{"id":87547,"date":"2017-02-27T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=87547"},"modified":"2017-02-25T15:40:10","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T15:40:10","slug":"keep-focus-on-aleppo-and-global-dimensions-of-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/keep-focus-on-aleppo-and-global-dimensions-of-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Focus on Aleppo and Global Dimensions of Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Perspectives on the Syrian Conflict Formation<\/em><\/p>\n

24 Feb 2017 – <\/em>The Syrian conflict formation is hugely more complicated than we\u2019ve been told by Western politicians (all mainstream in spite of democratic features) and mainstream\/dependent media.<\/p>\n

To some there are only internal aspects<\/em> and it\u2019s called a civil war only. That\u2019s a necessary but not sufficient aspect.<\/p>\n

The same goes for the only regional perspective<\/em> focusing on e.g. the Israel-Palestine conflict, Iran\u2019s, Saudi-Arabia\u2019s, Turkey\u2019s roles and policies.<\/p>\n

To others, everything can be explained from the point of view of Western interventionism\/imperialism<\/em>. That\u2019s also a necessary but not sufficient aspect.<\/p>\n

To understand anything of the Syrian conflict formation \u2013 and there are very many layers, dimensions and participants over the last 100 years \u2013 we need all three basic approaches.<\/em><\/p>\n

But given that Westerners are likely to have been informed by Western media and politicians they are likely to grossly underestimate the third, the Western-global dimension.<\/p>\n

And that narrative is likely to be politically correct, to underestimate the nasty sides of the West the last good 100 years in the region and present the West as basically good guys interested in peace, democracy and freedom.<\/p>\n

This bias has been reinforced by what is probably the most massive marketing\/public relation effort in any modern war \u2013 in the style of the fake news story about Saddam\u2019s soldiers throwing out babies from their incubators in Kuwait City. In order words, pure invention\/lies\/planted stories\/rumours and PSYOPs \u2013 psychological operations<\/a> selling unverifiable stories to influence our hearts and mind in a single policy-promoting direction.<\/p>\n

The US\/CIA involvement in Syria over the last 68 years is well-documented and easy to access<\/a> \u2013 but never pointed out by the intellectually lazy who think it is enough to just point out that everything is the fault of the \u201cdictator\u201d and his \u201cregime\u201d.<\/p>\n

The US worked on deliberately de-stabilising Syria years before 2011 (as documented by WikiLeaks and others) when the peaceful demonstrations took place. The Western military support to RIOTs (Rebels, Insurgents, Opposition and Terrorists \u2013 most of the latter) was stepped up and while many point out that the US under Obama didn\u2019t \u201cdo anything\u201d, it can be argued that NATO countries acted in a variety of ways, too many and wrong-headed ways \u2013 none of them serving a politically negotiated solution, peace or democracy in Syria.<\/p>\n

The agenda was foreign interference, promoted military foreign presence (aggression) in international law terms and regime change. One more<\/em> regimes change, that is, after the earlier completely failed ones in Iraq and Libya.<\/p>\n

A series of Western NGOs \u2013 no longer Non but NEAR-Governmental Organisations \u2013 were part and parcel of the policy, increasingly involved and funded by the Western\/NATO\/Turkish-Saudi-Gulf-Israeli strategy of de-stabilization \u2013 such as US-based Avaaz<\/a> and French foreign ministry manufactured media outfits such as the Syrian Media Incubator<\/a> Aleppo Media Centre, the SMART News Agency<\/a>, the media work of the White Helmets<\/a> which did humanitarian work only among RIOT fighters and relatives (and stole the name of Syrian Civilian Defence from Syria\u2019s own organisation with that name from 1953).<\/p>\n

They came in on the civilian media narrative-creating side. And there are others<\/a>. Since the days of Yugoslavia, think tanks, human rights and humanitarian organisations have been drawn in \u2013 and accepted \u2013 to serve specific political interventionist agendas in spite of calling themselves independent, not-for-profit etc. This co-optations spells, potentially, the end of civil society as well as of the open and critical debate about governments\u2019 policies.<\/p>\n

All of this continued and was stepped up also after it had become clear that the legitimate, peaceful, democratic, anti-govenment opposition in Syria had been completely sidelined and\/or overtaken by Syrian militants and foreigners with guns in their hands. <\/em><\/p>\n

The West did not get cold feet, it stepped up it regime-change policies<\/em> in all kinds of ways, regrettably also by massive NGO-investments in proxi- and other pro-war campaigns.<\/p>\n

No one thought of the consequences for the huge majority of the innocent Syrian people who had never touched a gun, or thought of doing so.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

From the Jibrin Reception Center, note the footwear. \u00a9 Jan Oberg 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

And two more perspectives: Don\u2019t focus on the violence and the evil guy only \u2013 it\u2019s war-promoting<\/strong><\/p>\n

No one seems to even have asked the question whether this was the best way to deal with internal affairs in one of the world\u2019s oldest, cultured societies \u2013 and secular too with a long practice of peaceful co-existence among various faiths and groups.<\/p>\n

It fit the \u2013 classical but anyhow wrong \u2013 Western-constructed narrative of Good and Bad Guys which the West loves and has practised in all major conflicts \u2013 Noriega, Milosevic, Saddam, Putin, Gaddafi, Assad. And have gone wrong with everywhere, no exception. No lessons learnt.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s focus is on one bad guy and on the violence \u2013 \u201cwho is the worst\u201d and \u201cwe apply good violence against evil violence\u201d and fails to understand two things: the underlying conflicts<\/em> which invariably are very complex and, secondly, that violence is only a symptom<\/em> and black-and-white two-party conflicts don\u2019t exist. It\u2019s discourse can never lead to peace as I have argued here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course this whole narrative is self-serving. \u201cWe\u201d have no historical responsibility, everything can be explained by \u201cthem\u201d and their Bad Guy and we can do whatever we want because we are the Good Guys. And there is a good violence that shall win over evil violence. Etc.<\/p>\n

Even if all the media were truthful, this war on Syria lacks legitimacy and legality<\/strong><\/p>\n

It may well be true that Bashar al-Assad has made many mistakes, failed, dragged his feet, wanted to keep in power (most Presidents do, I believe, but it wasn\u2019t his destiny as a eye specialist in London), that his leadership is based on the security service, the party and an old guard, that \u201cthe regime\u201d should never have met the demonstrators the way it did, that there are far too many serious human rights violations and war crimes and that Syria has a long way to go to become a democracy. And more.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll then have to ponder the question too: Why was he so relatively popular by the West before 2011? Why was he not called a dictator back then? Why was the dictator obviously not that hated by the citizens of Syria? And why did the US work with Syria about implementing, systematically, torture and renditions?<\/a> (Yes, a bit of a polemical question, I know).<\/p>\n

And \u2013 more importantly \u2013 and ethical consideration:<\/p>\n

Even if all these things and more are true about al-Assad and the broader Syrian power structure that<\/em> cannot under any circumstances explain or legitimize what has been done to the Syrian people by foreign factors with violent means. Although there are many, also non-state militants, a series of foreign governments have \u2013 directly or through proxies \u2013 occupied Syria in total violation of international law. And continuing that argument: Syria has a right to self-defence \u2013 and to call upon others to come to its help \u2013 according to the UN Charter\u2019s Article 51.<\/p>\n

This intervention in Syrian affairs started way before spring 2011 and was made manifest when the so-called Friends of Syria \u2013 established by French president Sarkozy, a non-convicted war criminal (Libya) \u2013 met in Marrakech in December 2012 and declared<\/a> that the Syrian National Coalition was from now on the only legitimate representative of the people of Syria<\/em>, not its legitimate president Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n

The meeting repeated what had been done in Libya before (and its consequences) and forgot, like there, to ask the Syrian 23 million people.<\/p>\n

That was December 12, 2012. Eastern Aleppo was liberated on December 12, 2016. There is a direct connection and these two dates and four years are defining characteristics of the Syrian catastrophe.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what also makes Aleppo\u2019s liberation so important as I wrote in TFF PressInfo # 404<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that explains why Aleppo signifies so much more than the fall or liberation. It had to \u2013 quickly and deliberately \u2013 be \u201cdisappeared\u201d and forgotten in the West press and politics.<\/p>\n

And while there is silence, we work out another strategy: The U.S. and other West has lost the initiative and Turkey, Russia and Iran took it. Time for the West to go in in a new way: Troops on the ground. But this is not the theme of this analysis and we should have no illusions that Syria sufferings will soon over after Aleppo.<\/p>\n

And the result?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The largest humanitarian crisis since 1945 anywhere in the world. A shattered country, culture and nation. 13 million people, more than half the people, in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Millions of internally displaced people and refugees outside Syria, 300.000 or more dead \u2013 how many wounded in body and soul, we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

But how could that happen?<\/p>\n

Well, we\u2019ve been told again and again that it had nothing to do with the above-mentioned features. Or with the troubles of the Middle East, with Sykes-Picot, Balfour, economic crisis, militarisation, other wars, Iraq, Western colonialism (France and England) or American\/CIA policies in the region, nothing to do with Israel.<\/p>\n

Not at all! What can<\/em> explain it all is \u2013 you better believe it \u2013 is that it is all<\/em> one man\u2019s work: After 11 years as President trying to make reforms, letting people out of prisons, handling up to 2 million refugees from the crisis \u201cwe\u201d (deny that we) created in Iraq, running a system with free education, free health services and a secular state and<\/em> being appreciated by the West \u2026 Bashar al-Assad woke up one morning in spring 2011, had gone clinically mad and started killing as many as he could of his own fellow citizens and destroying Syria\u2019s economy, history, culture, architecture, livelihood. Everything!<\/p>\n

If you hear a sligt satirical undertone here, you\u2019re right. And it\u2019s intentional.<\/p>\n

This narrative doesn\u2019t hold. It fell apart in Aleppo. And this, the world\u2019s largest humanitarian crisis, cannot be blamed only on Syria\u2019s leadership. And that strategy for tragedy cannot be seen as legitimate with reference to whatever bad features that can be ascribed to the Syrian government and its president. Killing so many and destroying so much cannot be justified by any policy goal however presumably noble and well-meaning .<\/p>\n

As little as the use of nuclear weapons can by justified by any political aim.<\/p>\n

What actually fell in Aleppo<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the day four years after Marrakech comes the fall of Aleppo, right?<\/p>\n

Well, not really. What fell<\/em> in Aleppo on December 12, 2016 was the entire Western policy of weaponisation, media management and deception, the proxy war and its assumed moral superiority. And the failure of the regime-change plan. Al-Assad had not gone away. He was, with help from his friends, turning the tide of that whole war project.<\/p>\n

That \u2013 together with the liberation of about 100.000 from under occupation, people who were happy to again be under the Syrian government \u2013 is what Aleppo December 12, 2016 is about.<\/p>\n

Embarrassing of course so, here\u2019s the new strategy:<\/p>\n