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By Dr Elias Akleh

The American, British, French tripartite aggression against Syria last Friday, April 13th, is a grave international war crime violating article 51 of the United Nation charter, that forbids any state to attack any other sovereign state except in the case of self-defense, or with the consent of a majority of UN members according to chapter seven. Added to this crime is the American crime of threatening to attack another UNSC member nation; considered a crime according the UNSC charter.

Following Nikki Haley’s crime in the UNSC of threatening to attack Syria even without the Council’s permission, the US dragged the UK and France to commit the crime of attacking Syria under the justification of an alleged chemical attack in Douma. The terrorist sponsored “White Helmet” produced a clearly staged video of chemical attack against children, an act that had been repeated in the past and had proven to be fake. To vindicate itself Syria had invited in and guaranteed a safe passage to inspectors of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate the allegation. Trump’s administration, knowing very well that the alleged chemical attack is fake, and without waiting for the results of the OPCW’s inspectors, behaved as investigators, judges, and executors, decided to attack Syria one day before the arrival of the OPCW’s inspectors.

In an apparent attempt to blackmail Saudi Arabia, Trump announced last week that he will withdraw the American troops from Syria. He also indicated that if Saudi Arabia wants the US to attack Syria they have to pay for the attack. Trump had just announced insultingly that the American forces are just mercenaries for hire. Apparently, Saudi Arabian MBS (Mohammad Bin Salman) had paid not only the US, but also the UK and France during his latest visits to these countries for the attack to happen. The UK and France were enlisted as partners in this crime in an attempt to give the attack some appearance of unanimity.

An American military armada was shipped to the Middle Eastern region, and with the American presence in its bases in some Gulf Arab States and in the Red Sea, an attack on Syrian targets was perpetrated during the early hours of Friday 13th. It was estimated that more than 110 Tomahawk missiles were fired in an attempt to overload Syrian defense systems. Yet Syrian forces were able to shoot down about 71 missiles demonstrating an exceptional defensive military capability. The rest of the missiles hit vacated facilities that had been previously bombed by Israeli forces. Israel had provided the coordinates of these facilities to the American forces. The attack, despite what tripartite had stated and Trump’s empty “mission accomplished” statement, was an utter military failure that had accomplished nothing, and at the same time had demonstrated the effectiveness of the Syrian defensive capabilities.

This criminal attack came under the justification of protecting the Syrian civilians from suffering any further chemical attack. The question that poses itself here is: how does the bombing of the chemical stockpiles and the resulting dispersion of these chemicals in the air would protect civilians? Did the American military take into consideration that such dispersion would expose Syrian civilians to chemical danger?

One would have doubts whether the American military had carefully thought through this attack, especially when there were reports of opposing opinions in the Pentagon. What are the real goals of the attack? Definitely it was not the alleged destruction of the chemical weapons since there was no precautions about the dispersion of chemicals after the bombing. The disposal of chemical weapons requires tedious safety preparations following intensive political negotiations.

It is very well documented that with the cooperation of other countries these three; US, UK and France, had been the major supporters of the terrorist groups attacking Syria. It has been observed that every time the Syrian forces gain an upper hand over the terrorist, an allegation of a chemical attack surfaces. These Western countries would perpetrate an attack, similar to last year’s attack on the Shayrat air base, to sabotage Syria’s victory and to boost the morals of the terrorists. If this attack comes to accomplish this purpose, then it came too late since the terrorists were defeated, had surrendered, and entered into an evacuation agreement with Syrian government.

One may think that this aggression had come because the US found itself out of any political negotiation concerning the future of Syria and wanted to force its presence. Such an attempt had failed since the attack had succeeded only in alienating the US further. This aggression had served only to demonstrate that the American “nice, new and smart missiles” are inferior to the relatively older Syrian defense systems. Russia was so confident of the effectiveness of the Syrian defensive missile system that the Russian forces sat watching idly without any interference as they had warned earlier. Besides, Russia is now supplying Syria with its latest very powerful defensive missile systems including S-300 and S-400 and more advanced military equipment.

If the intent of such an attack was to intimidate the Syrians into submission fearing American reprisals, as the US is accustomed in doing to some UNSC member states, then this goal had also failed, and succeeded only in boosting the morale of the Syrian population and strengthening their trust and support to Al-Assad government. Immediately after the end of the attack the Syrians went into the streets celebrating their victory.

Previous American and Israeli attacks aimed at strengthening terrorist positions and boosting the morale of what is called Syrian opposition. This attack resulted the exact opposite. The Syrian opposition leaders had already expressed their disappointment of such a frail attack that resulted virtually into nothing tangible.

Severe disappointment has also hit the hearts of Israeli leaders, the AIPAC; American Israeli lobby, and some Persian Gulf Arab states especially Saudi Arabia, who were pushing for the bombing of Syrian vital targets including Syrian air bases, ministry of defense, military bases, and even the presidential palace. Although these might have been the initial targets for the American armada, yet the Pentagon’s fear of a possible devastating wider military confrontation with Russia and Iran that would turn the whole region into hell, had led them to limit the attack to mere bombing of evacuated and deserted facilities.

Recognizing their military failure US, UK and France went back to the UNSC demanding the Council to issue resolutions to condemn the chemical use in Syria, to form an independent investigation to determine responsibility of chemical attacks, to demand a permanent seize fire and to allow unrestricted shipments of humanitarian aid to all parts within Syria, that would, undoubtedly, include hidden arms delivery to terrorists. In addition to their military war crime they also are demanding to be involved into what they called further political negotiations to be followed to achieve peaceful solution to the Syrian war.

This tripartite criminal aggression, and the failure of the UNSC to condemn it, clearly expose the criminality of the Western countries, and their utter disregard to any international law and to human lives. The complicity for this crime by the UNSC member countries make them partners to the crime, regardless whether are afraid of American reprisal or seeking economic rewards from Trump’s administration. This international body has become useless and obsolete the way it is now. It is unable to protect weaker countries and has not served to enhance world peace and justice but became a tool to legalize the crimes of strong and rich rogue nations such as the US, the UK and France and their Israeli terrorist tool.  If this tripartite is allowed to attack one-member country without suffering any consequences, then it would be emboldened to attack any other member country any time it deemed to serve its “ambitions”

The long history of these three countries clearly demonstrate their contempt to all international laws and their disregard to international organizations. During the last two decades they had created and armed terrorist groups to lead their own proxy wars around the world, then under the claim of fighting terrorists they instead invade and destroy other countries. They had used fabrications and lies to attack and destroy weaker and smaller countries they coveted their natural resources and their geostrategic locations. US, UK, and France are the real triangle of evil creating and sponsoring terror groups to perpetuate wars.

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab American from a Palestinian descent.

16 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/16/the-crime-of-the-tripartite-aggression-against-syria/

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

There is a certain bullishness in French circles these days, even if there was an initial attempt, with the Macron government, to calm matters down.  The need to assert Gallic might in the face of brutality has again surfaced; and has a familiar ring to it.  With Syria’s Bashar al-Assad getting more comfortable with military progress, officials in the United States, France and Britain are chewing finger nails and churning out policy papers of concern.

For them, Syria remains a chess piece they never quite controlled, an entity filled with failed “free” rebel fighters and packed with such agents of spoliation as murderous jihadi groups. But one group’s murderous antics are another’s decent balancing act in terms of strategy.

Even before US President Donald Trump decided to huff and issue the order that lead to the launch of 105 missiles from the triumvirate, France’s President Emmanuel Macron was being egged on to do something.  He was also egging himself on to target the Assad regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons, despite having previously suggested that there was no “legitimate successor” to the Syrian President.

This impulse to punish, to instigate the use of force for the specific purpose of correcting a supposed violation of international norms was already being flagged last summer.  “When you set out red lines, if you are unable to force them, then you decide to be weak.”

The Syrian imbroglio has not been an easy one to define for Macron.  His predecessors – Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande were of the more traditional Gallic mould of intervention and interference, finding untrammelled sovereignty in North Africa and the Middle East a bit difficult to stomach.  Macron, at least initially, found the nightmare of intervening in Libya part of a neo-conservative impulse, and issued that sober warning that failed states were hardly in France’s best interest.

On the issue of chemical weapons, Hollande was punitively clear, instructing the French Air Force in the aftermath of the Ghouta attacks in August 2013 to ready for strikes on Syrian command centres linked to the attack.  But he pinned such a move on joint US support.  Having issued a “red line” ultimatum, US President Barack Obama signalled his wish to leave the strike party.

This instance of an ally backing down infuriated the already irritable French grouping.  Assad was to be rid of, but do to so would require whole-hearted backing from Washington’s war machine.  France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius was all rather gung-ho about it: something needed to be done, and not getting one’s hands dirty was a sign of fatal weakness.

His interpretation of the consequences arising from such vacillation were broad and inventive.  By not striking Assad, claimed Fabius in a radio interview on Europe 1 in February 2016, the Western alliance bore witness to “a turning point, not only in the crisis in the Middle East, but also for Ukraine, Crime and the World.”  Those horrible Russians, again, with their insatiable belligerence, their territorial hunger!

Macron is now marking himself up as a true realist, a sombre assessor of more limited aims.  Less than a neo-colonial, he is a pseudo-neo-colonial, still keen to intervene in theatres of traditional French interest.

One recent example stands out: establishing a French troop presence to shadow Kurdish ambitions within the Syrian Democratic Forces from the prying moves of Turkey in north-eastern Syria while also combating Islamic State ambitions.  “He assured the SDF,” went a statement from the French President in March, “of France’s support for the stabilization of the security zone in north-east Syria, within the framework of an inclusive and balanced governance, to prevent any resurgence of Islamic State.”

He also claims to have persuaded his US counterpart to remain in Syria, despite repeated mutterings and tweets to the contrary. “Ten days ago,” claimed Macron in an interview, “President Trump was saying ‘the United States should withdraw from Syria.’  We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term.”

Even more of an achievement, he felt it worth noting that he had been the voice of reason for a rampant Trump itching to strike. Macron “persuaded him that we needed to limit strikes to chemical weapons [sites], after things got a little carried away over tweets.”

The US interpretation on this as unsurprising as it is predictable.  “The US mission has not changed,” came White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.  Trump had “been clear that he wants US forces to come home as quickly as possible.”  Trump reiterated that sense in his Friday speech to the nation.  “We cannot purge the world of evil, or act everywhere there is tyranny.”  He looked “forward to the day when we can bring our warriors home.”  Macron might have been reading different smoke signals, even if there was some smoke to read.

The battle over Syria as a matter of “long term” garrisons suggests a very important point for Macron’s strategy.  While Russia continues its customary backing of the government of the day, the French, with moderate support from the UK and even more moderate support from Trump, are seeking a garrison presence in some form – call them what you like: specialists, experts or just plain saboteurs – to keep Syria in orbit.  For them, Assad and his Russian backers cannot be permitted a free hand.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

17 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/17/macrons-syria-game/

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: It seems that many who supported the weekend’s air strikes on Syria are overlooking the significance of Robert Fisk’s report from Douma, the site of a supposed chemical weapons attack last week.

Fisk is the first western journalist to reach the area and speak to people there. One is a senior doctor at the clinic that treated victims of what a video purported to show were chemical weapons used by the Syrian government. The incident was used as the justifcation for the air strikes launched jointly by the US, the UK and France.

The doctor says the video was real, but did not show the effects of a chemical weapons attack. It showed something else. This is what the doctor is reported saying:

“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night — but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet’, shouted ‘Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”

On my social media pages there are plenty of armchair warriors furiously denying the importance of this report, by claiming either that the doctor made up the story or that Fisk is a mouthpiece for the Assad regime, or maybe both.

That will not wash for reasons that ought to be obvious – and it still won’t wash even if the testimony later turns out to be wrong.

The air strikes on Syria at the weekend were patently illegal according to international law. That would have been the case even had there been a chemical weapons attack in Douma, in part because it would have been necessary for independent inspectors to determine first whether the Syrian government, and not the jihadists there, was responsible.

The air strikes would have been illegal too, even if it could have been shown that a chemical weapons attack had taken place and that Assad personally ordered it. That is because air strikes would have first required authorisation from the UN Security Council. That is why international law exists: to regulate affairs between states, to prevent militarism of the “might is right” variety that nearly destroyed Europe 80 years ago, and to avoid unnecessary state confrontations that in a nuclear age could have dire repercussions.

Had Assad been shown to be responsible, Russia would have come under enormous international pressure to authorise action of some kind against Syria – pressure it would have been extremely hard for it to resist.

But had it resisted that pressure, we would have had to live with its veto at the Security Council. And again, for very good reason. Israel, the US and the UK have used depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, and Israel and the US white phosphorous. But who among us would think it reasonable for Russia or China to unilaterally carry out punishment air strikes on Maryland (US), Porton Down (UK) or Nes Ziona (Israel), and justify the move on the grounds that the US and UK could veto any moves against themselves or their allies at the Security Council? Who would want to champion belligerent attacks on these sovereign states as “humanitarian intervention”?

But all of this is irrelevant because whatever incontrovertible information the US, UK and France claimed to have that Syria carried out a chemical weapons attack last week is clearly no more reliable than their claims about an Iraqi WMD programme back in 2002.

Fisk does not need to prove that his account is definitively true – just like a defendant in the dock does not need to prove their innocence. He has to show only that he reported accurately and honestly, and that the testimony he recounted was plausible and consistent with what he saw. Everything about Fisk’s record and about this particular report suggests there should be no doubt on that score.

Fisk’s report shows that there is a highly credible alternative explanation for what happened in Douma – one that needs to be investigated. Which means that an attack on Syria should never have taken place before inspectors were able to investigate and report their findings.

Instead, the US-UK-France launched air strikes hours before the UN inspectors were due to begin their work in Syria, thereby pre-empting it. At the time those air strikes took place, the aggressor states had neither legal nor evidential justification for their actions. They were were simply relying on the reports of parties, like the White Helmets, that have a vested interest in engineering the Syrian government’s downfall.

As is now known beyond doubt, our leaders lied to us about Iraq and about Libya. Some of us have been warning for some time that we should be highly sceptical of everything we are being told by our governments about Syria, until it is verified by independent evidence.

All of us have a moral responsibility to stop simply believing what our governments and their propagandists in the corporate media tell us, whether we have been doing so out of a kneejerk authoritarian impulse or because we have some romantic notion that, despite the evidence, our leaders are always the good guys and their leaders are always the bad guys.

Just consider for a moment the UK’s support for, and involvement in, the horrifying Saudi war against Yemen, or US politicians’ blanket silence on Israel’s massacre of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. Our leaders have no moral high ground to stand on. Their foreign policy decisions are about oil, defence contracts and geo-strategic interests, not about protecting civilians or fighting just wars.

However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, he is responsible for far fewer deaths and much less suffering in the Middle East than either George W Bush or Tony Blair.

Former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer sets out a very plausible reason why the US, UK and France keep intervening in Syria. It is not about children or chemical weapons. It is to prevent the Syrian government and Russia triumphing over the jihadists, as they have been close to doing for some time.

These western states are adamantly opposed to allowing a peaceful resolution in Syria, Kinzer observes, because it:

“might allow stability to spread to nearby countries. Today, for the first time in modern history, the governments of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are on good terms. A partnership among them could lay the foundation for a new Middle East.

“That new Middle East, however, would not be submissive to the United States-Israel-Saudi Arabia coalition. For that reason, we are determined to prevent it from emerging. Better to keep these countries in misery and conflict, some reason, than to allow them to thrive while they defy the United States. …

“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”

UPDATE:

Fisk’s account is corroborated by another reporter who is there, Pearson Sharp of the conservative news network One America. Unlike Fisk, who I know has a long track record as a highly credible reporter of events in the Middle East, Sharp is an unknown quantity to me. But it may be significant that he echoes Fisk in saying that no one he spoke to, even in the neighbourhood where the attack supposedly occurred, seemed aware that chemical weapons had been used.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

17 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/17/robert-fisks-douma-report-rips-away-excuses-for-air-strike-on-syria/

By Alan Grayson

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a/k/a Lula, never went to school, and started working at the age of 12. As a union leader, he led the movement that freed Brazil from military dictatorship, and instituted democracy. Lula then served as President of Brazil from 2003 to 2011, when he lifted 40 million Brazilians out of poverty. Running for President again, he has led in every poll for the past year. But last week, Lula surrendered to authorities to begin a 12-year prison term (at the age of 72) for alleged illegal use of a beachside apartment owned by a government contractor. He maintains his innocence. As his prison term began, Lula issued this “Letter to the Brazilian People”:

My Friends,

I’ve thought a lot about the paths that our lives take. The future, after all, does not seem to be such a distant place, does it?

It’s not that my life has been easy…. Far from it.

I’ve felt what happens to a forgotten people in the skin, but I know that no clothing is so heavy that it can’t carry it.

Whoever has survived after passing through so much hardship learns, from an early age, that honor is our most valuable asset.

Along the way, I’ve met many people who only needed an opportunity to walk with their own legs and have the dignity to build their own lives.
A country with no hunger, with a school, a house and a job for everyone.

I look back and see that I could have done more. It was always possible to do more. But the opportunities that we created in a country that is so unequal and unjust still seem greater than our difficulties today.

I have already been imprisoned once. My life was turned upside down. My family was persecuted and I lost my eternal companion…. I am not afraid of what lies ahead.

If I only have one minute of life left, this minute will be used to fight for the dignity of our people, and to defend our honor.

It’s the honor of a boy who crossed the country to overcome hunger and became a shoe shine boy. Of an adolescent who became a young factory worker. Of a man who became a father and fought against all forces to represent the Brazilian people.

During the afternoons of uncertainty in my youth I never imagined it could be possible. But it was. I became the President of the Brazilian people.

Those who condemn me without proof know that I am innocent and I governed honestly.

Those who persecute me can do what they want to me, but they will never imprison our dreams.

An affectionate kiss from Lula.

I’m also fighting to keep our dreams free. Please support our campaign for justice, equality and peace

Alan Grayson is a former Congressman from Florida.

15 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/15/lula-champion-of-the-people/

By Anitha S

Dear Asifa,

It is not quite right that we meet like this…a girl like you so far away in cold Jammu and Kashmir and me down in the warm, tropical state of Kerala. It is not right because I would have loved to see the “chirping bird” that you were with nimble fingers and agile feet like a “deer”. I consider myself unfortunate to have known about another bold woman who lived and was killed because she represented some values that are no longer needed in this modern, fast, cruel world. She is Gouri Lankesh who lived in Bangalore and spoke loud for truth, freedom, justice and equality. It was only after hearing about her murder that I thought of writing to her.

You must be wondering with your quick and intelligent brain, uncluttered by knowledge from textbooks and structured classrooms what was the reason for the inhuman way in which your life was snuffed out…I shudder to answer this question. Because the reason makes me feel scared about one half of humanity that is using  narrow,aggressive, intolerant, violent and deliberate reasons to kill and remove certain sections of human beings. History has proven over and over again the brutality  of closure and annihilation through fear.

Yes, dear one..some people larger in number and power crazy too wants the community you belonged  to be frightened out of the region you have been living for centuries.  They are not willing to share the space of the grazing pastures, the forests and water with you all. I am sure that a small child like you who would have been called “illiterate” by many knew in your heart that all of the above things that Nature provides free are to be shared. But people with education, degrees, political and religious positions are the ones who do not value what makes human life worthwhile. How else could a 60 year old man who has lived a full life  spend so much time planning your murder? How could a team of young men have thought out which medicine to buy to drug you so that you will not resist and kick them in the organs they used to derive their kind of pleasure and vengeance?

It is shocking to see the sudden rise of human sympathy and rage over your killing..am wondering about the pollution that so many flex banners with your innocent face will cause to the Earth and water. I was shocked that many middle class women sitting in the security of their drawing rooms lament about how an 8 year old could have wandered the forests alone and how they have protected their daughters from evil eye! It is equally repulsive to see many grinning in glee as they pose for a picture during a protest gathering to condemn your murder..

I can see your gentle smile that evening when you went to bring the ponies home..the fading light in the pastures, the trees and forests catching the darkness, the gentle breeze that stroked your hair…you would have liked to share with children who live protected and fettered in their homes the freedom and beauty of being out in the open protected by the wild and free nature that surrounds your life since you were born. As I read more about the special life of the Bakarwal Gujjars to whom you belonged to, I am amazed at how in tune with changing seasons and nature’s pulses your life would have been. In the 8 years that you lived you would have learned to share your space and time with the goats, sheep, buffaloes and horses that sustain the community you belong. I wonder, dear child if you had had the tasty, simple and frugal meal of corn and millets that your mother had made before running off to get the horses? Did you like trekking up the hills with your family and animals as snow melted and then move back when snow falls from Jammu to Kashmir and then back to Jammu? Did you feel the anxiety of your elders who were forced to adopt a settled life as development policies and changes in weather and climate made irreversible impacts on a nomadic life?

I wonder if you saw the men who waited to track you..did you smile at them, not  knowing about their insecurity and fear about girls like you growing up to bear more healthy children? Did you run, slipping and falling with your tiny feet like a deer caught in the fern fronds in the forest’s undergrowth? Did you hear the alarm call of the barking deer or the twilight roosting calls of the red jungle fowl and black partridge that inhabit the forests? Did their hands and hairy arms hurt your tender cheeks that covered your small mouth about to cry out for help?   Did you see the gentle and frightened steps of the diety who like a fugitive coward ran away from the temple where you were kept captive for days?

I have so many questions that have been hurting me and many other friends since we heard about what happened to you.

Dear Afisa,it broke my heart to know that your name means “the one who is pure, virtuous, spotless, upright, an organizer”…in selecting your young delicate body to mete out their perverted feelings and their plan to subjugate, scare and push out your community based on religion and way of life..they chose to also annihilate all the virtues that make human life possible in the world…

Yet your innocent and trusting face shown many times all over speak volumes about what a strong, bold, hard working woman you would have grown into “ a darling of the village and the centre of our universe” (as your mother lamented on the day your body was found)…..

As I prepare myself to meet a group of young girls whose homes have become insecure spaces with their own fathers and uncles taking on the role of torturing and abusing them, I want to tell them about your life, your friendship with the horses, show them a picture of a young woman walking with her baby and the horses…..like how you would have grown up into…

With a gentle kiss on your forehead

Anitha

April 15, 2018

Anitha S is a writer from Kerala

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/15/quick-like-a-deer-chirping-like-a-bird/

By Junaid S. Ahmad

There’s a scene from the popular American series Homeland where one of the star characters, a US Special Ops/highly trained CIA hitman named Peter Quinn, is asked by his higher ups how he thought US strategy against the Islamic State was going. His response is instructive: he wants to know if someone can please tell him what that strategy is exactly? Only then, he says, would he be able to respond.

To which there is an ominous silence.

Quinn goes onto say, short of sending about two hundred thousand troops, perhaps what could help is…”pound Raqqa into a parking lot.” As well-intentioned as the likable Quinn may be, he effectively is advocating war crimes on a colossal scale.

The current escalatory rhetoric that has now resulted in the US bombing of Syria is emblematic of a similar sentiment. When confronted with a maddeningly confused policy toward one of the bloodiest civil wars of our time, Washington routinely is opting for one option alone: military force. Whether done on an indiscriminate, massive scale as in Mosul or Raqqa, or just some symbolic strikes to demonstrate a mindless, machismo display of force when the US president needs to look ‘presidential,’ fighter jets, cruise missiles, and ‘smart bombs’ become substitutes for any intelligible policy toward the bloody conflict.

All that we are able to ascertain with any certainty is that gone are the days where we were told that ‘terrorism’ is the greatest threat to American interests and the civilized world. The Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy this year revealed what should have been known all along: that the real ‘threats’ are actors that place genuine restraints on American power: principally, Russia and China. That is, the era of unipolar hegemony is effectively over, and if other crises in Eastern Europe and Asia have not exposed that sufficiently, then Syria seems to have revealed most glaringly that we are no longer in the world of unbridled American dominance.

Gone are the days of the late Cold War where American aims were essentially accomplished by proxy forces and client regimes. Gone are the days when US direct interventions right after the demise of the USSR were effectively ‘CNN video game’ wars essentially meant to ‘shock and awe’ the world with the spectacle of utter, unmatched American military prowess.

The flashy lights of the ‘toolbox’ of American weaponry is still present, the wreckage it inflicts there for all to see, but what happens next? Stable occupations? Stable pro-Western regimes? Not quite.

One of the most significant markers of the decline of an empire is precisely the fact that it will, with more frequency, have to resort to direct military interventions on its own, by itself – rather than relying on its proxy forces and client regimes to get the job done. In Syria, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have seen the abysmal failure of relying on proxies to defeat actors that Washington deems inimical to its interests, or to those of its two principal regional partners, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

America’s latest ‘animal’ that needs to be taught a lesson in this conflict, Bashar Al-Assad, has probably survived so long because US regime change operations (Iraq, Libya) have utterly terrified the region’s people, and there could hardly have been a more reactionary proxy force of ‘moderate rebels’ that the NATO-GCC alliance could have mobilized, funded, trained, and supported. The only recent historical parallel seems to be Afghanistan in the 1980s, and we know how that turned out.

It’s hard to keep track of all of the animals, Hitlers, butchers, and monsters that Western elites have named and punished when it has suited their interests to do so. The list is indeed a sordid reminder of state terror unleashed by vile despots, only made more grotesque by the fact that most of them received support from Western powers at some point or the other.

In this geopolitical crossfire, Syria’s civilians have been murdered in the hundreds and thousands and displaced in the millions, causing the largest refugee crisis since World War II. Though it may seem like the most graphic and gory scene of mass violence, the use of chemical weapons by the regime or other forces is nothing more or less despicable than the gratuitous acts of atrocities committed wholesale throughout this conflict.

The world just recently commemorated the fifteenth anniversary of the catastrophic war in Iraq that devastated the country, doing irreparable damage to the region. Millions have been killed and displaced, and unparalleled sectarianism, violence, and terror unleashed. It was done because a ‘Butcher in Baghdad’ was concealing his ostensible weapons of mass destruction and because he oppressed his own people.

But did anyone ever think that there would be a day that the horrific rule of Saddam Hussein would be missed with nostalgia? Only such a monumental bloodbath as the US invasion and occupation of 2003 could accomplish this.

The fact that the preservation of by now that pipe dream of American preeminent hegemony a-la the post-war period, or deflecting attention away from domestic political scandal, should compel this US administration to bring the world closer to the precipice, ought to be frightening enough. The fact that the most dangerous and reckless National Security Advisor in America’s history will be calling the shots should make countries seriously invest large amounts of their national budgets into the possibility of life on other planets.

The tragedy of Syria is that a genuine oppositional movement that challenged the political and socio-economic status quo in the country rapidly morphed into a geopolitical proxy war unlike that ever witnessed in the region. Syria has become a playground for so many outside actors and their surrogates. Up until recently, one would be lucky not to run into a dozen different groups and foreign personnel in most parts of the country and all the major cities. The mind boggling traffic of hodgepodge forces made the country infested and congested with God knows who, when, and where. Again, ordinary Syrians suffered so tragically in this entire power play.

In the newly composed American war cabinet’s desire to act tough to demonstrate that the US is not as weak as it really is, we can only expect the gloves to come off with more tenacity and recklessness. The ongoing resort to senseless military force to resolve the fundamental structural condition of imperial decline brings the world to a dangerous juncture. The routine US ‘Nuclear Posture Review’ makes it abundantly clear that, under sanitized and harmless-sounding terms like military ‘toolbox’ and ‘smart’ bombs’ and ‘tactical’ nukes, the principal objective is to normalize the use of the most heinous weaponry – albeit trying to repackage and rename them.

Does calling the Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabat al-Nusra (now renamed again), ‘moderate rebels’, fool anyone about their true ideological character? Well, Western intelligence agencies, perhaps, but certainly not the Syrian people.

The most depressing fact of the entire Syrian tragedy is that for the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia – Syria (the regime, its people, the nation) is merely a sideshow, a stepping stone to hit at the real target: Iran. Remember the notorious refrain of the good old neocons: Baghdad is fine, Damascus is OK, too, but real men…go to Tehran. For Tel Aviv and Riyadh, and their overlord in Washington, the Islamic Republic is the ultimate disobedient miscreant that has deserved disciplining and punishment since its revolution in 1979.

Nevertheless, things are moving more rapidly than expected by planners in Washington. It would have been great if the Syrian conflict was only limited to engaging regional actors like Hezbullah and the Iranian regime. These were forces that the Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyadh axis wanted to confront head on and finally eliminate, the US-Iran nuclear accord be damned.

But there is Russia, the country with the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The fact that possession of this stockpile allows what NATO thought would be a third-rate semi-colony after the Cold War to hijack Western plans in Eastern Europe and West Asia is what annoys Western political elites the most. Contempt for Putin is really contempt for Russian reassertion of sovereignty as well as its emergence as a global power advancing its own interests. For NATO capitals, this seems to be the special prerogative that only they deserve.

Finally, in the immediate conflict, there is one reason why a prolonged military engagement by Washington, Paris, and London is not a good idea: Turkey, one of the most formidable NATO members, is going ‘rogue.” That is, Turkey understands that a senseless non-strategy that is simply meant to carve up Syria to facilitate outside powers’ spheres of influence is a recipe for further disaster. Turkey, no friend of Russia’s in the past, perceived the latter along with Iran as at least wanting to sit down and discuss a pathway toward brokering some diplomatic resolution that deescalates the conflict. Looking Westwards, Ankara has seen no such sentiment. Instead, one hears Trump say one day that the US will remain indefinitely in Syria, then claim that the US is going to leave, and now of course begin to bomb.

This, perhaps, is the biggest scandal, i.e. no questions at all raised in mainstream Western media that ask: where in the world is any diplomatic initiative by Washington to try to deescalate and resolve the Syrian nightmare. The ‘liberal’ media has reached new lows that its main contention with the Trump administration is that the latter is not sufficiently bellicose and hawkish with regards to Syria and Russia. One must only come to the conclusion that the editors of the New York Times and The Washington Post must have some special bunkers and capsules that beam them and their families up to safety in outer space when World War Three breaks out.

In a nutshell, for the first time in its history as the preeminent hegemonic global power, the US imperium confronts discernible actors challenging, in a dramatic way, the two pillars of what has sustained its global rule: its geopolitical domination in the inter-state system and its economic supremacy. Russia is leading the way in the former, and China in the latter. Nothing is certain in this age of transition, except for the fact that only the proverbial guy living under a rock cannot see that the world has drastically changed.

Going back to Quinn from Homeland, it’s important to note that his death is ultimately not at the hands of terrorists or Russian spies in Europe or Syria. He is killed in the factional warfare running within the ruling political establishment within the US, taking a bullet to protect the President of the United States from being assassinated by her own intelligence services.

As much of a dangerous con-artist Trump may be, it is now patently obvious that he is a prisoner of the party line of the ‘deep state, from which he is forbidden to deviate. And the fact that no matter how many more Syrians need to suffer, more cruise missiles need to be launched, more tensions need to be heightened that result in a myriad different, dangerous possibilities, Trump may still become a victim – not of any foreign terrorist or Russian – but of his very own. The ‘palace intrigues’ of Washington may result in the victimhood of not only many more Syrians and others throughout the world and internally within the US, but ultimately, of Trump himself.

But who will apologize to Syrians and the world, then? I can’t remember any apologies from Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld.

17 April 2018

Junaid S. Ahmad is the Director of the Center for Global Studies and Faculty in the School of Advanced Studies, UMT, Lahore, Pakistan, and is a Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also a JUST member.

By K M Seethi

The airstrikes launched by the US, Britain and France in Damascus and nearby areas on Friday night have worsened the already volatile situation in Syria. The ‘precision’ strikes were purported to destroy Bashar Al Assad regime’s alleged chemical weapons capability. The Anglo-French-American attacks were in response to the “chemical weapons attack” in Syria’s Douma.  Curiously, the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was expected to start its work on 14 April to establish facts around the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma. Now the question is whether OPCW team will be allowed to carry out its task in the background of a series of airstrikes launched in the alleged sites. Observers said that these attacks have only disrupted the conduct of an impartial investigation. Meanwhile, it was reported that Syria’s air defence systems intercepted as many 71 out of more than a hundred cruise missiles.

Anatoly Antonov, Russian Ambassador in Washington, accused the Western powers of undertaking “a pre-planned scenario” in Syria. He even warned that “such actions will not remain without consequences. All responsibility for them rests upon Washington, London and Paris.” According to Dmitry Sablin, a Russian jurist, the strike on Syria sought to sabotage the OPCW investigation. He said: “… the strike on the very same day when the OPCW mission had to start its work says that nobody is interested in the truth. Just like with the Iraqi WDM, this is only a pretext. This has been done intentionally to disrupt the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta,” Sablin added. Other Russian officials said that the US has the largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the world and it “has no moral right to accuse other countries.”

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari said at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday that his country had invited an OPCW fact-finding mission to come to Syria and visit the site of the alleged incident. We were ready to provide all necessary conditions for a transparent work of this mission. We expected this team to begin work within hours, he said. The Russian envoys argued that there was no ‘reliable evidence’ of any chemical attack. “Our specialists found no traces of the use of toxic agents. Douma’s residents know nothing about the attack. All information about the alleged attack comes from anti-government forces that are interested in such development of the situation,” adding that Russia has evidence indicating that “it was a provocation involving secret services of a number of countries,” they said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry questioned the claims of some agencies such as White Helmets, that the government used chemical weapons in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, on April 7. The organization’s website posted information on April 8, stating that chlorine bombs were dropped to kill civilians. The Russian Defense Ministry pointed out that White Helmets were an “unreliable source, notorious for disseminating falsehoods.” The Russian agencies, meanwhile, examined this in Douma and found no traces of chemical weapons. It may be noted that this town became the last opposition stronghold in capital. The Syrian army recaptured the town in the days following the attack. Then the question raised was whether the army making headway in the operation had to resort to such a course of action. That the date chosen for the attacks also coincided with the arrival of the OPCW fact-finding mission in Syria raised many eyebrows. Is it that the three major powers had a skeleton in the cupboard?

Russia and Iran have openly condemned the attacks. There are indications that the ground situation in Syria would witness further escalation in the days to some. President Trump hailed the strikes carried out by the trio as “perfectly executed” and declared that the “Mission Accomplished.” But the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the Cold War was “back with a vengeance,” warning about the dangers of escalation over Syria. He said. “The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present.”

If the situation gets further worsened, Syria will witness another spell of disaster.  Since the beginning of the war in 2011, more than half a million Syrians have been killed, nearly a million have been maimed, and 14  million – more than half the Syrian population – have been forced to flee their homes. As many as 6 million have moved abroad and registered as refugees.  Now, in the seventh year of war, these 14  million people are in need of humanitarian assistance within the country and abroad. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that nearly 5 million have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and nearly 7 million are internally displaced within Syria. About a million have sought asylum in Europe. Germany, which has more than 3 lakh applications, and Sweden with 100,000, are EU’s top receiving countries.

There has been a colossal loss of material resources over the last seven years – by way of damaging and destroying healthcare centres and hospitals, schools, utilities, and water and sanitation.  Historic sites and market places have been reduced to ruins. Long years of civil war broke the base of business and social life in Syria. Consequently, millions scattered, creating the largest refugee and displacement crisis of the century half of people affected by the excruciating agonies were children. In a report, UNICEF estimated that 85 per cent of registered Syrian refugee children were living below the poverty line. Besides,  94 per cent of children below 5 living in host communities were  “multi-dimensionally poor,” implying that they stood deprived of a minimum of two out of the five basic needs – education, health, water and sanitation, child protection and child safety.

The UNICEF assessment brought out earlier said that the Syrian refugee children and their families living in host communities were experiencing deprivations of multiple kinds. They included:

4 out of 10 Syrian families do not have enough food for an adequate diet, with an additional 26 per cent vulnerable to becoming food insecure; 45 per cent of Syrian 0-5 year olds have no access to proper health services including vaccinations and disability services; 38 per cent of Syrian children cannot go to school, due to distance, cost, lack of space etc  as reasons for dropping out or not enrolling; For children aged 6-17 years, child labour and violence have become major challenges; 16 percent of Syrian children from 0-5 years are lacking a birth certificate, which will present challenges and expose them to additional risks as they grow up.

Do the three Western powers who unleashed airstrikes in Syria realise the gravity of this huge human insecurity of Syrians in the country and abroad? If the establishments they destroyed in Damascus were actually ‘chemical weapons’ factories (with potentially dangerous substances), what would have been its impact on the living beings and the environment? Will they not lead to another ‘chemical-industrial tragedy’ with huge loss of population? Why is that these three powers were so hurry to undertake the operations on 14 April – the day the OPCW fact-finding mission was set to start its investigation? The hands of US, UK and France are obviously tied with innumerable questions that have nothing to do with the Syrian government’s ‘chemical weapons capability.’ These questions have more to do with the larger geopolitical interests of these powers and their ‘prosperous’ military-industrial complex. Setbacks in international commodity trade are now compensated by booming weapons’ business. Trump’s ‘fair trade’ is nothing but a chimera for ‘free trade’ in defence and unfair practices in geopolitical circuit routes.

The author is Professor, School of International Relations and Politics, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala. He can be reached  at  kmseethimgu@gmail.com

15 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/15/syria-in-disarray-implications-of-airstrikes/

By Peter Koenig

Poison gas is not only deadly, itoften provokes a slow suffocating death. That, perpetrated on innocent children, is particularly cruel. But when such poison gas attacks are mere false flags, or by the new term, “false news”, and are used to provoke war, perhaps an all annihilating war, then humanity has turned to what it never should have become – a lowly-lowly herd of brainless zombies. Is that what we have become – brainless, greedy, selfish beings, no sense of solidarity, no respect for other beings; I am not even talking about humans, but any living being.

Poison gas, the weapon of choice for fear. Poisoning in Salisbury of the former Russian double-agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, visiting her dad from Moscow. Poisoning with a nerve gas, called Novichok that was allegedly made in Russia. In the meantime, we know that nerve gas made in the former Soviet Union, now non-existent in Russia, was military grade and deadly. The gas used for the alleged attack was not deadly. We also know by now that the UK – all of their highest officials, from PM May down the ladder, lied so miserably that they will have a hard time recovering. It will backfire. The foreign secretary, Johnson boy, pretended their secret bio-gas / bio-weapon laboratory Porton Down, just 13 km down the road from Salisbury, where the pair was allegedly found unconscious on a park bench, assured him the gas was made in Russia. Alas, it was a miserable lie. The laboratory’s chief chemists testified later to the media that they could not be sure that the substance was made in Russia. No, of course not.

In fact, Porton Down, working in close collaboration with the CIA, is a highly sophisticated chemical warfare facility that can easily make the gas themselves – at the grades they please, deadly or not so deadly, if it should serve a “false news” purpose – which this did. In the meantime, as reported today by RT, the entire case has been deconstructed. The components of Novichok are easy to come by, and almost every decent lab can make the poison gas, tailored to its needs.

Were father and daughter indeed poisoned? – This is a legitimate question. Who has seen them since the alleged poisoning occurred on 28 March? – They disappeared from the public eye. Apparently, they are both recovering, Yulia having been released from hospital a few days ago, but has not been seen by anyone in public, nor been able to talk to the media, lest she could say “something” the public is not allowed to know. She is being kept in a secret place. Her father is also recovering and may be released soon – released from where? – Is this all a farce?

An aunt talked to Yulia from Moscow, where she noticed that Yulia was not free to talk. The aunt wanted to visit her niece in the UK but was obviously denied a visa.

Where are father and daughter? – Washington has “offered” them a new home and new identity in the US, to avoid further poisoning attempts… how ridiculous! A blind man or woman must see that this is another farce, or more correctly, an outright abduction. The two won’t have a chance to resist. They are just taken away – not to talk anymore to anyone ever. – That’s the way the story goes. The lies are protected, and the “Russia did it” syndrome will prevail – prevail in the dumb folded public, in the herd of pigs that we all have become, as Goebbels would say.
And the saga continues. The saga to drum up war. That’s the purpose of it all. Nothing else – Russia, the evil nation, led by an evil leader, must be subdued and conquered. But the empire needs the public for their support. And the empire is almost there. It disposes of a vicious media corporate army – that lies flagrantly about anything that money can buy. It’s like spitting in the face of the world, and nobody seems to care, or worse, even to notice.

On the other side of the Mediterranean is Syria. A vast and noble country, Syria, with a leader who truly loves his people and country, a leader who has despite a foreign induced war – not civil war – a proxy war, instigated and funded by Washington and its vassal allies in Europe and the Middle East; Syria, a highly educated socialist country that has shared the benefit of her resources, free education, free medical services, free basic infrastructure, with her people. This Syria must fall. Such strength cannot be tolerated by the all-dominating west. Like Iraq and Libya, also socialist countries once-upon-a-time, and like Syria, secular Muslim nations, sharing their countries wealth with the people, such countries must fall.

According to Pentagon planners and those Zion-neofascist thinktanks that designed the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century), as the chief instrument of US foreign policy, we know since Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied commander and Chief of NATO in Europe (1997-2000) talked to Democracy Now in 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8FhZnFZ6TY ), saying that within 5 years seven countries must fall, one of them is Syria. – Since 2011, the Syrian people have been bombarded by US and NATO and Saudi funded terrorists, causing tens of thousands of deaths, and millions of refugees. Now, even more blatantly, US bases are vying to occupying the northern third of Syria, totally illegally, but nobody says beep. Not even the UN.

The recent fake gas attack on Douma outside of Damascus, has allegedly killed 80 to 120 people, mostly women and children. Of course, that sells best in the propaganda theatre – women and children. But there is not proof, none whatsoever. To the contrary. People living in Douma say they haven’t heard of any nerve gas attack. Strangely, like last time, the infamous White Helmets discovered the gas victims, including a gas canister-like bomb laying on a bed, having been shot through the roof of a house… a totally unprofessionally staged event. As Russian military quickly discovered and reported. They called on an independent investigation, one that could not be bought and corrupted by Washington. President Assad invited a team of investigators to inspect the scene.

Instead of heeding this invitation, Trump, the bully, calls Mr. Assad an “animal” and a “monster”, twittering his brainless aggressions throughout the world. Tell you what, Mr. Trump, Bashar al-Assad is a far better human being than you are a monster. You and your dark handlers don’t even deserve being called human. Mr. Assad has regard and respect for his people, attempts to protect them and has so far succeeded with the help of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, recovering the last bits of Syrian territory from the terrorist, except of course, the northern part, where the chief terrorist and the world’s only rogue state has installed itself, the US of A. –  Why in the world would Mr. Assad choose to gas his own people? Especially, when he is winning the war? – People, ask yourself, cui bono (who benefits?) and the answer is simple: The western aggressors, who seek a reason to mass bomb Syria into even more rubble, causing even more death and destitution. And making a shitload of money – as war usually does. That’s who.

While you, Donald, and those monsters that direct you from behind the scenes, have no, but absolutely no respect for your own people, for any people on this globe, for that matter, not even for your kind, for your greed-no-end kind of elite, as you bring the world to the brink of an all-destructive, all killing annihilating war.

Since the other fake event, 9/11, we are, of course, already in a “soft version” of WWIII, but that’s not enough, the United States needs a hard war, so badly it doesn’t shy away from destroying itself. That’s how blinded your own propaganda has made you Americans, you generals, you corporate “leaders” (sic-sic) – and all you Congress puppets. That is the sheer truth. You better read this and wake up. Otherwise your dead sentence is hastened by your own greed and ignorance.

Both Russia and the US drafted each a Security Council Resolution – which of course are both not approved, with Nikki Haley lambasting Russia, accusing them of being responsible for the countless deaths in Syria – pointing again to the children and women, making up the majority. Again, it sells best in the world of psychological propaganda, while evil Nikki Haley knows very well who has caused all these deaths by the millions, destitution and refugees by the millions, tens of millions throughout the Middle East and the world – her own country, directly or through NATO, the European puppets allies and proxy wars, paid and funded by Washington and by elbow-twisting her vassals.

On 9 April – UNSC – while Nikki Haley, repeats and over-repeats her lies and fake accusations, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Mr. VassilyNebenzia, listens. And then in a twenty-minute statement of sheer intelligence, he dismantles all the lies, and lays bare the truth, about all the fakeness being played out internationally. The depth with which he addresses the assembly is concise and so brilliant, none of his UK, French and German counterparts could have ever come close to a statement of this magnitude andexcellence. Even Ms. Haley can’t help glancing over ever-so often to VassilyNebenzia, as he speaks (http://thesaker.is/russian-ambassador-to-the-un-vasily-nebenzea-addressing-the-un-sc-9-april-2018/ ). Her eyes reveal some kind of hidden admiration for what he says. – After all, she can’t be as dumb as she is paid for to look and sound.

By now anybody who dares not just reading and listening to the mainstream presstitute “fake news”, but has the courage to dig into the truth news, RT, TeleSur, CGTN, PressTV – and a few others, or websites like Global Research, The Saker Blog, ICH, NEO, Greanville Post CounterCurrents, Dissident Voice and many other trustworthy sources – knows about the lies and the only, but the very only purpose these false flags cum false news serve: Provoking a war with Russia, subjugating and dividing Syria, and the Middle East and the US becoming the hegemonic masters of the universe.

For the simple reason, and hardly anybody talks or writes about it – the US economy is based on war, is based on weapon manufacturing and international banking which finances weapon manufacturing and the exploitation of mineral resources coveted by weapon manufacturing.

The entire war industry with all its associated civil services and industries, of banking, electronics, aviation, mining…. makes up more than half of the US GDP – but of course, it’s never broken down that way.The chosen people will control the world. Well, they do already – financially at least the western part of our globe. But it’s not enough. They will not stop, before they burry themselves in their own-dug graves, or rather in one massive mass-grave. But, please, do take all your fakeness, from money, to lies, to hypocrisy and more lies and coercion and sanctions and blackmail with you – never to surface again. And give peace a chance – for those who survive your (almost) terminal assault on humanity.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst.

12 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/12/poison-gas-weapon-of-choice-for-false-news/

By James Cogan

The US, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia and other American allies internationally continue to threaten military action against the Assad government in Syria over the unsubstantiated and dubious allegations that its armed forces used chemical weapons last weekend in the now re-captured city of Douma.

In response, the Syrian military, backed by Russian and Iranian forces, along with Shiite-based militias from Iraq and Lebanon, are preparing their defences and a potential counter-offensive, that could include attacks on US and allied forces in the Mediterranean, the Gulf states and Iraq.

Syrian forces are reportedly on high alert, and moving aircraft and other key military assets to bases that are protected by advanced Russian-manned missile defence systems. Senior government personnel, including Bashar al-Assad and his family, have been secured in safe locations out of fear of US assassination attempts.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, yesterday hit back at allegations of a chemical attack. “Our military, radiological, biological and chemical unit was on site with the alleged chemical accident [in Douma] and it confirmed that there were no chemical substances found on the ground,” he stated.

The Russian army has dispatched military police squads to protect the scene, ahead of Moscow’s proposed inspection of the site, and verification that the claims are false, by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)—the Netherlands-based agency established in 1997 to monitor the international ban on chemical weapons.

Contradicting the Russian and Syrian government denials that any chemical weapons were used, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is continuing to assert—based on information from its “local partners”—that up to 500 people were sickened by toxic chemicals and as many as 43 died. The WHO press release provided no details concerning its “local partners.”

The original source of the video purporting to show victims of a chemical weapon attack was the US-funded “White Helmets”—part of the anti-Assad and Islamist-dominated rebel militias who were defeated in Douma and agreed to withdraw just days after the alleged incident.

A leading Russian politician aligned with President Vladimir Putin, Andrei Krasnov, declared yesterday that if the allegations of a chemical attack are used as the pretext for an attack on Syria, it will be viewed “not just as an act of aggression but as a war crime of the Western coalition.”

Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, yesterday stressed Moscow’s repeated warnings that it will retaliate against any attack that threatens its personnel in Syria. He told Lebanese television: “Russia will execute the statement of its president related to any US aggression against Syria, knocking down American missiles and striking at the sources of fire.”

President Donald Trump responded to Zasypkin’s widely reported remarks with a 7 am tweet on Wednesday. He asserted: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart’!”

Behind such rhetoric, however, the US and its allies are acutely aware they are about to cross a Rubicon, into a devastating war across the Middle East that could cripple world oil production, a potential conflict with nuclear-armed Russia, and mass anti-war opposition at home.

The former head of the British Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons, warned that the Russian statements meant that “they are going to try and sink ships, sink submarines and shoot aircraft out of the sky—that’s war.”

According to French reports, a Russian fighter-bomber, fully armed with anti-ship missiles, flew over a French frigate at combat altitude earlier in the week, in a pointed reminder that the US and allied warships deployed off the Syrian coast can be targeted and destroyed.

The Iranian government has publicly vowed to support Syria against “foreign aggression.” An unknown number of Iranian military personnel are embedded with Syrian Army units. Thousands more are operating as part of Iraqi Army and militia units, in many cases in close proximity to American military personnel, mercenary contractors and their bases in Iraq.

Israel, which is believed to be responsible for a missile attack this week on a Syrian airbase that killed a number of Iranian advisors, has placed its military on high alert. Conveying the fears in the Israeli establishment, its former head of intelligence, Efraim Halevy, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “You have all the players locked in battle in a very, very small area of land. We have a gradual escalation in the region and the question is, who is going to blink first?”

Trump’s administration faces a barrage of demands from the American political and media establishment that it not “blink.” Trump has effectively been warned that the already concerted efforts to end his presidency will be dramatically escalated if he fails to order some form of major attack on Syria—regardless of the consequences. A significant factor in the calls for war is the desire in ruling circles for some means to divert and suppress the burgeoning wave of strikes by teachers, which threatens to trigger a broader movement of the working class against decades of falling wages and deteriorating social conditions.

In Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May, under no less intense pressure than Trump, has felt compelled to call a cabinet meeting today to try to get agreement that British forces will take part in any US-led attacks without any parliamentary vote—a politically-fraught decision.

The 2013 vote by the British parliament against involvement in a US-led attack on Syria is widely blamed by analysts for the Obama administration’s backdown from taking any action. May, without even waiting for cabinet approval, reportedly ordered British submarines to join US, French and British warships already in the eastern Mediterranean.

The French government of President Emmanuel Macron, also confronted with mounting strikes and student protests, appears to have provided the US with a guarantee of French military participation. Internationally, other US allies are extending diplomatic support. These include Australia, Canada, and a number of European Union states, headed by Germany.

Originally published in WSWS.org

12 April 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/12/opposing-forces-mobilise-for-war-in-syria/

By Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC)

The Egyptian government’s need to artificially increase voter turnout in the presidential election at the end of March through a combination of enticements and threats indicates a growing disillusionment among ordinary Egyptians with the political situation in the country. With the victory of the incumbent, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, which was never in doubt, it is likely that Egypt will see an increase in already-high levels of repression.

Long before official electoral results gave Sisi ninety-seven per cent of the vote, his victory had been expected by everyone, especially after former military chief of staff, General Sami Anan, had been arrested in January, and human rights lawyer Khaled Ali had been forced to withdraw from the race. These events occurred in an atmosphere in which dissent was being violently repressed. That repression intensified in the past few months as the regime sought to shut down the already minuscule space available for opposition.

Sisi’s rein has seen thousands killed and tens of thousands arrested; a 2013 law severely curtailed the right to protest; and a 2017 law ensures that only NGOs supportive of the regime are able to operate. Some constituencies that had initially given some level of support to SIsi, such as leftist parties and youth organisations, have seen  their members arrested more recently, and the state has been formenting leadership contestation within some such groups. In a 29 January statement, Anan, Ali, and others labelled the electoral process a sham and advocated a boycott. To prevent Sisi being the sole candidate, the regime allegedly influenced Al Gad party’s Moussa Mostafa Moussa, who had already expressed his love for Sisi, to register as a candidate hours before the close of nominations. Until a week before his registration, he had been actively campaigning for Sisi.

With all these shenanigans, the only question that the election would answer was how large the voter turnout would be. The regime resorted to threatening voters to ensure a high turnout, which it believed would indicate support for Sisi. Teachers were forced to sign voter cards with their inked fingers in an attempt to ensure that they had voted, and in the governorates of Beheira and New Valley, officials had promised increased social services for districts with high voter turnouts.

In Minya and Sohag, police sought to pressure citizens to participate, and street vendors were threatened with the confiscation of their property if they failed to vote. Despite these attempts, voting numbers were still low, and the preliminary turnout had to be adjusted upward from forty to forty-two percent; Sisi’s vote of ninety-two per cent was also upped to ninety-seven per cent in order to equal the 2014 poll.
Astonishingly, the National Election Agency (NEA) claimed a high turnout in northern Sinai despite the Egyptian military’s scorched earth operations in the peninsula, and despite many in the region not being regarded as integral to Egypt, and many not even possessing full citizenship rights.

Although Sisi’s victory was guaranteed, the severity of the measures instituted to crack down  on dissent and ensure that citizens voted point to his many failings. His handling of the economy has alienated many Egyptians; a twelve billion dollar IMF loan was conditioned on the regime drastically reducing subsidies and allowing the currency to float. This aggravated the conditions of Egyptians, and criticism of the regime has increased, even from previously supportive lawmakers and television personalities. The president’s decision to hand over the Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia angered many Egyptians who had supported his nationalist rhetoric; and the insurgency in northern Sinai (and its spillover into the mainland) saw Sisi’s security credentials being questioned. The opposition from Anan and former air force General Ahmed Shafiq are significant in this regard, and suggest the possibility that there is not unanimity within the military regarding Sisi’s rule. In October 2017, he dismissed his confidante and military chief of staff Mahmoud Hegazy, and in January 2018 he fired the head of intelligence, Khaled Fawzy, leading some former insiders to argue that military discontent is at a high.

With Sisi’s electoral victory, it is likely that harsher measures will be implemented in Egypt, especially as regards economic policy, which could see further subsidy cuts to unlock the second tranche of the IMF loan. This will likely lead to more discontent and further repression, especially if citizens’ socioeconomic conditions worsen dramatically. The international community, especially since the accession of Donald Trump to the US presidency in 2017, and later Emmanuel Macron’s election to the French presidency, has been willing to tolerate Sisi’s repression since Cairo is regarded as being in the frontline of the battle against the Islamic State group, whose strongest branch (Sinai ‘Province’), operates in Egypt, and because Cairo is largely supportive of the dominant powers on regional issues. Sisi’s victory is also being seen by many as a sign that he might attempt to amend the constitution to remove the two-term presidential limit. Already, pro-Sisi parliamentarians are agitating for this, thus laying the ground for a new confrontation.

10 April 2018

Source: http://www.amec.org.za/egypt/item/1561-scripted-electoral-victory-for-egypt-s-sisi.html