP, Syria, UK |
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Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian jet today shows the utter desperation currently sweeping through the regime change camp as Russia closes in on the death squads in Syria – and does so with massive international support.
At 9.30am on Tuesday morning, a Russian SU-24 jet was shot down by Turkish fighter planes. Its pilots were then allegedly killed by Syrian Turkmen anti-government militias, with the body of one paraded on camera in a video that was immediately posted on youtube. Turkey claimed the jet had encroached on Turkish airspace, but Russia maintains the plane was shot down well inside Syrian territory, 4km from the Turkish border. Rather than calling Russia to defuse any tension arising from the attack, Turkey then immediately called an emergency NATO meeting to ramp it up – “as if we shot down their plane”, Putin commented, “and not they ours”.
To make sense of this apparently senseless provocation, it is necessary to cut through the multiple layers of obfuscation which surround Western narratives around Syria and ISIS. The reality is that the forces essentially line up today just as they did at the outbreak of this crisis in 2011: with the West, Turkey and the gulf monarchies sponsoring an array of death squads bent on bringing down the Syrian government; and Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria (obviously) and Hezbollah resisting this project; the rise of ISIS has not fundamentally changed this underlying dynamic. Indeed, the next-to-useless impact of the West’s year-long phony war against ISIS – alongside its relentless funneling of weaponry to militias with an, at best, ambiguous relationship with Al Qaeda and ISIS – has demonstrated that the Syrian state (or “Assad” to use the West’s puerile personalization) remains the ultimate target of the West’s Syria policy. As Obama himself put it, the goal is not to eliminate ISIS, but rather to “contain” them – that is, keep them focused on weakening Syria and Iraq, and not US allies like Jordan, Turkey or the US’s favoured Kurdish factions. In civil wars, there are only ever really two sides: those who want the insurgency to overthrow the government, and those who want the government to defeat the insurgency. In the Syrian civil war, NATO remains on the same side as ISIS. In this sense, Putin is entirely correct when he commented on the Turkish attack it was a “stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists” and asked: “do they want to make NATO serve ISIS?”
Russia’s direct entry into the Syrian conflict two months ago, however, has caused utter panic in the ‘regime change’ camp. Belying all their ‘anti-ISIS’ rhetoric, the US and Britain were openly horrified that Russia might actually be putting up an effective fight against the group and restoring governmental authority to the ungoverned spaces in which it thrives. Immediately, the West began warning of ‘blowback’ to Russia, and ramping up advanced arms shipments to the insurgency. Within a month, a Russian passenger plane was blown up, with ISIS claiming responsibility and British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond calling the attack a “warning shot”. It was a “shot” alright, aimed not only at Russia, but also at her allies; the downing of the plane on Egyptian soil was a deliberate act of economic war against the Egyptian tourist industry, a punishment for Egypt’s support for Russia and Syria and its choking off of fighters to Syria since Sisi came to power. Then, two weeks later, came the attack on Paris. White supremacist niceties prevented Hammond calling that a “warning shot”, but that is precisely what it was, this time at those within the regime change/ anti-Russia camp who were showing signs of ‘wobbling’. Hollande had suggested back in January that sanctions on Russia should be lifted asap, and more recently had showed a willingness to cooperate with Russia militarily over Syria: a ‘red line’ for France’s ‘Atlantic partners’. This is what France was being punished for.
Nevertheless, the net continues to close on the West’s death squad project in Syria. From the start the key to ISIS success has been, firstly, the porous Syria-Turkey border, through which Turkey has allowed a free flow of fighters and weapons back and forth for the past four years, and secondly, the massive amounts of finance ISIS receives both from oil sales and from donors in countries prepared to turn a blind eye to terror financing. In recent weeks, all of this has been threatened by the Russian-led alliance (of which France is increasingly willing to be a part).
The past week has seen a large scale Syrian ground offensive, supported with Russian air cover, in precisely the Syrian-Turkish border region which is the death squads’ lifeline: a move which prompted the Turkish foreign ministry to warn of “serious consequences” if the Russian airstrikes continued. Simultaneously, Russia has embarked on a major campaign against ISIS’ reportedly 1,000-strong oil tanker fleet which is so crucial to the group’s financial success. As the Institute for the Study of War reported, “Russian military chief of staff Col. Gen. Andrey Kartapolov announced on November 18 “Russian warplanes are now flying on a free hunt” against ISIS-operated oil tanker trucks traveling back and forth from Syria and Iraq, claiming that Russian strikes had destroyed over 500 ISIS-operated oil trucks in the past “several days.”” This massive dent in the group’s oil transporting capacity even shamed the US into belatedly and somewhat half-heartedly launching similar attacks of their own. The smashing of ISIS’ oil industry will not only be a blow to the entire death squad project, but will directly affect Turkey, widely thought to be involved in the transportation of ISIS-produced oil, and even Erdogan’s family itself, as it is the company run by his son Bilal that is believed to be running the illicit trade.
Finally, France yesterday announced a crackdown on ISIS’ financiers, and demanded other countries do the same. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin implied that the report to the G20 on the issue last month was a whitewash, and demanded that the international Financial Action Task Force be much more explicit in its report to the next G20 finance meeting in February about which countries are lax in terms of terror financing. The move is very likely to expose not only Turkey and Saudi Arabia but also, given HSBC’s links to Al Qaeda, the City of London. Indeed, as the Politico website noted, Sapin specifically “said that considering the reputation of the City of London, he would be “vigilant” on the U.K.’s implementation of EU-agreed measures to clamp down on money laundering and exchange financial information on shady transactions or individuals”.The reactions to his demands that implementation of tougher EU regulations be moved forward will also be instructive (in another move exposing the total lack of urgency in the West’s supposed ‘war on ISIS’, they are currently not due to be implemented for another two years).
And on top of all this, the UN Security Council finally passed a resolution authorizing ‘all necessary measures’ to be used against ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, effectively granting UN approval to Russia’s intervention. As Pepe Escobar has pointed out, French support for the resolution rendered it politically impossible for the US or UK to use their veto – although US ambassador Samantha Power, an extreme Russophobe and ‘regime changer’, registered her disapproval by failing to turn up for the vote and sending a junior official along instead.
In other words, on all sides the net is closing in on the West’s death squad project in Syria. Turkey’s actions today have merely demonstrated, again, the impotent rage of those who have thrown in their chips with a disastrous and bloody attempt to remake the Middle East. Syria is indeed becoming the Stalingrad of the regime changers – the rock on which the imperial folly of the West and it’s regional imitators may finally be broken.
November 26, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, War Crimes | al-Qaeda, France, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, NATO, Russia, Syria, Turkey, UK, United States |
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The war drums are getting louder in the aftermath of ISIS attacks in Paris, as Western countries gear up to launch further airstrikes in Syria. But obscured in the fine print of countless resolutions and media headlines is this: the West has no legal basis for military intervention. Their strikes are illegal.
“It is always preferable in these circumstances to have the full backing of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) but I have to say what matters most of all is that any actions we would take would… be legal,” explained UK Prime Minister David Cameron to the House of Commons last Wednesday.
Legal? No, there’s not a scrap of evidence that UK airstrikes would be lawful in their current incarnation.
Then just two days later, on Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2249, aimed at rallying the world behind the fairly obvious notion that ISIS is an “unprecedented threat to international peace and security.”
“It’s a call to action to member states that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures against (ISIS) and other terrorist groups,” British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters.
The phrase “all necessary measures” was broadly interpreted – if not explicitly sanctioning the “use of force” in Syria, then as a wink to it.
Let’s examine the pertinent language of UNSCR 2249:
The resolution “calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter…on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq.”
Note that the resolution demands “compliance with international law, in particular with the UN Charter.” This is probably the most significant explainer to the “all necessary measures” phrase. Use of force is one of the most difficult things for the UNSC to sanction – it is a last resort measure, and a rare one. The lack of Chapter 7 language in the resolution pretty much means that ‘use of force’ is not on the menu unless states have other means to wrangle “compliance with international law.”
What you need to know about international law
It is important to understand that the United Nations was set up in the aftermath of World War 2 expressly to prevent war and to regulate and inhibit the use of force in settling disputes among its member states. This is the UN’s big function – to “maintain international peace and security,” as enshrined in the UN Charter’s very first article.
There are a lot of laws that seek to govern and prevent wars, but the Western nations looking to launch airstrikes in Syria have made things easy for us – they have cited the law that they believe justifies their military intervention: specifically, Article 51 of the UN Charter. It reads, in part:
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
So doesn’t France, for instance, enjoy the inherent right to bomb ISIS targets in Syria as an act of self-defense – in order to prevent further attacks?
And don’t members of the US-led coalition, who cite the “collective self-defense” of Iraq (the Iraqi government has formally made this request), have the right to prevent further ISIS attacks from Syrian territory into Iraqi areas?
Well, no. Article 51, as conceived in the UN Charter, refers to attacks between territorial states, not with non-state actors like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Syria, after all, did not attack France or Iraq – or Turkey, Australia, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.
And here’s where it gets interesting.
Western leaders are employing two distinct strategies to obfuscate the lack of legal justification for intervention in Syria. The first is the use of propaganda to build narratives about Syria that support their legal argumentation. The second is a shrewd effort to cite legal “theory” as a means to ‘stretch’ existing law into a shape that supports their objectives.
The “Unwilling and Unable” Theory – the “Unable” argument
The unwilling and unable theory – as related to the Syria/ISIS situation – essentially argues that the Syrian state is both unwilling and unable to target the non-state actor based within its territory (ISIS, in this case) that poses a threat to another state.
Let’s break this down further.
Ostensibly, Syria is ‘unable’ to sufficiently degrade or destroy ISIS because, as we can clearly see, ISIS controls a significant amount of territory within Syria’s borders that its national army has not been able to reclaim.
This made some sense – until September 30 when Russia entered the Syrian military theater and began to launch widespread airstrikes against terrorist targets inside Syria.
As a major global military power, Russia is clearly ‘able’ to thwart ISIS –certainly just as well as most of the Western NATO states participating in airstrikes already. Moreover, as Russia is operating there due to a direct Syrian government appeal for assistance, the Russian military role in Syria is perfectly legal.
This development struck a blow at the US-led coalition’s legal justification for strikes in Syria. Not that the coalition’s actions were ever legal – “unwilling and unable” is merely a theory and has no basis in customary international law.
About this new Russian role, Major Patrick Walsh, associate professor in the International and Operational Law Department at the US Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Virginia, says:
“The United States and others who are acting in collective defense of Iraq and Turkey are in a precarious position. The international community is calling on Russia to stop attacking rebel groups and start attacking ISIS. But if Russia does, and if the Assad government commits to preventing ISIS from attacking Syria’s neighbors and delivers on that commitment, then the unwilling or unable theory for intervention in Syria would no longer apply. Nations would be unable to legally intervene inside Syria against ISIS without the Assad government’s consent.”
In recent weeks, the Russians have made ISIS the target of many of its airstrikes, and are day by day improving coordination efficiency with the ground troops and air force of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies -Iran, Hezbollah and other foreign groups who are also in Syria legally, at the invitation of the Syrian state.
Certainly, the balance of power on the ground in Syria has started to shift away from militants and terrorist groups since Russia launched its campaign seven weeks ago – much more than we have seen in a year of coalition strikes.
The “Unwilling and Unable” Theory – the “Unwilling” argument
Now for the ‘unwilling’ part of the theory. And this is where the role of Western governments in seeding ‘propaganda’ comes into play.
The US and its allies have been arguing for the past few years that the Syrian government is either in cahoots with ISIS, benefits from ISIS’ existence, or is a major recruiting magnet for the terror group.
Western media, in particular, has made a point of underplaying the SAA’s military confrontations with ISIS, often suggesting that the government actively avoids ISIS-controlled areas.
The net result of this narrative has been to convey the message that the Syrian government has been ‘unwilling’ to diminish the terror group’s base within the country.
But is this true?
ISIS was born from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in April, 2013 when the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a short-lived union of ISI and Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, Jabhat al-Nusra. Armed militants in Syria have switched around their militia allegiances many times throughout this conflict, so it would be disingenuous to suggest the Syrian army has not fought each and every one of these groups at some point since early 2011.
If ISIS was viewed as a ‘neglected’ target at any juncture, it has been mainly because the terror group was focused on land grabs for its “Caliphate” in the largely barren north-east areas of the country – away from the congested urban centers and infrastructure hubs that have defined the SAA’s military priorities.
But ISIS has always remained a fixture in the SAA’s sights. The Syrian army has fought or targeted ISIS, specifically, in dozens of battlefields since the organization’s inception, and continues to do so. In Deir Hafer Plains, Mennagh, Kuweires, Tal Arn, al-Safira, Tal Hasel and the Aleppo Industrial District. In the suburbs and countryside of Damascus – most famously in Yarmouk this year – where the SAA and its allies thwarted ISIS’ advance into the capital city. In the Qalamun mountains, in Christian Qara and Faleeta. In Deir Ezzor, where ISIS would join forces with the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA): al-Husseiniyeh, Hatla, Sakr Island, al-Hamadiyah, al-Rashidiyah, al-Jubeileh, Sheikh Yasseen, Mohassan, al-Kanamat, al-Sina’a, al-Amal, al-Haweeqa, al-Ayyash, the Ghassan Aboud neighborhood, al-Tayyim Oil Fields and the Deir ez-Zor military airport. In Hasakah Province – Hasakah city itself, al-Qamishli, Regiment 121 and its environs, the Kawkab and Abdel-Aziz Mountains. In Raqqa, the Islamic State’s capital in Syria, the SAA combatted ISIS in Division 17, Brigade 93 and Tabaqa Airbase. In Hama Province, the entire al-Salamiyah District – Ithriyah, Sheikh Hajar, Khanasser. In the province of Homs, the eastern countryside: Palmyra, Sukaneh, Quraytayn, Mahin, Sadad, Jubb al-Ahmar, the T-4 Airbase and the Iraqi border crossing. In Suweida, the northern countryside.
If anything, the Russian intervention has assisted the Syrian state in going on the offensive against ISIS and other like-minded terror groups. Before Russia moved in, the SAA was hunkering down in and around key strategic areas to protect these hubs. Today, Syria and its allies are hitting targets by land and air in the kinds of coordinated offensives we have not seen before.
Seeding ‘propaganda’
The role of propaganda and carefully manipulated narratives should not be underestimated in laying the groundwork for foreign military intervention in Syria.
From “the dictator is killing his own people” to the “regime is using chemical weapons” to the need to establish “No Fly Zones” to safeguard “refugees fleeing Assad”… propaganda has been liberally used to build the justification for foreign military intervention.
Article 2 of the UN Charter states, in part:
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
It’s hard to see how Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity has not been systematically violated throughout the nearly five years of this conflict, by the very states that make up the US-led coalition. The US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and other nations have poured weapons, funds, troops and assistance into undermining a UN member state at every turn.
“Legitimacy” is the essential foundation upon which governance rests. Vilify a sitting government, shut down multiple embassies, isolate a regime in international forums, and you can destroy the fragile veneer of legitimacy of a king, president or prime minister.
But efforts to delegitimize the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have also served to lay the groundwork for coalition airstrikes in Syria.
If Assad is viewed to lack “legitimacy,” the coalition creates the impression that there is no real government from which it can gain the necessary authority to launch its airstrikes.
This mere ‘impression’ provided the pretext for Washington to announce it was sending 50 Special Forces troops into Syria, as though the US wasn’t violating every tenet of international law in doing so. “It’s okay – there’s no real government there,” we are convinced.
Media reports repeatedly highlight the ‘percentages’ of territory outside the grasp of Syrian government forces – this too serves a purpose. One of the essentials of a state is that it consists of territory over which it governs.
If only 50 percent of Syria is under government control, the argument goes, “then surely we can just walk into the other ‘ungoverned’ parts” – as when US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and US Senator John McCain just strolled illegally across the border of the sovereign Syrian state.
Sweep aside these ‘impressions’ and bury them well. The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is viewed by the United Nations as the only legitimate government in Syria. Every official UN interaction with the state is directed at this government. The Syrian seat at the UN is occupied by Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari, a representative of Assad’s government. It doesn’t matter how many Syrian embassies in how many capitals are shut down – or how many governments-in-exile are established. The UN only recognizes one.
As one UN official told me in private: “Control of surface territory doesn’t count. The government of Kuwait when its entire territory was occupied by Iraq – and it was in exile – was still the legitimate government of Kuwait. The Syrian government could have 10 percent of its surface left – the decision of the UN Security Council is all that matters from the perspective of international law, even if other governments recognize a new Syrian government.”
Countdown to more illegal airstrikes?
If there was any lingering doubt about the illegality of coalition activities in Syria, the Syrian government put these to rest in September, in two letters to the UNSC that denounced foreign airstrikes as unlawful:
“If any State invokes the excuse of counter-terrorism in order to be present on Syrian territory without the consent of the Syrian Government whether on the country’s land or in its airspace or territorial waters, its action shall be considered a violation of Syrian sovereignty.”
Yet still, upon the adoption of UNSC Resolution 2249 last Friday, US Deputy Representative to the United Nations Michele Sison insisted that “in accordance with the UN Charter and its recognition of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense,” the US would use “necessary and proportionate military action” in Syria.
The website for the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) promptly pointed out the obvious:
“The resolution is worded so as to suggest there is Security Council support for the use of force against IS. However, though the resolution, and the unanimity with which it was adopted, might confer a degree of legitimacy on actions against IS, the resolution does not actually authorize any actions against IS, nor does it provide a legal basis for the use of force against IS either in Syria or in Iraq.”
On Thursday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron plans to unveil his new “comprehensive strategy” to tackle ISIS, which we are told will include launching airstrikes in Syria.
We already know the legal pretext he will spin – “unwilling and unable,” Article 51, UN Charter, individual and collective self-defense, and so forth.
But if Cameron’s September 7 comments at the House of Commons are any indication, he will use the following logic to argue that the UK has no other choice than to resort to ‘use of force’ in Syria. In response to questions about two illegal drone attacks targeting British nationals in Syria, the prime minister emphasized:
“These people were in a part of Syria where there was no government, no one to work with, and no other way of addressing this threat… When we are dealing with people in ISIL-dominated Syria—there is no government, there are no troops on the ground—there is no other way of dealing with them than the route that we took.”
But Cameron does have another route available to him – and it is the only ‘legal’ option for military involvement in Syria.
If the UK’s intention is solely to degrade and destroy ISIS, then it must request authorization from the Syrian government to participate in a coordinated military campaign that could help speed up the task.
If Western (and allied Arab) leaders can’t stomach dealing with the Assad government on this issue, then by all means work through an intermediary – like the Russians – who can coordinate and authorize military operations on behalf of their Syrian ally.
The Syrian government has said on multiple occasions that it welcomes sincere international efforts to fight terrorism inside its territory. But these efforts must come under the direction of a central legal authority that can lead a broad campaign on the ground and in the air.
The West argues that, unlike in Iraq, it seeks to maintain the institutions of the Syrian state if Assad were to step down. The SAA is one of these ‘institutions’ – why not coordinate with it now?
But after seven weeks of Russian airstrikes coordinated with extensive ground troops (which the coalition lacks), none of these scenarios may even be warranted. ISIS and other extremist groups have lost ground in recent weeks, and if this trend continues, coalition states should fall back and focus on other key ISIS-busting activities referenced in UNSCR 2249 – squeezing terror financing, locking down key borders, sharing intelligence…”all necessary measures” to destroy this group.
If the ‘international community’ wants to return ‘peace and stability’ to the Syrian state, it seems prudent to point out that its very first course of action should be to stop breaking international law in Syria.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani
November 25, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | Cameron, Da’esh, France, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UAE, UK |
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Prime Minister David Cameron must examine financial links between UK-allied Gulf regimes and terror groups, or risk facing awkward questions about Conservative Party links to “rich Arab Gulf individuals,” says former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown.
Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine program on Tuesday, Ashdown – who is also a former soldier and has served as an ambassador to Afghanistan and Bosnia – said he is deeply concerned about how terrorism and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) are being funded, and the UK government’s response to this.
“Who is arming ISIS, who is providing safe havens for ISIS? To get there you have to ask questions about the arms everyone’s sold in the region, the role of Saudi Arabia in this. I think there are some very big questions and we have to be careful,” Ashdown said.
He said there had been a “failure to put pressure on the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to stop funding the Salafists and Wahhabists,” and said he is worried “about the closeness of the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.”
He hinted the strategic priorities of the UK in Syria are the wrong way around. “I think we should be impatient about the removal of ISIL and I think we should be more patient about the removal of Assad.”
Ashdown’s calls for a proper investigation into terror funding by the West’s Arab allies echo, to some extent, those of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking to the House of Commons last Wednesday, the Labour leader urged Parliament to take more action to clamp down on institutions which provide “vital infrastructure” to the terror group in Syria and Iraq.
Corbyn said one of the main ways to stop IS from functioning is to cut off its resources, suggesting the EU would also need to play a part in suffocating the organization.
“Surely a crucial way to help defeat ISIL is to cut off its funding, its supply of arms, and its trade,” Corbyn said during prime minister’s questions (PMQs).
“Can I press the prime minister to ensure that our allies in the region, indeed all countries in the region, are doing all they can to clamp down on individuals and institutions in their countries who are providing ISIL with vital infrastructure?”
November 24, 2015
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | ISIL, ISIS, Jeremy Corbyn, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UK |
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From the horse’s mouth: For fear of upsetting readers, the paper silenced any commentary in the first days after the Paris attacks that might have suggested there was a causal relationship between western foreign policy in the Middle East and those events.
Instead, writes the Guardian reader’s editor Chris Elliott, the paper waited several days before giving some limited space to that viewpoint:
On the Opinion pages, one factor taken into consideration was timing – judging when readers would be willing to engage with an idea that in the first 24 hours after the attacks may have jarred. The idea that these horrific attacks have causes and that one of those causes may be the west’s policies is something that in the immediate aftermath might inspire anger. Three days later, it’s a point of view that should be heard.
In other words, the liberal Guardian held off offering a counter-narrative about the attacks, and a deeply plausible one at that, until popular opinion had hardened into a consensus manipulated by the rightwing media: “the terrorists hate us for our freedoms”, “we need to bomb them even harder”, “Islam is a religion of hatred” etc.
Excluding legitimate analyses of profoundly important events like those in Paris when they are most needed is not responsible, careful journalism. It is dangerous cowardice. It is most definitely not a politically neutral position. It provides room for hatred and bigotry to take root, and allows political elites to exploit those debased emotions to justify and advance their own, invariably destructive foreign policy agendas.
In the paragraph above, Elliott happily concedes that this is the default position of mainstream liberal media like the Guardian.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/23/what-we-got-right-and-wrong-in-coverage-of-the-paris-attacks
November 23, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Guardian, UK |
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It was with a sense of optimism tinged with experience that I sat down to listen to BBC Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin’s first of his three part series on the climate timed to coincide with forthcoming Paris talks. I know how such programmes are put together, how interviews are solicited, conducted, edited and juxtaposed to form a narrative. I also know the subjectivity involved.
At the start we get an American politician who doesn’t believe that mankind has any influence on the climate and who is also a creationist. Her inclusion concatenated climate change “sceptism” with a denial of evolution. There was no need to have her in the programme at its start except to place in the listener’s minds such an association, which was not shared by anyone else in the programme.
Near the beginning of the programme Roger Harrabin said; “Out and out rejection of climate science has mostly passed.” This is a straw man. In reality, only a very few rejected climate science, and they were regarded by most who took an interest in climate science as being eccentric, irrelevant and wrong. Their importance was often exaggerated as many in the media paraded them as being representative of the “sceptic” movement. For many years anyone who was regarded as having non-mainstream views (often arbitrarily judged) was obliged to go through the ritual of admitting that the world has warmed, that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas and that mankind was responsible for the carbon dioxide increase, despite these being commonly accepted and not part of the real debate. A few years ago the presenter on a BBC TV programme introduced Lord Lawson and added that for the purposes of the discussion they are all assuming that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas! Thankfully that loaded question had been assigned to the past until Roger Harrabin’s programme that is when Matt Ridley went through this credo.
Matt Ridley is described as a lukewarmer in that he favours the lower end of estimate of transient climate response, TCR (1.5°C – 4.0°C). There is nothing unusual in holding that view as it is held by many “mainstream” climate scientists. So much so that the IPCC reduced the lower bound of TCR from 2.0°C to 1.5°C in response to debates about TCR in the scientific and “sceptic” community.
Later in the programme another contributor introduced another illogical twist. She said she prefers “lukewarmist to climate denial,” as if there was a choice between the two. The implication is that deniers have become lukewarmists which is absurd. Roger Harrabin says Ridley now finds himself inside the IPCC’s big tent but misses the point that it was the IPCC that changed. Interesting isn’t it, Matt Ridley is still a lukewarmer, and not acknowledged as being within the mainstream even when Ridley’s views agree with the IPCC (the epitome of “mainstream” science opinion and “consensus”). Being a “sceptic” or a “lukewarmer” seems to be more about where you come from than the scientific views you hold.
Stubborn, Simplistic
It was also said that the debate about climate science has moved on from the stubborn and simplistic and onto what to do about it. Again, this is incorrect. The main motivation for scientists and “sceptics” is to find out what is exactly going on, and as we find out more we realise that some of we thought was wrong and that there is so much more we don’t know. For example, today we have a different view of decadal climatic variations compared to forced variations than we did a decade ago, and improving our understanding of such variations is essential to contemplating what to do. If anyone thinks the debate has been “stubborn and simplistic” they are mistaken.
Then we have a nice example of doublespeak. A professor states an opinion about climate science and then says there is too much uncertainty to decide if his opinion is correct! Another point is that lukewarmers do not, as a whole, say that the “pause” in annual average surface temperature is because we exaggerated the heating effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Another contributor was irked by the “media focus” on the “pause.” Presumably she is also somewhat irritated by those scientists who are constantly coming up with explanations for it, more than 35 at my last count, most of which are unreported by the media. She adds that she always knew it would rise in fits and starts so perhaps the real problem was that there was not enough media focus on this in the 1990′s when the world warmed fairly rapidly!
Then we have reference to the loss of sea ice in the Arctic referring to the 2007 low. Perhaps the contributor and the programme’s editor is unaware with what has been happening to Arctic ice cover in the past few years?
Roger Harrabin then talks of those suffering from extreme weather events after the 1°C increase already experienced. This is a controversial area in the journals but is also a subject on which the IPCC has already proclaimed: There is no increase in extreme weather events as a result of climate change.
Roger Harrabin concluded the programme by saying that the world’s warming is largely driven by humans. Yet the IPCC AR5 says; “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.”
The observed warming since 1950 is about half of the warming observed since pre-industrial times so without mentioning timescales Roger Harrabin’s statement is misleading. It seems that one can refer to post-1950 or pre-industrial periods without qualification to get a good quote.
Thus at the end Roger Harrabin abandons mainstream science and consensus altogether in a programme supposed to be about the science of climate change. Overall the broadcast was an intellectual shambles. It is a rewriting of history worthy of the reporting of the war between Oceania and Eurasia.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.com
November 23, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | BBC, UK |
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Leader of UK opposition Labour Party Jermey Corbyn has once against warned against British military action in Syria, saying that negotiated settlement is the best way to resolve the crisis in the Arab country.
“The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us – while leaving death and destabilisation in their wake… It is the conflict in Syria and the consequences of the Iraq war which have created the conditions for Isis to thrive and spread its murderous rule,” Corbyn said in a speech to Labour activists in Bristol.
He also slammed Britain’s involvement in “a succession of disastrous wars that have brought devastation to large parts of the wider Middle East,” saying such intervention has made the UK less secure from attack.
Corbyn also pointed to the recent terror attacks in Paris and said there should be a “negotiated settlement” rather than military action to tackle the crisis in the country.
His comments have already sparked a backlash from Labour Party MPs.
Jeremy Corbyn is seen as a long-standing opponent to the Western wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Meanwhile, a London-based political commentator says any possible UK intervention in Syria will increase the number of refugees and deepen the crisis in the Arab country.
Chris Bambery says such an intervention will simply strengthen the ISIL.
“Any further Western intervention will only add to the chaos which Western intervention has [already] caused and the beneficiary of that chaos is ISIS. ISIS wants the Western intervention,” Chris Bambery told Press TV.
November 22, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Afghanistan, Iraq, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, Middle East, Syria, UK |
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British Prime Minister David Cameron said earlier this week he would prefer to have UN backing for UK military operations in Syria, but added he feared Russia would use its veto power to block a UN resolution.
Britain should start a dialogue with the UN Security Council on its plan to extend UK airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq to Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
“If it [UK] wants to push its ideas through the Security Council it should… give an order to its ambassador at the United Nations to start consultations, including with Russia,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
She stressed that Russia had never vetoed “sensible” initiatives as long as they conformed with international laws, but warned that the UK’s operation in Syria should not seek to “destroy Syria’s sovereignty.”
UK media cited Cameron as saying in the parliament on Wednesday that the UN Security Council’s endorsement was not vital for the UK’s operation that would still be legal and would help the government protect its citizens.
November 21, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Russia, Syria, UK |
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