This article writes about changes in attitudes to Syria, in the foreign media and in a former 'pro-revolutionary' reporting source from within Syria.
On Sunday 2 June, 2013, on the 8pm French news on France2, there was a change in reporting on Syria. Prior to this French reporting had been as counter-Assad as Australia's.
Here is a link to the original news video. The Maria Saadeh interview starts at about 15.10 minutes in.
This report of June 2 showed how the people of Damascus were continuing to do business and enjoy recreation due to the protection of the Syrian army, which was providing them with remarkable safety in the interior of Syria's capital.
The road out of Damascus was not choked with refugees fleeing the city. Showing the reporter around Damascus was Marie Saadeh, a French-speaking mother of a family and former independent member of parliament who said that when in parliament she had been able to criticise the government.
She asked, "Why do France and Europe give support to the opposition and arm rebel groups?"
French reporter, Renaud Bernard, said, "Because they believe that the Syrian government is doing the same thing against its people, shooting its people, and torturing its people."
The ex-MP shakes her head in disbelief and disagreement. "Monsieur, there is a government and a state."
Renaud Bernard gave his impression: The Syrians are wondering why France and Europe are abandoning them and supporting their attackers. They wonder why the world is not helping Syria to survive as the last secular Arab state in the region. They are not fleeing the country because they are relying on the government to defend it. They are united by the war in support of the government (headed by Assad) and rely on the government to support them.
In other words, they prefer a stable government to a revolution or the state of chaos that masquerades as the promise of a revolution.
Edward Dark on Al-Monitor wonders why they threw peace away
There is an interesting article called "How we lost the Syrian Revolution," posted by Edward Dark on 28 May at Al-Monitor. Edward Dark is better known as a middle-class sympathiser with the 'revolution', but in this article he says,
"Away from all the agendas, whitewashing, propaganda, and outright lies of the global media stations, what we saw on the ground when the rebel fighters entered Aleppo was a far different reality. It hit home hard. It was a shock, especially to those of us who had supported and believed in the uprising all along. It was the ultimate betrayal."
[...]But why was this so? Why were they doing it? It became apparent soon enough, that it was simply a case of us versus them. They were the underprivileged rural class who took up arms and stormed the city, and they were out for revenge against the perceived injustices of years past.[...]
[...] Over the course of our activist work, some of our group were jailed and injured, one was even killed. That is why it never hit home so hard, and never have I felt as sad as when, shortly after Aleppo was raided by the rebels, I received messages from some of those people I used to work with. One said, “How could we have been so stupid? We were betrayed!” and another said, “Tell your children someday that we once had a beautiful country, but we destroyed it because of our ignorance and hatred."
It was around about that time that I gave up on the revolution, such as it had become, and saw that the only way to Syria’s salvation was through reconciliation and a renunciation of violence. Many felt this way, too. Unfortunately, that is not a view shared by the warmongers and power brokers who still think that more Syrian blood should be spilled to appease the insatiable appetites of their sordid aspirations.[...]
In an interview on the 4 Corners program, The Battle For Syria, on 4 October 2012, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said to Kerry O'Brien, "... perhaps an assassination ... is what is required ... ."
Carr's support for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is consistent with allegations that for 40 years he was an agent of the United States Government within the Australian Labor Party. His relationship with the CIA is the subject of Bob Carr: Washington's man in Australia in the Melbourne Age of 8 April 2013 and the article, by Murray Hunter, Is Bob Carr a spy? of 11 April 2013 in the Independent Australian, which cites evidence from the Age article and which we republish below. The US, which Carr uncritically supports, has used assassins, and worse, against the people of Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. A number of its own Presidents including JFK and a number of popular Americanpolitical leaders have also fallen to the bullets of assassins.
How Australian governments helped kill 3.3 million Iraqis
Since 1990, Australia has participated in two illegal wars against Iraq.1 The Hawke Labor Government led Australia into the first war of 1991 whilst the Liberal/National Coalition Government of John Howard led Australia into the second war of 2003. In addition, Australia participated in the imposition of sanctions which have prevented vitally needed food and medicine from reaching the people of that devastated country. It is now well known that the pretexts used to launch these wars, including the Kuwaiti Incubator babies story and the claim that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were lies.
Accordingto oneestimate, 3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children consequently died. To escape death through war, disease or starvation, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled. According to Wikipedia, 1,300,000 fled to Syria.
Syria, which gave refuge to Iraqis fleeing Australian aggression, now bullied by Australia
Prior to that on 4 October 2012, in an interview on the 4 Corners program, The Battle For Syria, Bob Carr said to Kerry O'Brien, "... perhaps an assassination ... is what is required ... ."
Carr's support for the assassination of the Syrian President seems consistent with his alleged 40 year record of being an agent of the United States Government within the Australian Labor Party . The US, which Carr uncritically supports, has used assassins against the people of Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. One of its own Presidents and a number of popular Americanpolitical leaders have also fallen to the bullets of assassins.
The Age exposes the Australian foreign minister as an "agent" under US influence; Murray Hunter asks -- is U.S. influence in Australian politics destroying policy objectivity?
Foreign Minister Bob Carr (image courtesy ABC).
JUST AROUND a week ago in Beijing, Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr entered the US-Korea conflict by trying to persuade the Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi to adopt sanctions against North Korea.
On Monday (8 April), an investigative journalist from The Age, after going through 11,000 cables from the U.S. embassy in Canberra and consulates in Sydney and Melbourne, leaked by US Army Private Bradley Manning and published by WikiLeaks, found that the current Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr had been briefing the US embassy since the 1970s on both the internal decision making of the Australian Government during the Whitlam Labor Government (1972-75) and internal workings of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Bob Carr has been Australia's foreign minister for 12 months, replacing Kevin Rudd, who resigned after challenging Julia Gillard for the prime ministership. Carr has been involved in the Australian Labor Party for more than 40 years and was New South Wales premier from 1995-2005.
Carr began his relationship with US embassy officials in the mid 1970s, when he was president of Young Labor and education officer of the NSW Labor Council. According to The Age investigative report Philip Dorling he would regularly brief the US Consul General over labour issues and the prospects of the Labor Government in Canberra. From the information gathered from Carr and also NSW Labor President John Ducker, intelligence reports on Australian politics and labour issues would be sent onto Washington. Leaked US cables to WikiLeaks also indicated that the former Labor Senator Mark Arbib was also a "protected" US embassy source passing on information and commentary on Australian politics.
Bob Carr is very well known for his staunch support for the Australian-US alliance as an non-negotiable pillar of Australian foreign policy and often dismisses critics as being in "emotional silly expression lacking in any substance and characteristic of the silly leftwing fringe of the ALP".
With such rigid advice to the prime minister and cabinet at a time where many academics and commentators like Professor Hugh White of the Australian National University are calling for a re-appraisal of this alliance and much more strategic engagement with China, it is very difficult to see how the Australian Government's pending 2013 Defense White Paper will signal any major shifts in policy on this matter.
At the very least, hanging on to the Australian-US alliance without any objective appraisal and redefinition may not serve the country's strategy interests in the Asia-Pacific Region well if the U.S. continues a competitive stance against China.
These revelations add to past suspicions by many in the labour movement about members of the party and government (when Labor was in power) who have been involved in close relationships with U.S. officials.
Labor suspicion of U.S. intelligence operating in Australia mainly stems from the election of the reformist and nationalistic Whitlam Labor Government in 1972, after 23 years in opposition. Whitlam immediately pulled Australia out of the Vietnam conflict, recognized the Peoples' Republic of China, campaigned for a nuclear free Indian Ocean, spoke up for Palestinian rights in the United Nations, and opposed French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
In 1973, the then Attorney General of Australia Lionel Murphy led a raid on the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), the equivalent to the U.S. CIA, over concern with the organisation's involvement with the training of fascist Croatian groups, and the launching of terrorist operations from Australian soil. According to the Hope Commission back in 1977, ASIO was handing over to the CIA information on Australian opposition politicians and kept files on all ALP members.
The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) was assisting the CIA in undertaking clandestine operations in Cambodia and Chile, even though Australia was officially neutral in Cambodia and supported the Government of Salvador Allende in Chile, without the knowledge of the Australian Government.
Many felt that when the Whitlam Government took measures to control the operations of the US Naval Communications Station on the North-West Cape of Western Australia, the Defence Signals Directorate in Melbourne, the Joint Defense research facility at Pine Gap and Nurrunger in South Australia, that the U.S. became vitally concerned.
After Whitlam discovered that ASIO and ASIS had secretly assisted the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, he dismissed the heads of both organizations. Whitlam then hinted that he may not renew the Pine Gap agreement with the U.S. due for signing on 9th December 1975, which would have severely dented U.S. intelligence gathering ability. Labor mythology believes that the U.S. ambassador to Australia at the time, Marshall Green, had a hand in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November 1975 by the then Governor General Sir John Kerr. Of course, Kerr's time working for a closely aligned Australian intelligence organization to the U.S. OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, has always added spice to such conspiracy theories.
After Whitlam discovered that ASIO and ASIS had secretly assisted the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, he dismissed the heads of both organizations. Whitlam then hinted that he may not renew the Pine Gap agreement with the U.S. due for signing on 9th December 1975, which would have severely dented U.S. intelligence gathering ability. Labor mythology believes that the U.S. ambassador to Australia at the time, Marshall Green, had a hand in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November 1975 by the then Governor General Sir John Kerr. Of course, Kerr's time working for a closely aligned Australian intelligence organization to the U.S. OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, has always added spice to such conspiracy theories.
During the first week after the dismissal of the Labor Government, the army was on stand-by at their barracks in case there were mass demonstrations. However, it was the Australian Council of Trade Unions then president Bob Hawke who summoned the labour movement to be calm. US diplomatic cables also implicate the former prime minister, saying he regularly conferred with the U.S. Consulate in Melbourne during his ACTU years. It was generally believed that the Labor Attaché at the U.S. embassy in Canberra was in reality the CIA station chief (McKnight, D., "Labor and the Quiet Americans", The Age, February 20, 2003, p15). The future Hawke Government, elected in 1984, went on to implement many pro-U.S. initiatives, and prevented public disclosure of documents relating to the Nugan Hand Bank during his term as Prime Minister, which were believed to implicate the CIA with drug trafficking and organized crime.
This is the first time that leaked U.S. documents have confirmed what many believe to be the truth surrounding U.S. infiltration within the Australian Labor Party. The issue is likely to be very quickly dismissed in Australia by the argument that the U.S. is an ally. However, within these documents there is some proof and support that the U.S. has meddled in the affairs of the Australian union movement and political parties for many years. What is even more astounding is that some Labor politicians showed disloyalty to their party to a foreign power during the Whitlam years.
Bob Carr has been forthright in exposing past politicians as members of the Communist Party of Australia, so should take the accusations against him seriously, either stepping aside for the duration of an inquiry or resigning outright. David Combe's relationship with a Soviet diplomat Valery Ivanov back in 1984 led to swift action on the part of the Hawke Government at the time. In the interests of transparency and sovereignty, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO should conduct an inquiry.
Those not familiar with the Syrian conflict will have to pay close attention in order to gain much from this discussion. The debate is somewhat tiresome due to the evasions, repetition and circular logic of the supporters of the insurrection. In spite of this, I think that their opponents, particularly the Syrian Girl, won the debate quite definitively.
Written on-line debate enables truth to be found more easily
Whilst verbal debate has great value, I still think it is easier to find where the truth lies from written online debate. However, in my experience, supporters of such causes as that of the terrorists fighting against the Syrian people and their government instinctively know that evidence and logic are against them and so will be even less willing to participate in written forum discussions than they are to participate in verbal discussions.
Those seeking the truth from written sources therefore should try to find opposing written views, compare the evidence and form their own judgement. Examples of opposed written online views of the Syrian conflict are, on the one hand on Global Research and, on the other hand, the lying MainstreamMedia
Difficulties faced by Syrian Government
In fighting to defend their people, the Syrian Government will unavoidably cause the deaths and injury of Syrian human shields used by the terrorists and the destruction of Syrian homes in which the terrorists hide. In addition, the Government will inevitably make mistakes that will cause yet more destruction and cost more Syrians their lives.
This has been used by the mainstream media.
Whilst the loss of lives and the destruction made necessary by the terrorist war will inevitably be used against the Syrian Government by the lying mainstream media and inevitable mistakes made by the Syrian Government in prosecuting the war will compound the problem, it would be a still greater mistake on the part of the Syrian government and armed forces to fight with any less ferocity and determination against the terrorists for fear of making such mistakes.
Turkish protesters have called for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down following two car bombings in a town near the Syrian border.
Scores of people took to the streets of the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province on Saturday after more than 40 people were killed in two car bombings that jolted the town earlier in the day.
The angry demonstrators said the outbreak of violence was due to the Erdogan administration’s anti-Syria policy.
Security was tight in the center of Reyhanli, near the scene of the blasts, with the security forces setting up checkpoints to control entry into and exit from the town, witnesses said.
A similar demonstration was briefly held in Ankara, in which dozens of people marched in the street and chanted slogans criticizing Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Turkey has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics and has supported the foreign-backed militants fighting to topple his government.
Turkish opposition parties have censured the Turkish government for its intervention in Syria’s internal affairs.
Last July, the leader of the Republican People’s Party warned the government against dragging the country into the “Middle Eastern quagmire” with its aggressive anti-Syria stance.
The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
Editor's comment:
As has been explained on Twitter, "The province which was attacked supports the Syrian government." This is why that town was targeted by terrorists. The Turkish government and the mainstream media have not reported that protests against the Turkish Government have been held in the Turkish town of Reyhanli in which 46 were killed in the terrorist outrage of 11 May. Instead, unfounded claims, originating from the Turkish and U.S. governments, which try to attribute blame to the Syrian Government, have been reported. An example is the report Turkey blames Syria over Reyhanli bombings of 13 may in the Guardian The Syrian Government has condemned the outrage and comprehensively refuted any suggestion that it could have been behind the outrage.
Relatives cry as pallbearers carry the coffin of Fehmi Karaca, 69, a shop owner killed in Saturday’s bombings, for burial in Reyhanli, Turkey, Sunday, May 12, 2013.
Hundreds of Turkish citizens have held demonstrations in the southern Turkish province Hatay and in the country’s largest city Istanbul to protest against Saturday’s twin car bombings, which killed 46 people and injured over a hundred others in the town of Reyhanli.
On Thursday, the protesters condemned the violence, noting that the outbreak of bloodshed was due to the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s support for armed militants in Syria.
In Istanbul, the police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators who were marching towards the office of Erdogan.
A similar demonstration was held in Ankara on Saturday, in which dozens of people marched in the street and chanted slogans criticizing Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Turkey has accused Damascus of being behind the attack but Syria has dismissed the claim.
Syria Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi told a news conference on Sunday that his country "did not commit and would never commit such an act because our values would not allow that."
He blamed Ankara for the Saturday bombings in Reyhanli as well as the ongoing unrest in Syria by facilitating the flow of arms, explosives, vehicles, militants and money across the border into the Arab country.
"It is Erdogan who should be asked about this act... He and his party bear direct responsibility," Zohbi said.
The Syrian minister also stated that Turkey has planned the attacks to use them as a pretext to justify foreign intervention in Syria.
"Why this timing? Why these attack, just days before the meeting between Erdogan and (US President Barack) Obama? Does he (Erdogan), whose country is a NATO member, want to incite the United States (into intervening in Syria) by telling him his country has been attacked?" Zohbi said.
He added that the Turkish government has turned its border areas with Syria into centers for international terrorism.
ISTANBUL, (SANA) - Istanbul university students foiled on Thursday efforts of the TurkishRed Crescent and the jurists youth club to establish an activity under the pretext of "collecting humanitarian aids to the Syrian people" which really aims to support the armed terrorist groups in Syria.
Turkish site Sol said that Istanbul university students protested the so- called "charity bazaar" which supports the terrorist groups in Syria who are perpetrating acts of terrorism against Syrian people, especially children, raising placards in both Arabic and Turkish which call for people not to participate in this event, forcing the organizers to cancel it under the students' pressure.
Syrian rebel fights Assad 'tyranny' by cutting off prisoner's head with a knife. See embedded video - NOT suitable for viewing by children.
In recent days, world public opinion and the global balance of power has shifted markedly in favour of the embattled nation of Syria and its allies. Nevertheless, it is imperative for every person opposed to mass murder to give whatever support they are able to the courageous Syrian people in their fight against the terrorist 'Free' 'Syrian' Army (FSA) proxies of the US and its allies.
Since early 2011, following the start of NATO's bloody war against Libya, the Syrian Government of President Bashar al-Assad has faced the start of a similar attempt at 'regime change' by terrorist 'Free' 'Syrian' Army (FSA) proxies of the United States and its allies. Unlike the tragic course of events which unfolded in Libya, the Syrian Arab Army (hereafter referred to as simply the "Syrian Army") has withstood the terrorists, contrary to repeated pronouncements by the lying mainstream media that Assad's downfall was imminent, although as many as 70,0001 Syrians may have already perished.
Since Tony Cartalucci wrote this article, world public opinion and the international balance of power has shifted markedly in Syria's favour. As an example the Summit of the BRICS coalition of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which concluded on 27 March, opposed moves to escalate the war against Syria and threats to invade Iran. Russia has given a firm show of support for its Syrian ally by conducting large naval exercised off the Black Sea coast of NATO member Turkey, which has been supplying FSA terrorists and giving them sanctuary.
US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have conspired to destroy Syria by way of arming sectarian extremists since 2007.
The West now admits it, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have
provided thousands of tons of weapons to militants in Syria - while also
conceding that Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra is the best armed, most well equipped militant front in the conflict.
US, Saudi, Israeli-backed terrorists are now committing a myriad of
horrific atrocities against all of Syria's population, including Sunni
Muslims - meaning neither "democracy" nor even "sectarianism" drives the
conflict, but rather the destruction of Syria in its entirety.
US State Department acknowledges Syria faces threat from Al Qaeda,
demands blockade of arms/aid from reaching government to fight
terrorists the US State Department admits are present in every major
Syrian city.
March 30, 2013 (LD) - Since 2007, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel documented as conspiring to overthrow the Syrian government by way of
sectarian extremists, including groups "sympathetic to Al Qaeda," and in
particular, the militant, sectarian Muslim Brotherhood. While the West
has attempted to portray the full-scale conflict beginning in Syria in
2011 as first, a "pro-democracy uprising," to now a "sectarian
conflict," recent atrocities carried out by US-Saudi-Israeli proxies
have shifted the assault to include Sunni Muslims unable or unwilling to
participate in the destruction of the Syrian state.
Such attacks included a mortar bombardment of Damascus University, killing 15 and injuring dozens more, as well as the brutal slaying of two prominent Sunni Muslim clerics - the latest of which was beheaded,
his body paraded through the streets of Aleppo, and his head hung from
the mosque he preached in. While the West attempts to mitigate these
events by labeling the victims as "pro-government," the reality is that
the forces fighting inside Syria are funded, armed, directed, and
politically supported from abroad - and therefore do not represent any
of the Syrian people's interests, including those Syrians who do not
support the government.
It is abundantly clear that the West's goal is neither to institute
"democracy," nor even take sides in a "sectarian conflict," but rather
carry out the complete and permanent destruction of Syria as a
nation-state, sparing no one, not even Sunnis.
Such a proxy war exists contra to any conceivable interpretation of
"international law." The world is left with a moral imperative to not
only denounce this insidious conflict brought upon the Syrian people,
compounded and perpetuated entirely by external interests, but demands
that concrete action is taken to ensure that this act of aggression is
brought to an end.
The US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have admitted to colluding together,
flooding Syria with thousands of tons of weapons via Jordan to Syria's
south, and NATO-member Turkey to Syria's north. And in an otherwise
inexplicable conundrum, while the likes of US Secretary of State John
Kerry insist this torrent of weapons is being directed to "moderates,"
neither the US nor its allies are able to explain why Al Qaeda terror
front Jabhat al-Nusra has emerged as the most heavily armed, best equipped militant organization in the conflict.
US Secretary of
State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the hands of secular groups. "I will tell you this: There is a very clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the indication is
that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that," he said,
without elaborating.
But even AP admits that
Syrian opposition
activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades fighting in and
around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of them have
Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or
al-Qaeda-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence
of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic terrorist groups
fighting alongside the rebels.
Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks --
ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised
explosive device operations -- in major city centers including Damascus,
Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr.
According to the US State Department, al-Nusra is carrying out hundreds
of attacks with a wide array of weaponry, across the entire nation of
Syria, indicating a massive front and implying an equally massive
network of logistical support, including foreign sponsorship. What's
more, is that the US State Department acknowledges al-Nusra's presence
even in cities close to Syria's borders where the CIA is admittedly
overseeing the distribution of weapons and cash. The New York Times, in
their June 2012 article, "C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition," reported that:
A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern
Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across
the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according
to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply
increased their military aid to Syria's opposition fighters in recent
months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the
uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic
data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of
rebel commanders.
The article would also state:
Although rebel commanders and the data indicate that Qatar and Saudi
Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey to the opposition
since early and late 2012, respectively, a major hurdle was removed
late last fall after the Turkish government agreed to allow the pace of
air shipments to accelerate, officials said.
Simultaneously, arms and equipment were being purchased by Saudi Arabia in Croatia
and flown to Jordan on Jordanian cargo planes for rebels working in
southern Syria and for retransfer to Turkey for rebels groups operating
from there, several officials said.
The US State Department acknowledges that the well armed, prominent
terror front al-Nusra is operating in the very areas the CIA is feeding
weapons and cash into.
Image: (Above)West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's 2007 report,Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq"
indicated which areas in Syria Al Qaeda fighters filtering into
Iraq came from. The overwhelming majority of them came from Dayr Al-Zawr
in Syria's southeast, Idlib in the north near the Turkish-Syrian
border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border. (Right)
A map indicating the epicenters of violence in Syria indicate that the
exact same hotbeds for Al Qaeda in 2007, now serve as the epicenters of
so-called "pro-democracy fighters" and also happen to be areas the US
CIA is admittedly distributing weapons and other aid in.
Such a reality directly
contradicts the US State Department's official position, and no
explanation is given as to how "moderates" can be provided with such
extensive support, and still be eclipsed militarily and logistically by
terror-front al-Nusra. That is, unless of course, the US, British,
Saudi, and Qatari weapons aren't simply just handing the weapons
directly to terrorists, precisely as planned as early as 2007.
The Destruction of Syria Began in 2007, Not 2011
While the West has attempted to reclaim Syria as part of its sphere of
influence for decades, concrete plans for the latest proxy war were laid
at least as early as 2007. It was admitted in 2007 that the US, Saudi
Arabia, and Israel conspired together to fund, arm, and direct sectarian
extremists including militants "sympathetic" to Al Qaeda, particularly
the Muslim Brotherhood, against the governments of Iran and Syria. In
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker
article, "The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" the conspiracy was described as follows:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush
Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in
the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has co-operated with
Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations
that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is
backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations
aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has
been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant
vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Hersh also cited US, Saudi, and Lebanese officials who indicated that,
"in the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush Administration have developed a series of informal understandings about their new
strategic direction," and that, "the Saudi government, with Washingtons
approval, would provide funds
and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad,
of Syria. The report would also state:
Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The
clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving
the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to
work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current
and former officials close to the Administration said.
Mention of the Muslim Brotherhood already receiving aid even in 2007 was also made:
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement
founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent
opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir's father. In 1982, the
Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city
for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people.
Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The
Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel.
Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, "We told Cheney that the basic link between
Iran and Lebanon is Syria--and to weaken Iran you need to open the door
to effective Syrian opposition."
There is evidence that the Administration's redirection strategy has
already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front
is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a
faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who
defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A.
officer told me, "The Americans have provided both political and
financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial
support, but there is American involvement."He said that Khaddam, who
now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the
knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front's
members met with officials from the National Security Council, according
to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the
Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
It is clear that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel planned to use
sectarian extremists against the nation of Syria starting at least as
early as 2007, and it is clear that now these sectarian extremists are
carrying out the destruction of Syria with a massive torrent of weapons
and cash provided by the US and its regional allies, just as was
described by Hersh's report.
A Moral Imperative to Save Syria
Syria is under attack by an insidious, premeditated foreign assault,
intentionally using terrorist proxies in direct and complete violation
of any conceivable interpretation of both national and international
law. The world has a moral imperative to support the Syrian people and
their government as they fight this assault - both politically and
logistically. While US Secretary John Kerry is unable to account for how
his nation's support for moderates has left Al Qaeda's al-Nusra front
the premier militant faction in Syria, he has demanded that Iraq help
stem the flow of alleged aid Iran is providing the Syrian government as
it fights these terrorists.
Does US Secretary of State John Kerry deny that Syria is fighting a
significant (and continuously growing) Al Qaeda presence within their
borders, which according to the US State Department's own statement, is
operating in every major city in the country? What conceivable
explanation or excuse could be made to justify the blockading of aid
sent to Syria to fight Al Qaeda terrorists? In fact, why isn't the US
aiding the Syrian government itself in its fight against Al Qaeda - a
terrorist organization the US has used as an excuse to wage unending
global war since 2001 when Al Qaeda allegedly killed some 3,000 American
civilians?
Does Secretary Kerry believe that further arming "moderates" is a
legitimate strategy to counter Al Qaeda's growing presence in Syria when
these "moderates" openly defend Al Qaeda's al-Nusra? The US' own
hand-picked "Syrian opposition leader," Mouaz al Khatib, demanded
the US reconsider its designation of al Nusra as a terrorist
organization. Retuers reported in their article, "Syrian opposition urges U.S. review of al-Nusra blacklisting," that:
The leader of
Syria's opposition coalition urged the United States on Wednesday to
review its decision to designate the militant Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra
as a terrorist group, saying religion was a legitimate motive for Syrian
rebels.
"The decision to consider a
party that is fighting the regime as a terrorist party needs to be
reviewed," Mouaz Alkhatib told a "Friends of Syria"
meeting in Morocco, where Western and Arab states granted full
recognition to the coalition seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
The US is directly responsible for the emergence and perpetuation of Al
Qaeda and other extremist groups in Syria. The statements of Secretary
John Kerry are made merely to maintain an increasingly tenuous
"plausible deniability." The precedent being set by the US and its
allies is one of using full-scale proxy invasions, that if successful in
Syria, will be directed into Iran, up through the Caucasus Mountains in
Russia, and even onto China's doorstep via extremists the West is
cultivating amongst the Uighurs. It is also clear that
the West is directly responsible for the extremists within their own
borders, and that these extremists are being used as a political tool
against the people of the West, just as they are being used as a
mercenary force abroad.
A united front between nations against this wanton
state sponsorship of terrorism is needed - with nations pledging
political and logistical support to the Syrian people to defeat this
open conspiracy. Individually, we can identify, boycott, and permanently replacethe corporate-financier interests
who conceived of and are driving this agenda. Failure to stop such wide
scale criminality against the Syrian people now, will only invite
greater criminality against us all in the near future.
The following video is not recommended for children. It is one of a number irrefutable examples of the sadism of those fighting against the Syrian Government.
1. The figure of 70,000 dead, has been provided by the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) which is opposed to the Government of President Bashar al-Assad, and so has an obvious motive to either fabricate death tolls or to inflate deaths resulting from actions by the Syrian Army (or the Syrian Arab Army to use its full name). However the toll in Syrian military and civilian dead cannot be light and, judging from the staggering death tolls of many hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq following the illegal 2003 invasion, the toll stands to become much higher, should the Syrian Army be defeated.
See Update, 28 September 2013. OCCUPIED JERUSALEM , (SANA), 31 March 2013 - Dozens of Palestinians participating in a march marking the occasion of Land Day on Saturday expelled the Qatari al-Jazeera Channel's staff from Sakhnin City in the occupied Palestinian territories of 1948 in protest against its deceitful reporting of the Syrian conflict.
The Palestinians expressed rejection of al-Jazeera covering Land Day, annually celebrated by Palestinians to emphasize their full right in the occupied Palestinian territories, objecting to the channel's lack of integrity and objectivity in its coverage of the Syrian crisis.
Addressing the al-Jazeera staff, they chanted "Out …Out the Syrian Land is Free," the thing which forced them to leave the march at once.
Hoisting the Syrian and Palestinian flags, the participants expressed their full support to Syria, stressing that the Palestinian-Syrian cohesion and rejection of Israeli-international imperialistic conspiracy against Syria should be the title of Land Day.
This is not the first time that al-Jazeera staff have been expelled by angered protestors, as Tunisians repelled al-Jazeera Mubashar (Live) staff two weeks ago during an attempt to cover a protest held on the occasion of marking 40 day after the assassination of the opposition struggler, Shukri Baleid.
R. Milhem / H. Said
Editorial comment: Read, on al-Jazeera, Georgetown first year postgraduate student Sarah Harvey's protestations of 31 March 2001 that Syria is not Iraq. It is of little surprise to me that examples of the claimed mainstream media's conflation of the current proxy terrorist war against Syria with the invasion of Iraq were not provided. Contrary to Sarah Harvey's claim, it seems to me that the mainstream newsmedia has gone out of its way to omit mention of the obvious similarities between the current war against Syria, including the terrorists' massacres of Syrian christians, and the communal strife that the US invaders deliberately fomented in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
"Al Jazeera journalist Abdullah Elshamy was arrested on August 14. His detention has been extended another 45 days."
Whilst a number Al-Jazeera journalists should indeed be imprisoned for their deceitful reporting about the Syrian conflict, it seems far more likely that Abdullah Elshamy was imprisoned to prevent the truth about the Egyptian regime's brutal repression of protesters from being reported.
PRAGUE, (SANA)- Ex-CNN reporter Amber Lyon revealed that during her work for the channel she received orders to send false news and exclude some others which the US administration did not favor with the aim to create a public opinion in favor of launching an aggression on Iran and Syria.
Lyon was quoted by the Slovak main news website as saying that the mainstream US media outlets intentionally work to create a propaganda against Iran to garner public opinion's support for a military invasion against it.
She revealed that the scenario used before launching the war on Iraq is being prepared to be repeated where Iran and Syria are now being subject to constant 'demonization'.
The former reporter clarified that the CNN channel manipulates and fabricates news and follows selectiveness when broadcasting news, stressing that the Channel receives money from the U.S. government and other countries' governments in exchange for news content.
Originally published on Global Research on 27 Sep 2013
TEHRAN (FNA)- American news channel CNN fabricated the remarks made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in response to the network’s question about the Holocaust.
The CNN aired its interview with Rouhani on Tuesday but the news channel added to or changed parts of his remarks when Christiane Amanpour asked him about the Holocaust.
Here is the exact transcript of the Farsi text according to the CNN broadcast:
(Text is omitted for now as this installation of Drupal cannot display Farsi characters. To view Farsi text, see the original story on Global Research.)
Here is the exact English translation of President Rouhani’s remarks:
Rouhani’s: “I have said before that I am not a historian and historians should specify, state and explain the aspects of historical events, but generally we fully condemn any kind of crime committed against humanity throughout the history, including the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and non-Jews, the same way that if today any crime is committed against any nation or any religion or any people or any belief, we condemn that crime and genocide. Therefore, what the Nazis did is condemned, (but) the aspects that you talk about, clarification of these aspects is a duty of the historians and researchers, I am not a history scholar.”
And here is what the CNN translation says:
CNN Question:
“One of the things your predecessor (President Ahmadinejad) used to do from this very platform was deny(ing) the holocaust and pretend(ing) it was a myth, I want to know you, your position on the holocaust, do you accept what it was, and what was it?”
CNN’s Translation:
“I’ve said before that I am not a historian and then, when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust, it is the historians that should reflect on it. But in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime that Nazis committed towards the Jews as well as non-Jews is reprehensible and condemnable. Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews, we condemn, the taking of human life is contemptible, it makes no difference whether that life is Jewish life, Christian or Muslim, for us it is the same, but taking the human life is something our religion rejects but this doesn’t mean that on the other hand you can say Nazis committed crime against a group now therefore, they must usurp the land of another group and occupy it. This too is an act that should be condemned. There should be an even-handed discussion“.
FNA NOTE: The Red parts have been added or completely altered. The Yellow parts are the product of conceptual, and not precise, translation.
Yet, the underlined parts are the worst parts of the fabrications which totally change what President Rouhani has said.
After the CNN released the interview, hundreds of news agencies, TV and news channels, websites and weblogs broadcast this title: “Iran’s President Rouhani Calls Holocaust ‘Reprehensible’ Crime Against Jews”, a title quoted from the CNN; Or “Rouhani Recognizes the Holocaust as Crime against Jews”.
In 2011, barely eight years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, shown conclusively to to have been illegal and a monstrous crime against humanity, the same criminals were able to deceive a sizable component of public opinion into accepting the truth of their claims against Libya whilst sowing confusion in the minds of much of the remainder. That would not have been possible without the complicity of many supposed 'left-liberal' and 'far-left' organisations. The imperialists were thus able to complete their invasion and destruction of Libya and enable the plunder of its natural resources by oil corporations.
Phoney 'left' cover-up of 2011 Libya invasion, attempted proxy invasion of Syria
For the past two years, at least, much of the supposed 'alternate' Internet has been an essential component of the government and corporate media machine to deceive public opinion about critical world-changing events. Two of the most notorious of a number of terrible examples include: (1) NATO's illegal invasion of Libya in 2011; and (2) the current terrorist war against Syria by the jihadist and mercenary proxies of the U.S. and its allies.
The same is now happening to Syria. Fortunately, a more sizeable proportion of public opinion has seen through the deceit, whilst the Syrian people, their government and their armed forces have demonstrated much bravery, skill and resourcefulness in fighting the terrorist invasion. However, no country the size of Syria can hope to hold out indefinitely against such large, powerful and determined enemies. Unless public opinion in countries which are waging war against Syria (or imposing sanctions in the case of Australia) can learn the truth, the prospects for the Syrians are not good.
Public wisdom about Syria possible with open Internet discussion
A good start to spreading the truth would be proper discussion and debate on Internet forums and the whistle must be blown on phony progressives on the Internet who refuse to allow free and open discussion.
After I had put myself to all that trouble, the post was promptly deleted by the site owner, Professor John Quiggin.
I consider the action taken by Professor Quiggin to have been grossly inconsiderate to me and to his other site visitors, in particular to the two to whom I was responding. I also consider such censorship of the expression of views, which are clearly relevant to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, unacceptable on a web-site that ostensibly exists to promote discussion and thought about current events.
The supposed justification for this censorship given by Professor John Quiggin was:
As previously advised, I don't propose to entertain this kind of thing on my blog. All comments should be directed to the candobetter site -- JQ
Exactly what he meant by "this kind of stuff," and how it differs from the material in his article and subsequent discussion, was not explained.
I can only presume that Professor Quiggin, and many who visit and contribute to his site, prefer to academically discuss events of the distant past, the outcome of which we cannot hope to change, rather than acting to help stop the wars and killing that are going on right now.
What you can do
If you agree that such censorship, on the supposedly free Internet, supposedly outside of the control of the corporate newsmedia, is unjustified and harmful to free speech, democracy and, ultimately, world peace, please make your views known on that site and post a copy here also. Should those posts also be censored, I expect Project Censored would be most interested to hear from you.
Thank you both for your interest. My apologies, on my part, for my slow response. I was intending to write a sizeable article to publish on my web-site (candobetter -dot- net -slash- syria) in response to your questions. Please consider the response below to be only interim:
Whilst it could seem hyperbolic to liken the crimes, committed the New World Order against Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Libya, and now Syria, with those of the Third Reich, given that the death toll of 3.3 million, so far killed since 1990 in Iraq alone, is barely an order of magnitude less than that caused by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Second World War, this likening is not unreasonable.
Given that the rulers of the New World Order have, in their hands, vastly more terrible and sophisticated weapons of war than those possessed by Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire, it is not hard to envision the death toll greatly surpassing the terrible toll of 60 million deaths in the Second World War should they triumph against Syria.
So, the whole civilised[1] world has a vital stake in the Syrian Army defeating the so-called "Free Syrian Army" and its New World Order controllers in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Israel, the Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Israel, etc.
Given the effective abolition of the rights guaranteed in the US constitution by President Barack Obama, it will only be a matter of time before democratic rights, free speech, parliamentary democracy are abolished in Western Nations, should the Syrian people be defeated.
I am confused by your questions and wonder whether you could clarify.
J-D, I was simply pointing out that the history of which Professor Quiggin has written has been repeated in Libya and now threatens to be repeated in Syria and Iran. Surely, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we need to consider whether that illegal invasion was a once-only occurrence or whether it was only one in a pattern of events which is now being repeated. If the latter, in the case of Syria, is true, then we should surely be interested in applying the terrible lessons of the Iraq war so as to prevent their repetition in Syria.
@malthusista, I would also appreciate clarification of exactly how you believe 'we' could stop the Syrian civil war? A little elaboration of who 'we' are would also be helpful.
Ken_L, The civil war in Syria could be ended simply if the U.S., Israel, etc., accepted the principle that any people have a right to national self-determination. It is obvious that President Bashar al-Assad and his government enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of Syrians. Those, who have waged the terrorist war against the Syrian government, comprise, at most, a small minority of Syrians. The vast majority of the FSA is comprised of sectarian Islamist extremists from countries like Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, mercenaries, the U.S. SAS, the U.K. SAS, the French Special Forces, the C.I.A., Mossad, etc.
Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel should cease giving these killers sanctuary and passage into and out of Syria.
An unprovoked attack on the armed forces of Syria or on the armed forces of any sovereign country is a crime and, even more so, the murder of unarmed civilians. Supplying weapons to those killers by the U.S. and its allies is complicity in that crime and should cease. Were that to happen, the war in Syria would be finished in days.
Early last year, the Syrian government received overwhelming support (and, I might add, far more than U.S. politicians typically get in national elections with barely 50% of the population in participating in most) from its people in a referendum proposing constitutional reform. Part of the reform was to remove from the Syrian constitution, any privilege give to the Ba'ath Socialist Party. President Assad and every member of the Syrian Parliament must now stand for re-election. Any one of them will be voted out were they not to enjoy popular support.
Were there ever to be free elections in Syria, which cannot possibly be held in the middle of the war now raging, there can be little doubt that President Assad would win overwhelmingly and that the FSA would get a miniscule vote.
The war and killing in Syria only continue because the rulers of the U.S. and their allies wish it to continue.
Footnote to
[1] I don't mean 'civilised' in the sense of the European colonialists claims of bringing 'civilisation' to the 'backward' people of the Third World in previous centuries.
DAMASCUS, (SANA)- Syria strongly rejects the selectiveness adopted while drafting the resolution which was endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Friday, saying such resolutions are continuation of attempts to sabotage efforts seeking political settlement for the crisis, said an official source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Saturday.
"Once again the UNHRC gets carried along by a wide misleading campaign led by countries supporting terrorism in Syria to provide a political cover for the crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups," the source added.
It lashed out at those countries for submitting "unilateral and politicized resolutions that seek to place responsibility on the Syrian government for the ongoing events based on fallacies and false claims."
The source also slammed those countries' ignoring of the crimes perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups on which the Syrian government has presented tens of proofs to the UN Commission on Human Rights.
"This kind of resolutions, which became a tool used to target countries and interfere in their internal affairs, are continuation of the attempts of the countries involved in backing terrorism in Syria, prolonging violence and bringing foreign military intervention and sabotaging the efforts seeking a political settlement for the crisis through a Syrian-led national dialogue among the Syrians," said the official source.
"Syria completely rejects this resolution as it ignores the immoral role played by the countries supporting terrorism in Syria," the source stressed, noting that terrorists are being funded, trained, armed and dispatched from over 28 countries to carry out terrorist crimes in Syria, the latest was the bombing in al-Iman Mosque in Damascus on March 21.
The source highlighted that these crimes are being perpetrated by al-Qaeda-linked groups that are guided by fatwas that approve the shedding of the blood of innocents and obscurantist thinking seeking Syria's destruction and sabotaging co-existence among its people.
The source stressed that "such biased, non-objective and unbalanced resolutions" consolidate the double standards policy practiced by some countries that claim to defend human rights while at the same time they ignore the outrageous record of human rights in the countries sponsoring this resolution.
QUITO, (SANA), 22March 2013, - The People's Assembly Speaker, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham, said it was time that the international community, after having been listening to the tools of media misleading for two years now, listen to the voice of right.
Al-Laham was speaking during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the sidelines of preparations to open the 128th session of the Union's General Assembly in the capital of Ecuador, Quito.
Al-Laham stressed that the international community should support the efforts to halt the violence and bloodshed and the political program to solve the crisis in Syria so as to preserve its territorial integrity and the unity of its people as well as the international peace and security.
The People's Assembly Speaker reviewed during the meeting the reality of what is taking place in Syria and the role of Arab, regional and international parties that are targeting Syria.
He cited the ongoing destruction of infrastructure and private and public properties at the hands of the terrorist groups which are supplied with money, arms and fighters.
Al-Laham also briefed IPU Secretary General, Anders Johnson, and the IPU Head Abdul-Wahid al-Radi on the efforts exerted by the People's Assembly to ensure the success of the political program to solve the crisis in Syria. He voiced the hopes he attaches on the outcomes of the 128th meeting of the IPU in terms of supporting Syria's efforts in combating terrorism and halting the violence.
The Syrian people have barely been able to come to terms with with their grief at the murder of 35 in an attack with chemical weapons, when the war against them, sponsored by the U.S., it's European NATO allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel, resumed with a terrorist suicide bombing
Almost two dozen more Syrians including top Sunni cleric Mohammed Saeed Ramadan al-Bouti were killed in a terrorist blast at the al-Eman Mosque in Damascus.
The report has been adapted from the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Great Scholar, Dr. Mohammad Said Ramadan a-Bouti was martyred on Thursday after a suicide terrorist blew himself up in al-Eman Mosque in Damascus while the late martyr was giving a religious lesson.
The terrorist act claimed the lives of scores of prayers, while tens others were injured.
An official source told SANA that the suicide terrorist intended to blow himself up among the students who were listening to a religious lesson, leading to the martyrdom and injuries of scores of people and causing big material losses.
A source at the Health Ministry stated that the death toll of the terrorist act rose to 42, while 84 others were injured.
The wounded prayers were admitted to a number of Damascus hospitals.
Martyr scholar al-Bouti was born in 1929. He accomplished his Sharia Baccalaureate certificate at the Islamic Tawjih Institute in Damascus.
In 1953, he joined al-Sharea Academy at al-Azhar University and acquired the global certificate in 1955, then he got a diploma in education in the same year.
He was appointed as a teacher in Al-Sharea Academy at Damascus university in 1960, then he was delegated to al-Azhar university to get the doctorate in the Islamic Sharea Originals and got it in 1965.
In 1965, he was nominated as a professor in al-Sharea Academy at Damascus University in 1965, then a dean and chairman of the religions sector at the University.
In 2012 he was nominated as President of the Levant Scholars' Union.
Member of the Higher Council of Oxford Academy.
He wrote more than 40 books in the sciences of Sharea, literature, philosophy, society and civilization.
Ministry of Awkaf announces the death of Scholar al-Bouti
Ministry of Awkaf ( Religious Endowments ), Syria scholars, intellectuals, teachers and the Levant Scholars' Union announced the death of scholar al-Bouti who was martyred while giving a religious lesson in al-Eman mosque.
"The malicious hands of traitors killed the great Scholar because he was the voice of Syria, the right of Syria and the image of Syria. They targeted his body, but they didn't target his mentality or spirit," Minister of Awkaf Mohammad Abdul-Satar al-Sayyed said in a statement.
Al-Baath Party Condemns the heinous Crime
Regional leadership of al-Baath Arab Socialist Party condemned the brutal crime in al-Eman mosque in Damascus which claimed the lives of the great scholar and the prayers.
"This massacre adds to the crimes perpetrated by the mercenary terrorists against the Syrians. They target everything including the mosques and houses of worship," the leadership said in statement.
Archbishop al-Khouri: al-Bouti will remain the word of right
Archbishop Luka al-Khouri, the general vicar of the patriarchate of Antioch and all the East said that the late scholar al-Bouti will remain the word of right that we have learned from. His teachings will remain remembered in the brains of all Syrians.
"We all pray for the rest of our martyr whom we respect..," Archbishop Khouri said in a speech to the Syrian TV.
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This is the text of the introductory speech by Susan Dirgham to what turned out to be an uplifting evening on the politics of war in Syria, as interpreted by members of AMRIS (Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria). The speakers formed a panel of two young women and one man, all with different connections to Syria and different perspectives. The level of political sophistication was very high, impressive, and stimulating. For those of you who were not able to attend the Unitarian Church on Wednesday 6 March, I filmed the event in four films. The films are embedded in this article and available at http://youtu.be/HifmWKE0cg4; http://youtu.be/exoNr8r4UEU; http://youtu.be/BpWjdzlOheg and http://youtu.be/obw4M40CeDM
AMRIS (Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria). Susan Dirgham: On behalf of AMRIS [Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria] I’d like to thank the Unitarian Church, particularly the Social Justice Committee for hosting this evening.
What unites all the speakers you will hear tonight is a love for the people and secular societies of Syria and/or Lebanon.
That word ‘love’ isn’t sniggered at in Syria, as it might be in Australia. People use it frequently and it has meaning.
I don’t want to idealize Syrian society and the people, but in my mind, there is something in the air in Syria, or there was in the Syria I knew when I lived there and visited. It is very human, and very precious, and genuine.
The other main speakers at the forum were Edward, Nina and Leyla, pictured below. Each of his/her pictures is linked to the embedded video of his/her talk.
I used to believe I could take something of value from our modern affluent world to Syria. Like a 21st Century missionary.
I took diaries with beautiful photos of Australian landscapes and I took koalas.
But I found so much in Damascus and other parts of Syria that was precious and that couldn’t be packed in a bag. It was both a physical and metaphysical expression of the history of humanity, something grand and sweeping, and tragic and triumphant, and still very much present - being lived by the people in Syria who have Arab, Turk, French, British, Palestinian, Russian, Roman, Greek, Circassian, Armenian, Kurd etc etc in their blood.
In the classrooms of the British Council, I felt that my Syrian students had a common purpose in bringing their society together, in modernizing it and uniting the disparate peoples, despite the enormous challenges and the threats from outside. It was hard work that the people of Syria were committed to, the women as much as the men.
In Syria, I was very conscious of the plight of the Palestinian people and of the war in Iraq. On television, we saw images of US soldiers walking the streets of Baghdad looking as alien there and as unwelcome as say Saudi Arabian soldiers would if they were striding the streets of Australia with AK47s.
But Syria was on the list of countries the neo-cons in the US planned to topple. Now the US and its allies are waging a modern day Cowboy and Indian fight in Syria, a 21st century digital crusade against Syria, with support from Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Israel and Australia.
So it is a love for Syria and Lebanon which unites the speakers tonight. And it is Mother Agnes Mariam who has brought us together. Mother Agnes, as described by Angela Shanahan in The Australian (6 Oct 2011) was the mother superior of a 1500-year-old monastery in Syria.
For me, she is a modern day hero in a time when we imagine we don’t need heroes because our suburban life-style and city scape look so permanent. But trust me, we need heroes. The grand architecture and monuments or Syria appeared permanent to me; and the free and easy lifestyle which allowed young women to go out alone at night in Damascus did, too.
We need heroes. And we need to search hard for the truth, and demand that people in our media and the government do the same.
As in the 1930s, there are signs that a most terrible genocide could be committed in Syria and the region. It has to be prevented.
Given that the supporters of the armed insurgency against the Syrian Government of President Bashar al-Assad, namely the governments of United States, Australia, their NATO allies and the Arab dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, are the same who waged the illegal wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, from which 3.3 million Iraqis died, according to one estimate shouldn't we expect Australia's newsmedia, this time to subject the claims made by these same governments to more scrutiny? Shouldn't the Syrian government, which is being accused by the Western newsmedia of making foreign intervention necessary, at least, be allowed to put its case? Evidently not, judging by the Australian newsmedia's failure to report on the included interview of Bashar Al-Assad conducted by The Sunday Times on 3 March.
Sunday Times: Mr. President your recent offer of political dialogue was qualified with a firm rejection of the very groups you would have to pacify to stop the violence: the armed rebels and the Syrian National Coalition, the main opposition alliance.
So in effect you are only extending an olive branch to the loyal opposition, mostly internal, that renounces the armed struggle, and who effectively recognizes the legitimacy of your leadership, who are you willing to talk to, really?
President Assad: First of all, let me correct some of the misconceptions that have been circulating and that are found in your question in order to make my answer accurate.
Sunday Times: Okay.
President Assad: Firstly, when I announced the plan, I said that it was for those who are interested in dialogue, because you cannot make a plan that is based on dialogue with somebody who does not believe in dialogue. So, I was very clear regarding this.
Secondly, this open dialogue should not be between exclusive groups but between all Syrians of every level. The dialogue is about the future of Syria. We are twenty three million Syrians and all of us have the right to participate in shaping the country’s future. Some may look at it as a dialogue between the government and certain groups in the opposition - whether inside or outside, external or internal -actually this is a very shallow way of looking at the dialogue. It is much more comprehensive. It is about every Syrian and about every aspect of Syrian life. Syria’s future cannot be determined simply by who leads it but by the ambitions and aspirations of all its people.
The other aspect of the dialogue is that it opens the door for militants to surrender their weapons and we have granted many amnesties to facilitate this. This is the only way to make a dialogue with those groups. This has already started, even before the plan, and some have surrendered their weapons and they live now their normal life. But this plan makes the whole process more methodical, announced and clear.
If you want to talk about the opposition, there is another misconception in the West. They put all the entities even if they are not homogeneous in one basket – as if everything against the government is opposition. We have to be clear about this. We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists; we fight terrorism. Another phrase that is often mentioned is the ‘internal opposition inside Syria’ or ‘internal opposition as loyal to the government.’ Opposition groups should be loyal and patriotic to Syria – internal and external opposition is not about the geographic position; it is about their roots, resources and representation. Have these roots been planted in Syria and represent Syrian people and Syrian interests or the interests of foreign government? So, this is how we look at the dialogue, this is how we started and how we are going to continue.
Sunday Times: Most have rejected it, at least if we talk about the opposition externally who are now the body that is being hailed as the opposition and where the entire world is basically behind them. So, most of them have rejected it with the opposition describing your offer as a “waste of time,” and some have said that it is “empty rhetoric” based on lack of trust and which British Secretary William Hague described it as “beyond hypocritical” and the Americans said you were “detached from reality.”
President Assad: I will not comment on what so-called Syrian bodies outside Syria have said. These bodies are not independent. As Syrians, we are independent and we need to respond to independent bodies and this is not the case. So let’s look at the other claims.
Firstly, detached from reality: Syria has been fighting adversaries and foes for two years; you cannot do that if you do not have public support. People will not support you if you are detached from their reality. A recent survey in the UK shows that a good proportion British people want “to keep out of Syria” and they do not believe that the British government should send military supplies to the rebels in Syria.
In spite of this, the British government continues to push the EU to lift its arms embargo on Syria to start arming militants with heavy weapons. That is what I call detached from reality–when you are detached from your own public opinion! And they go further in saying that they want to send “military aid” that they describe as “non-lethal.” The intelligence, communication and financial assistance being provided is very lethal. The events of 11th of September were not committed by lethal aids. It was the application of non-lethal technology and training which caused the atrocities.
The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria, knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria; we all know that we are now fighting Al-Qaeda or Jabhat al-Nusra which is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, and other groups of people indoctrinated with extreme ideologies. This is beyond hypocritical! What is beyond hypocrisy is when you talk about freedom of expression and ban Syrian TV channels from the European broadcasting satellites; when you shed tears for somebody killed in Syria by terrorist acts while preventing the Security Council from issuing a statement denouncing the suicide bombing that happened last week in Damascus, and you were here, where three hundred Syrians were either killed or injured, including women and children - all of them were civilians. Beyond hypocrisy when you preach about human rights and you go into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and kill hundreds of thousands in illegal wars. Beyond hypocrisy is when you talk about democracy and your closest allies are the worst autocratic regimes in the world that belong to the medieval centuries. This is hypocrisy!
Sunday Times: But you always refer to the people fighting here as terrorists, do you accept that while some are from the Jabhat al-Nusra and those affiliated to Al-Qaeda but there are others such as the FSA or under the umbrella of the FSA? That some of them are the defectors and some of them are just ordinary people who started some of the uprising. These are not terrorists; these are people fighting for what they believe to be the right way at the moment.
President Assad: When we say that we are fighting Al-Qaeda, we mean that the main terrorist group and the most dangerous is Al-Qaeda. I have stated in many interviews and speeches that this is not the only group in Syria. The spectrum ranges from petty criminals, drugs dealers, groups that are killing and kidnapping just for money to mercenaries and militants; these clearly do not have any political agenda or any ideological motivations. The so-called “Free Army” is not an entity as the West would like your readers to believe. It is hundreds of small groups – as defined by international bodies working with Annan and Al-Ibrahimi - there is no entity, there is no leadership, there is no hierarchy; it is a group of different gangs working for different reasons. The Free Syrian Army is just the headline, the umbrella that is used to legitimize these groups.
This does not mean that at the beginning of the conflict there was no spontaneous movement; there were people who wanted to make change in Syria and I have acknowledged that publically many times. That’s why I have said the dialogue is not for the conflict itself; the dialogue is for the future of Syria because many of the groups still wanting change are now against the terrorists. They still oppose the government but they do not carry weapons. Having legitimate needs does not make your weapons legitimate.
Sunday Times: Your 3-staged plan: the first one you speak of is the cessation of violence. Obviously there is the army and the fighters on the other side. Now, within the army you have a hierarchy, so if you want to say cease-fire, there is a commander that can control that, but when you offer cessation of violence or fire how can you assume the same for the rebels when you talk about them being so many groups, fragmented and not under one leadership. So, that’s one of the points of your plan. So, this suggests that this basically an impossible request. You speak of referendum but with so many displaced externally and internally, many of whom are the backbone of the opposition; those displaced at least. So, a referendum without them would not be fair, and the third part is that parliamentary elections and all this hopefully before 2014; it is a very tall list to be achieved before 2014. So, what are really the conditions that you are attaching to the dialogue and to make it happen, and aren’t some of the conditions that you are really suggesting or offering impossible to achieve?
President Assad: That depends on how we look at the situation. First of all, let’s say that the main article in the whole plan is the dialogue; this dialogue will put a timetable for everything and the procedures or details of this plan. The first article in my plan was the cessation of violence. If we cannot stop this violence, how can we achieve the other articles like the referendum and elections and so on? But saying that you cannot stop the violence is not a reason to do nothing. Yes there are many groups as I have said with no leadership, but we know that their real leadership are those countries that are funding and supplying their weapons and armaments - mainly Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
If outside parties genuinely want to help the process they should be pressuring those countries to stop supplying the terrorists. As with any other sovereign state, we will not negotiate with terrorists.
Sunday Times: Critics say real and genuine negotiations may be the cause of your downfall and that of your government or regime, and that you know this, hence you offer practically impossible scenarios for dialogue and negotiations?
President Assad: Actually, I don’t know this, I know the opposite. To be logical and realistic, if this is the case, then these foes, adversaries or opponents should push for the dialogue because in their view it will bring my downfall. But actually they are doing the opposite. They are preventing the so-called ‘opposition bodies outside Syria’ to participate in the dialogue because I think they believe in the opposite; they know that this dialogue will not bring my downfall, but will actually make Syria stronger. This is the first aspect.
The second aspect is that the whole dialogue is about Syria, about terrorism, and about the future of Syria. This is not about positions and personalities. So, they shouldn’t distract people by talking about the dialogue and what it will or will not bring to the President. I did not do it for myself. At the end, this is contradictory; what they say is contradicting what they do.
Sunday Times: You said that if they push for dialogue, it could bring your downfall?
President Assad: No, I said according to what they say if it brings my downfall, why don’t they come to the dialogue? They say that the dialogue will bring the downfall of the President and I am inviting them to the dialogue. Why don’t they then come to the dialogue to bring my downfall? This is self-evident. That’s why I said they are contradicting themselves.
Sunday Times: Mr. President, John Kerry, a man you know well, has started a tour that will take him this week end to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, where he will be talking to them about ways to ‘ease you out.’ In London and Berlin earlier this week, he said that President Assad must go and he also said that one of his first moves is to draft diplomatic proposals to persuade you to give up power. Would you invite him to Damascus for talks? What would you say to him? What is your message to him now given what he said this week and what he plans to say to his allies when he visits them over the weekend? And if possible from your knowledge of him how would you describe Kerry from your knowledge of him in the past?
President Assad: I would rather describe policies rather than describing people. So, it is still early to judge him. It is only a few weeks since he became Secretary of State. First of all, the point that you have mentioned is related to internal Syrian matters or Syrian issue. Any Syrian subject would not be raised with any foreigners. We only discuss it with Syrians within Syria. So, I am not going to discuss it with anyone who is coming from abroad. We have friends and we discuss our issues with friends, we listen to their advice but at the end it is our decision as Syrians to think or to make what’s good for our country.
If anyone wants to ‘genuinely’ – I stress the word genuinely – help Syria and help the cessation of violence in our country, he can do only one thing; he can go to Turkey and sit with Erdogan and tell to him stop smuggling terrorists into Syria, stop sending armaments, stop providing logistical support to those terrorists. He can go to Saudi Arabia and Qatar and tell them stop financing the terrorists in Syria. This is the only thing anyone can do dealing with the external part of our problem, but no one from outside Syria can deal with the internal part of this problem
Sunday Times: So, what is your message to Kerry?
President Assad: It is very clear: to understand what I said now. I mean, not a message to Kerry but to anyone who is talking about the Syrian issue: only Syrian people can tell the President: stay or leave, come or go. I am just saying this clearly in order not to waste the time of others to know where to focus.
Sunday Times: What role if any do you see for Britain in any peace process for Syria? Have there been any informal contacts with the British? What is your reaction to Cameron’s support for the opposition? What would you say if you were sitting with him now, especially that Britain is calling for the arming of the rebels?
President Assad: There is no contact between Syria and Britain for a long time. If we want to talk about the role, you cannot separate the role from the credibility. And we cannot separate the credibility from the history of that country. To be frank, now I am talking to a British journalist and a British audience, to be frank, Britain has played a famously (in our region) an unconstructive role in different issues for decades, some say for centuries. I am telling you now the perception in our region.
The problem with this government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlight this tradition of bullying and hegemony. I am being frank. How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarize the problem? How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better and more stable, how can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists and don’t try to ease the dialogue between the Syrians. This is not logical. I think that they are working against us and working against the interest of the UK itself. This government is acting in a naïve, confused and unrealistic manner. If they want to play a role, they have to change this; they have to act in a more reasonable and responsible way, till then we do not expect from an arsonist to be a firefighter!
Sunday Times: In 2011 you said you wouldn’t waste your time talking about the body leading opposition, now we are talking about the external body, in fact you hardly recognized there was such a thing, what changed your mind or views recently? What talks, if any are already going on with the rebels who are a major component and factor in this crisis? Especially given that your Foreign Minister Muallem said earlier this week when he was in Russia that the government is open to talks with the armed opposition can you clarify?
President Assad: Actually, I did not change my mind. Again, this plan is not for them; it is for every Syrian who accepts the dialogue. So, making this initiative is not a change of mind. Secondly, since day one in this crisis nearly two years ago, we have said we are ready for dialogue; nothing has changed. We have a very consistent position towards the dialogue. Some may understand that I changed my mind because I did not recognize the first entity, but then I recognized the second. I recognized neither, more importantly the Syrian people do not recognize them or take them seriously. When you have a product that fails in the market, they withdraw the product, change the name, change the packing and they rerelease it again – but it is still faulty. The first and second bodies are the same products with different packaging. Regarding what our minister said, it is very clear.
Part of the initiative is that we are ready to negotiate with anyone including militants who surrender their arms. We are not going to deal with terrorists who are determined to carry weapons, to terrorize people, to kill civilians, to attack public places or private enterprises and destroy the country.
Sunday Times: Mr. President, the world looks at Syria and sees a country being destroyed, with at least 70,000 killed, more than 3 million displaced and sectarian divisions being deepened. Many people around the world blame you. What do you say to them? Are you to blame for what’s happened in the country you are leading?
President Assad: You have noted those figures as though they were numbers from a spreadsheet. To some players they are being used to push forward their political agenda; unfortunately that is a reality. Regardless of their accuracy, for us Syrians, each one of those numbers represents a Syrian man, woman or child. When you talk about thousands of victims, we see thousands of families who have lost loved ones and who unfortunately will grieve for many years to come. Nobody can feel this pain more than us.
Looking at the issue of political agendas, we have to ask better questions. How were these numbers verified? How many represent foreign fighters? How many were combatants aged between 20 and 30? How many were civilians – innocent women and children? The situation on the ground makes it almost impossible to get accurate answers to these important questions. We all know how death tolls and human casualties have been manipulated in the past to pave the way for humanitarian intervention. The Libyan government recently announced that the death toll before the invasion of Libya was exaggerated; they said five thousand victims from each side while the number was talking at that time of tens of thousands.
The British and the Americans who were physically inside Iraq during the war were unable to provide precise numbers about the victims that have been killed from their invasion. Suddenly, the same sources have very precise numbers about what is happening in Syria! This is ironic; I will tell you very simply that these numbers do not exist in reality; it is part of their virtual reality that they want to create to push forward their agenda for military intervention under the title of humanitarian intervention
Sunday Times: If I may just on this note a little bit. Even if the number is exaggerated and not definitely precise, these are numbers corroborated by Syrian groups, however they are still thousands that were killed. Some are militants but some are civilians. Some are being killed through the military offensive, for example artillery or plane attacks in certain areas. So even if we do not argue the actual number, the same applies, they still blame yourself for those civilians, if you want, that are being killed through the military offensive, do you accept that?
President Assad:Firstly, we cannot talk about the numbers without their names. People who are killed have names. Secondly, why did they die? Where and how were they killed? Who killed them? Armed gangs, terrorist groups, criminals, kidnappers, the army, who?
Sunday Times: It is a mix.
President Assad: It is a mix, but it seems that you are implying that one person is responsible for the current situation and all the human casualties. From day one the situation in Syria has been influenced by military and political dynamics, which are both very fast moving. In such situations you have catalysts and barriers. To assume any one party is responsible for all barriers and another party responsible for all the catalysts is absurd. Too many innocent civilians have died, too many Syrians are suffering. As I have already said nobody is more pained by this than us Syrians, which is why we are pushing for a national dialogue. I’m not in the blame business, but if you are talking of responsibility, then clearly I have a constitutional responsibility to keep Syria and her people safe from terrorists and radical groups.
Sunday Times: What is the role of Al-Qaeda and other jihadists and what threats do they pose to the region and Europe? Are you worried Syria turning into something similar to Chechnya in the past? Are you concerned about the fate of minorities if you were loose this war or of a sectarian war akin to that of Iraq?
President Assad:The role of Al-Qaeda in Syria is like the role of Al-Qaeda anywhere else in this world; killing, beheading, torturing and preventing children from going to school because as you know Al-Qaeda’s ideologies flourish where there is ignorance. Ideologically, they try to infiltrate the society with their dark, extremist ideologies and they are succeeding. If you want to worry about anything in Syria, it is not the ‘minorities.’ This is a very shallow description because Syria is a melting pot of religions, sects, ethnicities and ideologies that collectively make up a homogeneous mixture, irrelevant of the portions or percentages. We should be worrying about the majority of moderate Syrians who, if we do not fight this extremism, could become the minority – at which point Syria will cease to exist.
If you worry about Syria in that sense, you have to worry about the Middle East because we are the last bastion of secularism in the region. If you worry about the Middle East, the whole world should be worried about its stability. This is the reality as we see it.
Sunday Times: How threatening is Al-Qaeda now?
President Assad: Threatening by ideology more than the killing. The killing is dangerous, of course, but what is irreversible is the ideology; that is dangerous and we have been warning of this for many years even before the conflict; we have been dealing with these ideologies since the late seventies. We were the first in the region to deal with such terrorists who have been assuming the mantle of Islam. We have consistently been warning of this, especially in the last decade during the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The West is only reacting to the situation, not acting. We need to act by dealing with the ideology first. A war on terror without dealing with the ideology will lead you nowhere and will only make things worse. So, it is threatening and it is dangerous, not just to Syria but to the whole region.
Sunday Times: US officials recently, in particular yesterday, are quoted as saying that US decision not to arm rebels could be revised. If this was to happen what in your view will the consequences in Syria and in the region? What is your warning against this? Now, they are talking about directly equipping the rebels with armament vehicles, training and body armaments.
President Assad: You know the crime is not only about the victim and the criminal, but also the accomplice providing support, whether it is moral or logistical support. I have said many times that Syria lies at the fault line geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So, playing with this fault line will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East. Is the situation better in Libya today? In Mali? In Tunisia? In Egypt? Any intervention will not make things better; it will only make them worse. Europe and the United States and others are going to pay the price sooner or later with the instability in this region; they do not foresee it.
Sunday Times: What is your message to Israel following its air strikes on Syria? Will you retaliate? How will you respond to any future attacks by Israel especially that Israel has said that we will do it again if it has to?
President Assad: Every time Syria did retaliate, but in its own way, not tit for tat. We retaliated in our own way and only the Israelis know what we mean.
Sunday Times: Can you expand?
President Assad: Yes. Retaliation does not mean missile for missile or bullet for bullet. Our own way does not have to be announced; only the Israelis will know what I mean.
Sunday Times: Can you tell us how?
President Assad: We do not announce that.
Sunday Times: I met a seven year old boy in Jordan.
President Assad: A Syrian boy?
Sunday Times: A Syrian boy who had lost an arm and a leg to a missile strike in Herak. Five children in his family had been killed in that explosion. As a father, what can you say to that little boy? Why have so many innocent civilians died in air strikes, army shelling and sometimes, I quote, ‘Shabiha shootings?’
President Assad: What is his name?
Sunday Times: I have his name ... will bring it to you later.
President Assad: As I said every victim in this crisis has a name, every casualty has a family. Like 5 year-old Saber who whilst having breakfast with his family at home lost his leg, his mother and other members of his family. Like 4 year-old Rayan who watched his two brothers slaughtered for taking him to a rally. None of these families have any political affiliations. Children are the most fragile link in any society and unfortunately they often pay the heaviest price in any conflict. As a father of young children, I know the meaning of having a child harmed by something very simple; so what if they are harmed badly or if we lose a child, it is the worst thing any family can face. Whenever you have conflicts, you have these painful stories that affect any society. This is the most important and the strongest incentive for us to fight terrorism. Genuine humanitarians who feel the pain that we feel about our children and our losses should encourage their governments to prevent smuggling armaments and terrorists and to prevent the terrorists from acquiring any military supplies from any country.
Sunday Times: Mr. President, when you lie in bed at night, do you hear the explosions in Damascus? Do you, in common with many other Syrians, worry about the safety of your family? Do you worry that there may come a point where your own safety is in jeopardy?
President Assad: I see it completely differently. Can anybody be safe, or their family be safe, if the country is in danger? In reality NO! If your country is not safe, you cannot be safe. So instead of worrying about yourself and your family, you should be worried about every citizen and every family in your country. So it’s a mutual relationship.
Sunday Times: You’ll know of the international concerns about Syria’s chemical weapons. Would your army ever use them as a last resort against your opponents? Reports suggest they have been moved several times, if so why? Do you share the international concern that they may fall into the hands of Islamist rebels? What is the worst that could happen?
President Assad: Everything that has been referred to in the media or by official rhetoric regarding Syrian chemical weapons is speculation. We have never, and will never, discuss our armaments with anyone. What the world should worry about is chemical materials reaching the hands of terrorists. Video material has already been broadcast showing toxic material being tried on animals with threats to the Syrian people that they will die in the same way. We have shared this material with other countries. This is what the world should be focusing on rather than wasting efforts to create elusive headlines on Syrian chemical weapons to justify any intervention in Syria.
Sunday Times: I know you are not saying whether they are safe or not. There is concern if they are safe or no one can get to them.
President Assad: This is constructive ambiguity. No country will talk about their capabilities.
Sunday Times: A lot has been talked about this as well: what are the roles of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia in the war on the ground? Are you aware of Hezbollah fighters in Syria and what are they doing? What weapons are your allies Iran and Russia supplying? What other support are they providing?
President Assad: The Russian position is very clear regarding armaments - they supply Syria with defensive armaments in line with international law. Hezbollah, Iran and Russia support Syria in her fight against terrorism. Russia has been very constructive, Iran has been very supportive and Hezbollah’s role is to defend Lebanon not Syria. We are a country of 23 million people with a strong National Army and Police Force. We are in no need of foreign fighters to defend our country. What we should be asking is, what about the role of other countries, - Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, the UK, the US, - that support terrorism in Syria directly or indirectly, militarily or politically.
Sunday Times: Mr. President, may I ask you about your own position? Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov recently said that Lakhdar Ibrahimi complained of wanting to see more flexibility from your regime and that while you never seem to say ‘no’ you never seem to say ‘yes’. Do you think that there can be a negotiated settlement while you remain President, which is a lot of people are asking?
President Assad: Do not expect a politician to only say yes or no in the absolute meaning; it is not multiple choice questions to check the correct answer. You can expect from any politician a vision and our vision is very clear. We have a plan and whoever wants to deal with us, can deal with us through our plan. This is very clear in order not to waste time. This question reflects what has been circulating in the Western media about personalizing the problem in Syria and suggesting that the entire conflict is about the president and his future. If this argument is correct, then my departure will stop the fighting. Clearly this is absurd and recent precedents in Libya, Yemen and Egypt bear witness to this. Their motive is to try to evade the crux of the issue, which is dialogue, reform and combating terrorism. The legacy of their interventions in our region have been chaos, destruction and disaster. So, how can they justify any future intervention? They cannot. So, they focus on blaming the president and pushing for his departure; questioning his credibility; is he living in a bubble or not? is he detached from reality or not? So, the focus of the conflict becomes about the president
Sunday Times: Some foreign officials have called for you to stand for war crimes at the International Criminal Court as the person ultimately responsible for the army’s actions? Do you fear prosecution by the ICC? Or the possibility of future prosecution and trial in Syria?
President Assad: Whenever an issue that is related to the UN is raised, you are raising the question of credibility. We all know especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union – for the last twenty years - that the UN and all its organizations are the victims of hegemony instead of being the bastions of justice. They became politicized tools in order to create instability and to attack sovereign countries, which is against the UN’s charter. So, the question that we have to raise now is: are they going to take the American and the British leaders who attacked Iraq in 2003 and claimed more than half a million lives in Iraq, let alone orphans, handicapped and deformed people? Are they going to take the American, British French and others who went to Libya without a UN resolution last year and claimed again hundreds of lives? They are not going to do it. The answer is very clear. You know that sending mercenaries to any country is a war crime according Nuremberg principles and according to the London Charter of 1945. Are they going to put Erdogan in front of this court because he sent mercenaries? Are they going to do the same with the Saudis and the Qataris? If we have answers to these questions, then we can talk about peace organizations and about credibility.
My answer is very brief: when people defend their country, they do not take into consideration anything else.
Sunday Times: Hindsight is a wonderful thing Mr. President. If you could wind the clock back two years would you have handled anything differently? Do you believe that there are things that could or should have been done in another way? What mistakes do you believe have been made by your followers that you would change?
President Assad: You can ask this question to a President if he is the only one responsible for all the context of the event. In our case in Syria, we know there are many external players. So you have to apply hindsight to every player. You have to ask Erdogan, with hindsight would you send terrorists to kill Syrians, would you afford logistical support to them? You should ask the Qatari and Saudis whether in hindsight, would you send money to terrorists and to Al-Qaeda offshoots or any other terrorist organization to kill Syrians? We should ask the same question to the European and American officials, in hindsight would you offer a political umbrella to those terrorists killing innocent civilians in Syria?
In Syria, we took two decisions. The first is to make dialogue; the second is to fight terrorism. If you ask any Syrian, in hindsight would you say no to dialogue and yes to terrorism? I do not think any sane person will agree with you. So I think in hindsight, we started with dialogue and we are going to continue with dialogue. In hindsight, we said we are going to fight terrorism and we are going to continue to fight terrorism.
Sunday Times: Do you ever think about living in exile if it came to that? And would you go abroad if it increases the chances of peace in Syria?
President Assad: Again, it is not about the president. I don’t think any patriotic person or citizen would think of living outside his country.
Sunday Times: You will never leave
President Assad: No patriotic person will think about living outside his country. I am like any other patriotic Syrian.
Sunday Times: How shaken you were you by the bomb that killed some of your most senior generals last summer, including your brother-in-law?
President Assad: You mentioned my brother-in-law but it is not a family affair. When high-ranking officials are being assassinated it is a national affair. Such a crime will make you more determined to fight terrorism. It is not about how you feel, but more about what you do. We are more determined in fighting terrorism.
Sunday Times: Finally, Mr. President, may I ask about my colleague, Marie Colvin, who was killed in the shelling of an opposition media center at Baba Amr on February 22 last year. Was she targeted, as some have suggested, because she condemned the destruction on American and British televisions? Or was she just unlucky? Did you hear about her death at the time and if so what was your reaction?
President Assad: Of course, I heard about the story through the media. When a journalist goes into conflict zones, as you are doing now, to cover a story and convey it to the world, I think this is very courageous work. Every decent person, official or government should support journalists in these efforts because that will help shed light on events on the ground and expose propaganda where it exists. Unfortunately in most conflicts a journalist has paid the ultimate price. It is always sad when a journalist is killed because they are not with either side or even part of the problem, they only want to cover the story. There is a media war on Syria preventing the truth from being told to the outside world.
14 Syrian journalists who have also been killed since the beginning of the crisis and not all of them on the ground. Some have been targeted at home after hours, kidnapped, tortured and then murdered. Others are still missing. More than one Syrian television station has been attacked by terrorists and their bombs. There is currently a ban on the broadcast of Syrian TV channels on European satellite systems. It is also well known how rebels have used journalists for their own interests. There was the case of the British journalist who managed to escape.
Sunday Times: Alex Thompson?
President Assad: Yes. He was lead into a death trap by the terrorists in order to accuse the Syrian Army of his death. That’s why it is important to enter countries legally, to have a visa. This was not the case for Marie Colvin. We don’t know why and it’s not clear. If you enter illegally, you cannot expect the state to be responsible. Contrary to popular belief, since the beginning of the crisis, hundreds of journalists from all over the world, including you, have gained visas to enter Syria and have been reporting freely from inside Syria with no interferences in their work and no barriers to fulfill their missions.
Sunday Times: Thank you.
President Assad: Thank you.
Source : “Bashar Al-Assad’s Interview with The Sunday Times”, by Bashar al-Assad, Voltaire Network, 3 March 2013, www.voltairenet.org/article177726.html
Please attend a publicmeetingat7.30PMon Wednesday 6 March forpeacein Syria at the Unitarian Church, 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne. (The previously advertised time of 6.30PM was wrong. Our apologies.)
Updated with footnote re Cambodia. This article, originally published on Counterpunch on 22 Feb 2012, is being re-published here on candobetter.net with the kind permission of Jeffrey St Clair, the editor of Counterpunch and its author Israel Shamir. My concern about the proxy war, currently being waged illegally against against Syria, by the US, its NATO allies, Israel and the Arab dictatorships, caused me to undertake research into this earlier conflict which involved Syria. Until I spotted this article, much of the material seemed not to explain the war very well and was biased towards Israel. The author, now a resident of Russia, fought in the war on the Suez Canal against the Egyptian army.
Shamir shows how much of the war was choreographed and the result of a conspiracy by the US, the government of Israel and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat amongst others.
The principle victims of that conspiracy were Syria, who had to face a savage assault by most of Israel's armed forces in the Golan Heights and the Palestinians. Other victims included Egyptian soldiers and Israeli soldiers who were set up to die in the choreographed battles along the Suez canal.
This war led to the US displacing the Soviet Union as the most influential power in the Middle East, the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and, ultimately, to the terrorist war now being waged against Syria by mercenary proxies of Israel, the US, the Arab dictatorships and their NATO allies.
Here in Moscow, I recently received a dark-blue folder dated 1975. It contains one of the most well-buried secrets of Middle Eastern and of US diplomacy. The secret file, written by the Soviet Ambassador in Cairo, Vladimir M. Vinogradov, apparently a draft for a memorandum addressed to the Soviet politbureau, describes the 1973 October War as a collusive enterprise between US, Egyptian and Israeli leaders, orchestrated by Henry Kissinger. If you are an Egyptian reader this revelation is likely to upset you. I, an Israeli who fought the Egyptians in the 1973 war, was equally upset and distressed -- yet still excited by the discovery. For an American it is likely to come as a shock.
According to the Vinogradov memo (to be published by us in full in the Russian weekly Expert next Monday), Anwar al-Sadat, holder of the titles of President, Prime Minister, ASU Chairman, Chief Commander, Supreme Military Ruler, entered into conspiracy with the Israelis, betrayed his ally Syria, condemned the Syrian army to destruction and Damascus to bombardment, allowed General Sharon's tanks to cross without hindrance to the western bank of the Suez Canal and actually planned a defeat of the Egyptian troops in the October War. Egyptian soldiers and officers bravely and successfully fought the Israeli enemy -- too successfully for Sadat's liking as he began the war in order to allow for the US comeback to the Middle East.
He was not the only conspirator: according to Vinogradov, the grandmotherly Golda Meir knowingly sacrificed two thousand of Israel's best fighters -- she possibly thought fewer would be killed — in order to give Sadat his moment of glory and to let the US secure its positions in the Middle East. The memo allows for a completely new interpretation of the Camp David Treaty, as one achieved by deceit and treachery.
Vladimir Vinogradov was a prominent and brilliant Soviet diplomat; he served as ambassador to Tokyo in the 1960s, to Cairo from 1970 to 1974, co-chairman of the Geneva Peace Conference, ambassador to Tehran during the Islamic revolution, the USSR Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. He was a gifted painter and a prolific writer; his archive has hundreds of pages of unique observations and notes covering international affairs, but the place of honor goes to his Cairo diaries, and among others, descriptions of his hundreds of meetings with Sadat and the full sequence of the war as he observed it unfold at Sadat's HQ as the big decisions were made. When published, these notes will allow us to re-evaluate the post-Nasser period of Egyptian history.
Vinogradov arrived to Cairo for Nasser's funeral and remained there as the Ambassador. He recorded the creeping coup of Sadat, least bright of Nasser's men, who became Egypt's president by chance, as he was the vice-president at Nasser's death. Soon he dismissed, purged and imprisoned practically all important Egyptian politicians, the comrades-in-arms of Gamal Abd el Nasser, and dismantled the edifice of Nasser's socialism. Vinogradov was an astute observer; not a conspiracy cuckoo. Far from being headstrong and doctrinaire, he was a friend of Arabs and a consistent supporter and promoter of a lasting and just peace between the Arabs and Israel, a peace that would meet Palestinian needs and ensure Jewish prosperity.[1]
The pearl of his archive is the file called The Middle Eastern Games. It contains some 20 typewritten pages edited by hand in blue ink, apparently a draft for a memo to the Politburo and to the government, dated January 1975, soon after his return from Cairo. The file contains the deadly secret of the collusion he observed. It is written in lively and highly readable Russian, not in the bureaucratese we'd expect. Two pages are added to the file in May 1975; they describe Vinogradov's visit to Amman and his informal talks with Abu Zeid Rifai, the Prime Minister, and his exchange of views with the Soviet Ambassador in Damascus. Vinogradov did not voice his opinions until 1998, and even then he did not speak as openly as in this draft. Actually, when the suggestion of collusion was presented to him by the Jordanian prime minister, being a prudent diplomat, he refused to discuss it.
The official version of the October war holds that on October 6, 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Anwar as-Sadat launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces. They crossed the Canal and advanced a few miles into the occupied Sinai. As the war progressed, tanks of General Ariel Sharon crossed the Suez Canal and encircled the Egyptian Third Army. The ceasefire negotiations eventually led to the handshake at the White House.
For me, the Yom Kippur War (as we called it) was an important part of my autobiography. A young paratrooper, I fought that war, crossed the canal, seized Gabal Ataka heights, survived shelling and face-to-face battles, buried my buddies, shot the man-eating red dogs of the desert and the enemy tanks. My unit was ferried by helicopters into the desert where we severed the main communication line between the Egyptian armies and its home base, the Suez-Cairo highway. Our location at 101 km to Cairo was used for the first cease fire talks; so I know that war not by word of mouth, and it hurts to learn that I and my comrades-at-arms were just disposable tokens in the ruthless game we -- ordinary people -- lost. Obviously I did not know it then, for me the war was a surprise, but then, I was not a general.
Vinogradov dispels the idea of surprise: in his view, both the canal crossing by the Egyptians and the inroads by Sharon were planned and agreed upon in advance by Kissinger, Sadat and Meir. The plan included the destruction of the Syrian army as well.
At first, he asks some questions: how the crossing could be a surprise if the Russians evacuated their families a few days before the war? The concentration of the forces was observable and could not escape Israeli attention. Why did the Egyptian forces not proceed after the crossing but stood still? Why did they have no plans for advancing? Why there was a forty km-wide unguarded gap between the 2nd and the 3rd armies, the gap that invited Sharon's raid? How could Israeli tanks sneak to the western bank of the Canal? Why did Sadat refuse to stop them? Why were there no reserve forces on the western bank of the Canal?
Vinogradov takes a leaf from Sherlock Holmes who said: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. He writes: These questions can't be answered if Sadat is to be considered a true patriot of Egypt. But they can be answered in full, if we consider a possibility of collusion between Sadat, the US and Israeli leadership -- a conspiracy in which each participant pursued his own goals. A conspiracy in which each participant did not know the full details of other participants' game. A conspiracy in which each participant tried to gain more ground despite the overall agreement between them.
Sadat's Plans
Before the war Sadat was at the nadir of his power: in Egypt and abroad he had lost prestige. The least educated and least charismatic of Nasser's followers, Sadat was isolated. He needed a war, a limited war with Israel that would not end with defeat. Such a war would release the pressure in the army and he would regain his authority. The US agreed to give him a green light for the war, something the Russians never did. The Russians protected Egypt's skies, but they were against wars. For that, Sadat had to rely upon the US and part with the USSR. He was ready to do so as he loathed socialism. He did not need victory, just no defeat; he wanted to explain his failure to win by deficient Soviet equipment. That is why the army was given the minimal task: crossing the Canal and hold the bridgehead until the Americans entered the game.
Plans of the US
During decolonisation the US lost strategic ground in the Middle East with its oil, its Suez Canal, its vast population. Its ally Israel had to be supported, but the Arabs were growing stronger all the time. Israel had to be made more flexible, for its brutal policies interfered with the US plans. So the US had to keep Israel as its ally but at the same time Israel's arrogance had to be broken. The US needed a chance to "save" Israel after allowing the Arabs to beat the Israelis for a while. So the US allowed Sadat to begin a limited war.
Israel
Israel's leaders had to help the US, its main provider and supporter. The US needed to improve its positions in the Middle East, as in 1973 they had only one friend and ally, King Feisal. (Kissinger told Vinogradov that Feisal tried to educate him about the evilness of Jews and Communists.) If and when the US was to recover its position in the Middle East, the Israeli position would improve drastically. Egypt was a weak link, as Sadat disliked the USSR and the progressive forces in the country, so it could be turned. Syria could be dealt with militarily, and broken.
The Israelis and Americans decided to let Sadat take the Canal while holding the mountain passes of Mittla and Giddi, a better defensive line anyway. This was actually Rogers' plan of 1971, acceptable to Israel. But this should be done in fighting, not given up for free.
As for Syria, it was to be militarily defeated, thoroughly. That is why the Israeli Staff did send all its available troops to the Syrian border, while denuding the Canal though the Egyptian army was much bigger than the Syrian one. Israeli troops at the Canal were to be sacrificed in this game; they were to die in order to bring the US back into the Middle East.
However, the plans of the three partners were somewhat derailed by the factors on the ground: it is the usual problem with conspiracies; nothing works as it should, Vinogradov writes in his memo to be published in full next week in Moscow's Expert.
Sadat's crooked game was spoiled to start with. His presumptions did not work out. Contrary to his expectations, the USSR supported the Arab side and began a massive airlift of its most modern military equipment right away. The USSR took the risk of confrontation with the US; Sadat had not believed they would because the Soviets were adamant against the war, before it started. His second problem, according to Vinogradov, was the superior quality of Russian weapons in the hands of Egyptian soldiers — better than the western weapons in the Israelis' hands.
As an Israeli soldier of the time I must confirm the Ambassador's words. The Egyptians had the legendary Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, the best gun in the world, while we had FN battle rifles that hated sand and water. We dropped our FNs and picked up their AKs at the first opportunity. They used anti-tank Sagger missiles, light, portable, precise, carried by one soldier. Saggers killed between 800 and 1200 Israeli tanks. We had old 105 mm recoilless jeep-mounted rifles, four men at a rifle (actually, a small cannon) to fight tanks. Only new American weapons redressed the imbalance.
Sadat did not expect the Egyptian troops, taught by the Soviet specialists, to better their Israeli enemy -- but they did. They crossed the Canal much faster than planned and with much smaller losses. Arabs beating the Israelis -- it was bad news for Sadat. He overplayed his hand. That is why the Egyptian troops stood still, like the sun upon Gibeon, and did not move. They waited for the Israelis, but at that time the Israeli army was fighting the Syrians. The Israelis felt somewhat safe from Sadat's side and they sent all their army north. The Syrian army took the entire punch of Israeli forces and began its retreat. They asked Sadat to move forward, to take some of the heat off them, but Sadat refused. His army stood and did not move, though there were no Israelis between the Canal and the mountain passes. Syrian leader al Assad was convinced at that time that Sadat betrayed him, and he said so frankly to the Soviet ambassador in Damascus, Mr Muhitdinov, who passed this to Vinogradov. Vinogradov saw Sadat daily and asked him in real time why he was not advancing. He received no reasonable answer: Sadat muttered that he does not want to run all over Sinai looking for Israelis, that sooner or later they would come to him.
The Israeli leadership was worried: the war was not going as expected. There were big losses on the Syrian front, the Syrians retreated but each yard was hard fought; only Sadat's passivity saved the Israelis from a reverse. The plan to for total Syrian defeat failed, but the Syrians could not effectively counterattack.
This was the time to punish Sadat: his army was too efficient, his advance too fast, and worse, his reliance upon the Soviets only grew due to the air bridge. The Israelis arrested their advance on Damascus and turned their troops southwards to Sinai. The Jordanians could at this time have cut off the North-to-South route and King Hussein proposed this to Sadat and Assad. Assad agreed immediately, but Sadat refused to accept the offer. He explained it to Vinogradov that he did not believe in the fighting abilities of the Jordanians. If they entered the war, Egypt would have to save them. At other times he said that it is better to lose the whole of Sinai than to lose a square yard on the Jordan: an insincere and foolish remark, in Vinogradov's view. So the Israeli troops rolled southwards without hindrance.
During the war, we (the Israelis) also knew that if Sadat advanced, he would gain the whole of Sinai in no time; we entertained many hypotheses why he was standing still, none satisfactory. Vinogradov explains it well: Sadat ran off his script and was waited for US involvement. What he got was the deep raid of Sharon.
This breakthrough of the Israeli troops to the western bank of the Canal was the murkiest part of the war, Vinogradov writes. He asked Sadat's military commanders at the beginning of the war why there is the forty km wide gap between the Second and the Third armies and was told that this was Sadat's directive. The gap was not even guarded; it was left wide open like a Trojan backdoor in a computer program.
Sadat paid no attention to Sharon's raid; he was indifferent to this dramatic development. Vinogradov asked him to deal with it when only the first five Israeli tanks crossed the Canal westwards; Sadat refused, saying it was of no military importance, just a "political move", whatever that meant. He repeated this to Vinogradov later, when the Israeli foothold on the Western bank of became a sizeable bridgehead. Sadat did not listen to advice from Moscow, he opened the door for the Israelis into Africa.
This allows for two explanations, says Vinogradov: an impossible one, of the Egyptians' total military ignorance and an improbable one, of Sadat's intentions. The improbable wins, as Sherlock Holmes observed.
The Americans did not stop the Israeli advance right away, says Vinogradov, for they wanted to have a lever to push Sadat so he would not change his mind about the whole setup. Apparently the gap was build into the deployments for this purpose. So Vinogradov's idea of "conspiracy" is that of dynamic collusion, similar to the collusion on Jordan between the Jewish Yishuv and Transjordan as described by Avi Shlaim: there were some guidelines and agreements, but they were liable to change, depending on the strength of the sides.
Bottom line
The US "saved" Egypt by stopping the advancing Israeli troops. With the passive support of Sadat, the US allowed Israel to hit Syria really hard.
The US-negotiated disengagement agreements with the UN troops in-between made Israel safe for years to come.
(In a different and important document, "Notes on Heikal's book Road to Ramadan", Vinogradov rejects the thesis of the unavoidability of Israeli-Arab wars: he says that as long as Egypt remains in the US thrall, such a war is unlikely. Indeed there have been no big wars since 1974, unless one counts Israeli "operations" in Lebanon and Gaza.)
The US "saved" Israel with military supplies.
Thanks to Sadat, the US came back to the Middle East and positioned itself as the only mediator and "honest broker" in the area.
Sadat began a violent anti-Soviet and antisocialist campaign, Vinogradov writes, trying to discredit the USSR. In the Notes, Vinogradov charges that Sadat spread many lies and disinformation to discredit the USSR in the Arab eyes. His main line was: the USSR could not and would not liberate Arab soil while the US could, would and did. Vinogradov explained elsewhere that the Soviet Union was and is against offensive wars, among other reasons because their end is never certain. However, the USSR was ready to go a long way to defend Arab states. As for liberation, the years since 1973 have proved that the US can't or won't deliver that, either -- while the return of Sinai to Egypt in exchange for separate peace was always possible, without a war as well.
After the war, Sadat's positions improved drastically. He was hailed as hero, Egypt took a place of honor among the Arab states. But in a year, Sadat's reputation was in tatters again, and that of Egypt went to an all time low, Vinogradov writes.
The Syrians understood Sadat's game very early: on October 12, 1973 when the Egyptian troops stood still and ceased fighting, President Hafez el Assad said to the Soviet ambassador that he is certain Sadat was intentionally betraying Syria. Sadat deliberately allowed the Israeli breakthrough to the Western bank of Suez, in order to give Kissinger a chance to intervene and realise his disengagement plan, said Assad to Jordanian Prime Minister Abu Zeid Rifai who told it to Vinogradov during a private breakfast they had in his house in Amman. The Jordanians also suspect Sadat played a crooked game, Vinogradov writes. However, the prudent Vinogradov refused to be drawn into this discussion though he felt that the Jordanians "read his thoughts."
When Vinogradov was appointed co-chairman of the Geneva Peace Conference, he encountered a united Egyptian-American position aiming to disrupt the conference, while Assad refused even to take part in it. Vinogradov delivered him a position paper for the conference and asked whether it is acceptable for Syria. Assad replied: yes but for one line. Which one line, asked a hopeful Vinogradov, and Assad retorted: the line saying "Syria agrees to participate in the conference." Indeed the conference came to nought, as did all other conferences and arrangements.
Though the suspicions voiced by Vinogradov in his secret document have been made by various military experts and historians, never until now they were made by a participant in the events, a person of such exalted position, knowledge, presence at key moments. Vinogradov's notes allow us to decipher and trace the history of Egypt with its de-industrialisation, poverty, internal conflicts, military rule tightly connected with the phony war of 1973.
A few years after the war, Sadat was assassinated, and his hand-picked follower Hosni Mubarak began his long rule, followed by another participant of the October War, Gen Tantawi. Achieved by lies and treason, the Camp David Peace treaty still guards Israeli and American interests. Only now, as the post-Camp David regime in Egypt is on the verge of collapse, one may hope for change. Sadat's name in the pantheon of Egyptian heroes was safe until now. In the end, all that is hidden will be made transparent.
Postscript. In 1975, Vinogradov could not predict that the 1973 war and subsequent treaties would change the world. They sealed the fate of the Soviet presence and eminence in the Arab world, though the last vestiges were destroyed by American might much later: in Iraq in 2003 and in Syria they are being undermined now. They undermined the cause of socialism in the world, which began its long fall. The USSR, the most successful state of 1972, an almost-winner of the Cold war, eventually lost it. Thanks to the American takeover of Egypt, petrodollar schemes were formed, and the dollar that began its decline in 1971 by losing its gold standard -- recovered and became again a full-fledged world reserve currency. The oil of the Saudis and of sheikdoms being sold for dollars became the new lifeline for the American empire. Looking back, armed now with the Vinogradov Papers, we can confidently mark 1973-74 as a decisive turning point in our history.
Israel Shamir has been sending dispatches to CounterPunch from Moscow.
[1] Whilst the Soviet Union appears to have behaved admirably in this conflict, the same cannot quite be said of their treatment of the embattled Vietnamese the previous year. In April 1972 as Vietnam was being blasted by a savage bombardment of B-52 bombers, U.S. President Nixon was welcomed to Russia by then Soviet Premier Brezhnev. (Later, in July as the bombardment of Vietnam continued, he was also welcomed to Beijing by Chinese 'communist' leader Mao Zedong.)
Editorial comment : Shamir's unorthodox views about Pol Pot's rule of Cambodia, 1975-1979 Israel Shamir has also written Pol Pot Revisited of 17 Sep 2012. This account of the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia disputes claims that 2–3 million died on Cambodia's killing fields between 1975 and 1980. As one, who had supported the struggle of Vietnamese, Laotions and Cambodians against the United States and wanted to see that triumph vindicated, the media reports of the alleged genocide seemed to, instead, at least in part, vindicate the war of the United States to prevent these ruthless killers from coming ro power. Whilst it seems highly unlikley to me that Shamir, who fought for Israel in 1973, would have a motive to fabricate the above account of the Yom Kippur war, I am not yet convinced of his account of Cambodia from 1975 until 1979, whilst I would like to be.
Part of the NATO Patriot anti-missile complexes, which were requested by Ankara from the Alliance, has already arrived in Turkey. They are planned to be deployed near the border with Syria, ostensibly to protect Turkey against possible missile attacks from the Syrian side.
Anti-missile complexes will be also located in the southeastern province of Kahramanmarash. Contrary to the authorities’ assertions that Patriots will only carry out defensive tasks, locals have serious concerns about their safety.
“We strongly object to the deployment of the NATO military facilities in the territory of Turkey since this exacerbates our relations with our neighbors, which were at an excellent level only 10 years ago. We went through that in 1991, when the missiles were deployed in Incirlik. Then, too, it was asserted that they were destined exclusively for defensive purposes. However, this did not prevent full-scale and unreasonable bombings of Iraq”, Esat Shengul, head of the regional branch of the main opposition Republican People’s Party said to the Voice of Russia.
In his opinion, the deployment of Patriots is part of the American Greater Middle East project, aimed at providing free access to energy resources.
Head of the local branch of the Nationalist Movement Party Mustafa Bastirmaji agrees with Shengul. “The West is trying to cause a clash between the peoples of the region. Moreover, it tries to unleash a Sunni-Shiite war in the region. Elements of such a confrontation are already evident in Syria. Later Iran’s turn will come. And it is scary to imagine what will happen then. We do not want it”, the politician stated in an interview with the Voice of Russia.
Turkish activists rally against NATO’s Patriot deployment
Turks have rallied against the NATO deployment of Patriot missiles on the country’s soil, media report.
Some 150 leftists and right-wing activists lit smoke bombs and burned an American flag outside the port area as dozens of camouflaged German military vehicles carrying Patriot batteries were offloaded in Iskenderun.
Another rally in downtown Iskenderun later gathered thousands of anti-NATO protesters, who chanted “Yankee go home!” and “Murderer America, get out of the Middle East!”
Some protesters said the root of evil was the “collaborationist government,” and not Syria. Riot police arrested several demonstrators.
by Elena Gromova. Originally published on VoltaireNet on 5 Dec 2012.
History stutters: the new leader of the Syrian National Coalition, knighted by the West, is none other than the grand-son of one of the chief collaborators of the French occupation of Syria in the 20s. Formerly, the French colonial power resorted to religious leaders to teach submission to the people under its domination; today it relies on clerics to overthrow the secular regime of the Syrian Arab Republic.
A photograph taken in 1941, when Syria was still under the rule of French colonisers, has recently been circulating on social networking sites. In the worn black and white photograph, French General Georges Catroux is walking next to an elderly man with cunning eyes, Nur-Eddin al-Khatib.
More than 70 years has passed and the grandson of this Nur-Eddin – Mouaz al-Khatib, a former preacher at the Umayyad mosque in Damascus and now a deserter and traitor – has been elected head of the “Qatar Coalition” which was created on 11 November at a meeting in Doha.
France has shown its gratitude to the third-generation collaborator al-Khatib, whose grandfather collaborated with the colonisers, for his faithful service. Namely the former colonial power has been the first to recognise the “Qatar Coalition” as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people. It is no surprise that the flag of the “opposition” – green, white and black with three stars – is the same as the flag from the time when Syria was under French mandate.
No sooner had Syria gained their freedom from Turkish rule than it immediately fell under the authority of the French in 1920, and the League of Nations gave France a mandate to control Syria. The French occupation army, headed by General Henri Gouraud, faced weak opposition from an armed Syrian army which had only just been formed and had nothing except rifles and machine guns, while the French had heavy artillery and aircraft. The conflict was one-sided.
General Yusuf al-’Azma 1883-1920
The Syrian Minister of War Yusuf al-’Azma accepted the battle, knowing it would be impossible to win, but being a true patriot of his homeland, he was unable to allow the French to take Damascus without a fight. The battle took place 23 kilometres from Damascus, in the mountainous region of Maysalun. Yusuf al-’Azma personally took part in the one-sided battle. The soldiers fought for a whole day, but the superiority of the French was just too great. Only when all the Syrian soldiers had been killed were the French able to advance on Damascus.
Syrians and Druses rose up against the French occupiers in 1925 and even managed to liberate Damascus, but the French used their military strength to quash the uprising in 1927. The first shot of the uprising was fired on 7 June 1925 – a hero of the uprising, Hussein Murshid Radwan, wounded a French officer when he ordered a peaceful anti-French demonstration to be broken up.
Syria reveres its heroes and at the beginning of November, a magnificent monument was erected in the city of Suwayda in Hussein Murshid Radwan’s honour. The sculptor, Fuad Naim, has paid particular attention to the hero’s enormous sword which he has clenched in his mighty hand while challenging the French to battle.
In the centre of Damascus, meanwhile, there is a monument in honour of the Syrian Defence Minister Yusuf al-’Azma, a hero of the Battle of Maysalun Pass. Here we have genuine insurgents who fought for a free Syria. Now, however, the word “insurgent” has been completely defiled and is used today to refer to all sorts of rubbish recruited from all corners of the world who are high on drugs and murdering Syrians for money.
Until quite recently there was another monument in honour of al-’Azma which stood near the General Staff building. On 3 September this year, however, during an attack on the General Staff building, terrorists did not spare this monument. The vandals destroyed it. Can Syria’s history really be that dear to these mercenaries? Or to the descendants of those who collaborated with the occupiers?
70 years has passed since France lost Syria as one of its colonies and was forced to recognise its independence. As recent events have shown, however, France just cannot ignore the colonial itch. It is doing everything to regain its sovereignty, although this time around, even if they conquer Syria, it would no longer be full sovereignty since France would have to share it with the USA, Turkey and other NATO partners. This is not troubling Hollande, however, who is backing every reprobate in Syria so long as the reprobate’s position falls within the neocolonial plans of France’s false socialists.
Back in the summer, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault did not hesitate in saying that France was supplying Syrian fighters with communication equipment and other technology. He spoke as though the equipment was not for the purpose of killing. But it is all the same – is it really not going to aid the murderers?
And now the pseudo-socialist François Hollande has held a meeting with the old collaborator’s grandson, Mouaz al-Khatib. After the meeting in Paris, the ambassador of the Syrian terrorists showed up – a certain Munzir Makhous who, together with his boss, was part of the delegation who visited the Élysée Palace and implored Hollande to supply the fighters with heavy artillery. Hollande promised to bring the matter up for discussion with the countries of the EU.
Earlier, Hollande had announced his intentions to create a “buffer” zone and a “no-fly” zone in Syria. At that time, however, his own foreign secretary threw cold water on his plans by announcing that such zones could only be created by a decision of the UN Security Council. And the position of the UN Security Council is clear – Russia and China will not give the go ahead for yet more ventures like the ones that have already ruined Libya. Knowing this, however, Hollande is trying to raise the morale of the terrorists operating within Syria. In order to do this, he is promising to create a “no-fly zone” – the relentless bombardment of Syria, in other words – and this is the one thing that the terrorists want. They are putting themselves at risk every time they place an improvised explosive device near a school, a hospital, a shopping centre, a mosque. Obviously they want to get support from the air so that they no longer have to risk their lives.
While the Syrian government and the Syrian people are placing monuments in honour of their heroes, the so-called “opposition members” are collaborating with the neocolonialists, making much of the colonialists’ flags while killing soldiers and civilians. France recognises these murderers and terrorists as “legitimate representatives of the Syrian people”. The only question is whether “representatives” like these are what the Syrian people really need.
Syria has given refuge to a vast number of refugees from wars extending back to the creation of Israel by the expulsion of Palestinans in 1947. According to Wikipedia, "Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers number approximately 1,852,300. Of these, "the vast majority of this population was from Iraq (1,300,000), ...", that is, from wars in which the United States and its allies, including Australia, illegally participated in commencing from 1990.
Adapted from article, previously published on Global Research, UK Progressive on 5 Dec 2012 as US Sponsored Genocide Against Iraq 1990-2012 ...
Australia expelled the Syrian ambassador and imposed sanctions against Syria on the pretext of the lie that, on 25 and 26 May, the Syrian Government murdered citizens who were, in fact, supporters of that government. Evidence reported, by, amongst other sources, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, shows that the murders were carried out by the NATO-sponsored "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) terrorists at Houla on 25 and 25 May 2012 [1].
On top of defending itself against terrorism, Syria has given refuge to a vast number of refugees from wars extending back to the creation of Israel by the expulsion of Palestinans in 1947.
According to Wikipedia, "Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers number approximately 1,852,300. Of these, "the vast majority of this population was from Iraq (1,300,000), ...", that is, from wars in which the United States and its allies including Australia, illegally participated in commencing from 1990.
The justifications for these wars, including the "incubator babies" and Iraqi "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMDs) were fraudulent and known to be fraudulent by the US and UK Governments and, in all likelihood, the Australian Governments of Prime Ministers Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard, as well.
Statement by Professor Francis Boyle, Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal
Approximately 3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children, were "exterminated" by economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted by the U.S. and Great Britain between 1990 and 2012, an eminent international legal authority says.
The slaughter fits the classic definition of Genocide Convention Article II of, “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” says Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and who in 1991 filed a class-action complaint with the UN against President George H.W. Bush.
The U.S. and U.K. "obstinately insisted" that their sanctions remain in place until after the “illegal” Gulf War II aggression perpetrated by President George W. Bush and UK’s Tony Blair in March, 2003, “not with a view to easing the over decade-long suffering of the Iraqi people and children” but “to better facilitate the U.S./U.K. unsupervised looting and plundering of the Iraqi economy and oil fields in violation of the international laws of war as well as to the grave detriment of the Iraqi people,” Boyle said.
In an address last Nov. 22 to The International Conference on War-affected Children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Boyle tallied the death toll on Iraq by U.S.-U.K. actions as follows:
The slaughter of 200,000 Iraqis by President Bush in his illegal 1991 Gulf War I.
The deaths of 1.4 million Iraqis as a result of the illegal 2003 war of aggression ordered by President Bush Jr. and Prime Minister Blair.
The deaths of 1.7 million Iraqis "as a direct result" of the genocidal sanctions.
Boyle's class-action complaint demanded an end to all economic sanctions against Iraq; criminal proceedings for genocide against President George H.W. Bush; monetary compensation to the children of Iraq and their families for deaths, physical and mental injury; and for shipping massive humanitarian relief supplies to that country.
The grossly hypocritical” UN refused to terminate the sanctions, Boyle pointed out, even though its own Food and Agricultural Organization's Report estimated that by 1995 the sanctions had killed 560,000 Iraqi children during the previous five years.
Boyle noted that then U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was interviewed on CBS-TV on May 12, 1996, in response to a question by Leslie Stahl if the price of half a million dead children was worth it, and replied, "we (the U.S. government) think the price is worth it."
Albright's shocking response provides "proof positive of the genocidal intent by the U.S. government against Iraq" under the Genocide Convention, Boyle said, adding that the government of Iraq today could still bring legal action against the U.S. and the U.K. in the International Court of Justice. He said the U.S.-U.K. genocide also violated the municipal legal systems of all civilized nations in the world; the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocol 1 of 1977.
Boyle, who was stirred to take action pro bono by Mothers in Iraq after the economic sanctions had been imposed upon them by the Security Council in August, 1990, in response to pressure from the Bush Senior Administration. He is the author of numerous books on international affairs, including "Destroying World Order".
(This article has been republished as an article here, with thanks, after it was submitted as an anonymous comment here. Headings have been introduced by candobetter editor.) The co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, discovered some interesting information while treating Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo. He says the fighters aren’t focused on the fall of the Assad regime. Instead, they have their eyes on a different kind of prize – implementing Sharia Law throughout the country. Overpopulation, draconian monotheism, rising enforcement of Sharia laws, declining democracies, and religious intolerance is an awakening deep set powers and rebellion, and spreading the dis-ease of unrest. It fosters rebellion, hatred, suffering, division and persecution.
Secular Middle-Eastern states breaking down under global intervention
There are the forces who have long opposed the rule of Assad based on faith. Assad is an Alawite, a mystical sect based on Shiite Islam that held most of the ruling offices as a minority in Syria. Nearly three-quarters of Syrians are Sunni, and some consider the Alawites to be non-Islamic.
In Iraq around 60% of all Christians have fled. Also, in Saudi Arabia not one single Christian church or Buddhist temple is allowed. Ten million Coptic Christian minority in Egypt now faces greater Sharia Islamic law and persecution. The iron grip of religious extremism is an wakening force, being propagated by illegal wars.
Syria of Assad is a place where Alawites, the Druze, Christians, Sunni Muslims, secularists, socialists, and others, are (were) part and parcel of society. Also, Afghanistan and Iraq were SECULAR societies which were overthrown by America and its allies. Egypt is now entering a stage of GROWING Sharia Islamic law and anti-Christian persecution. The Obama administration WELCOMED the demise of more liberal forces which have been replaced by the “radical Sunni Islamic Arab Spring.”
Syria multi-ethnic, multi-religious and secular
Syria which was multi-ethnic and multi-religious and secular – but then Obama insisted on supporting an opposition which isn’t unified and whereby radical Sunni Islamists were waiting in the wings in order to take power. This is despite the fact that this nation, Syria, was LIGHT-YEARS ahead of pro-Western supported nations like Saudi Arabia – with their religious Sharia laws. Syria shames nations like Turkey where Christians and Alevi Muslims suffer such blatant discrimination.
Assad and the government of Syria are fighting to maintain the sovereignty of Syria and the military of this nation, which is multi-religious. The losers are always moderate and secular Muslims, and Christians, such as those who make up the vast majority of Palestinians and Syrians. There's hatred for Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that some Sunnis reject as not being Islamic at all.
Holy war not democracy
Those battling the secular Bashar al-Assad regime are NOT trying to create a “democracy” with “human rights” for all. Instead, they are waging so-called "holy war,” to build an Islamic dictatorship under Sharia law as part of an emerging international Muslim system. As The New American and several other sources, including U.S. officials, have documented for months, a large percentage of the Western establishment-backed fighters are actually openly affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Financiers of the slaughter — Western governments, Arab dictatorships, and wealthy elites — will almost certainly escape accountability.
More than 20,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict and over 250,000 have fled Syria, according to the U.N. Read more at "Human Rights Group Says Syrian Opposition Committing War Crimes" of 17 Sep 2012 at http://www.businessinsider.com/syrian-opposition-committing-war-crimes-2012-9#ixzz26la34iWS.
Global intervention is helping Sharia Law zealots posing as revolutionaries
Around half of the rebel fighters in Syria are foreign Islamists who aren’t interested in toppling the Assad regime. Instead, they’re seeking to implement SHARIA LAW throughout the country, according to a prominent French doctor.
The co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, discovered some interesting information while treating Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo. He says the fighters aren’t focused on the fall of the Assad regime. Instead, they have their eyes on a different kind of prize – implementing SHARIA LAW throughout the country.
Biased reporting undermines local democracy
According to all contemporary schools of Islamic jurisprudence, converting to another religion is a crime punishable by death, in accordance with the Prophet Muhammad's command: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” All around the Muslim world, an assertive, combative, and expansionist Islam is newly energized. A mass exodus of thousands of Christians from Syria is taking place, even as mainstream Western reporters like Robert Fisk demonize those same Christians for being supportive of the secular regime.
The 2011 State Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom refused to list Egypt as “a country of particular concern,” even as Christians and others were being murdered, churches destroyed, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. The Obama administration played politics by failing to acknowledge this terrorist behavior. Read more on Newsmax.com: "Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution" of 24 May 2012 at http://www.newsmax.com/JamesWalsh/Coptic-Christians-persecution-Egypt/2012/05/24/id/440236.
Never before in the history of our planet is peace more important.
Overpopulation, draconian monotheism, rising enforcement of sharia laws, declining democracies, and religious intolerance is an awakening deep set powers and rebellion, and spreading the dis-ease of unrest. It fosters rebellion, hatred, suffering, division and persecution.
According to a survey commissioned by the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., anxiety about immigration is more acute in Britain than in any other European country surveyed. And, as in the rest of Europe, in Britain—where the Muslim population has increased by seventy-four per cent, from 1.6 million to an estimated 2.8 million since 2001—concern about immigration is often a euphemism for concern about Islam.
The great "multicultural" ideal of people from different cultural/ethnic/religious/idealistic/political backgrounds being able to celebrate their differences, but overwhelm the mainstream nation's culture and at the same time live harmoniously with "diversity" is being questioned. It's an oxymoron - to be a nation based on differences! Global forces inevitably infiltrate and disrupt and spill over within nations.
The drive for energy, economic growth and power is prying open forces against human rights and tolerance. Moreover, the U.S. economic woes are part of a growing world economic crisis. The Bush Doctrine of promoting economic growth and economic freedom promises to help countries facing economic crisis and to help countries prevent them, but the administration's actions show that it will use economic crises to push the interests of American capitalism.
Liberal institutions, such as the media, universities, federal courts, and human rights organizations, which have traditionally functioned as checks on the blind obedience to authority, have in our day gone over to power's side. The subversion of these institutions has transformed them from checks on power into servants of power. The result is the transformation of culture from the rule of law to unaccountable authority resting on power maintained by propaganda.
Propaganda is important in the inculcation of trust in authority.The Pussy Riot case shows the power of Washington's propaganda even inside Russia itself and reveals that Washington's propaganda has suborned important human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Chatham House, and Amnesty International.
Pussy Riot is described in the western media as a punk rock group, but seems in fact to be a group known as Voina (War) that performs lewd or scandalous unannounced public performances such as the one in the Russian cathedral, a sexual orgy in a museum, and events such as these. (see also http://plucer.livejournal.com/265584.html).
Three of the cathedral performers were apprehended, indicted, tried, convicted of breaking a statutory law, and given two-year prison sentences. The Voice of Russia recently broadcast a discussion of the case from its London studio. Representatives from Human Rights Watch and Chatham House argued that the case was really a free speech case and that the women were political prisoners for criticizing Russian President Putin.
This claim was disingenuous. In the blasphemous performance in the Russian cathedral, Putin was not mentioned. The references to Putin were added to the video posted on the Internet after the event in order to turn a crime into a political protest.
The human rights representatives also argued that the women's conviction could only happen in Putin's Russia. However, the program host pointed out that in fact most European countries have similar laws as Russia's and that a number of European offenders have been arrested and punished even more severely. Indeed, I recently read a news report from Germany that a copycat group of women had staged a similar protest in support of Pussy Riot and had been arrested. An analysis of these issues is available here: http://mercouris.wordpress.com .
The human rights representatives seemed to believe that Putin had failed the democratic test by failing to stop the prosecution. But a country either has the rule of law or doesn't have the rule of law. If Putin overrides the law, it means Putin is the law.
Whether Washington had a hand in the Pussy Riot event via the Russian protest groups it funds, Hitlery Clinton was quick to make propaganda. Free expression was threatened in Russia, she said.
Washington used the Pussy Riot case to pay Putin back for opposing Washington's destruction of Syria. The overlooked legal issue is Washington's interference in internal Russian affairs. The close alignment of human rights organizations with Washington's propaganda hurts the credibility of human rights advocacy. If human rights groups are seen as auxiliaries of Washington's propaganda, their moral authority evaporates.
The prevalence of the English language, due to the British domination of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries and American domination in the 20th and first decade of the 21st century, makes it easy for Washington to control the explanations. Other languages simply do not have the reach to compete.
Washington also has the advantage of having worn the White Hat in the Cold War. The peoples who were constituent parts of the Soviet empire and even many Russians themselves still see Washington as the wearer of the White Hat. Washington has used this advantage to finance "color revolutions" that have moved countries from the Russian sphere of influence into Washington's sphere of influence.
Cartalucci notes that Amnesty's executive director is former State Department official Suzanne Nossel, who conflates "human rights advocacy" with US global hegemony.
Amnesty does seem like an amplifier for Washington's propaganda. Amnesty's latest email to members (August 27) is: "As if the recent trial and sentencing of three members of Pussy Riot wasn't shameful enough, now Russian police are hunting down others in the band. Make no mistake about it: Russian authorities are relentless. Just how far are the Russian authorities willing to go to silence voices of dissent? Tell the Russian government to stop hunting Pussy Riot!"
Amnesty International's August 23 email to its members, "Wake Up World," is completely one-sided and puts all blame for violence on the Syrian government, not on al Qaeda and other outside groups that Washington has armed and unleashed on the Syrian people. Amnesty is only concerned with getting visual images damning to the Syrian government before the public: "We are working to get this damning footage into the hands of journalists around the world. Support our work and help ensure that our first-hand video is seen by influential members of the media."
At least Pussy Riot got a trial. That's more than US Marine, Brandon Raub, a veteran of two tours of combat duty, got. Raub posted on Facebook his opinion that he had been misused by Washington in behalf of an illegal agenda. Local police, FBI, and Secret Service descended upon his home, dragged him out, and on the authority of a social worker, committed him to a mental hospital for observation. http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/citizen-warrior/2012/aug/23/judge-orders-brandon-raub-released-hospital/.
I did not see any protests from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, or Chatham House. Instead, a Virginia circuit court judge, W. Allan Sharrett, demanded Raub's immediate release, stating that there was no reason to detain and commit Raub except to punish him for exercising his free speech right.
Americans are increasingly punished for exercising free speech rights. A number of videos of police violence against the occupy movement are available on youtube. They show the goon thug gestapo cops beating women, pepper spraying protestors sitting with their heads bowed, truncheons flashing as American heads are broken and protestors beat senseless are dragged off in handcuffs for peacefully exercising a constitutionally protected right.
There has been more protest over Pussy Riot than over the illegal detention and torture of Bradley Manning or the UK government's threat to invade the Embassy of Ecuador and to drag out WikiLeaks' Julian Assange.
When a Chinese dissident sought asylum in the US embassy in China, the Chinese government bowed to international law and permitted the dissident's safe passage to the US. But "freedom and democracy" Great Britain refuses free passage to Assange who has been granted asylum, and there is no protest from Clinton at the State Department.
Today it is Russia and China, not the UK and Europe, that challenge Washington's claim that the US government is above international law and has the right to overthrow governments of which it disapproves.
The lawlessness that now characterizes the US and UK governments is a large threat to humanity's finest achievement--the rule of law--for which the British fought from the time of Alfred the Great in the ninth century to the Glorious Revolution of the 17th century.
Where are the protests over the Anglo-American destruction of the rule of law?
Why Aren't Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Chatham House on the case?
This is a fascinating video of a huge protest in Sydney on 5 August 2012 and we have put up a video of it with a number of interesting interviews from marchers, with comments from what they think of the Bashar Assad Government to how they don't like the Australian Greens policy on this matter and believe that we are risking World War Three by backing intervention in Syria. There is also some background on how Syria has been the long-term host one of the largest refugee populations in the world, which makes you wonder why it doesn't receive more support from Greens and Refugee activists. It must seem ironic that some candobetter.net EcoMalthusians are more inclined to give Syria that recognition! Please let us know if you have views on the democratic status of the Syrian government; we find it hard to judge. All comments and greetings welcome.
The video of this march also contains commentaries and is the product and published by Truth News with Reporter Hereward Fenton, who interviewed Naja (a Syrian Australian), Tim Anderson, and John Burgess (of the 911 truth movement). Thanks for your work at Truth News.
"On 5 August 2012 a rally was held in Sydney in support of the Syrian government by members of the Syrian community and Australians. Some four thousand people gathered peacefully at The Sydney Town Hall to express solidarity about the tragedy in Syria. A number of speakers, from various sections of the community, addressed the audience concerning the external forces that have invaded Syria and are fighting the [...][1]government. The people then marched peacefully to The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in the Sydney city area, where more speakers addressed the people. Appreciation for Russia and China voting against the US proposed UN-NATO involvement were expressed. The meeting then peacefully dispersed." (Source: Commentary under video on Truth News)
Naja, Syrian-Australian protester speaks
Naja, a Syrian-Australian protester said,
"I would just like to say one thing to the Australian Government. The Syrian president - 75% of the people elected him and only the Syrian people can impeach him. I just want to say another thing, that Barack Obama ought to go back home. Hands off Syria! We just need to raise our voice and we're sticking with the President! ... He is a very popular leader, he's a doctor and he studied in England. He doesn't kill his people. We've got militants in Syria. They're terrorists. They're not free Syrian army. They're killing people. I've got my family back home. They're kidnapping people. After they kill them, they amputate their body parts and they send them home to - bodies without heads, without arms - and we've got to put a stop to it. We want him to stay in power. That's my message. "
Tim Anderson spoke powerfully on behalf of the Syrian Government
"People in this country are very ignorant of what's going on in Syria. That's understandable. That's not a crime in itself, but, what is not acceptable is the unethical use of this ignorance. All of those people from Hilary Clinton through the media through all sorts of silly people in this country - those people saying Assad must go - they have no ethical basis to make that sort of claim. They haven't understood that it's the foundation of the post colonial era, it's the foundation of human rights that a people have a right to self-determination and the Syrian Government is only for the Syrian people and no-one else. We see the result across the border in Iraq. What a tragedy in Iraq. What a great tragedy in Iraq! But we can't allow that to happen in your country. So I'm here just to say as a non-Syrian Australian, at least some of us here are in solidarity with you today."
Tim Anderson, author of Take Two, The Criminal Justice System revisited has the remarkable history of having been completely exonerated after erroneous conviction for the Hilton Bombing in 1978 (Fraser Government). The real perpetrators have never been found. Evidence that Australian security forces may have been responsible [in a false flag attack] led to the New South Wales parliament unanimously calling for an inquiry in 1991[1] and 1995.[2] The Government of Australia vetoed any inquiry. You can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_bombing or here in an pdf file at http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/pdf/a000803.pdf with an interview of Anderson published in July 1991 that contains some very interesting comments on Asio and Special Branch activities in NSW leading up to this time.
Tony Backhouse on Australian Greens policy on Libya and Syria
Tony was also marching. Interviewed by Truth News, he said that he had originally joined the Greens because of their stance on Iraq and policy of peace and non-violence, which is a platform of the NSW branch constitution, but he has just resigned from them over their support for UN Nato intervention in Syria. He stated, "I see this as akin to starting World War Three in Syria. I find it totally hypocritical and that's why I've left."
Tony said that, to him, it seems this position was taken initially by Bob Brown and then by Christine Milne (NSW) and Adam Bandt (in Victoria) and that perhaps the Federal Greens are falling into line with the European Greens. It was what had been going on in Aleppo that got him to make his mind up. He added that he nearly left the Greens over their position on Libya especially after Gaddafi's house was bombed and his granddaughter and other members of Gaddafi's family were killed. He noticed in the week of this Australians for Syria protest in Sydney that Leon Panetta [23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense] had actually threatened Assad's family: "And I thought, this is just ridiculous. I can't support this. I mean, my party is supporting a military intervention basically in Syria against their own constitution!"
Commentary on Democracy, Refugees and the Australian Greens - Please contribute if you can
The beginning of this article was taken from Truth News and we left out these words, [1] "elected democratic." Whilst we support non-intervention in Syria and basically support the current government, we disagree that the Bashar Asaad Government was elected democratically, since there was no opposition. Maybe we are wrong. Please educate us. You can read more about the Syrian government here. Nonetheless we agree that Bashar seems to be a very popular president and Syria did recently hold a very well supported referendum in which Syrians voted yes for to have multiparty government recently, to remove the constitutional definition of the B'aath Party as the ruling party of Syria, and to limit the time a person could remain president to 14 years.
Bashar Asaad himself seems to be pretty enlightened in a terrible region where colonial intervention has from the 19th century consistently preferred dictators and continuously reduced the self-organising ability of peoples. Bashar Asaad's father was a more severe dictator but, still, his people were provided for, in an area where there are far worse, far more brutal dictatorships. To illustrate the unbalanced basis of foreign intervention encouraging civil war in Syria, the Western powers currently include Saudi Arabia as their ally against the Syrian Government. This is not just ironic, but it is shocking, because the Saudi Government is incontestably depraved, yet able to get away literally with murder, mutilation, suppression of subjects and shocking, institutionalised, bizarre ill-treatment and disenfranchisement - enslavement really - of women. It is truly unacceptable that the United States and NATO hob-nob with this monarchy. There has to be a better and more globally cooperative way to power down with oil than this.
I am not Syrian, but I have been living in Syria for today almost 20 years. Syria was under a kind of totalitarian regime but not in only a way a repressive way but it was that all the decision would be taken by few persons. But there was security, there was food, education and people were living - of course not in ... kind that they would say their thinking in a loud voice.
Now, this totalitarianism is not good, and it's obsolete, but if the armed insurrection is implementing another totalitarianism which is maybe worse because there is blood, they can behead you, they can cut your - in last week in our village they cut the fingers of a so-called 'collaborator', who is not ev[en] from the village. Then they behead him, they cut him in piece and they left him in the street, where even children would see it.
So this kinds of acts of atrocities cannot help people to really believe that what is happening is a strive for freedom.
The majority of the Syrian population, I say, is taken as hostage, and sometimes as a tool, as [?enemy] by these armed, insurrection armed...armed insurrection people. They come and they take place in the civilian areas.
Australians, particularly Greens and Refugee Action supporters, logically should be speaking out in support of Syria which has taken in and managed to deal fairly with an extraordinary number of refugees and asylum seekers from this tumultuous region where, bizarrely, the Greens have been supporting NATO backing for civil war.
According to the 2012 UNHCR country operations profile on the Syrian Arab Republic,
The Syrian Arab Republic hosts one of the largest urban refugee and asylum-seeker populations in the world. The Government and people of the Syrian Arab Republic continue to maintain a generous open door policy that allows Iraqi refugees to seek asylum and gain access to basic services such as education and primary health care. Moreover, the normalization of relations between Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic in early 2011 has led to a simplification of the visa process for Iraqis wishing to enter the Syrian Arab Republic.
UNHCR, with the support of the international community and in active partnership with the Syrian authorities, was able to maintain the protection space granted to refugees and asylum-seekers. With the assistance of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, it has continued to provide them with essential services and assistance. Source: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486a76.html
If nothing else, the counter-intuitive stance on Syria of the Greens is yet another indication that the people leading the Greens these days are career politicians with ideas and principles a very long way from the original participants and founders of Green Party's in Australia. As to where Bob Brown stands or ever stood... some of us do wonder. For those among us who care about our country and realise that overpopulation will quickly deprive us of ecological conditions and human rights, it is baffling that the Greens, who have so let us down in matters of ecology and population policy, do not stand up for Syria and its generosity to refugees.
Attention Avaaz, Amnesty International, NATO, Hilary... "Let the Syrian people alone. Let the Syrian people alone! Leave us alone! You are not bringing anything else but death, fear, chaos, instability, with your big declarations and with your big assemblies, and, also, with your big powers."
This is the transcription of the brave protest against foreign intervention in Syria by a Syrian-based Catholic nun, (video included) speaking for a number of Syrian leaders, whom she describes as including Muslims, pacifists, family and tribal leaders. Mother Mariam shows leadership in a new internet tradition where women are beginning to speak out against warmongers where their men cannot or will not. Mother Agnes Mariam and Syrian Girl Partisan are two great ladies speaking up for peace, truth and justice. We would like to encourage other women to magnify these women's voices and help them to forge a local, non-violent movement as well as to defend what is good in Syria.Attention Avaaz, Amnesty International, NATO, Hilary...
"Let the Syrian people alone. Let the Syrian people alone! Leave us alone! You are not bringing anything else but death, fear, chaos, instability, with your big declarations and with your big assemblies, and, also, with your big powers."
This is the transcription of the brave protest against foreign intervention in Syria by a Syrian-based Catholic nun, (video included) speaking for a number of Syrian leaders, whom she describes as including Muslims, pacifists, family and tribal leaders. Mother Mariam shows leadership in a new internet tradition where women are beginning to speak out against warmongers where their men cannot or will not. Mother Agnes Mariam and Syrian Girl Partisan are two great ladies speaking up for peace, truth and justice. We would like to encourage other women to magnify these women's voices and help them to forge a local, non-violent movement as well as to defend what is good in Syria.
The interview took place in Ireland on 12 August 2012 and was filmed and published on the Irish Times by Patsy McGarry.
Mother Agnes Mariam to Outside Powers
It's a life of fear, of insecurity and of lack of future. We are divided like a kind of tumour. In every part we have armed people coming and forcing people - civilians - to live following their orders.
And what they want is to paralyse civilian life so there is no more shops. If you need something ou can't find a worker. And, of course, you don't have nutrition, you don't have alimentation. Lack of food, lack of fuel, lack of electricity.
And this fear, because you don't know when it will be your turn to be considered as a collaborator. And we think that something is going wrong mroe and more in the general way of orienting this strive ... what's so-called for freedom an democracy.
On the totalitarian regime in Syria and its violent replacement
I am not Syrian, but I have been living in Syria for today almost 20 years. Syria was under a kind of totalitarian regime but not in only a way a repressive way but it was that all the decision would be taken by few persons. But there was security, there was food, education and people were living - of course not in ... kind that they would say their thinking in a loud voice.
Now, this totalitarianism is not good, and it's obsolete, but if the armed insurrection is implementing another totalitarianism which is maybe worse because there is blood, they can behead you, they can cut your - in last week in our village they cut the fingers of a so-called 'collaborator', who is not ev[en] from the village. Then they behead him, they cut him in piece and they left him in the street, where even children would see it.
So this kinds of acts of atrocities cannot help people to really believe that what is happening is a strive for freedom.
The majority of the Syrian population, I say, is taken as hostage, and sometimes as a tool, as [?enemy] by these armed, insurrection armed...armed insurrection people. They come and they take place in the civilian areas.
Why isn't the fighting in the desert instead of amongst civilian residences?
Why?
Why you don't make your combat - We have a lot of desert. It is against international laws.
Western world seems to be encouraging sectarian violence to topple Assad
But what really scandalises us and leaves us in distress is that the Western world seemed to be encouraging this rise of sectarian violence just to topple the regime.
We are, we are against violence and we are against justifying violence.
You can't say that this man is killing another man and he is justified to kill him. Moreover when, through his movements, he is putting in real danger and having terrible collateral damage, to a whole civilian population, which was not - That's what is happening in Aleppo.
You know, we are responsible and we are - if we are not responsible today, we are responsible tomorrow, to history.
To not speak out is to allow terrible atrocities to continue
Once all those atrocity will be revealed, when you will see a family whose girl has been abused, or, I have heard about collective abusing - whose son has been beheaded, whose father has been abducted.
You know that there are thousands of people we don't know where they are because they have been abducted.
Sometimes they are bandits. They say, "We are in the revolution," but they are bandits. Mafias who come to ask ransome.
Some others they have like sectarian hatred, so they take this one because he is [?Arab or Alep]; they take this one because he is a moderate Muslim.
So we don't know. It's a confusion, it's a chaos.
"What are they doing in Aleppo? Why are they doing? Why are they funded and helped and fueled with weapons and why are they introducing themselves in between the civilian population?"
International Community hypocritical, untrustworthy, funding violence
And what really grieve us is that the international community holds a paradox.
On one side they want, they say, with hypocrisy, "We want peace, we want to protect the civilian population." They even want to intervene in a military way like in other countries. But on the other hand, they are funding, sending intelligence helps and sending weapons to rebels - really you don't know from where they come.
Syrians are trying to forge non-violence movement
We are working with our religious leaders, with Muslim religious leaders, with pacifist, with also a leader - family leaders, tribal leaders - to say that there is a third way. And the third way is a way of non-violence, but real non-violence. When there is no attacks and aggression, there is not - there is no motivation for any repression.
Syrians asking International Community to respect their Human Rights and Geneva Convention
Second, the civilian society in Syria is upset and we are asking for human rights. Not only human rights for rebels, but human rights for the normal citizens, who are caught in between.
And we are asking also why should the combats be held in civilian areas, for example, in Aleppo, those people they came from outside. I have been talking with prelates, I have been talking with families. They don't know whom they are. They are foreigners. Either they come from Northern villages -from Idlib or from North Aleppo countryside, or they come from foreign countries. What are they doing in Aleppo? Why are they doing? Why are they funded and helped and fueled with weapons and why are they introducing themselves in between the civilian population? And then they say that the army is bombing civilian areas.
Please! Don't enter in civilian population. Don't enter in residence area. Go to the desert if you want to make your war. It is against human rights and it is against the Charter of Geneva.
Ghandi, Mandela - non-violent path the best, and finding common ground
So, I want to say to all who are looking at me, "I am a Christian, and I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ. Non-violence is the best way to get what we want. The non-violence. And in all good revolutions - you look at Ghandi, you look at Nelson Mandela - even, you look here, in Ireland, when you can stop violence and you can enter in a real path of dialogue, accepting the other. Sometimes you have to forget your interest. You cannot take everything. You forget it. We can arrive to a common ground. We can make a new social pact. You know.
Asks foreign powers: Please leave the Syrian people alone and don't encourage martyrs
And I want to also to ask: Let the Syrian people alone. Let the Syrian people alone! Leave us alone! You are not bringing anything else but death, fear, chaos, instability, with your big declarations and with your big assemblies, and, also, with your big powers. Leave the Syrian people alone. Enough, it's enough! Leave those people and stop funding weapons for 'rebels' you bring from I don't know what. We are crying also because those people they have a mother, they have a father, they are human beings and, sometimes, they don't know where they are. And they think that fighting in Syria or fighting where they are fighting, will open for them heaven and paradise, and this is alienating.
It is great to see two politically engaged women speak out about Syria. On the one hand we have Syrian Girl Partisan, who has reported in around 20 home-made films. Now a Catholic nun based in Syria has stood up and denounced Western reporting on events there. What she and others seek in Syria is “reform, no violence, no foreign intervention.” She hopes for “a new, third way, a new social pact where the right to autodetermination without outside interference” would be respected.
A NUN who has been superior at a Syrian monastery for the past 18 years has warned that media coverage of ongoing violence in that country has been “partial and untrue”. It is “a fake”, Mother Agnes Mariam said, which “hides atrocities committed in the name of liberty and democracy”.
Superior of the Melkite Greek Catholic monastery of St James the Mutilated in Qara, in Syria’s diocese of Homs, which is in full communion with Rome, she left Ireland yesterday after a three-day visit during which she met representatives of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Maynooth.
She told The Irish Times she was in Ireland “not to advocate for the (Assad) regime but for the facts”. Most news reports from Syria were “forged, with only one side emphasised”, she said. This also applied to the UN, whose reports were “one-sided and not worthy of that organisation”.
UN observers in Syria had been “moderate with the rebels and covered for them in taking back positions after the withdrawal of heavy equipment, as seen so tragically in Homs”, she said.
When it was put to her this suggested the whole world was out of step except for Syria, Russia and China, she protested: “No, no, there are 20 countries, including some in Latin America” of the same view.
The reason the media was being denied easy access to Syria currently was because in the Libyan conflict journalists placed electronic devices for Nato in rooms used at press conferences in that country, she said. “So Syria didn’t want journalists,” she said.
Christians make up about 10 per cent of Syria’s population, dispersed throughout the country, she said. The Assad regime “does not favour Christians”, she said. “It is a secular regime based on equality for all, even though in the constitution it says the Koran is the source of legislation.”
But “Christians are less put aside [in Syria] than in other Islamic countries, for example Saudi Arabia,” she said. “The social fabric of Syria is very diverse, so Christians live in peace.”
The “Arab insurrection” under way in that country included “sectarian factions which promote fundamentalist Islam, which is not genuine Islam”, she said.
The majority of Muslims in Syria are moderate and open to other cultural and interfaith elements, she said. “Wahhabism (a fundamentalist branch of Islam) is not open,” she added.
Christians in Syria were “doubtful about the future if the project to topple the regime succeeded”. The alternative was “a religious sectarian state where all minorities would feel threatened and discriminated against”, she said.
There was “a need to end the violence”, she said. “The West and Gulf states must not give finance to armed insurrectionists who are sectarian terrorists, most of whom are from al-Qaeda, according to a report presented to the German parliament,” she said.
“We don’t want to be invaded, as in Aleppo, by mercenaries, some of whom think they are fighting Israel. They bring terror, destruction, fear and nobody protects the civilians,” she said. There were “very few Syrians among the rebels”, she said. “Mercenaries should go home,” she said.
What she and others sought in Syria was “reform, no violence, no foreign intervention.” She hoped for “a new, third way, a new social pact where the right to autodetermination without outside interference” would be respected. (Source: Irish Times)
A political analyst says the West is hypocritically recruiting the same thugs it supposedly waged the bloody and costly ‘war on terror’ against a decade ago, to topple the Syrian government today.
A political analyst says the West is hypocritically recruiting the same thugs it supposedly waged the bloody and costly ‘war on terror’ against a decade ago, to topple the Syrian government today.
An analyst says for “those with eyes,” the mask of Western pretence at defending international law and human rights has now been ripped off.
“In asserting their geopolitical objective over Syria, the Western governments are openly deploying terrorists and killers who supposedly were the reason why Western governments spent trillions of dollars fighting foreign wars, invading and occupying sovereign countries, destroying millions of innocent lives, incarcerating and torturing thousands, and turning over democratic societies into draconian police states,” Finian Cunningham wrote in an article on Press TV website.
Cunningham said the reports and videos showing the Western-backed mercenaries of the so-called Free Syrian Army bolstered by al-Qaeda brigades and other terrorists have been greeted with “barely veiled glee” in Washington and the European capitals.
“The ‘terror’ that Washington and other Western governments have promoted as the defining existential threat to democratic civilization over the past 10 years, has suddenly and seamlessly morphed into ‘war with terror’ when it comes to Syria.”
However, Cunningham said, for “those with eyes,” the mask of Western pretence at defending international law and human rights, has now been ripped off.
“The face revealed is a grotesque, salivating monster, whose motives are evidently selfish elite power and domination in the strategic Middle East region. And this objective is to be achieved by any means necessary -- foremost by the collusion with bloodthirsty killers.”
In the 1980s, the United States assisted the so-called Mujahedeen militants in Afghanistan to fight the forces of the former Soviet Union. The al-Qaeda later emerged from the same group that had years earlier received US weapons and training.
Just over a decade later, the US attacked Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime, which it accused of harboring al-Qaeda.
Political observers say the US favors the presence of al-Qaeda militants and other extremists in Syria to help the country’s armed insurgents overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
According to chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers, as many as a quarter of the many insurgent groups in Syria see themselves as al-Qaeda offshoots.
Cunningham said the current situation in Syria reveals “a descent into barbarism and an open embrace of international lawlessness” by the same governments that appoint themselves to lecture the rest of the world on the principles of democracy and human rights.
“Forget the fancy titles, manners and clothes - ongoing violence in Syria shows that the foreign policy of these [Western] powers is being conducted by terrorists and thugs in high offices.”
If anyone needs additional proof of the tremendous censorial control wielded over corporate and alleged "independent" media regarding Western powers' imperialist projects they need look no further than the thorough news blackout of the August 9 Tehran Consultative Conference on Syria.[1] As this censorship ensued, "progressive" news outlets continued their barrage of dubious and misleading information on the continuing turmoil within Syria.
by Professor James F. Tracy. Originally published on Global Research, 16 August 2012.
The August 9 Tehran conference was sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran, attended by representatives from close to 30 nations, including Russia, China, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, and the UN envoy to Tehran. Its express intent was to "strengthen all-out regional and international efforts to help Syrian people to find a way out of ongoing crisis and prepare a suitable ground for national dialogue in a peaceful atmosphere."
Given the meeting's suggestion of dialogue over force the conveners excluded the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar--countries behind the program to destabilize Syria's al-Assad's regime.[2]
The discussion is anticipated to continue as a corollary to the Non-Aligned Movement meeting taking place in Iran in late August. Iran hopes the August 9 conference will be a genuine first step in a peace process between the Syrian regime and internal opposition groups.
Conference delegates emphasized a recognition of Syrians' grievances while also expressing concern over how "the entry of known terrorist groups and sects into the Syrian conflict" threatens regional peace and security.[3]
White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed the meeting. "There is vast evidence that demonstrates that Iran has been engaged in an effort to prop up Assad as he brutally murders his own people," Carney asserted. In an interview on NBC television US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice similarly claimed how Iran was playing a "nefarious" role in the Syria conflict, and acting as leader of an "axis of resistance" that was "bad for the region."[4]
At a stage when the terrorist campaign in Syria appears to be faltering, the conference has likely caught US diplomats off guard. "I think the US State Department is freaked out because this is a huge defeat for Hillary Clinton," political analyst Webster Tarpley stated on Iran's PressTV. "What is Hillary Clinton's diplomacy worth when 30 countries--including about half the world when you get down to it--can come together on a pro-Syrian, pro-independence platform?"[5]
Since the Tehran confab's discourse was characterized with a spirit of national self-determination and clearly sought to contest NATO's deceptive imperialist designs, one might expect the left-progressive news media and blogosphere especially to be abuzz with extensive coverage of the event. Such coverage or commentary has yet to emerge.
In fact, progressive media outlets continued what was arguably a campaign of disinformation that for some time has championed the Western-backed, mercenary-infused Free Syrian Army while ignoring its now thousands of murders and atrocities. For example, on August 12 The Nation ran a story by Democracy Now correspondent Sharif Abdul Kouddous,[6] the Egyptian-American reporter with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood [7] who received accolades in left media circles for his 2011 coverage of Tahrir Square.
In the first of a three-part series, Kouddous related his recent foray to the Syrian city of Zabadani, "one of the earliest towns to stage demonstrations against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, with residents taking to the streets two weeks after the uprising in Deraa on March 15, 2011."
With vivid accounts of bloodshed perpetrated by the Syrian forces, Kouddous emphasizes to Nation readers how Zabadani's steadfast revolution derives from the grassroots, thus differing from the one being waged by ruthless NATO-backed death squads throughout the rest of the country. "People that were unarmed at first decided to arm themselves," one local activist tells Kouddous. "The regime made this happen."
The readership is told how the village is "controlled by residents and fighters with the Free Syrian Army--which in Zabadani are made up almost entirely of local volunteers and defecting soldiers hailing from the area."
In an August 14 Democracy Now interview highlighting the Nation piece, Amy Goodman asked Kouddous why he chose Zabadani to profile. "Well, I found a way into Syria," Kouddous replied.
As we know, the Syrian government does not really allow journalists in on official visas, or very rarely does. And so, there was a way in through Lebanon to reach this town. I was hoping to reach Damascus, but the number of checkpoints around Damascus prevented that from happening.
In fact, Zabadani is well known as one of the very few "rebel holdouts" in Syria. As the BBC similarly reported in January, "Zabadani is the only town near Damascus seething with rebellion. It's the only town where the president has ceded power."[9]
Thus the city is an especially ideal backdrop for a piece promoting the now-familiar NATO propaganda line of the popular indigenous uprising repressed by the brutal Assad regime, even though the scenario appears to be far from common.
As recently as late July, France 24 reported a less triumphant situation for Zabadani's FSA forces, with the Syrian Army making significant inroads toward retaking the city. "'Those who want to fight must come here!'" an FSA commander boasts. "'They [Syrian forces] are cowards and dogs - they just bark orders into their walky-talkies.' Despite the bravado," a France 24 correspondent observed, "Syrian forces have pushed the rebels back and many rebel-held areas are now under the army's control."
According to this account (and contrary to Kouddous' romanticization of the FSA), "Even the hardiest," of Zabadani's inhabitants "can't stand anymore fighting." One woman told the French journalists "she would rather take her family into the countryside, while the rest of the Free Syrian Army defends the rest of the district."[8]
Kouddous' reportage contributes to the progressive media's larger project of seemingly authenticating the mainstream news outlets' simplistic, NATO-friendly "popular revolution" news frame of the overall Middle East destabilization process.
Yet nothing makes the intent to mislead audiences more apparent than this deceptive amalgam of stifling coverage of a potentially productive and meaningful peace conference, denying a real voice to the victims of Western-backed mercenaries and death squads, and paying calculated homage to the Zabadani rebellion. The familiar formula seeks to prop up a now-transparently doubtful storyline begun in January 2011.
Notes
[1] The news blackout is initially observed by Webster Tarpley. "Tehran Conference Belies US Syria Claims: Webster Tarpley," Press TV, August 10, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giTEnaAW2yY
[5] "Tehran Conference Belies US Syria Claims: Webster Tarpley," Press TV, See also, "Tarpley: 30 Nations Meet in Tehran for Alternative to Hillary Clinton's Attack on Syria," Voltaire Network, August 12, 2012, http://www.voltairenet.org/Tarpley-30-Nations-Meet-in-Tehran
[7] Reporting from Tahrir Square in early 2011, Kouddous remarked, "One man who is sure Mubarak's time is up is my uncle Mohamed Abd El Qudoos. A leading opposition protester, Mohamed is the head of the Freedom Committee in the Press Syndicate, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood." Why does one of the progressive news program's foremost correspondents have ties to and tout the fiercely reactionary Muslim Brotherhood? "Live From Egypt, The Rebellion Grows Stronger," Democracy Now! January 30, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/1/30/live_from_egypt_the_rebellion_grows_stronger_by_sharif_abdel_kouddous
James F. Tracy is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University and an associate of Project Censored. More information is available at his blog, memorygap.org
DAMASACUS, (SANA)_The Syrian Journalists' Union stressed that the Syrian journalists are more determined than ever to continue conveying the truth of the situation in Syria.
In a statement on Wednesday on the occasion of the Syrian Journalists' Day, the Union called for more struggle in defense of free speech.
"Syria is targeted by a conspiracy that aims at fragmenting the Arab nation so as to succumb to US-Israeli hegemony, aided by an Arab and foreign interference that employed domestic tools and mercenaries whose only project is killing and destruction."
The Union said that the Syrian journalists are shouldering their responsibilities in defending Syria, indicating that they paid a heavy price to reveal the truth about what is happening on the ground.
The statement added that colonial powers have used media as a tool for blemishing the image of the Syrian army and people, adding that the dubious media campaign is part and parcel of the conspiracy against Syria.
The Union saluted the great Syrian people who stood up to the conspiracy, also saluting the martyrs of free speech and the valiant Syrian Arab army who is defending Syria.
Editorial comment: Whilst the Syrian people have shown remarkable courage and astonishing resilience in their fight against the terrorist proxies of the US, NATO, Israel and the Arab dictatorships since March 2011, there has to be a limit to how much violence and killing any people can endure. It is vital that the criminals who have subjected the Syrians to these attacks are made to pay a political price for what they have done.
tinyurl.com/98c63cn The cold-blooded murder of Syrian postal workers, hurled to their deaths from the top of a three story building, has been captured on a YouTube video broadcast by the Syrian Girl embedded within this artcle. Any possible doubt about the criminality and savagery of the Syrian 'rebels' and their US, NATO, Israeli and Arab sponsors will surely be dispelled by this chilling video. A more uplifting video of an interview of the Syrian Girl by Alex Jones is also included.
Few who have spent more than a minimal amount of time examining the news reports of the Syrian conflict in recent months, would have failed to grasp the implausibility of the claim by the mainstream media that the Syrian conflict is a popular uprising against the hated, brutal, dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad. If this were the case, then why wouldn't the inhabitants of Damascus and Aleppo have flocked to the side of the insurgents, on the occasions on which they launched offensives against these cities? The fact that the Syrian army has again and again driven the insurgents out of populated urban regions is surely evidence that the insurgents do not have the support of Syrians.
A closer examination of the Syrian conflict will reveal the coverage of the Syrian by the mainstream media and much of the supposed 'alternative' media to have been extremely untruthful. Some of the more telling of many examples of misinformation include:
Blaming the Assad Government for the Houla massacre, when the victims of the massacre were government supporters.
Repeated claims that the Assad Government was on the brink of collapse.
Most recently, only on 12 August the cold-blooded murder of 6 Syrian postal workers was captured on a YouTube video lasting 2 minutes and 48 seconds, which is embedded below. At the outset of the video, there are three battered and immobile bodies of three postal workers on the ground at the foot of a 3 storey building. During the video three more postal workers die after they are hurled from the top of the building onto the ground. YouTube warns that that the video could be most distressing to some members of the public and should >not be viewed by children.
Stills from the above video included below.
A more uplifting video, also to be found on the Syrian Girl's channel is the following interview of her by Alex Jones. Many viewers may be surprised to learn that the Syrian Girl's own family had fled Syria in the past when it was ruled by Bashar Al-Assad's father. Her reasons for supporting the current Syrian Government against the supposed 'rebels' are explained in a most revealing and interesting video. (If you find yourself unable to comfortably view the video below because of the chillng images displayed above images, you may prefer to view it directly on YouTube.)
ANKARA, (SANA) – Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Labor Party Hasan Basri Ozbey denounced the position of Turkish Abdullah Gül who is encouraging terrorists to commit crimes in Syria, saying that the Labor Party will file a complaint against Gul to try him in the Higher Court.
He said that Gül’s statement after the terrorist bombing that targeted the National Security HQ in Damascus was shameful and disgraceful to Turkish citizens, affirming that Gül didn’t fulfill his duties and responsibilities as a statesman towards an act of terrorism against the officials of a neighboring country.
by H. Sabbagh, published in Global Research, 25 July 2012
ANKARA, (SANA) – Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Labor Party Hasan Basri Ozbey denounced the position of Turkish President Abdullah Gul who is encouraging terrorists to commit crimes in Syria, saying that the Labor Party will file a complaint against Gul to try him in the Higher Court.
In a press statement published on Friday, Ozbey said that his party will file a complaint to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Attorney General of the Higher Court to try Gül, affirming that the Labor Party has clear evidence that the latter incited terrorism and war on Syria and signed a secret agreement with the United States, which alone is grounds for trial.
He said that Gül's statement after the terrorist bombing that targeted the National Security HQ in Damascus was shameful and disgraceful to Turkish citizens, affirming that Gul didn’t fulfill his duties and responsibilities as a statesman towards an act of terrorism against the officials of a neighboring country.
Ozbey said that Gül encouraged the terrorists by saying that the Syrian government isn't legitimate instead of denouncing the crime, adding that his statements constitute a crime according to the Turkish penal code.
He went on to note that world media – primary US media – has unveiled the fact the current Turkish government headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan is among the top governments in terms of organizing terrorist operations in Syria and providing weapons to terrorists in it, all under instructions from the US.
Ozbey pointed out that Gül himself admitted that the ruling Justice and Development Party signed a secret agreement with former US Secretary of State Colin Powell in April 2, 2003, and that these admissions were printed in Vatan newspaper in May 24, 2004.
He affirmed that Turkey is moving towards bloody adventures, and that the crimes of the Justice and Development Party constitute national treason.
This article writes about changes in attitudes to Syria, in the foreign media and in a former 'pro-revolutionary' reporting source from within Syria.
On Sunday 2 June, 2013, on the 8pm French news on France2, there was a change in reporting on Syria. Prior to this French reporting had been as counter-Assad as Australia's.
This is the text of the introductory speech by Susan Dirgham to what turned out to be an uplifting evening on the politics of war in Syria, as interpreted by members of 
Updated with footnote re Cambodia. This article, originally 
The co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, discovered some interesting information while treating Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo. He says the fighters aren’t focused on the fall of the Assad regime. Instead, they have their eyes on a different kind of prize – implementing Sharia Law throughout the country. Overpopulation, draconian monotheism, rising enforcement of Sharia laws, declining democracies, and religious intolerance is an awakening deep set powers and rebellion, and spreading the dis-ease of unrest. It fosters rebellion, hatred, suffering, division and persecution. 
This is a fascinating video of a huge protest in Sydney on 5 August 2012 and we have put up a video of it with a number of interesting interviews from marchers, with comments from what they think of the Bashar Assad Government to how they don't like the Australian Greens policy on this matter and believe that we are risking World War Three by backing intervention in Syria. There is also some background on how Syria has been the long-term host one of the largest refugee populations in the world, which makes you wonder why it doesn't receive more support from Greens and Refugee activists. It must seem ironic that some candobetter.net EcoMalthusians are more inclined to give Syria that recognition! Please let us know if you have views on the democratic status of the Syrian government; we find it hard to judge. All comments and greetings welcome.
Attention Avaaz, Amnesty International, NATO, Hilary...
"What are they doing in Aleppo? Why are they doing? Why are they funded and helped and fueled with weapons and why are they introducing themselves in between the civilian population?"
It is great to see two politically engaged women speak out about Syria. On the one hand we have 
A political analyst says the West is hypocritically recruiting the same thugs it supposedly waged the bloody and costly ‘war on terror’ against a decade ago, to topple the Syrian government today.
If anyone needs additional proof of the tremendous censorial control wielded over corporate and alleged "independent" media regarding Western powers' imperialist projects they need look no further than the thorough news blackout of the August 9 Tehran Consultative Conference on Syria.[1] As this censorship ensued, "progressive" news outlets continued their barrage of dubious and misleading information on the continuing turmoil within Syria.
ANKARA, (SANA) – Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Labor Party Hasan Basri Ozbey denounced the position of Turkish 
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