The Broader Design of the Anti-Syria Forces

The Imperialist Violence in Syria, Part 2 of 7 - Part 1
 

By Kim Petersen and B. J. Sabri

January 09, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - Previously, we asked, why is Russia concerned about US-promoted violence Syria?

In a news dispatch, "Why Russia is standing by Syria's Assad," BBC, the voice of British imperialism, answers our question with these words, "By standing up for Damascus, the Kremlin is telling the world that neither the UN, nor any other body or group of countries has the right to decide who should or should not govern a sovereign state." The writers agree with the expressed sentiment; however, Russia's position on the Syrian conflict should be looked at from a different perspective. A principled Russia appears to have concluded that the US-engineered violence in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine, and other parts of the world is a means to implement a longstanding agenda: global US imperialist domination. We, therefore, view Russia's intervention in Syria as a way to stop the United States from carrying out its plans for devouring the world, one country at a time. If the relentless US attempts to place world nations under its control or tutelage are allowed to go unchallenged, Russia and China will be left completely isolated to defend their own people, territory, history, culture, economy, aspirations, and way of life from American imperialist predation.

Most notably, after Russian jets started hitting terrorist camps and infrastructures regardless of their "Islamic" or "secular" affiliations or the phony distinction between "extremist" and "moderate," many voices, especially American and those of her Arab and European vassals, clamored against its entry in Syria. Their objection is preposterous: that Russia's involvement is an aggravating factor leading to the prolongation of war.

First, if that were so, why did the West and co-actors allow the carnage to continue before Russia called their bluff? Second, the US is not interested in ending the war on the Arabs even if Assad falls. There is no reason to doubt that after Assad, ISIS and sisters would take his place in the American agenda as evidenced by US officials repeatedly declaring that defeating ISIS would take 10 to 30 years. However, 30 years later and long after ISIS has disappeared from the news, it is expected—based on the historical record—that the United States would continue to create pretexts and persist in its interventionist policies. Emphatically, deciding how this conflict should end must never be allowed to rest in the hands of US imperialists and Zionist neocons—and this is what Russia is trying to do. In essence, starting with Syria, Russia is powerfully moving to end US hegemony. Second, the clamor seems to suggest that only the United States (and its European vassals) should enjoy the unrequested privilege to fly sorties against targets of its choosing—like hitting bare dunes or insignificant targets instead of encamped or convoyed armed groups. This can explain why after 14 months of American bombardment of Syria and Iraq, US-trained groups (like ISIS, al-Nusra, etc.) were still doing well and expanding.

Curiously, did analysts ever point to the fact that western air campaigns, regardless of who carries them out, are destroying Syria's civilian and economic infrastructures? Consider this: While Russia is confining itself to hitting the military structures and transport logistics of ISIS and affiliated organizations, the West pursued an extremist agenda to bring about the dissolution of the current Syrian state: namely, the systematic destruction of its economic assets. When the Pentagon brags "Most of Islamic State’s oil refineries in Syria have been destroyed,” when Britain's RAF bombs ISIS "oil fields,” and when France joins in the wanton destruction, the fact remains: there is no "Islamic State" except in name. And there are no refineries belonging to it—snatching them is another issue. However, what the US, British, and French jetfighters—and as of late even Russia, as reported by the Independent—destroyed were expensive oil-refining structures, facilities, and oil trucks belonging to the Syrian people.

Ample evidence suggests that the West created so-called ISIS as a pretext to attack Syria (and partition Iraq) without a declaration of war. As for the denomination of "Islamic State," we should mention that, besides how this terrorist organization likes to call itself, only the West emphasizes it is a "state" and capitalizes both noun and adjective. Most Arab media, on the other hand, correctly call it "the organization of the islamic state." (Notes: 1) there is no capitalization in the Arabic language, 2) the present writers call it islamist state without capitalization because this western creation has nothing to do with Islam, hence it should not share its adjective; in addition, it is not a state.)

Based on our observations of the military developments just after the entry of Russia, we could say that the US was in a race with time to destroy Syria before Russia destroys the foreign-backed Islamist groups. Secretary of State John Kerry explained this design in a twisted way. He recently said, "US wants to avoid total destruction of Syria." What he essentially meant was this: the United States wants the destruction of Syria but not all the way to total. Besides, why did he say this just now and not immediately after becoming State Secretary?

Recently, 55 Wahhabist and Muslim Brothers "scholars" in Saudi Arabia issued a so-called jihad fatwa against the "Russian Orthodox Crusaders."¹ Well, during the past 14 months of illegal US bombardment of Syria (and now of ground troops in the guise of advisors to their terrorist groups), we never heard these dubious characters releasing even a whisper against the "American multi-religion Crusaders." This episode can tell us just a little bit, as to who is directing Saudi Wahhabists and associates.

Writing about violence in Syria without investigating first the forces that created and shaped it is similar to investigating ocean tides without mentioning the role of the moon in creating them. Accordingly, we must attempt to frame the issue of violence in Syria in exacting terms: who is turning Syria into a wasteland and theater of death similar to those the United States and Britain created in Iraq, to a slightly lesser extent in Libya, and now in Yemen via the fascist Wahhabi state of Saudi Arabia?

Let us begin by citing the Syrian regime's harsh response (resulting in deaths) to the anti-regime protests in Daraa. First, that Daraa was the starting point of the protests is by itself very suspicious for one good reason. Daraa is a border city with Jordan. This means many foreign intelligence services in cooperation with the sold-to-imperialism Jordanian regime had easy access to foment protests under the guise of the so-called Arab Spring.

Our question: who, just three weeks after that response, poured gasoline on the fire and began installing tent cities in Turkey and Jordan in expectation of refugees? This suggests that someone was expecting mass violence to erupt and refugees to start escaping to neighboring countries. Who then sent Saudi, European, Chechen, and others Islamists to Syria, armed them with heavy weapons, anti-tank missiles, gave them salaries, dressed them with Afghani garbs, made them carry black banners with religious themes taken from the Saudi flag, and topped all that with convoys of brand-new shimmering Toyota trucks?²

What should be done if the anti-war front does not possess the material means to end the bloodshed? How to stop the tens of thousands of foreign groups paid for and armed mostly by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and trained by the US and its regional clients Turkey and Jordan? Is it not ludicrous to watch killers coming to Syria from every corner of the world to overthrow the Syrian government under the banners of an Islam turned into a cult and re-defined and supported by the Wahhabis of the Gulf, by the United States, by the West, and of course by Israel?

To emphasize our point: the unspeakable destruction of Syria is not a Syrian-made event. Those who are destroying Syria and killing its people are doing it following a precise imperialist design using tried-and-tested violence carried out before in many parts of the world. The pain of the Syrian people is undoubtedly real. While the present writers express our deepest sorrow for all those who have died and empathy with all those who are still alive but may still die senselessly pending a solution, we need to uncover more facts.

For instance, we noticed that those who armed the domestic opponents of the Syrian regime— such as so-called free Syrian army (composed of defectors and other unknown elements), as well as foreign islamist terrorists, and non-Muslim mercenaries—never tire from repeating that they are fighting in response to the Syrian regime's atrocities. Yet, they themselves are the direct cause of atrocities and terrorism.

We also noticed that the US and its Arab and Turkish instruments are in the sleazy habit of saying they support freedom in Syria. We wonder, since when have the rulers of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Qataris, and Emiratis ever cared about freedom, democracy, human rights, and the prosperity of nations? Where is meaningful evidence for this? What is the broader design of the forces that organized international death legions and ordered them to destroy Syria under the pretext of fighting a bad regime?

While we are on the subject, since the objective of US imperialism is known: global, unrestrained hegemony, why is Syria in the bullseye of countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar? Have these countries, known for their dreadful suppression of freedom and political rights become overnight the standard-bearers of humanist values, personal freedoms, and political emancipation!

From the Right, Left, and from everywhere, genuine and crocodile tears had been shed for the victims of violence in Syria; sincere but also fake grief had been heaped on the plight of refugees. Yet, with all exceptions considered, the near generalized destruction of Syria and its rich historical and human heritage is obliquely mentioned. And, we see images of cities destroyed, heads decapitated, people thrown from rooftops, captives burnt alive, women raped, and men and women (accused of “illicit sex”) stoned to death, the blame in western media and Arab news outlets (mostly owned by Saudi Arabia and Qatar) invariably goes to the Syrian regime—but never to terrorist groups and their backers.

Is it not odd that the Qatari ruling family supports the Muslim Brothers in Syria with all means possible while its governing system, besides housing American military bases, is void of any sign of the Brothers' values? Saudi Arabia is another ridiculous story. It proselytizes Wahhabism, arms and trains the inductees, put them at the service of the United States to conduct terrorism—especially in the Arab states that oppose US hegemony, but then it boasts it is fighting a Syrian regime that kills its people!

From our side, we shall never tire from repeatedly posing the same questions: who wants to see Syria destroyed and why? Unless one posits a pathological intolerance and hatred for Syria's government, it is hard to come up with an elucidating rationale for Saudi Arabia's violent animus. This leads us to consider an outside agent. What caused the Saudi rulers to assume a primary role in the destruction of Syria, and before it a role in the destruction of Iraq, then Libya, and now Yemen? Who is destroying the Arab lands with their marvelous cultural, ethnic, and religious mosaics? How could anyone understand anything about violence in Syria if the prevailing tendency to analyze it is focused on flash news and made-for-mass-media stories? Overlooking related facts—by design, conformity, lack of specific knowledge, or just plain powerlessness—has also become a trend. This has not only caused the roots of the conflict to be eventually oversimplified, but it has also diluted the long documented history behind the war's growth and expansion. In short, who wants to see Syria destroyed and why? Let us investigate.

In a 2007 TV interview, Gen. Wesley Clark stated the following:

About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say ‘hello’ to some of the people in the joint staff who used to work for me, and one of the Generals called me in. He said, ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me for a second.’ I said, ‘You’re too busy.’ He said, ‘No. We have made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.’ I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, I guess they don’t know what else to do.’ So I said, ‘Well did they find some information connecting Saddam to Al-Qaeda?’ He said, ‘No, there’s nothing new that way, they just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.’ So I came back to see the same guy a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh it’s worse than that.’ And he reached over to his desk, picked up a piece of paper and he said, ‘I’ve just got this down from upstairs.’ (Meaning the Secretary of Defence’s [sic] office) and he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘Well don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so later and I said, ‘You remember that…?’ He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo. I didn’t show it to you^.3

In a TV interview that took place two years before large-scale violence exploded in Syria, Roland Dumas, former French Foreign Minister said the following:

I’m going to tell you something. I was in England, two years before the violence in Syria, on other business. I met with top British officials who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain, not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate.” Responding to a question on the motive behind inciting violence in Syria, Dumas said, “Very simple, with a very simple aim – to overthrow the Syrian government because in the region it’s important to understand that the Syrian regime makes anti-Israeli talk.” And then the former Foreign Minister added that he’d been told, by an Israeli Prime Minister a long time ago, that Tel Aviv would seek to destroy any country that did not get along with it in the region. It is not just about Israel, it is about the acquisition of country after country across the Middle and Near East, North Africa and then going deeper and deeper South into Africa. This has been planned for decades.⁴

Next: Part 3 of 7

NOTES

1. Al Monitor, “Saudi religious scholars enraged over Moscow's recent Syria strikes.”

2. For reading: “Obama Proposes $500 Million to Aid Syrian Rebels”; “The nations that sent arms and money to Syria”; “Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?”; “See other "ISIS" convoys.”

3. Reported at Humans Are Free website, “The Hidden Truth Behind Syria and the Arab Spring.”

4. Reported at Humans Are Free website, “The Hidden Truth Behind Syria and the Arab Spring.”

Kim Petersen is a former editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at kimohp@inbox.com

B. J. Sabri is an observer of the politics of modern colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, and of contemporary Arab issues. He can be reached at b.j.sabri@aol.com