alanjjohnstone
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I find this story rather ominous in that it once again has official speculation on 'possibles' rather than facts.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-airstrikes-assad-chemical-attacks-trump-twitter-claims-us-action-a8312126.html
Quote:US officials told Reuters that currently available intelligence indicated Syria’s stockpiles of chemicals and precursors were believed to be scattered far beyond those three targets. It suggested that some of it was stored in schools and civilian apartment buildings, which one of the officials referred to as “human shields”.Carte blanche to conduct air attacks on heavily populated areas in the future?
Without this aid directly from the Saudis and other Gulf States, i don't think a civil war to the degree that took place was possible.The fact that Western intelligence was also involved suggests that these states were acting as proxies for the West, sharing the same strategic goal from the earliest daysHow much in actual dollars that the US/UK/France gave compared to the Saudis and its allies, i have no idea. Nor do i know how much finance was given to Assad by Iran and Russia.The fact that Turkey permitted ISIS to enter Syria once again appears to be confirmed that Jihadists are being found in the ranks of the Syrians fighting the Kurds.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-yazidis-isis-islam-conversion-afrin-persecution-kurdish-a8310696.htmlIt was from reading about the transformation of mass protests in Syria into an armed uprising in Syria which led me to read a lot more on non-violent resistance and the necessity to aim for it in the socialist struggles. It brought the pacifist rather than the barricadist out in me, even more
An interesting article on Haifa, the most integrated Israeli city.https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/19/haifa-is-essentially-segregated-cracks-appear-in-israels-capital-of-coexistence “In Haifa it’s not hate, but there’s not too much love either,” is the stark conclusion of Omer Shaffer, a Jewish Technion postgraduate. “It’s pretty indifferent. We’ve found a way to ignore each other without killing each other.”This reflects a sentiment i once heard expressed by Amos Oz, the Israeli writer, decades ago…"You don't need to love your neighbour…but just get on with him"
Quote:The activists call themselves "anti-war", but as they generally back the Syrian government's military operations against rebel forces seeking to overthrow Mr Assad and Russian air strikes carried out in support, it might be more accurate to describe them as "anti-Western intervention" or "pro-Syrian government".I think that is pretty much an accurate observation. After all where are the protests about the Iranians, the Russians and Hezbollah actions in Syria. Now that victory is almost accomplished, will they demand the immediate withdrawal of those foreign fighters?
My time scale, Sympo, is that in 2011 there was hope for a democratic political revolution in SyriaBy 2012 these hopes are fadingBy 2013, all hope has been extinguished.If they had prevailed in 2012, we perhaps would have seen the Muslim Brotherhood acquire control of Syria as they did in Egypt and they would then also have squashed democracy and repressed the secularists and minorities.Who knows because it didn't happen. Assad's repression backfired into full-blown civil war and an internal matter became internationalised.Political democracy can only succeed when it is accompanied by social and economic democracy, imho.Sadly, i am not a sooth-sayer but a socialist.
Quote:If I've understood you correctly, you are saying that the Syrian Civil War would still have happened even if no Western states gave financial aid to rebels?I know i provided lots of links for you to read so perhaps you missed this bit of info from the Cockburn article
Quote:The degree to which the armed opposition at the end of 2013 was under the thumb of foreign backers is well illustrated by the confessions of Saddam al-Jamal, a brigade leader in the Ahfad al-Rasoul Brigade and the former FSA commander in eastern Syria. A fascinating interview with Jamal, conducted by Isis and translated by the Brown Moses blog, was recorded after he had defected to Isis and appears to be reliable, ignoring his self-serving denunciations of the un-Islamic actions of his former FSA associates. He speaks as if it was matter of course that his own group, al-Ahfad, was funded by one or other of the Gulf monarchies: “At the beginning of the Syrian revolution, the file was handled by Qatar. After a while, they switched to Saudi Arabia.” Jamal says meetings of the FSA military council were invariably attended by representatives of the Saudi, UAE, Jordanian and Qatari intelligence services, as well as intelligence officers from the US, Britain and France. At one such meeting, apparently in Ankara, Jamal says the Saudi Deputy Defence Minister, Prince Salman bin Sultan, the brother of Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan, addressed them all and asked Syrian leaders of the armed opposition “who have plans to attack Assad positions to present their needs for arms, ammo and money”. The impression given is of a movement wholly controlled by Arab and Western intelligence agencies.I also recall that Gaddafi's weapons and ammo were re-directed from an anarchal Libya to Syria with the connivance of the West.Remember the famous "we will support the moderate jihadists" Obama…$500 million spent to gain a dozen or so so-called moderate resistance fighters and not the hoped 5000 fighting force. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/16/us-military-syrian-isis-fightersI think and i have no figures for this but Wahhabi/Sunni Saudi money had more success in recruiting and retaining the Islamist mercenaries to do their bidding
Sorry for the number of posts but it is a big subject.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/18/us-syria-arab-force-replace-american-troops-saudi-arabia-egypt-uaeThe Trump administration is renewing an effort to replace US troops in Syria with an Arab force. The Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said his government was talking to Washington about raising such a force, confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal that said the new US national security adviser, John Bolton, had called the Egyptian intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, to ask Cairo to play a part in building one.Middle East experts said it was feasible Arab states could fund an army run by private contractors and possibly help recruit soldiers from developing countries such as Sudan. Erik Prince, a Trump ally who founded the military contractor Blackwater USA and now advises the UAE, is lobbying to play a role, according to the Wall Street Journal.So there we have it…mercenaries to be used, paid by Suadi cash. Any Saudi troops deployed to Syria would find themselves directly confronting Iranian fighters and their allies, which could prompt a dangerous escalation in the conflict. Randa Slim, who directs the back-channel Track II diplomacy programme at MEI said: “It is one thing for the Saudis to pay for other ‘Islamic forces’ to do the job, and a totally different thing to send their men to a conflict theatre where they are bound to enter into direct confrontation with an entrenched Iranian-Hezbollah force.Perhaps we now have a reason for the air attacks…a trial or an example for the air support necessary for a new intervention?
The vilification of Corbyn continues and the mud is sticking as two-thirds of voters consider Labour is anti-semitic.Luciana Berger's had an on-line harasser jailed who was not some Leftist but a psychiatric case. Another was a drunk. Others jailed for sending her abusive anti-semitic emails had been from the Neo-Nazi Right-wing. Only one according to Wiki is traced to a left source and that is after she sided with the anti-CorbynistsBerger was a member of Labour Friends of Israel but resigned and the Jewish Chronicle criticised Berger for forsaking her Zionism for career advancement. Is she now jumping on the anti-semitic bandwagon for the same purpose?Am i being anti-semitic for accusing her of climbing the greasy pole?
Sympo another source, linked to by my blog, the journalist Patrick Cockburn, from 2014 on how the Syrian Arab Spring was defeated and became transformed into a brutal civil war.https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/how-syrias-secular-uprising-was-hijacked-by-jihadists/
Quote:The degenerate state of the Syrian revolution stems from the country’s deep political, religious and economic divisions before 2011 and the way in which these have since been exploited and exacerbated by foreign intervention. The first protests happened when they did because of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain. They spread so rapidly because of over-reaction by state security forces firing on peaceful demonstrators, thereby enraging whole communities and provoking armed resistance. The government insists that protests were not as peaceful as they looked and from an early stage their forces came under armed attack. There is some truth in this, but if the opposition’s aim was to trap the government into a counter-productive punitive response, it succeeded beyond its dreams.Quote:In July 2011, International Crisis Group (ICG) conceded that there was “an Islamist undercurrent to the uprising” but it was not the main motivation for the peaceful protests that were mutating into military conflict…The impression given is of a movement wholly controlled by Arab and Western intelligence agencies.As you can see, our blogs have fully reported the evolution of the Syrian War maintaining a historical analysis and hopefully a class one rather than the shifting media reporting.
Here is a 2012 SOYMB blog on Syria advocating non-violence resistance.http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2012/06/syria-all-hope-not-yet-lost.html
An interesting interview with someone on the Left advocating armed sef-defence in America and the futility of gun controlhttp://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/44137-violence-as-a-way-of-life-scott-crow-on-media-narratives-gun-control-and-state-power-in-the-us
In defence of Fisk's Ghouma reporthttps://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/04/17/robert-fisks-douma-report-rips-away-excuses-air-strike-syria
Quote:medics who responded to the suspected gas attack in Douma have been subjected to “extreme intimidation” by Syrian officials who seized biological samples, forced them to abandon patients and demanded their silence.With so many conflicting narratives, i find it hard to make a judgment
