The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

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Re: The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

Postby Iamwhomiam » Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:55 pm

https://nepajac.org/unac_022321.html

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Statement by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) on the US attack on Syria

2/16/21


UNAC condemns the US bombing of Syria authorized by President Biden. The Biden administration has been in office for only 36 days and has already launched its first military attack against Syria. Biden’s justification is that the US was attacked in Iraq. The US has no right to be in Iraq, Syria or any other country. More than 1 million people were killed in Iraq due to the US invasion and occupation, and countless refugees were created. The Iraqis and the Syrians have every right to use whatever means necessary to remove the US forces from their countries.

Trump was the most truthful about US intentions in these two countries. He said the US wants the oil and he went on to steal the oil rich area of Syria and occupy it with US forces. Syria badly needs the revenue from its oil to rebuild the country devastated by the US sponsored war. That war included US, Israeli and NATO bombing raids, harsh US imposed sanctions and a private mercenary force of over 100,000 – financed by the US and its allies – that entered Syria to attempt to overthrow the government.

UNAC calls for groups to protest the US aggression. We demand:

End the bombing of Syria!

End the sanctions!

Bring all troops and mercenaries home now!

<snip>

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Re: The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

Postby conniption » Sun Mar 07, 2021 5:21 am

MoA
(embedded links)

On 'Shia Backed', 'Iran Backed' Nonsense And Other Warmongering Journalism

March 05, 2021

The recent U.S. airstrike at the Syrian-Iraqi border and the missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq were followed by many examples of bad journalism.

U.S. media, as FAIR documents, have purged inconvenient facts from their coverage of Biden's 'first' airstrike:

The less clear the US population is about the frequency and scale of murderous violence its government carries out, the easier it is for the US ruling class to go about its wars. Fortunately for the US state, corporate media help manufacture collective amnesia by expunging US aggression from the record.
...
Securing consent for running a lethal, worldwide empire requires unremitting propaganda: Redacting the historical record and playing the victim are two useful strategies.


The dozens of examples in the FAIR piece are telling. FAIR gets one thing wrong though. The attack was not in Syria, as the U.S. claimed, but on the Iraqi side of the border.

Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai - 6:01 UTC · Mar 3, 2021

Analysts keep making this mistake: 1st Biden's bombing was in #Iraq not #Syria. An Iraqi military delegation sent by @MAKadhimi verified & confirmed that the #US bombed Iraqi security forces on the Iraqi borders with #Syria and not on Syrian territory.


Nearly all U.S. media use 'Iran-backed militia' when describing the groups that allegedly launched the missiles. The Pentagon now wants to change that. A press briefing with spokesman John F. Kirby had several exchanges about that:
Q: Just going back to -- to the rocket attack, could you describe roughly the distance that the rockets were coming from? And what does that say about the tactics -- and how does that -- of the -- whoever fired those? And to what degree does this resemble previous attacks by the Iranian-backed militia?

MR. KIRBY: I'm not qualified to do the forensics, Dan, on -- on -- on how this equates to previous attacks, other than obviously it's a rocket attack and we have seen rocket attacks come from Shia-backed militia groups in the past. So in that way, it certainly -- it certainly coincides with our past experience here.

... [lots of unrelated stuff] ...

Q: OK. And yesterday we hear from the podium you expressed hope that the first strike on Abu Kamal will -- might deter any future attacks.

MR. KIRBY: Yes.

Q: And less than 24 hours later, this happened. In the airstrike, you targeted Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, two entities that are part of the PMF.

MR. KIRBY: Yes.
...

Q: How do you view the PMF now after targeting Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada?

MR. KIRBY: We've long been open and honest about the threats that these -- that arise from these rocket attacks that are being perpetrated by some Shia-backed militia. And we've not been bashful about calling it out when we've seen it. And the only thing I'd add is, just like before we're going to act appropriately to defend our personnel, our interests and those of our Iraqi partners.

Q: I'm asking about the PMF in general, since the group -- these groups are part of the PMF and they're actually the leaders of these groups are part of the leadership, like Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, the leader of --

MR. KIRBY: I understand -- wait, I understand where you're going. Again, we're focused on these -- the Shia-backed militias that continue to put at risk and to continue to threaten our people and our Iraqi partners. And I don't have any other additional conversations to read out today.

Q: If I may? When you say Shia backed militias, do you mean Shia militias or Iran backed --

MR. KIRBY: I mean Shia-backed militias.

Q: What does that mean?

MR. KIRBY: Lara?

Q: Thanks John.

Q: No, no, seriously John. I'm --

MR. KIRBY: No seriously. I mean Shia-backed militia.

Q: Like what does that mean, Shia-backed militia? You're backed by --

MR. KIRBY: I've answered your question sir.
...
Q: On the Shia-backed militias. Previously U.S. officials would say Iran backed militias, Shia is a sect, it's a large group of people. When you say Shia-backed what do you really mean? I was confused.

MR. KIRBY: I've been using that phrase pretty much since I've been up here and we know that and I've said this that that some of the Shia-back militias have – Shia-based have Iranian backing.


There is a certain point in Kirby's relabeling. The 'Iran backing' the 'Shia backed' militia get is much less than often assumed:

Iran’s relationship with Iraqi militant groups in its sphere of influence is often more one of mentorship than of direct command and control.


The Hashd al-Shaabi or PMU are paid by the Iraqi government which is based on a Shia majority. In that 'Shia backed' might make some sense but not in the sectarian way Kirby is using it.

To use "Shia backed militia" for Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada has as much analytical a value as calling Al-Qaeda Sunni backed or the Irish Republican Army Catholic backed. Neither would be technical incorrect but all these designations are way to broad to be of any use.

One wonders why the Pentagon is doing this? Does it want the 'Iran backed' out of the way to make it easier to talk with Iran? Or could there be some more nefarious reason:

I believe that Washington could very well seek to push Iraq into a new civil war in a bid to eradicate the Hashd al-Sha’abi. Many of the groups within the PMU have threatened to wage war on US forces if Washington refuses to withdraw. Unfortunately, this threat by the PMU can easily be exploited by the US, giving Washington a casus belli, as they intensify their “defensive” airstrikes while claiming to support Baghdad’s campaign to bring “stability” to Iraq.


Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and the other Hashd al-Shaabi groups are by the way mixed groups and not exclusively Shia. The one KH member who was killed in the U.S. attack on Abu Kamal was Sunni.

Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai - 10:21 UTC · Feb 26, 2021

First military victims of @JoeBiden:
The Sunni member of the Hashd al-Shaabi, Rahi Salam Zayd al-Sharifi, from Hillah, the ancient city of Babil (Babylon), killed by the #US air attack on the Iraqi- Syrian borders last night at 02:30 am local time.


Some of the worst writing on the episode comes from the New York Times chief warmonger David Sanger. In an 'analysis' headlined For Biden, Deliberation and Caution, Maybe Overcaution, on the World Stage he writes:

The goal was to send a signal to Iran without risking escalation. The Iraqi government was brought into the decision, and the strike was limited to a small cluster of buildings in Syria that was a gathering place for jihadis and smugglers. Even then, Mr. Sullivan and Pentagon officials took one target off the list at the last moment because of images showing there might be women and children present.

Their response may have been overly cautious because another rocket attack followed, on Wednesday, when an American contractor died of a heart attack.

But some leading Democrats still opposed the strike.


To call the 'Shia backed' government paid militia "jihadis" as if they were ISIS or al-Qaeda is as wrong as one can get.

To accept the evidence free claim, invented by 'officials' a week after the airstrike, that one target was taken off the list because women and children were there is dense.

And to call a strike that hit Iraqi government forces 'overly cautious' because the seven 500 pound bombs that were dropped did not have the desired political effect is analytical stupidity. It is the whole idea that such strikes create 'deterrence' that is wrong. The missile attack after the airstrike proves that deterrence does not work. More strikes would not change that.

Posted by b on March 5, 2021

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https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/o ... alism.html
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Re: The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue Mar 09, 2021 5:43 pm

Iamwhomiam » Sun Feb 28, 2021 1:13 pm wrote:
Grizzly » Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:28 pm wrote:
I would like to see Grizzly's honest opinion of each member of the "squad" shared here with an explanation of why he feels as he does about each.


Why? Seems to me, you don't really want to hear me out. You want debate, not discussion. That has been my experience with many RI's. I thought these guys were going to "bring down the house", they're all sheepdogs herders, just like the Bern. I wont fall for it again. Anyone here follow my addendum above?


Why? Because I would like to better understand you, your character, and your thoughts on politics and politicians and why you hold feelings that seem foreign to my thinking, my character and political leanings. It appears to me we feel quite differently about some of the personalities in politics today. I really have no interest in debating you; my interest is to better understand why I do not share your views. I understand why I hold the views I do.

I don't get the ongoing Bernie beat down or your scorn of the squad. Biden's bombing of Syria is unforgivable and plenty have condemned it. Perhaps not here, at least not immediately, but that would be no different than what occurred here during the 2/6/21 insurrection.

I do not subscribe to Twitter (did you ever think about what the word twitter means?) and I cannot stand Jimmy Dore, who I consider a commercial sellout and one who's opinions have no bearing whatsoever on my life.

While I encourage discussion, which also often involves debate, it's very difficult for me to accomplish with satisfaction these days, whether written or orally. Perhaps you've noticed how infrequently I've posted lately? No great epics are to come from me in future, I assure you.

I do want to "hear" you out, in fact. What I don't want or need from you, or anyone else, is bullshit you tube videos and imho, or tweets of any kind being posted here. Copy & paste works best when one first shares their reasoning for pasting it as a prelude in your own words.

It is understood we are different people raised and living in different areas of the same country and we're from different generations with far different experiences. You happen to have chosen Grizzly for your screen name and you also happen to live in close proximity to area of Montana the man who murdered my son and his friends (15 years ago, March 25) was raised in. The identical twin brothers' nickname was Grizzly. Although you might be the surviving twin, I really think that would be most unlikely. But you are a product of that area, so your character, why you feel as you do, is rather uniquely of interest to me. Especially as your opinions seem so foreign to mine.

While I believe our entire civilization is approaching complete collapse, our so-called democracy is all we have, our all but dysfunctional congress is what we must guide while we can; it's the only game in town. Youth is what congress is lacking. The election of The Squad to congress I see as refreshing, regardless their ineffectiveness. Our next congress will see lots of dead wood (on both sides!) disposed and replaced with more youthful members.


Bumping this to remind Grizzly I have answered his question and asked him to please answer mine, as originally asked back on February 28th (which was two days before he posted the one he later re-posted claiming everyone had ignored it.
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Re: The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

Postby Elvis » Sun Mar 28, 2021 6:41 pm

A good summary.

https://mronline.org/2021/03/22/ten-yea ... -to-blame/


Ten years on, Syria is almost destroyed. Who’s to blame?
Posted Mar 22, 2021 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

Originally published: Indian Punchline (March 20, 2021) |


In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, the ruling pigs led by Napoleon constantly rewrote history in order to justify and reinforce their own continuing power. The rewriting by the western powers of the history of the ongoing conflict in Syria leaps out of Orwell.

The joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of the U.S., UK, France, Germany and Italy last week to mark the tenth anniversary of the Syrian conflict begins with an outright falsehood by holding President Bashar al-Assad and “his backers” responsible for the horrific events in that country. It asserts that the five western powers “will not abandon” the Syrian people–till death do us part.

The historical reality is that Syria has been a theatre of the CIA’s activities ever since the inception of that agency in 1947. There is a whole history of CIA-sponsored “regime change” projects in Syria ranging from coup attempts and assassination plots to paramilitary strikes and funding and military training of anti-government forces.

It all began with the bloodless military coup in 1949 against then Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli which was engineered by the CIA. As per the memoirs of Miles Copeland Jr, the CIA station chief in Damascus at that time–who later actually went on to write a fine book of high literary quality on the subject–the coup aimed at safeguarding Syria from the communist party and other radicals!

However, the CIA-installed colonel in power, Adib Shaishakli, was a bad choice. As Copeland put it, he was a “likeable rogue” alright who had not “to my certain knowledge, ever bowed down to a graven image. He had, however, committed sacrilege, blasphemy, murder, adultery and theft” to earn American support. He lasted for four years before overthrown by the Ba’ath Party and military officers. By 1955, CIA estimated that Syria was ripe for another military coup. By April 1956, a joint CIA-SIS (British Secret Intelligence Service) plot was implemented to mobilise right-wing Syrian military officers. But then, the Suez fiasco interrupted the project.

The CIA revived the project and plotted a second coup in 1957 under the codename Operation Wappen–again, to save Syria from communism–and even spent $3 million to bribe Syrian military officers. Tim Weiner, in his masterly 2008 book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, writes:

The president (Dwight Eisenhower) said he wanted to promote the idea of an Islamic jihad against godless communism. “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,” he said at a 1957 White House meeting… (Secretary of state) Foster Dulles proposed a “secret task force,” under whose auspices the CIA would deliver American guns, money, and intelligence to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon, and President Nuri Said of Iraq.

These four mongrels were supposed to be our defence against communism and the extremes of Arab nationalism in the Middle East… If arms could not buy loyalty in the Middle East, the almighty dollar was still the CIA’s secret weapon. Cash for political warfare and power plays was always welcome. It could help an American imperium in Arab and Asian lands.


But, as it happened, some of those “right-wing” officers instead turned in the bribe money and revealed the CIA plot to the Syrian intelligence. Whereupon, 3 CIA officers were kicked out of the American embassy in Damascus, forcing Washington to withdraw its ambassador in Damascus. With egg on its face, Washington promptly branded Syria as a “Soviet satellite”, deployed a fleet to the Mediterranean and incited Turkey to amass troops on the Syrian border. Dulles even contemplated a military strike under the so-called “Eisenhower Doctrine” as retaliation against Syria’s “provocations”. By the way, Britain’s MI6 was also working with the CIA in the failed coup attempt; the details came to light accidentally in 2003 among the papers of British Defence Minister Duncan Sandys many years after his death.

Now, coming down to current history, suffice to say that according to the WikiLeaks, since 2006, the U.S. had been funding London-based Syrian dissidents, and he CIA unit responsible for covert operations was deployed to Syria to mobilise rebel groups and ascertain potential supply routes. The U.S. is known to have trained at least 10000 rebel fighters at a cost of $1 billion annually since 2012. President Barack Obama reportedly admitted to a group of senators the operation to insert these CIA-trained rebel fighters into Syria.

The well-known American investigative journalist and political writer Seymour Hersh has written, based on inputs from intelligence officers, that CIA was already transferring arms from its Benghazi station (Libya) to Syria around that time. Make no mistake, Obama was the first world leader to openly call for the removal of Assad. That was in August 2011. Then CIA chief David Petraeus paid two unannounced visits to Turkey (in March and September 2012) to persuade Erdogan to step in as the flag carrier of the U.S.’ regime change project in Syria (under the rubric of “anti-terror fight”.)

In fact, the U.S.’ key allies in the Persian Gulf–Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE–took the cue from Obama to loosen their purse strings to recruit, finance and equip thousands of jihadi fighters to be deployed to Syria. Equally, from the early stages of the conflict in Syria, major western intelligence agencies provided political, military and logistic support to the Syrian opposition and its associated rebel groups in Syria.


Curiously, the Russian intervention in Syria in September 2015 was in response to an emergent imminent defeat of the Syrian government forces at the hands of the jihadi fighters backed by the U.S.’ regional allies. Saudi Arabia withdrew from the arena only in 2017 after the tide of the war turned, thanks to the Russian intervention.

The joint statement issued last week by the U.S. and its NATO allies belongs to the world of fiction. In reality, there is Syrian blood in the hands of these NATO countries (including Turkey) and the U.S.’ Gulf allies. Look at the colossal destruction that the U.S. has caused: in the World Bank’s estimation, a cumulative total of $226 billion in gross domestic product was lost to Syria due to the war from 2011 to 2016 alone.

The Syrian conflict has been among the most tragic and destructive conflicts of our time. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died, half a nation has been displaced, and millions have been forced into desperate poverty and hunger. In the UNHRC estimation, after ten years of conflict, half of the Syrian population has been forced to flee home, 70% are living in poverty, 6.7 million Syrians have been internally displaced, over 13 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection, 12.4 million people suffer from lack of food (or 60% of the entire population), 5.9 million people are experiencing a housing emergency and nearly nine in 10 Syrians are living below the poverty threshold.

And, come to think of it, Syria used to have one of the highest levels of social formation in the entire Muslim Middle East. It used to be a middle income country until the U.S. decided to destabilise Syria. Ever since the late 1940s, the U.S.’ successive regime change projects were driven by geopolitical considerations. The agenda is unmistakeable: the U.S. has systematically destroyed the heart, soul and mind of “Arabism”–Iraq, Syria and Egypt–with a view to perpetuate the western domination of the Middle East.

Former President Donald Trump intended to withdraw the U.S. troops from Syria and end the war. He tried twice, but Pentagon commanders sabotaged his plans. What Joe Biden proposes to do is anybody’s guess. Biden doesn’t seem to be in any rush to withdraw the U.S. troops.

The most disturbing aspect is that the U.S. is methodically facilitating a Balkanisation of Syria by helping the Kurdish groups aligned with it to carve out a semiautonomous enclave in the country’s northeast. In fact, the the Arab population in northeastern Syria resents being under the Kurds’ governance, and this may eventually turn into a new source of recruits for Islamic State. Meanwhile, Turkey seized the U.S.-Kurdish axis as alibi to occupy vast territories in northern Syria.

The sad part of the joint statement by the U.S. and its European allies is not only that it is rewriting history and spreading falsehood but conveys a sense of despair that there is no hope for light at the end of the tunnel in the Syrian conflict in a conceivable future.

The U.S. policy in Syria is opaque. It has oscillated between aiming to prevent a resurgence of IS, confronting Iran, pushing back against Russia, providing humanitarian aid, and even protecting Israel, while the crux of the matter is that successive U.S. administrations have failed to articulate a clear strategy and rationale for the U.S. military presence in Syria.

“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

Postby Harvey » Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:52 am

A useful restrospective discussion on exactly what happened to Syria.

Creative Chaos: How U.S. Planners Sparked the Anti-Government Protests in Syria

Video - William Van Wagenen and Kevork Almassian: https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=D0CrL5PI59M

Article by William Van Wagenen: https://libertarianinstitute.org/articl ... -in-syria/
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Re: The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

Postby Harvey » Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:10 pm

A new open-source study concludes that Syrian insurgents carried out the Ghouta sarin chemical attack in August 2013. The explosive findings add to a growing body of public evidence that undermines US-led efforts to blame the Syrian government, which almost led to US military intervention.


https://thegrayzone.com/2021/07/26/syri ... udy-finds/

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