The Truth About Syria
A Manufactured War Against An Independent Country
The people of the world should ask Western leaders
and their allies: Why are you prolonging this war?
Why do you continue funding and enabling the
terrorists? Isn’t five years of civil war enough? Is
overthrowing the Syrian government really worth so
much suffering and death?
By Caleb T.
Maupin
May 29, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Mint
Press"
-
In late April,
President Barack Obama announced that 250 U.S.
special operations troops are being deployed to
Syria. Unlike the Russian and Iranian forces aiding
anti-terrorism efforts in the country, the U.S.
military personnel have entered Syria against the
wishes of the internationally recognized government.
In
terms of international law, the United States has
invaded Syria, a sovereign country and United
Nations member state. This is the not the first
time, though — Arizona
Sen. John Mccain
crossed into Syria without a visa
to meet with anti-government fighters in 2013.
While
the new U.S. boots on
the ground
have officially been dispatched for the purpose of
fighting Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the
organization known in the West as ISIS or ISIL),
they will most likely be working to achieve one of
the Pentagon’s longstanding foreign policy goals:
violently overthrowing the Syrian government.
As the
terrorism of Daesh and other extremists grows more
intense, and as millions of Syrians have become
refugees, the heavy costs of the U.S. government’s
“regime change” operation in Syria should come into
question.
Education, health
care and national rebirth
The
independent nationalist Syrian government, now being
targeted by Western foreign policy, was born in the
struggle against colonialism. It took decades of
great sacrifice from the people of Syria to break
the country free from foreign domination — first by
the French empire and later from puppet leaders. For
the last several decades, Syria has been a strong,
self-reliant country in the oil-rich Middle East
region. It has also been relatively peaceful.
Since
winning its independence, Syria’s Baathist
leadership has done a great deal to improve the
living standards of the population. Between 1970 and
2009, the life expectancy in Syria increased by 17
years. During this time period infant mortality
dropped dramatically from 132 deaths per 1,000 live
births to only 17.9. According to an article
published by
the Avicenna Journal
of Medicine,
these notable changes in access to public health
came as a result of the Syrian government’s efforts
to bring medical care to the country’s rural areas.
A 1987
country study of Syria,
published by the U.S. Library of Congress, describes
huge achievements in the field of education. During
the 1980s, for the first time in Syria’s history,
the country achieved “full primary school enrollment
of males” with 85 percent of females also enrolled
in primary school. In 1981, 42 percent of Syria’s
adult population was illiterate. By 1991, illiteracy
in Syria had been wiped out by a mass literacy
campaign led by the government.
The
name of the main political party in Syria is the
“Baath Arab Socialist Party.” The Arabic word
“Baath” literally translates to “Rebirth” or
“Resurrection.” In terms of living standards, the
Baathist Party has lived up to its name, forging an
entirely new country with an independent, tightly
planned and regulated economy. The Library of
Congress’
Country Study
described the vast construction in Syria during the
1980s: “Massive expenditures for development of
irrigation, electricity, water, road building
projects, and the expansion of health services and
education to rural areas contributed to prosperity.”
Compared to Saudi-dominated Yemen, many parts of
Africa, and other corners of the globe that have
never established economic and political
independence, the achievements of the Syrian Arab
Republic look very attractive. Despite over half a
century of investment from Shell Oil and other
Western corporations,
the CIA World
Factbook
reports that about 60 percent of Nigerians are
literate, and access to housing and medical care is
very limited. In U.S.-dominated Guatemala, roughly
18 percent of the population is illiterate, and
poverty is rampant across the countryside, according
to
the CIA World
Factbook.
What
the Western colonizers failed to achieve during
centuries of domination, the independent Syrian
government achieved rapidly with help from the
Soviet Union and other anti-imperialist countries.
The Soviet Union provided Syria with a $100 million
loan to build
the Tabqa dam on the
Euphrates River,
which was “considered to be the backbone of all
economic and social development in Syria.”
Nine-hundred Soviet technicians worked on the
infrastructure project which brought electricity to
many parts of the country. The dam also enabled
irrigation throughout the Syrian countryside.
More
recently, China has set up many joint ventures with
Syrian energy corporations. According to
a report from the
Jamestown Foundation,
in 2007 China had already invested “hundreds of
millions of dollars” in Syria in efforts to
“modernize the country’s aging oil and gas
infrastructure.”
These huge
gains for the Syrian population should not be
dismissed and written off, as Western commentators
routinely do when repeating their narrative of
“Assad the Dictator.” For people who have always had
access to education and medical care, it is to
trivialize such achievements. But for the millions
of Syrians, especially in rural areas, who lived in
extreme poverty just a few decades ago, things like
access to running water, education, electricity,
medical care, and university education represent a
huge change for the better.
Like almost
every other regime in the crosshairs of U.S. foreign
policy, Syria has a strong, domestically-controlled
economy. Syria is not a “client state” like the Gulf
state autocracies surrounding it, and it has often
functioned in defiance of the U.S. and Israel. It is
this, not altruistic concerns about human rights,
that motivate Western attacks on the country.
Syria needs reform,
not terrorism
In
2012,
Syria ratified a new
constitution
in response to the protests during the Arab Spring.
In compliance with the new constitution, Syria held
a contested election
in 2014,
with international observers from 14 countries.
One thing that
distinguishes Syria from Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Bahrain, and various other U.S.-aligned regimes
throughout the region is religious freedom. In
Syria, Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Jews,
and other religious groups are permitted to practice
their religious faith freely. The government is
secular, and respects the rights of the Sunni Muslim
majority as well as religious minorities.
In addition to
religious freedom, Syria openly tolerates the
existence of two strong Marxist-Leninist parties.
The Syrian Communist Party and the Syrian Communist
Party (Bakdash) openly operate as part of the
anti-imperialist coalition supporting the Baath Arab
Socialist Party. Communists lead trade unions and
community organizations in Damascus and other parts
of the country.
Though
Syrian President Bashar Assad is an Alawite, his
wife, Asma, is Sunni like the majority of the
country. Historically, the biggest opponents of the
Syrian government have been supporters of the Muslim
brotherhood, with a bloody episode taking place in
1982. Hoping to heal the longstanding tension,
President Assad has made many gestures of solidarity
toward the Sunni community in recent years. He has
made a point of engaging in religious practices not
commonly done by Alawites, such as
praying in mosques
and studying the Quran.
Shortly after fighting began in 2011, the Syrian
government granted autonomy to Kurdish regions and
transferred political
authority to leftist Kurdish nationalist
organizations.
Syria’s political system is certainly in need of
reform and modernization, and representatives of the
Syrian government such as
U.N. Ambassador
Bashar Al-Jaafari
readily admit this. However, the civil war which has
raged across Syria for the last five years, is not
about reform, democratization or modernization.
The
BBC published
a “guide to Syrian
rebels”
in 2013. Among them are not only the infamous
“Islamic State” organization, which now horrifies
the world, but also the Nusra Front, previously
known as Al-Qaida in Syria. Other organizations with
names like the “Islamic Front,” the “Islamic
Liberation Front,” and the “Ahfad al-Rasoul
Brigades” are also listed.
While Western
media presents the Syrian civil war as a “battle for
democracy” led by “revolutionaries,” the primary
goal of almost every insurgent organization is
creating a Sunni caliphate — one that does not
actually suit Sunnis though, but rather a perverted
politicized version of Sunnism created by Saudi
Arabia to ideologically control that region. The
unifying religious perspective of the Syrian
“rebels” is the interpretation of Sunni Islam
practiced and promoted by Saudi Arabia, known as
Wahhabism.
Foreign fighters,
chemical weapons and child soldiers
A
large number of the insurgents are not Syrian.
Impoverished people from throughout the Middle East
have been recruited to fight against the Syrian
government.
Facilities in Bahrain
train recruits to kill,
and send them to Syria.
Terrorist training facilities exist in many other
U.S.-aligned Gulf states.
Foreign fighters from
as far away as Malaysia
and the Philippines have been found among the ranks
of the foreign Wahhabi insurgents that are trying to
depose the Syrian government.
The
flow of violent insurgents into Syria is not
accidental. It has been directly facilitated by the
U.S. and its allies. The CIA has spent billions of
dollars on
training camps in
Jordan for anti-government fighters.
The
U.S.-aligned regimes of
Turkey and Saudi
Arabia are openly supporting the Nusra Front,
the Al-Qaida-linked organization that has already
killed tens of thousands of innocent people in
Syria.
Gen. David Petraeus
has called for the U.S. to join these efforts
and begin sending arms directly to the Nusra Front.
The
Israeli government has made a point of aiding the
Wahhabi extremists by
providing them
medical care in the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel has also made a point of
targeting allies of
the Syrian government with airstrikes.
While
Western media has highlighted allegations that the
Syrian government has used chemical weapons,
Carla Del Ponte from
the United Nations confirmed
that the foreign-backed insurgents have long been
been using sarin nerve gas and other chemical
weapons.
As the
insurgents make life unlivable in Syria, kidnapping
for ransom, bombing schools and hospitals, beheading
people, torturing people, they do it with thousands
of child soldiers among their ranks. Impoverished
children from across the Arab world have been
recruited to work toward violently overthrowing the
Syrian government,
according to UNICEF.
Between 50 and 72 percent of the population
lives in areas
controlled by the Syrian government.
Meanwhile, even USAID confirmed that
the turnout in
Syria’s 2014 elections was more than 70 percent.
While
the barrage of foreign fighters and extremists,
aligned with a minority of the population and armed
by Western powers and their allies, is committed to
bringing down the Syrian government, the Syrian
people clearly disagree. The fact that the Syrian
government remains strongly intact after a five-year
onslaught shows that the country is dedicated to
preserving its independence.
Time magazine
and other mainstream media outlets have even been
forced to admit that President Assad is unlikely to
be deposed.
How can the war
end?
As foreign
fighters have flowed into Syria, hundreds of
thousands of people have died over the last five
years, and Western media continues to blame the
Syrian government for the conflict. However, the war
would have been a very short one if not for the
foreign support given to the extremists.
As an
independent country with a centrally planned
economy, Syria has serves as an example to the
world. It has proven that without neoliberalism and
Western economic domination, it is possible to
improve living conditions and develop independently.
The Syrian government has made huge sacrifices to
aid the Palestinian people and their resistance
against Israel, and this has been a contributing
factor to
Syria’s inclusion on
the State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism
list.
Syria has close economic relations with Russia and
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The war in
Syria is not a domestic conflict. This is a war
imposed on Syria by Israel, the U.S., and other
Western capitalist powers. The primary promoter of
Wahhabi extremism around the world has been the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a U.S. client state. Turkey
and Jordan, U.S.-aligned countries bordering Syria,
keep their borders open so that weapons, supplies
and money can continue to flow into the hands of
Daesh and other anti-government terrorists.
At
least
470,000 people are
dead,
and millions of others have been forced to become
refugees, but Western leaders and their allies do
not end their campaign. The insane chorus of “Assad
Must Go” has transformed a small, domestic episode
of unrest into a full-scale humanitarian crisis. The
war has nothing to do with the calls for democratic
reform and the peaceful protests of 2011.
As Daesh now
threatens the entire world, the consequences of the
Wall Street regime change operation, promoted with
“human rights” propaganda, are becoming far more
extreme. The Syrian government rallies a coalition
of Christians, Communists, Islamic Revolutionaries,
and other forces who are fighting to maintain
stability and defeat Takfiri terrorism. (The term
“Takfiri” refers to groups of Sunni Muslims who
refer to other Muslims as apostates and seek to
establish a caliphate by means of violence.)
The only real
peace plan for Syria is for the U.S., France,
Britain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and other
powers to end their neoliberal crusade. The
internationally recognized and recently re-elected
Syrian government could easily defeat the insurgents
if foreign meddling ceased.
As U.S. media
bemoans the humanitarian crisis, somehow blaming on
the Syrian government and its president, and the
U.S. directly sends its military forces into the
country, the people of the world should ask Western
leaders and their allies: Why are you prolonging
this war? Why can’t you just leave Syria alone? Why
do you continue funding and enabling the terrorists?
Isn’t five years of civil war enough? Is
overthrowing the Syrian government really worth so
much suffering and death?
Caleb
Maupin is a MintPress journalist and political
analyst who resides in New York City focusing his
coverage on US foreign policy and the global system
of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. |