Standing up Against America
By David Macilwain
Arguing that Australia should cut all support for US forces in Syria, and support the Syrian government and its allies in the fight against the terrorist insurgency. This starts with a recognition that the “White Helmets” are allies of Al Qaeda, supported by the US and UK.
March 02, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - In a week when Australia’s close alliance with America has been uncomfortably evident, along with the dangers this poses to Australia, John Menadue has posed this question:
“How long will Australian denial of US policies continue? When will some of us stand up?”
It is encouraging to see that others writing on his blog are standing up, yet it is also astonishing to consider just how small a part of Australian informed opinion we dissenters occupy, given the totality of the “case against America” that John has so thoroughly elucidated. As he also says:
“A further reason for the continuing US hegemony in Australian attitudes is the galaxy of Australian opinion leaders who have benefitted from American largesse and support – in the media, politics, bureaucracy, business, trade unions, universities and think-tanks.”
“A galaxy of opinion leaders”, we might add, who have themselves been influenced – one could say “hypnotised” or even “brainwashed” – by the force of America’s political, economic, cultural and military juggernaut.
Because not only are we struggling to be considered or even heard – and not dismissed as “just anti-American”, but our little corner of dissent continues to shrink. In the years that have passed since Malcolm Fraser set a cautionary tone with “Dangerous Allies”, which even then was snubbed by the mainstream, American influence and control over Australian culture and thought has continued to expand.
Combined with America’s increasing belligerence and fomenting of conflicts across the world, this influence and control can only be seen as malignant, particularly in the way it operates through the media – in all its various aspects. As John writes:
“But it is not just the destructive role of News Corp in US, UK and Australia. Our media, including the ABC and even SBS, is so derivative. We are saturated with news, views, entertainment and sit-coms from the US. It is so pervasive and extensive, we don’t recognize it for its very nature. The last thing a fish recognizes is water.”
Expanding on this appealing metaphor, and what I have liked to call the “Western media echo chamber”, the point is also that for a fish the surface of the pond is a mirror; it cannot see or understand what goes on in the realm above.
This state of denial and delusion about the “other realm” now exists across the whole of the Western world, and to a degree that defies comprehension – a “mass psychosis” as Russia’s ambassador to the UN Valery Nebenzya put it – and seems to have passed a point of no return in recent months. That it coincides with Malcolm Turnbull’s charm offensive in the US this week, and an embarrassing “mating” spectacle with the Goldilocks in the White House, makes this public departure into fantasy land deeply worrying.
Nebenzya was, of course, referring to the double vision over the war on Syria, which has been dominating the news. The stories in our media of “hell on earth” being created by the Syrian Army in Ghouta have had such emotional force as to completely conceal the truth from its audience. Presented with that truth now, or just a part of it, this audience would be incredulous; it no longer has the capacity to comprehend it.
Who would accept for instance, that the intrepid “civil defence volunteers” that we see digging for survivors in the rubble of bombed buildings and carrying wounded children to safety, are actually assisting those creating “hell on earth” for the citizens of Damascus, while creating the video fairy-stories about Ghouta on behalf of their sponsors in Whitehall and Washington?
We have reached a turning point. As Syria’s UN representative Bashar al Jaafari so eloquently put it following the ceasefire vote, “White has now replaced Black”, as the black-flagged terrorists of IS are replaced by the White helmeted terrorists of Al Qaeda.
Such an accusation against the Western sponsors of those terrorist groups, which Jaafari identifies as primarily the US, UK, France and Israel, might be dismissed as conspiratorial nonsense by the aforementioned Western media and its captive audience but was well understood by those countries’ representatives. Along with their close and inseparable ally Australia, they know as well as Syria and Russia and their allies just what their own “civil defence volunteers” in Syria are doing, because they are paying them to do it.
US state department spokesperson Heather Nauert is not shy in promoting the White Helmets, whose story is told in a film submitted to the Oscars about the siege of Aleppo. Nauert recommended “Last Men in Aleppo” to the gathered press with the warning that the same fate awaits the residents of Eastern Ghouta. She is right of course, but for the wrong reason.
East Aleppo was held under siege by Jabhat al Nusra, until the Syrian army liberated its 100,000 trapped residents, enabling them to reach the safety of areas protected by the Syrian Arab Army, while bussing the terrorists and their families to the Turkish border and to Idlib. In the same way, humanitarian corridors secured by Russia will allow the trapped residents of East Ghouta to reach the safety of Damascus, before the terrorist groups holding them under siege are dealt with, one way or another.
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The dominant group in Ghouta is Jaish al Islam – the Army of Islam – which contrary to the pretence of its foreign supporters is an extremist Islamist group no different from other terrorist groups, who now form the vast majority of anti-government forces in Syria. Its former leader Zahran Alloush cooperated with Islamic State in the dreadful attack on nearby Adra, committing acts of unspeakable barbarity against government employees and ordinary people.
When Saudi Arabia took charge of the Syrian Opposition group, they earmarked Alloush to lead it, in recognition of his dedication to their cause in Syria. Fortunately, Syrian intelligence managed to assassinate Zahran, but another Alloush with a little less blood on his hands took the leadership instead. His presence at talks in Geneva made it impossible for Syria to take those talks seriously.
It is in the light of these details that we should consider the Syrian government’s current push to expel or exterminate all the militants in Ghouta, including their white-helmeted colleagues in arms. As Jaafari explained to the UNSC, Jaish al Islam and its partners have been making life hell for Damascus residents for months, recently intensifying their indiscriminate attacks.
Meanwhile, the White Helmets, whose “news-feed” dominates the Western media reports from Ghouta, have created the impression of a community under constant bombardment and living in fear of death. So effective is the White Helmets’ propaganda, and staging of “child rescues” and “chlorine attacks”, that even the Pope has declared that “Syria is being martyred”. We needn’t ask “by whom” as everyone knows the answer – “Assad and Putin”!
This is of course not the answer and cannot be, as our chief source of information – misinformation – in areas of Syria outside government control is this group of mercenaries organised and paid for by the UK and US. Posing as volunteer rescue workers these “Syrian civil defence” or “White Helmets” are not, however, mere film-makers and performance artists. Should these criminals and their backers finally be exposed, their own videos will be their downfall.
Far from exposing the supposed brutality of the Syrian air force and army, or the ‘indiscriminate bombing” by the Russians, the White Helmets’ logo will become a seal of inauthenticity on their videos; everything they claim will not just be in doubt but will be disproved. Then it will soon also become apparent that NGOs and UN bodies who are cooperating with the White Helmets must also be tainted, along with all the governments who are waging this illegal campaign against the Syrian government and its allies.
This is what our alliance with and allegiance to America means; we support the terrorist groups in Syria that America supports, and legitimises through the White Helmets propaganda machine. Much as we may dismiss the Syrians’ and Russians’ intimate knowledge of “Al Qaeda with a Facelift”, or the evidence revealed in East Aleppo after the White Helmets were forced out of the headquarters they shared with Al Nusra there, the truth will out.
Better to jump ship now, and call an end to our support for America’s illegal wars. And while we are at it, we should also cut the cord with our other partner and colonial overlord the UK, before – as they say – the s**t hits the fan!
David Macilwain is an independent observer and writer with a special focus on the war on Syria and its allies. He writes voluntarily for Russia Insider and the American Herald Tribune, from his home in the hills of NE Victoria.
This article was originally published by "Pearls and Irritations" -
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