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By Feroze Mithiborwala

28 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Even as our car approached Damascus enroute from Beirut, we could see black plumes of smoke emerging from the outskirts of the city. The sound of bombardments continued all through the course of the day & night, with little respite. Way back in 2006, when Israel had waged the war on Lebanon, we had to travel from Damascus to Beirut, the twin cities of resistance.

Since the very onset, we were aware that the geopolitical war for Syria will have tremendous ramifications for the very power structure of the world & especially for West Asia, the Middle East & North Africa. Thus there was a strategic imperative for a deeper understanding & a constructive politically informed intervention on the part of the Indian people’s movements.

The Indian delegation comprising Jatin Desai (freelance journalist), Nirja Bhatnagar (Gender & Human Rights), Mubasshiruddin Khurram (Siyasat, Urdu daily) & this author, was there as the first team (February 9-16th) of a series of Indian journalists & political activists, on an invitation from the Syrian Ministry of Information & in coordination with Syrian civil-society.

As is the case with international issues, we are largely dependent on Western news sources, both in the print & the electronic media. Even whilst India is a growing political & economic power, our political leadership, social movements, as well as the media lacks an informed & independent perspective on issues of strategic geopolitical significance. The daily reporting on Syria in our media has been entirely through the prism of Reuters, AFP, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeerah & Al Arabiya. All of these news sources are part of the very Western imperial alliance & their vassal states in the region.

This has led to a vastly distorted perspective in our analysis of the Syrian crisis, which is undergoing a war that has been unleashed upon its very unity & sovereignty. Barring a few journalists from the Left who have both reported & analysed the situation, independent of the Western paradigm, there has been no concerted or serious attempt to debate & discuss this issue in our media, fixated as we are with Islamabad, London & New York, as that comprises our worldview & little beyond.

This war against Syria is being led by an alliance comprising the US-UK-France-Turkey (Nato) & Israel, in alliance with the despotic Gulf Monarchs of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE & Bahrain.

On the other side stands the alliance of Russia-China-Venezuela & Iran, as well as the BRICS nations. Here it needs to be emphasised that India, as part of the alliance, has adopted a position that calls for an adherence to the UN charter, political solution to the Syrian crisis & has opposed foreign intervention & resorting to fomenting terrorism as a strategic option, as well as the imposition of the war on Syria by the nations that are funding, arming & fuelling an insurgency.

The Nato-GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) agenda is definitely not for ‘democracy’. But it certainly is once again a glaring instance of ‘regime change’ in the garb of ‘humanitarian intervention’. The Western led alliance has mobilized militants, mercenaries & terrorists from across 29 nations to infiltrate & destroy Syria, partition & balkanize along religious, sectarian & ethnic lines.

These mercenaries are part of the global network led by the extremists Wahabis, Salafists & Takfiris, who are extremely intolerant in their beliefs & consider all other Muslim sects as kafirs, leave alone the adherents of all other faiths, where the less said the better.

Even the al-Nusra (a Taliban-Al Qaeda-like affiliate) is deeply involved in this insurgency. Thus whilst the US, UK & France claim to be fighting these very forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan & Mali, they have willfully & systematically organized, promoted, funded, armed & mobilized them in Libya & in Syria. The cold-blooded hypocrisy has never been more evident, but has rarely been written about in the Indian media, despite the obvious. ( Syria: A Jihadi Paradise, By Pepe Escobar http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33591.htm ).

It is undoubtedly evident, that Syria requires major democratic reform in all spheres of its socio-religio-cultural, economic & political structures. This has been the message of the ‘Arab Spring’, where the Arab & Muslim masses are taking to the streets demanding their rightful democratic freedoms & aspirations. Thus Syria, which was hitherto ruled by the Baath Party, will have to undergo genuine reform, to ensure a free & vibrant democracy, where the people have the right to protest, freedom of expression, the right to dissent & a free & robust media. There is also a need to recognize the fact that Syria lacks a genuine multi-party system & as well as a reform of electoral laws.

Thus the moot point here to be considered is that, was the Syrian government & the ruling elite, which comprises all the sections, entirely opposed & disconnected from the aspirations on the ground, or where they willing to respond to a process of democratic reform & actively engage the opposition parties & civil society?

In our estimation, the Syrian Government, as well as dominant sections of the national opposition are committed to a political process of dialogue to resolve the national crisis.

Thus we need to analyse the varied complexities of the situation due to which Syria has been subjected to this war.

The Nato-GCC powers had drawn up plans well in advance, for another “Libyan solution”, or even worse – ‘Somalization’!

Syria has been subjected to this geopolitical war for the following reasons:

After the Arab Spring broke out in Tunisia & then onto Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, (which the media entirely neglects) amongst others, peaceful protests also broke in Daraa, a town in the south of Syria. We met protesters who had participated & raised the slogans for democratic reform & the empowerment of the people. As is the case with entrenched one-party ruled states, the initial protests were also met with a degree of state violence, a fact which the government has acknowledged. But at the higher levels of the Syrian leadership, they also began to respond to the demands of the people.

But soon an armed insurgency began to spread across Syria & mercenaries began to pour in from the neighbouring countries, namely Turkey, Jordan (Governments are openly complicit), as well as Lebanon & Iraq, where there are militias funded by the Saudi-Qatari’s. The peaceful democratic protesters were marginalized, even as armed rebels, insurgents, mercenaries & terrorists, with a very regressive & sectarian Islamic agenda began to spread all across the country.

The political opposition & civil society protesters we spoke to, soon began to realize that a larger geopolitical war was being waged by the Imperial-Zionist powers & the Gulf vassal monarchies & surely their agenda was not democracy. Can any serious observer state that Saudi Arabia & Qatar are democracies, or even aspire to be so in the near future? Are the Nato powers here to to create liberal secular democracies, or wage war, change regimes & control the natural resources of nations? The answers have always been clear.

Syria was targeted, as this country has been a bulwark of the resistance & forms a physical arch that includes Iran, Syria, the Turkish people, Lebanon & Palestine. With all their faults, the Syrian leadership did not compromise with the US-Israel, as did Egypt & the other Arab powers after the Camp David Treaty (1978) & the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty (1979). Then with the defeat of Saddam’s Iraq (1991), Syria was the only Arab country with a political system, military & a courageous civil-society that could stand up to Israel.

Syria & the leading Arab & Muslim nations have been targeted for regime change both in the PNAC (Project for the New American Century, a Neo-Conservative Document, 1997)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-neocons-project-for-the-new-american-century-american-world-leadership-syria-next-to-pay-the-price , as well the Zionist document authored by Benjamin Netanyahu & other Neo-Conservatives, also needs to be referred. (A Clean Break, A Strategy for Securing the Realm , 1996 )

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm ). (A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties, by Oded Yinon, 1982) http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html

The victory of the Lebanese & Palestinian national resistance in their historic victories in 2006 & 2008-09, 2012, was due to the fact that Syria stood by like a rock, whilst other Arab states stood & watched. Israel stood defeated & the myth of Israel’s military invincibility lay shattered forever.

Syria also lies in the pathway of the Oil & Gas Pipelines, with plans to pass from Saudi-Qatar-Syria-Turkey to Europe. Also the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline challenges the hegemony of the Saudi-Qatar-US-Israeli plans to control the routes & the flow of the natural resource. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/middle-east-business/226296-iraq-greenlights-gas-pipeline-agreement-with-iran-syria.html

 

The recent discoveries of major Oil & Gas deposits in the Mediterranean & Aegean Seas have lead to competing claims between Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Cyprus, Greece & Israel. Thus both the Corporate West & the Gulf Petro-Sheikhs require pliant regimes in Syria, as they now have in Libya. ( ­F. William Engdahl , New Mediterranean oil and gas b onanza http://rt.com/news/reserves-offshore-middle-east-engdahl-855/ )

Also the Syrian Arab Nationalist & liberal secular plural identity, are an anathema to all those forces in the region, who cannot see beyond the narrow confines of religion & sect. It’s simply amazing to witness the rich multi-cultural ethos of this ancient Mediterranean civilization going back to more than 10,000 years, with Damascus being the oldest city in the world, with a continuous human urban settlement.

We would speak with a group of 10 Syrians & at the end would remain completely flummoxed as we could never ascertain as to which identity they belonged to. This is also the reason as to why the Syrian nation, even after 23 months of a massive international war, has been able to stand united. If not, Syria too would have fallen & crumbled like Afghanistan & Iraq, as the societies within were deeply divided along ethno-sectarian fault-lines.

There is also a plan that envisages the vivisection & Bantustanization of Syria along Sunni, Christian, Alawite, Shia & Kurdish lines.

If this nefarious design were to be achieved, then Turkey with its Ottoman pretensions & Israel with its nightmare of Greater Eretz Israel, would once again carve up the Arab lands, as the colonial representatives of the West. Here the minorities & especially the Christian, Alawite, Shia & Druze communities have been targeted as kafirs & heathens & there are horrendous fatwas being brazenly issued.

The majority of the Muslim Sunnis who are liberal as well as the other Muslim & Christian minorities in Syria are truly frightened at the prospect of a Wahabi-Salafist takeover. Many Christians we spoke to, proud of their Syrian-Arab identity will pack their bags & leave the day the ‘Syrian Arab Republic’ is transformed into a ‘Syrian Islamic Republic’. They will be reduced to second-class citizens, as is the case with all theocracies, as well as Atheocracies – though God forbid.

The common basis of their existence is the Syrian civilization & not on Islam they say & rightly so. The Christians do respect Islam, as part of their common Arab heritage. This is a position that all minorities across the world have professed. The imposition of Islamic states, will lead to more tensions in Egypt, as well as in Nigeria. We have already witnessed the partitions of Ethiopia & Eritrea, followed by Sudan & South Sudan-Darfur.

The Imperial-Zionist strategy is to balkanize Asia & Africa along religio-sectarian & ethnic lines. Thus the creation of Islamic states, will exacerbate this very crisis. To again state the obvious – the common identity of the Egyptian people is not only Islamic, but it is the Egyptian civilization & Arabism as well. We also need to recognize the fact that socio-religious groups & ideologies too have a legitimate right to create political parties, as is evident in many western & other secular liberal democracies across the world. This issue too is at the very core of the ongoing struggle in Syria.

Fortunately enough in India, the visionary leadership led by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru & Maulana Abul Kalam Azad , understood this fact only too well & there were many in Syria who both admired & lauded India’s secular heritage & thus the mutual respect for all religions, cultures & languages.

It must be stated here, that the one of the most remarkable meetings that we had was with Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun , who represents the Muslim Sunni sect & thus the majority of the population. Mufti Hassoun’s 21 year old son was murdered & he too has been threatened with death. Mufti Hassoun’s first words itself captivated us. He spoke of the ‘sanctity of God & the sanctity of Human life & beyond this nothing was more precious or sacred’. Mufti Hassoun is a true representative of a liberal peaceful Islam & this was the overwhelming sentiment amongst the Muslims that we met. Mufti Hassoun was thankful of the role that India has played, in addition to that of Russia, & China.

The Islam of the Mediterranean civilization will not be overcome by the Islam practiced in the obscurantist Gulf Sheikhdoms or the caves of Tora Bora. Thus Syria must defend its secular liberal ethos & culture.

The religio-sectarian battle being waged against the Syrian Government is based on the innuendo that the President Bashal Al Assad is from the Alawite minority (who are Kafirs, according to the extremists & fanatics who lay claim to Islam) & thus he should go. And go he surely will, if & whenever the majority vote against him.

And coming from India, where our PM comes from the minority Sikh community comprising 2% of the population, it did sound very obnoxious.

There is also valid anger amongst a section of the people about the four decade long rule of the Assad family, but this coming from those backed by the ruling families of the Gulf monarchies sounds very hollow indeed. They are also the same forces that sent in an army to quell the democratic uprising of the majority of the Bahraini population.

Our insistence is that the democratic change in inevitable, only it needs to follow a political process, not a destructive sectarian civil-war backed by international powers.

The solution is a national reconciliation, dialogue & negotiation, leading to a new constitution & elections , which must be monitored by the international community, the true one, I must add. In our discussions with many during our stay in Damascus, the popular mass support for the Government has actually increased after the war has been unleashed on their nation. The President remains popular to the extent of 60% & beyond. This entire debate can only be settled by an election & that will lay all speculation to rest. This is precisely as to why a political process & elections are being opposed by the Nato-GCC combine.

It was the first Arab League Committee, led by General Dhabi (Sudan) that referred to a national dialogue & a political process as the only way to resolve this crisis. He was immediately sacked by the Saudi-Qataris. Then later Kofi Anna’s initiative was similarly sabotaged by the US. Now Lakhdar Brahimi is attempting to play the role of the interlocutor with the backing of the UN. But until the major powers do not arrive at an agreement, the crisis will not be resolved.

We met many sections of Syrian society including the PM Dr. Wael Halaqi & the Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Feysal Mekdad, the Minister for Information, Mr. Omran Zoubi & the Minister for Electricity & Power, Mr. Imad Khamis.

Amongst the opposition, we met Mr. Omar Ossy, Kurdish MP, as well as the Chairman of the National Committee for Dialogue & Reconciliation, Mr. Sattam Dandal (a prominent Sunni Tribal Leader), Mr. Fahed Barod, Ali Turkmani & Nabil Fayyad. Amongst the Christians that we met included Mr. Salim al Nassan George, Mother Agnes-Mariam of the Cross, Hassan Arnoq & Heratch Barsikhian (an Armenian Christian).

Amongst them all, we grew very close to Mr. Youssef Alshahab, who is a proud Syrian Christian, a prominent TV personality, but a refugee in his own city as he was unable to return to his flat in a Damascus suburb itself. He was living in a hotel, where many other media channels had also moved for protection from the daily threats of the insurgents & many journalists have been murdered & kidnapped.

The journalists whom we met were also truly remarkable, even as the women were willing to stay on till late at night so that the media war against their nation be countered as effectively as possible. Here we do have to mention Ms. Nawaem Salman (whom we preferred to refer as Salman behen), who was the representative of Syrian TV & had organized our visit with a lot of deep thought & truly sincere & dedicated effort.

We also had a wonderful meeting with a group of Syrian youth who were fighting for the unity & sovereignty of their land by waging a struggle by serving in the refugee camps, by collecting donations & by countering the lies of the global media through a sustained campaign over the social media. Here we need to mention Yazan, Reina, Waseem, Maisa, Ghalia, Feras, Bernard amongst all the rest of the wonderful group that we interacted with. Yazan could not meet us again before we departed, since he was kidnapped by the mercenaries, but since then has been released & is now coordinating with many across the world to get the truth out.

They were all of the similar opinion that the sectarian war could lead to a similar deteriorating crisis in Lebanon, Iraq & with ramifications across many other Arab & Muslim nations. They were all very clear on the steps & the process of the national political initiative & the need for the war to come to an immediate halt. This is only possible, once there is an agreement between the US & Russia, after which the Nato-GCC-Turkey-Israel are pressurized to back-off.

Then the Syrian people are left alone in peace to decide their own future. The process entails a dialogue with all opposition forces, as well as civil-society, the formation of a transition government, negotiations for a new constitution which would be put up for a peoples’ referendum & then a free & fair election, leading to the formation of a new democratic government.

Actually the Syrian government has undertaken a process of reform & a new constitution was passed in a referendum in 2012, where 56% of the people voted. Here the ‘clause 8′ that referred to the Baath party as the sole leader of the revolution was removed, thus paving the way for a multi-party system. This constitution is again up for discussion & a negotiated agreement. Not a word in our media was there?

Earlier in May 2012, general elections had been held & a government constituted, but again, not a word ever appeared in the media. This was very much in contrast to the elections in Yemen, where there was only one candidate for the election & we had headlines stating that Yemen is now a democracy. Such is the manipulation & deceit of the global corporate media, with their legions of embedded journalists.

Thus even whilst the daily killings continue with reprisals & counters from either side, with unconfirmed estimates quoting up to 60,000 dead & a vast number of refugees.

The rebels & mercenaries continue to destroy Syrian infrastructure (with plans to be rebuilt by contracts given to the US companies such as Bechtel & Halliburton, if I may add). From Electric transmission lines, to hospitals, schools, colleges & health centres, bakeries, to factories that have been ripped apart & sold across the border in Turkey, where even entire neighbourhoods have been looted & so have cows & sheep.

The entire Syrian welfare state, which has served the people well, is being systematically destroyed, readied for a neo-liberal takeover. Syria is self-sufficient in both food grains & energy. Remarkably it has ‘zero debt’, despite the subsidies in all the key sectors.

Even Syrian missile sites defending all Arab lands against Israeli aggression are being targeted by the mercenaries. Thus Syrian friends also discussed the infiltration of Israelis (Sephardic-Mizrahi of Semitic origin, as the Ashkenazi majority is non-Semitic), who could blend into the insurgency & attack Syrian strategic-military targets.

Was a political process for a national dialogue possible right at the onset?

Could not the Arab League as well as the OIC, resolved the crisis through a sustained political process? Could not the NAM been involved? The Syrian crisis also exposes the divisions with the Islamic nations, as it is their very failure that has led to this crisis. It is these very Islamic nations that let the US play the role of arbiter in their internal regional issues. An Arab League in deep shameful slumber over Palestine, has gone into a Rambo-like testosterone drive on Syria.

Yes they should have, but then most of the petro-Arab states are vassals & also follow a narrow regressive religio-sectarian agenda.

Also the role of the global corporate media needs to be discussed & exposed. Once again, it was the media, led by the CNN, BBC, Al Jazeerah & Al Arabiya amongst others, that fired the first salvos, even before the mercenaries were mobilized from across the world. Their agenda of the corporate media is to pave the way for foreign intervention by distorting the news, through sheer lies & deception. They were manufacturing consent for a Nato-GCC intervention, but were prevented this time (unlike in Libya) by Russia & China, as well as the BRICS. Here it is important to state that Al Jazeerah has lost all credibility amongst vast sections of the Arab masses & counter channels are now taking root in the Arab nations.

The Syrian crisis is also deepening the political differences between the Islamists led by the Ikhwaanul Muslemeen (Muslim Brotherhood) & the Salafists on the one hand & the secular-left liberal opposition on the other. This is evident in Egypt, Tunisia & even in Turkey.

After sustaining the onslaught for nearly two years, certain powers have understood that now there is no military solution or possibility of regime change, nor can Syrian society be divided along religio-sectarian lines. Thus many Syrians themselves are now taking the initiative & calling for national reconciliation & democratic reform.

Thus now from Mr. Araby of the Arab League, Muhammad Khatib of the Syrian National Congress (SNC backed by the Nato-GCC), as well as other sane voices across the Arab world are calling for a negotiated solution.

Therefore Syria is now very important to the fate of the world itself . It’s about a liberal secular democratic Syria that respects all faiths, that treats all its citizens as equal & not merely as protected dhimmis, veritable second class citizens. It’s about ensuring that the plural culture of Syria triumphs over the regressive forces unleashed against an ancient & advanced civilization.

It’s about ensuring that Churches are not destroyed as was the recent despicable fatwa from the Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the so-called Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia (Not a word in the Western media outlets, so as to protect the image of ‘moderate’ Saudi Arabia).

It’s about a democracy that ensures an equal stake to all sections of society & in due course, the majority sections will assume power through the ballot itself. But this does not mean that only a Muslim must lead Syria. The Syrian Christians must have the same right. Currently a Christian is debarred from the top post, even in an avowedly secular socialist Syria. This was shocking & is just unacceptable & the Constitution must delete ‘clause 3′ which was inserted in 1951, as a compromise between the secularists & the Islamists. The majority of the Muslims that we spoke to said that this clause was unjust & must be removed. The Christians certainly find it extremely discriminatory & rightly so. Due to Islamist pressure, Muslims & Christians cannot currently inter-marry & the Christian has to convert to Islam, whilst the Muslim cannot. Apart from religious law, there is a need for the option of civil law as well. Many of the youth also find this law truly absurd & are planning to reform many such discriminatory laws.

Also, for the first time in decades, the Kurdish language has been recognized amongst the national languages & this is indeed a victory for the Kurdish people.

The overwhelming Palestinian population too enjoys a great degree of opportunity for their socio-economic advancement & respect the support that Syria has always given them, especially during their worst years, when most of the Arab regimes had abandoned their cause.

 

It’s thus about defending the arch of the resistance , stretching from Iran, the Turkish people, Syria, Lebanon & Palestine, even as it spreads to liberate more nations & people.

The victory of Syria will restore Russia to its rightful place as a world leader on par with the US. Thus the political, economic & military assertion of Russia-China, in alliance with Brazil, India, Iran, Venezuela & South Africa, will lead to a new political restructuring of international relations, with the economic & strategic balance increasingly moving away from the West.

The people of Syria are undergoing great devastation & death, in a war that has been imposed on a hapless population, who still cannot believe that their nation is being subjected to this tragedy. Yet the Syrian nation possesses the inherent strength, wisdom & courage to withstand the onslaught & emerge far stronger from the ever before. If left to themselves, they will resolve the national crisis in due course of time. The new Syria that will emerge will be very different, far more democratic & a people that after a long & arduous struggle will not only have succeeded in defending their nation, but will have won more rights to ensure the genuine empowerment of the people & committed to the values of social justice & to a plural multi-ethno-religious ethos.

 

The Syrian nation resistance will also have contributed to the further retreat & downfall of the Imperial-Zionist project for global hegemony.

On the very last day, we visited the magnificent & exquisite Omayyad Mosque , whose grandeur is breathtaking. Men & Women both pray together , even as Shia’s have been provided with two rooms, which also houses the ‘Ras-ul-Hussain’ & the shrine dedicated to the martyrdom of Imam Hussain. The Mosque also houses the Shrine of St. John the Baptist. Nearby lay the mausoleum of Saladin the great .

Our attempts to pay our respects at the Shrine of Syeda Zeinab were not facilitated due to security considerations.

We then walked down the cobbled lanes of the Christian quarters of Bab Touma & paid our respects at the Church of Ananias (more than 2000 years old), dedicated to the memory of St. Paul himself.

This was all astounding to witness & provides great hope for the future of the world.

I silently prayed at each of these spiritual centres, for God to protect this ancient nation & to restore peace.

One evening, in a short taxi ride, even as the bombings continued, we discussed the future of Syria with the taxi-driver, who smilingly stated – “Don’t worry, we are a 10,000 year old civilization, we have seen worse & will overcome this crisis”.

He did not need any words of assurance, as he knew within his heart, he knew.

Feroze Mithiborwala is a peace activist in Mumbai. He led the Asia to Gaza peace flotilla.

Statement on the Recent Violence in Myanmar

AMAN is deeply saddened and concerned with the current and ongoing violence in Myanmar.

There are many reports of killing and the destruction of properties and places of worship, particularly in the Meikhtila Township, majority of who are Muslims.  AMAN would like to categorically condemn such acts.

We extend our deepest condolences to the families who have lost family members, friends and property in the violence. We would like to also extend our solidarity with those affected by this violence.

AMAN demands that the Myanmar Government bring those responsible for this tragedy to justice immediately. We also insist that the government take action against the perpetrators of these heinous acts of violence, particularly those who are involved in hate speeches against the minority Muslims.

In recent times, two waves of riots against Rohingya in Rakhine State resulted in many people losing their lives and property. Myanmar, which has one of the worst records of human rights abuses in the world, also has one of the most oppressed and persecuted communities in the world; the Rohingya. Recent violence seems to correlate with the long due democratization and healing process between and among various ethnic communities towards creating opportunities for an accelerated process of development efforts in cooperation with international communities.

In Meikhtila, reports state that approximately 130 Muslims and 30 Buddhists have lost their lives due to fresh violence. Fifteen Mosques, five Islamic Schools and buildings have been damaged which left many families homeless. Reports also say that although it is more controlled in Meikthila, the atrocities have spread to nearby towns and villages throughout the region.

AMAN demands that the Myanmar Government not only stops the ongoing violence but prevents future tension between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims by stopping the hate speeches that are currently being spread by groups such as the “969 gang.” The Myanmar Government must allow all its IDPs to resettle with adequate security provisions. We also urge the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and UN bodies to call upon the Myanmar Government to stop such violence immediately.

AMAN urges the Myanmar Government to compensate the victims of violence adequately regardless of ethnicity or religion, to rebuild their homes and livelihood community.

We finally appeal to all civil society organizations, both within and outside of Myanmar, to act by strengthening mutual cooperation and dialogue in order to stop and prevent such happenings in the future.

By Richard Falk

27 March, 2013

@ Richard Falk Blog

It was master-crafted as an ingratiating speech by the world’s most important leader and the government that has most consistently championed Israel’s cause over the decades. Enthusiastically received by the audience of Israeli youth, and especially by liberal Jews around the world. Despite the venue, President Obama’s words in Jerusalem on March 21st seemed primarily intended to clear the air somewhat in Washington. Obama may now have a slightly better chance to succeed in his second legacy-building presidential term despite a deeply polarized U.S. Congress, and a struggling American economy if assessed from the perspective of workers’ distress rather than on the basis of robust corporate profits.

As for the speech itself, it did possess several redeeming features. It did acknowledge that alongside Israeli security concerns “Palestinian people’s right of self-determination, their right to justice must also be recognized.” This affirmation was followed by the strongest assertion of all: “..put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes.” To consider the realities of the conflict through Palestinian eyes is to confront the ugly realities of prolonged occupation, annexationist settlement projects, an unlawful separation wall, generations confined to the misery of refugee camps and exile, second-class citizenship in Israel, ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, and a myriad of regulations that make the daily life of Palestinians a narrative of humiliation and frustration. Of course, Obama did not dare to do this. None of these realities were specified, being left to the imagination of his audience of Israeli youth, but at least the general injunction to see the conflict through the eyes of the other pointed the way toward empathy and reconciliation.

Obama also encouraged in a helpful way Israeli citizen activism on behalf of a just peace based on two states for two peoples. A bit strangely he urged that “for the moment, put aside the plans and process” by which this goal might be achieved, and “instead..build trust between people.” Is this not an odd bit of advice? It seems a stretch to stress trust when the structures and practice of occupation are for the Palestinians unremittingly cruel, exploitative, and whittle away day after day at the attainability of a viable Palestinian state. But this farfetched entreaty was coupled with a more plausible plea: “I can promise you this: Political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.” There is some genuine hope to be found in these inspirational words, but to what end given the present situation.

In my opinion the speech was deeply flawed in three fundamental respects:

>> by speaking only to Israeli youth, and not arranging a parallel talk in Ramallah to Palestinian youth, the role of the United States as ‘dishonest broker’ was brazenly confirmed; it also signaled that the White House was more interested in appealing to the folks in Washington than to those Palestinians trapped in the West Bank and Gaza, an interpretation reinforced by laying a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl but refusing to do so at the tomb of Yasir Arafat. This disparity of concern was further exhibited when Obama spoke of the children of Sderot in southern Israel, “the same age as my own daughters, who went to bed at night fearful that a rocket would land in their bedroom simply because of who they are and where they live.” To make such an observation without even mentioning the trauma-laden life of children on the other side of the border in Gaza who have been living for years under conditions of blockade, violent incursions, and total vulnerability year after year is to subscribe fully to the one-sided Israeli narrative as to the insecurity being experienced by the two peoples.

>> by speaking about the possibility of peace based on the two state consensus, the old ideas, without mentioning developments that have made more and more people skeptical about Israeli intentions is to lend credence to what seems more and more to be a delusionary approach to resolving the conflict. Coupling this with Obama’s perverse injunction to the leaders of the Middle East that seems willfully oblivious to the present set of circumstances makes the whole appeal seem out of touch: “Now’s the time for the Arab world to take steps towards normalizing relations with Israel.” How can now be the time, when just days earlier Benjamin Netanyahu announced the formation of the most right-wing, pro-settler government in the history of Israel, selecting a cabinet that is deeply dedicated to settlement expansion and resistant to the very idea of a genuine Palestinian state? It should never be forgotten that when the Palestinian Liberation Organization announced back in 1988 that it was prepared to make a sustained peace with Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders. By doing this, the Palestinians were making an extraordinary territorial concession that has never been reciprocated, and operationally repudiated by continuous settlement building. The move meant accepting a state limited to 22% of historic Palestine, or less than half of what the UN had proposed in its 1947 partition plan contained in GA Resolution 181, which at the time was seen as grossly unfair to the Palestinians and a plan put forward without taking account of the wishes of the resident population. To expect the Palestinians to be willing now to accept significantly less land than enclosed by these 1967 borders to reach a resolution of the conflict seems highly unreasonable, and probably not sustainable if it should be imprudently accepted by the Palestinian Authority.

>> by endorsing the formula two states for two peoples was consigning the Palestinian minority in Israel to permanent second-class citizenship without even being worthy of mention as a human rights challenge facing the democratic Israel that Obama was celebrating. As David Bromwich has pointed out [“Tribalism in the Jerusalem speech,”] http://mondoweiss.net/2013/03/tribalism-jerusalem-speech.html Obama was also endorsing a tribalist view of statehood that seem inconsistent with a globalizing world, and with secularist assumptions that a legitimate state should never be exclusivist in either its religious or ethnic character. Obama went out of his to affirm the core Zionist idea of a statist homeland where all Jews can most fully embrace their Jewishness: “Israel is rooted not just in history and tradition, but also in a simple and profound idea: the idea that people deserve to be free in a land of their own.” And with embedded irony no mention was made of the absence of any Palestinian right of return even for those who were coerced into fleeing from homes and villages that had been family residences for countless generations.

 

Such a regressive approach to identity and statehood was also by implication attributed to the Palestinians, also affirmed as a a lesser entitlement. But this is highly misleading, a false symmetry. The Palestinians have no guiding ethno-religious ideology that is comparable to Zionism. Their quest has been to recover rights under international law in the lands of their habitual residence, above all, the exercise of their inalienable right of self-determination in such a manner as to roll back the wider claims of settler colonialism that have been so grandiosely integral to the Greater Israel vision and practice of the Netanyahu government. And what of the 20% of the current population of Israel that lives under a legal regime that discriminates against them and almost by definition is a permanent consignment to second-class citizenship. Indeed, Obama’s speech was also an affront to many Israeli post-Zionists and secularists who do not affirm the idea of living under in a hyper-nationalist state with pretensions of religious endowments.

In my view, there are two conclusions to be drawn. (1) Until the rhetoric of seeing the realities of the situation through Palestinian eyes is matched by a consideration of the specifics, there is created a misleading impression that both sides hold equally the keys to peace, and both being at fault to the same extent for being unwilling to use them. (2) It is a cruel distraction to urge a resumption of negotiations when Israel clearly lacks the political will to establish a viable and independent sovereign Palestinian state within 1967 borders and in circumstances in which the West Bank has been altered by continuous settlement expansion, settler only roads, the separation wall, and all the signs are suggesting that there is more of the same to come. Making matters even worse, Israel is taking many steps to ensure that Jerusalem never becomes the capital of whatever Palestinian entity eventually emerges, which is a severe affront not only to Palestinians and Arabs, but to the 1.4 billion Muslims the world over.

In retrospect, worse than speech was the visit itself. Obama should never have undertaken such the visit without an accompanying willingness to treat the Palestinian reality with at least equal dignity to that of the Israeli reality and without some indication of how to imagine a just peace based on two states for two peoples given the outrageous continuing Israeli encroachments on occupied Palestinian territory that give every indication of permanence, not to mention the non-representation and collective punishment of the Gazan population of 1.5 million. Obama made no mention of the wave of recent Palestinian hunger strikes or the degree to which Palestinians have shifted their tactics of resistance away from a reliance on armed struggle. It is perverse to heap praise on the oppressive occupier, ignore nonviolent tactics of Palestinian resistance and the surge of global solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, and then hypocritically call on both peoples to move forward toward peace by building relations of trust with one another. On what planet has Mr. Obama been living?

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. An international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years, since 2002 Falk has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

By Alex Lantier

27 March, 2013

@ WSWS.org

US Secretary of State John Kerry left Kabul for Paris yesterday, after a Middle Eastern tour to Jordan and Afghanistan to plan broader wars across the region. In Paris today, he is expected to discuss arming opposition forces fighting Washington’s proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with French officials.

During his unannounced two-day visit in Kabul, Kerry held a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai, the leader of the American puppet regime in Afghanistan. He announced that US forces will remain in Afghanistan beyond the Obama administration’s 2014 withdrawal deadline.

Kerry and Karzai both called upon the Taliban to open an office in Doha, the capital of the US-allied Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, from which location they could negotiate with Karzai. To encourage the Taliban to accept the offer, Kerry stressed that the Taliban should not count on a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Currently there are some 100,000 occupation troops in the country, including 66,000 US forces. American officials have reportedly discussed a lasting presence of roughly 12,000 US and European troops in Afghanistan.

Kerry also offered to hand over formal control of Bagram prison to the Karzai regime. This was apparently designed to allow Karzai to posture cynically before the Afghan people, claiming he is restoring Afghan sovereignty over the country. The US-controlled prison, notorious for the killings and torture of Afghan resistance fighters imprisoned there, has become a hated symbol of the NATO occupation.

This action was apparently aimed at smoothing US relations with Karzai, strained after the latter criticized Washington for “colluding” with the Taliban.

The handover of Bagram has nothing to do with ending US rule in Afghanistan, however. Karzai made clear that Washington would continue to effectively control detainees at the prison, promising that an Afghan review board would consider intelligence provided by US authorities before deciding to release prisoners. Afghan officials also reportedly gave “private assurances” that no “enduring security threats” would be released from Bagram.

By threatening to continue the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan, Kerry is pushing the Taliban leadership to negotiate a political settlement with Karzai that would include a lasting US protectorate in Afghanistan. Washington’s control would rest upon US air superiority and a permanent occupation force stationed in the country. It would be based on collaboration between Washington, the warlords backing Karzai and the Islamic fundamentalist leadership of the Taliban to suppress resistance to foreign occupation by the Afghan people.

The American ruling class sees Afghanistan as a launching pad for US operations in Central Asia, such as the hundreds of drone strikes Washington has launched in Afghanistan and neighboring countries. The New York Times commented, “The Obama administration has made a priority of reaching an agreement on an American military presence here after 2014 that will allow the United States to keep tabs on Iran and Pakistan.”

Significantly, Kerry had hoped to visit Pakistan during his tour, but decided against it. There is deep anger in that country over US drone strikes and the collaboration of the Pakistani army and intelligence with Washington. (See also: “UN says US drone war in Pakistan violates international law”)

Instead, Kerry reportedly met privately with Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Sunday, before traveling to Afghanistan.

Washington’s neo-colonial war in Afghanistan—like its proxy war in Syria, Iran’s main Arab ally—aims at establishing US imperialist hegemony over the Middle East and Central Asia. This involves not only controlling and manipulating the conflicts in Pakistan and broadly across Asia unleashed by the Afghan war, but also organizing regime change in Iran, an oil-rich state that Washington sees as the main obstacle to its interests in the Middle East.

Kerry’s visits both to Amman and to Kabul were clearly bound up with Washington’s war drive against Iran and its regional allies. As the Secretary of State left Jordan for Afghanistan, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the US is working in Jordan with Britain and France to train Syrian opposition fighters. These fighters then cross the border into southern Syria to carry out attacks.

The AP wrote that these forces were “secular” forces, apparently in an attempt to distinguish them from Al Qaeda-linked forces that provide the bulk of the Syrian opposition’s fighting forces. The wire service’s description of these forces made clear, however, that they are largely army deserters recruited on a religious or tribal basis.

It wrote, “The training has been conducted for several months now in an unspecified location, concentrating largely on Sunnis and tribal Bedouins who formerly served as members of the Syrian army, officials told the Associated Press. The forces aren’t members of the leading rebel group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which Washington and others fear may be increasingly coming under the saw of extremist militia groups, including some linked to Al Qaeda.”

The AP report came a day after the New York Times published an extensive report detailing how Qatar, Jordan and Saudi Arabia helped finance and arm the Syrian opposition for over a year. This took place under CIA supervision and after General David Petraeus, the CIA director until last November, “prodded various countries” to arm the Syrian opposition. The White House was regularly briefed on these arms shipments. (See also: “The CIA war against Syria”)

On Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed that the US “has provided some logistical nonlethal support that has also come in handy for the Syrian rebels.”

With Kerry now headed to Paris to discuss stepping up the war in Syria, the Arab League also joined in the campaign against Assad yesterday, formally seating Syrian opposition officials as Syria’s representatives to the Arab League.

Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani officially welcomed Moaz al-Khatib, the former imam of Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque who recently stepped down as the Syrian opposition’s official leader, to represent Syria. Al-Khatib was replaced by Ghassan Hitto, a US-based information technology executive. This move apparently aimed to present the opposition as less Islamist and reliant on Al Qaeda-linked forces from Libya, Iraq and Chechnya.

Al-Khatib’s speech at the Arab League made no secret of the Syrian opposition’s continuing ties to far-right Islamist elements. Denouncing Assad and supporting Hitto, he defended the presence of foreign jihadist fighters among the anti-Assad militias—though he awkwardly tried to downplay this by suggesting that if Islamist fighters’ families needed them at home, they should return to their families.

 

Chaiwat Satha-Anand

Chairperson, Strategic Nonviolence Commission, Thailand Research Fund

Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University

 

On a hot summer afternoon, nothing is better than an ice-cream. When you are nine, the summer ice-cream your mom bought for you when she took you to a fair or something like that attained beautiful meaning.

 

Nisofian Nisani was in front of the ice-cream shop on Suwanmongkol Road in downtown Pattani when the 5 kg bomb exploded and took away his young life back to the Mercy of God on March 21, 2013 at 1.30 p.m. Fourteen others including his mother were also wounded in the violence that has claimed more than 5,000 lives and physically wounded more than 10,000 people in the past 9 years in southern Thailand, marking this deadly conflict as one of the most mysteriously ferocious in the world today.

 

The death of this boy at this time assumes special significance since this was the first time an attack on civilians has occurred after the signing of the “General Consensus on Peace Dialogue Process” in Kuala Lumpur on February 28, 2013 and just a week before the follow-up meeting on March 28. The death of this child points to what needs to be talked about in the coming peace dialogue. In addition, this violence, and/or similar incidents that might happen in the near future, would serve as acid tests of the strength of the ensuring peace process.

 

The appointment of Lt.Gen.Paradorn Pattanatabut, the Secretary General of the National Security Council to sign the document on behalf of the Thai government and tasked with the creation of environment conducive to peace promotion, reflects for the first time a clear policy direction in pursuit of peace dialogue with the insurgents. This policy direction is a result of several factors which include Thaksin’s strong determination to do something about this problem, the Thai-Malaysian governmental collaboration, and perhaps most important – years of hard works by some security officials at different levels, military and civilian, who have engaged various insurgents in some kinds of “talks” without such a unified policy for so many years.

 

It goes without saying that those who would come to the Kuala Lumpur table on March 28 will be there with different reasons and motivations. There might even be those who believe that in order to engage in “peace dialogue”, all one needs is to exercise strong pressure-read coercion-on the parties involved to make it work. But I would argue that for peace process such as this to work, there is a dire need to understand “peace dialogue” for what it is, what it can or cannot do, what then should be “talked about”, and finally what may be needed to sustain such a peace process.

 

The reality of peace dialogue

Peace dialogue is not peace negotiation. The end-result of peace negotiation is usually a peace agreement (or a set of), while for peace dialogue it is- as the signed document suggested-the creation of an environment conducive to peace in the Deep South of Thailand. A most crucial feature of such an environment is trust between the parties which is difficult to cultivate. If forced, a meeting can indeed take place, but often without the trust that would sustain the effort in the long run. Exactly 500 years ago, Machiavelli wrote in his incomparable The Prince that “…like all other things in nature that are born and grow quickly, cannot have roots and branches, so that the first adverse weather destroys them…” (Chapter 7)

 

It is important to understand that of the conflicts which came to an end in the past 20 years, 80.9% were through peace agreement. Today, 40% of all armed conflicts are open to dialogues of some forms, while about 60% needs external mediation-facilitation.  By the end of 2011, 19.5% of the dialogues were going well and 43.6% faced difficulties. (Escola de Cultura de Pau, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 2012)

 

Imagine a deadly conflict with its own life cycle, and it should not surprise anyone that among the most difficult to deal with, are four protracted conflicts –Palestine which is now 96 years old (beginning with the November 2, 1917 Balfour declaration), Kashmir – 63, Cyprus – 38, and Western Sahara -21. These are protracted and therefore difficult conflicts, because beyond security of the states involved, the underlying issues are land, identity, sacred spaces, and self governance.

 

            Rattiya Salae, a professor of Malay language at Taksin University pointed out that this southern deadly conflict is about “ ا – ب – ت” –Arabic alphabets (Alif, Ba, Tha) for Islam, Bangsa (ethnic culture which includes language) and Tanah (land).  If such is the case, then southern violence in Thailand could also be seen as a similarly protracted deadly conflict which is difficult to deal with, other economic interests, regional competition, or illegal businesses in the area notwithstanding.

 

            Peace dialogue is a part of peace process which is a complex modalities consisting of contacts, explorations, dialogues, negotiations and finally agreement(s). These can be subdivided into informal/formal, indirect/direct. For example, before a formal direct contact such as the one held in Kuala Lumpur last month, there should be three other stages- informal indirect contacts, formal indirect contacts, informal direct contacts. These four stages are necessary as a trust building effort, something which might be relegated to marginal importance if the process is forced. Following this modality, the coming Kuala Lumpur meeting on March 28 could be exploratory in nature. The question then is what should the meeting explore?

 

Conditionality of peace process

To enter into a peace process, especially in its exploratory stage, one cannot enter with preconditions, i.e. if you don’t do A or B, I will not talk to you! However, it is impossible to enter into a peace process, engaging in peace dialogues, without understanding its conditionality, i.e. that whatever is going to be talked about depends on existential conditions which is dynamic.

 

I would say that the most important issue now is the cessation of violence, and not about alternative forms of governance in the area. In fact, discussing alternative forms of governance in most cases are for the purpose of ending violence in the first place. In this sense, alternative forms of governance become means of ending violence within the peace process project.

 

Those who wish to explore this peace process needs to talk about: geography, time, weapons, and targets. Of the more than 1,600 villages in the three southernmost provinces, only some 200 have suffered from violence. In the spirit of exploration, a few villages, say three or six from these 200 in the three provinces, could be selected as an experiment in “peace zones” where for a specified period of time, there will be no violence from both the insurgents and the Thai state.

 

Since it would be unrealistic to assume that BRN and their colleagues who will come to the March 28 table can really control violence on the ground, there is also a need to discuss other forms of fighting by other insurgents that will probably limit the use of violence in certain zones outside the designated “peace zones”. Perhaps the peace dialogue should also explore the possibility of inviting those who refuse to talk at this time to become “PAHLAWAN YANG TERHORMAT” or “honor fighters” in other exploratory zones. Let me call this: “honor zones” where the use of explosives are excluded, and civilian targets which include teachers, women, children, clergy (Buddhist monks, Muslim ulama/imam, Christian clergy), sacred spaces (temples, mosques, churches, etc.,), schools, as well as stores or shopping places should be considered outside the scope of violent attacks.

 

It should also be noted that there are at least 40 factors that could derail any peace process, such as internal divisions in an armed group, disagreement over issues on the agenda, mistrust in the facilitator, or rise in military activities, and demands for the complete cessation of violence, among other things. Peace process such as this one is no different. For example, when violence continues, many will point their fingers at the peace process and conclude that it is futile.

 

Peace process such as this one will be fragile. Therefore it needs a vast support from Thai society as well as a profound understanding from security agencies involved, the latter might come from inter-organizational dialogues. To mobilize both the support and understanding in the Thai context at this time is both difficult and necessary, if such derailing factors are to be effectively mitigated.

 

And when one is not so sure if h/she is on the right track of peace process to end violence in southern Thailand, remember the death of the child- Nisofian Nisani.

 

 

By Dahr Jamail

26 March, 2013

@ TomDispatch.com

Back then, everybody was writing about Iraq, but it’s surprising how few Americans, including reporters, paid much attention to the suffering of Iraqis. Today, Iraq is in the news again. The words, the memorials, the retrospectives are pouring out, and again the suffering of Iraqis isn’t what’s on anyone’s mind. This was why I returned to that country before the recent 10th anniversary of the Bush administration’s invasion and why I feel compelled to write a few grim words about Iraqis today.

But let’s start with then. It’s April 8, 2004, to be exact, and I’m inside a makeshift medical center in the heart of Fallujah while that predominantly Sunni city is under siege by American forces. I’m alternating between scribbling brief observations in my notebook and taking photographs of the wounded and dying women and children being brought into the clinic.

A woman suddenly arrives, slapping her chest and face in grief, wailing hysterically as her husband carries in the limp body of their little boy. Blood is trickling down one of his dangling arms. In a few minutes, he’ll be dead. This sort of thing happens again and again.

Over and over, I watch speeding cars hop the curb in front of this dirty clinic with next to no medical resources and screech to a halt. Grief-stricken family members pour out, carrying bloodied relatives — women and children — gunned down by American snipers.

One of them, an 18-year-old girl has been shot through the neck by what her family swears was an American sniper. All she can manage are gurgling noises as doctors work frantically to save her from bleeding to death. Her younger brother, an undersized child of 10 with a gunshot wound in his head, his eyes glazed and staring into space, continually vomits as doctors race to keep him alive. He later dies while being transported to a hospital in Baghdad.

According to the Bush administration at the time, the siege of Fallujah was carried out in the name of fighting something called “terrorism” and yet, from the point of view of the Iraqis I was observing at such close quarters, the terror was strictly American. In fact, it was the Americans who first began the spiraling cycle of violence in Fallujah when U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division killed 17 unarmed demonstrators on April 28th of the previous year outside a school they had occupied and turned into a combat outpost. The protesters had simply wanted the school vacated by the Americans, so their children could use it. But then, as now, those who respond to government-sanctioned violence are regularly written off as “terrorists.” Governments are rarely referred to in the same terms.

10 Years Later

Jump to March 2013 and that looming 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion. For me, that’s meant two books and too many news articles to count since I first traveled to that country as the world’s least “embedded” reporter to blog about a U.S. occupation already spiraling out of control. Today, I work for the Human Rights Department of Al Jazeera English, based out of Doha, Qatar. And once again, so many years later, I’ve returned to the city where I saw all those bloodied and dying women and children. All these years later, I’m back in Fallujah.

Today, not to put too fine a point on it, Iraq is a failed state, teetering on the brink of another sectarian bloodbath, and beset by chronic political deadlock and economic disaster. Its social fabric has been all but shredded by nearly a decade of brutal occupation by the U.S. military and now by the rule of an Iraqi government rife with sectarian infighting.

Every Friday, for 13 weeks now, hundreds of thousands have demonstrated and prayed on the main highway linking Baghdad and Amman, Jordan, which runs just past the outskirts of this city.

Sunnis in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq’s vast Anbar Province are enraged at the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki because his security forces, still heavily staffed by members of various Shia militias, have been killing or detaining their compatriots from this region, as well as across much of Baghdad. Fallujah’s residents now refer to that city as a “big prison,” just as they did when it was surrounded and strictly controlled by the Americans.

Angry protesters have taken to the streets. “We demand an end to checkpoints surrounding Fallujah. We demand they allow in the press. We demand they end their unlawful home raids and detentions. We demand an end to federalism and gangsters and secret prisons!” So Sheikh Khaled Hamoud Al-Jumaili, a leader of the demonstrations, tells me just prior to one of the daily protests. “Losing our history and dividing Iraqis is wrong, but that, and kidnapping and conspiracies and displacing people, is what Maliki is doing.”

The sheikh went on to assure me that millions of people in Anbar province had stopped demanding changes in the Maliki government because, after years of waiting, no such demands were ever met. “Now, we demand a change in the regime instead and a change in the constitution,” he says. “We will not stop these demonstrations. This one we have labeled ‘last chance Friday’ because it is the government’s last chance to listen to us.”

“What comes next,” I ask him, “if they don’t listen to you?”

“Maybe armed struggle comes next,” he replies without pause.

Predictably, given how the cycle of violence, corruption, injustice, and desperation has become part of daily life in this country, that same day, a Sunni demonstrator was gunned down by Iraqi security forces. Lieutenant General Mardhi al-Mahlawi, commander of the Iraqi Army’s Anbar Operations Command, said the authorities would not hesitate to deploy troops around the protest site again “if the protesters do not cooperate.” The following day, the Maliki government warned that the area was becoming “a haven for terrorists,” echoing the favorite term the Americans used during their occupation of Fallujah.

Today’s Iraq

In 2009, I was in Fallujah, riding around in the armored BMW of Sheikh Aifan, the head of the then-U.S.-backed Sunni militias known as the Sahwa forces. The Sheikh was an opportunistic, extremely wealthy “construction contractor” and boasted that the car we rode in had been custom built for him at a cost of nearly half a million dollars.

Two months ago, Sheikh Aifan was killed by a suicide bomber, just one more victim of a relentless campaign by Sunni insurgents targeting those who once collaborated with the Americans. Memories in Iraq are long these days and revenge remains on many minds. The key figures in the Maliki regime know that if it falls, as is likely one day, they may meet fates similar to Sheikh Aifan’s. It’s a convincing argument for hanging onto power.

In this way, the Iraq of 2013 staggers onward in a climate of perpetual crisis toward a future where the only givens are more chaos, more violence, and yet more uncertainty. Much of this can be traced to Washington’s long, brutal, and destructive occupation, beginning with the installation of former CIA asset Ayad Allawi as interim prime minister. His hold on power quickly faltered, however, after he was used by the Americans to launch their second siege of Fallujah in November 2004, which resulted in the deaths of thousands more Iraqis, and set the stage for an ongoing health crisis in the city due to the types of weapons used by the U.S. military.

In 2006, after Allawi lost political clout, then-U.S. ambassador to Iraq neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad tapped Maliki as Washington’s new prime minister. It was then widely believed that he was the only politician whom both the U.S. and Iran could find acceptable. As one Iraqi official sarcastically put it, Maliki was the product of an agreement between “the Great Satan and the Axis of Evil.”

In the years since, Maliki has become a de facto dictator. In Anbar Province and parts of Baghdad, he is now bitterly referred to as a “Shia Saddam.” Pictures of his less-than-photogenic face in front of an Iraqi flag hang above many of the countless checkpoints around the capital. When I see his visage looming over us yet again as we sit in traffic, I comment to my fixer, Ali, that his image is now everywhere, just as Saddam’s used to be. “Yes, they’ve simply changed the view for us,” Ali replies, and we laugh. Gallows humor has been a constant in Baghdad since the invasion a decade ago.

It’s been much the same all over Iraq. The U.S. forces that ousted Saddam Hussein’s regime immediately moved into his military bases and palaces. Now that the U.S. has left Iraq, those same bases and palaces are manned and controlled by the Maliki government.

Saddam Hussein’s country was notoriously corrupt. Yet last year, Iraq ranked 169th out of 174 countries surveyed, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. It is effectively a failed state, with the Maliki regime incapable of controlling vast swaths of the country, including the Kurdish north, despite his willingness to use the same tactics once employed by Saddam Hussein and after him the Americans: widespread violence, secret prisons, threats, detentions, and torture.

 

Almost 10 years after U.S. troops entered a Baghdad in flames and being looted, Iraq remains one of the most dangerous places on Earth. There are daily bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. The sectarianism instilled and endlessly stirred up by U.S. policy has become deeply, seemingly irrevocably embedded in the political culture, which regularly threatens to tip over into the sort of violence that typified 2006-2007, when upwards of 3,000 Iraqis were being slaughtered every month.

The death toll of March 11th was one of the worst of late and provides a snapshot of the increasing levels of violence countrywide. Overall, 27 people were killed and many more injured in attacks across the country. A suicide car bomb detonated in a town near Kirkuk, killing eight and wounding 166 (65 of whom were students at a Kurdish secondary school for girls). In Baghdad, gunmen stormed a home where they murdered a man and woman. A shop owner was shot dead and a policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting in Ghazaliya. A civilian was killed in the Saidiya district, while a Sahwa member was gunned down in Amil. Three government ministry employees in the city were also killed.

In addition, gunmen killed two policemen in the town of Baaj, a dead body turned up in Muqtadiyah, where a roadside bomb also wounded a policeman. In the city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen killed a blacksmith, and in the northern city of Mosul, a political candidate and a soldier were both killed in separate incidents. A local political leader in the town of Rutba in Anbar Province was shot and died of his injuries, and the body of a young man whose skull was crushed was found in Kirkuk a day after he was kidnapped. Gunmen also killed a civilian in Abu Saida.

And these are only the incidents reported in the media in a single day. Others regularly don’t make it into the news at all.

The next day, Awadh, the security chief for Al Jazeera in Baghdad, was in a dark mood when he arrived at work. “Yesterday, two people were assassinated in my neighborhood,” he said. “Six were assassinated around Baghdad. I live in a mixed neighborhood, and the threats of killing have returned. It feels like it did just before the sectarian war of 2006. The militias are again working to push people out of their homes if they are not Shia. Now, I worry everyday when my daughter goes to school. I ask the taxi driver who takes her to drop her close to the school, so that she is alright.” Then he paused a moment, held up his arms and added, “And I pray.”

“This Is Our Life Now”

Iraqis who had enough money and connections to leave the country have long since fled. Harb, another fixer and dear friend who worked with me throughout much of my earlier reportage from Iraq, fled to Syria’s capital, Damascus, with his family for security reasons. When the uprising in Syria turned violent and devolved into the bloodbath it is today, he fled Damascus for Beirut. He is literally running from war.

Recent Iraqi government estimates put the total of “internally displaced persons” in Iraq at 1.1 million. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis remain in exile, but of course no one is counting. Even those who stay often live as if they were refugees and act as if they are on the run. Most of those I met on my most recent trip won’t even allow me to use their real names when I interview them.

My first day in the field this time around, I met with Isam, another fixer I’d worked with nine years ago. His son narrowly escaped two kidnapping attempts, and he has had to change homes four times for security reasons. Once he was strongly opposed to leaving Iraq because, he always insisted, “this is my country, and these are my people.” Now, he is desperate to find a way out. “There is no future here,” he told me. “Sectarianism is everywhere and killing has come back to Baghdad.”

He takes me to interview refugees in his neighborhood of al-Adhamiyah. Most of them fled their homes in mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhoods and towns during the sectarian violence of 2006 and 2007. Inside his cobbled-together brick house with a roof of tin sheeting held down with old tires, one refugee echoes Isam’s words: “There is no future for us Iraqis,” he told me. “Day by day our situation worsens, and now we expect a full sectarian war.”

Elsewhere, I interviewed 20-year-old Marwa Ali, a mother of two. In a country where electric blackouts are a regular event, water is often polluted, and waste of every sort litters neighborhoods, the stench of garbage and raw sewage wafted through the door of her home while flies buzzed about. “We have scorpions and snakes also,” she said while watching me futilely swat at the swarm of insects that instantly surrounded me. And she paused when she saw me looking at her children, a four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. “My children have no future,” she said. “Neither do I, and neither does Iraq.”

Shortly afterward, I met with another refugee, 55-year-old Haifa Abdul Majid. I held back tears when the first thing she said was how grateful she was to have food. “We are finding some food and can eat, and I thank God for this,” she told me in front of her makeshift shelter. “This is the main thing. In some countries, some people can’t even find food to eat.”

She, too, had fled sectarian violence, and had lost loved ones and friends. While she acknowledged the hardship she was experiencing and how difficult it was to live under such difficult circumstances, she continued to express her gratitude that her situation wasn’t worse. After all, she said, she wasn’t living in the desert. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “We know we are in this bad situation because of the American occupation,” she said wearily. “And now it is Iran having their revenge on us by using Maliki, and getting back at Iraq for the [1980-1988] war with Iran. As for our future, if things stay like they are now, it will only keep getting worse. The politicians only fight, and they take Iraq down into a hole. For 10 years what have these politicians done? Nothing! Saddam was better than all of them.”

I asked her about her grandson. “Always I wonder about him,” she replied. “I ask God to take me away before he grows up, because I don’t want to see it. I’m an old woman now and I don’t care if I die, but what about these young children?” She stopped speaking, looked off into the distance, then stared at the ground. There was, for her, nothing else to say.

I heard the same fatalism even from Awadh, Al Jazeera’s head of security. “Baghdad is stressed,” he told me. “These days you can’t trust anyone. The situation on the street is complicated, because militias are running everything. You don’t know who is who. All the militias are preparing for more fighting, and all are expecting the worst.”

As he said this, we passed under yet another poster of an angry looking Maliki, speaking with a raised, clenched fist. “Last year’s budget was $100 billion and we have no working sewage system and garbage is everywhere,” he added. “Maliki is trying to be a dictator, and is controlling all the money now.”

In the days that followed, my fixer Ali pointed out new sidewalks, and newly planted trees and flowers, as well as the new street lights the government has installed in Baghdad. “We called it first the sidewalks government, because that was the only thing we could see that they accomplished.” He laughed sardonically. “Then it was the flowers government, and now it is the government of the street lamps, and the lamps sometimes don’t even work!”

Despite his brave face, kind heart, and upbeat disposition, even Ali eventually shared his concerns with me. One morning, when we met for work, I asked him about the latest news. “Same old, same old,” he replied, “Kidnappings, killings, rapes. Same old, same old. This is our life now, everyday.”

“The lack of hope for the future is our biggest problem today,” he explained. He went on to say something that also qualified eerily as another version of the “same old, same old.” I had heard similar words from countless Iraqis back in the fall of 2003, as violence and chaos first began to engulf the country. “All we want is to live in peace, and have security, and have a normal life,” he said, “to be able to enjoy the sweetness of life.” This time, however, there wasn’t even a trace of his usual cheer, and not even a hint of gallows humor.

“All Iraq has had these last 10 years is violence, chaos, and suffering. For 13 years before that we were starved and deprived by [U.N. and U.S.] sanctions. Before that, the Kuwait War, and before that, the Iran War. At least I experienced some of my childhood without knowing war. I’ve achieved a job and have my family, but for my daughters, what will they have here in this country? Will they ever get to live without war? I don’t think so.”

For so many Iraqis like Ali, a decade after Washington invaded their country, this is the anniversary of nothing at all.

Dahr Jamail is a feature story staff writer and producer for the Human Rights Department of Al Jazeera English. Currently based in Doha, Qatar, Dahr has spent more than a year in Iraq, spread over a number of trips between 2003 and 2013. His reportage from Iraq, including for TomDispatch, has won him several awards, including the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism. He is the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.

25 March, 2013

@ RT.com

Economic goals aside, a principle aim of the BRICS is creating a multi-polar world where political change gives the people of member states more clout, professor Shreeram Chaulia told RT.

South Africa is making final arrangements for a summit of the world’s fastest developing economies – known as the BRICS group – which is due to start on Tuesday.

The heads of government of Brazil, Russia, India, China and the host nation South Africa, will convene for a fifth time, with the group being hailed as potential game-changer for the International arena.

Professor and dean of New Delhi-based Jindal School of International Affairs, Shreeram Chaulia says the BRICS has justified its existence, making achievements both on the economic and political fields.

RT: This summit’s us significance is in the fact it concludes the first cycle hosted by all the members. So what’s the group actually achieved in that time?

Shreeram Chaulia: It has grown in political maturity. I would say that from the early days when it was seen as an upstart, was still getting its act together and resolving and ironing out some differences – we have come a long way in five years. The fact that these summits are continuing to be held is silencing some of the critics, who said it was a marriage of convenience or just a short piece item, nothing more. What we are seeing now is that the agenda has quite advanced, especially, in the economic realm. The economic integration between Latin America, Asia and Africa has been spearheaded by this vehicle of the BRICS. And BRICS has become, I would say microcosm of the multi-polar world order. And it’s no small achievement.

RT: The new Chinese leader Xi Jinping has strengthened relations with Russia on his first official visit abroad – to Moscow – will this have any significance on the group?

SC: Definitely, Russia and China are the central pillars of the BRICS. If you remember they were the originators of the concept and they have in many ways brought along South Africa, India and Brazil to play a larger role. And also Russia and China are much more global in their overall approach towards the world order and trying to transform the world order. The other three I would say are a little more “status quiet”, although they too want to move towards multi-polarity.

So, Russia and China, the fact that the leadership in both countries in emphasizing how this two can become a kind of a steering mechanism, within the five-member group of BRICS and in many ways set the agenda is undeniable. In India, we welcome the fact that Russia is there because it also helps us to overcome any concerns that China will somehow be the only dominant player. Russia and China together – it makes a fabulous combination because these two societies are emerging in a way of leading the pack in terms of the political agenda of this organization.

RT: You’re talking about the impact on the world order, but BRICS are described as an economic group, are you saying they are going to cross to the political line and have influence on the world diplomatic agenda? 

SC: The BRICS represents 43 per cent of the world’s population. This is a huge chunk and they need a political change. People – and not only in the BRICS member countries, put peoples of the rest of the global South – are expecting change and this can’t happen without the political agenda be it in Syria, be it in Egypt, be it in Africa. We need to create multi-polarity. Multi-polarity is a political project. The economic vehicles, I see them as means for a achieving a political goal and end point, which is to create a more just and equitable world order.

RT: Egypt’s also expressed interest in joining the bloc. What would it offer the group, and how attractive would it be to the current Power Five?

SC: I hope they’ll eventually join, but right now the size and current state of the Egyptian economy doesn’t justify it, but eventually it’ll expand because there are more emerging economies and the more the better because that’s how we achieve the multi-polarity through multilateralism.

By Countercurrents.org

25 March 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Arab nations and Turkey, helped by the CIA, have dramatically increased military aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, The New York Times reported on March 24, 2013.

The US Central Intelligence Agency was helping their efforts, the newspaper added, citing air traffic data and interviews with unnamed officials and the rebel commanders.

The airlift has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and at other Turkish and Jordanian airports, the report said.

US intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, it said. They had also vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.

Turkey had overseen much of the program, fixing transponders to trucks ferrying the military goods through Turkey so it could monitor shipments, the paper added.

“A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,” Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told the paper.

“The intensity and frequency of these flights,” were “suggestive of a well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation”, he added.

The armed uprising against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sprang up in response to the Damascus regime’s crackdown two years ago on opposition protests.

Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid

 

By Syria Tribune

The suicide explosion that took the life of Sheikh Mohamad Saeed Ramadan Al Bouti among 42 others in Damascus yesterday is not a Syrian crisis incident. This event commemorates a struggle that has been going for the past 35 years for Al Bouti in person and the past one and a half millennia for Islam itself.

A research long overdue, much like the explosion itself

Before I start this short journey in Islamic ancient and recent history, I would like to emphasize that I am a secular researcher. I spent 7 years in Sudan under the rule of the Islamic Front (now called the National Congress of Sudan). The Sudanese Islamic Front is one of the different faces of political Islam that conquered the Arab World during the second half of the 20th Century. The mother of all these political Islam movements is the one and only Muslim Brotherhood, who rule Egypt explicitly now, and a few other countries under different names.

This research is long overdue; specially form a person who considers himself an expert in Islamic movements in the Middle East and North Africa. The bloody events in Damascus yesterday pushed me to write this article, but this is just a step one in a series of articles on this important issue.

As for the explosion in Damascus yesterday, it is also long overdue. Al Bouti has been the sworn enemy of Salafism and Muslim Brotherhood militia since the early 80s of the past century. Read on to know why.

Historical roots

The term Salafism appeared for the first time in the 13th century in the teachings of Islamic controversial scholar Ibn Taymiyyah. Ibn Taymiyyah called for Muslims to go back to the way their great ancestors (in Arabic: Al Salaf Al Saleh, hence the term Salafism) used to understand Islam. What he wanted was to rid Islam of what he called foreign influence on Islam, which was the natural order of history, given the interaction between Muslims and the wide variety of cultures in areas conquered by the Islamic state. Ibn Taymiyyah is the God Father of the concept of Islamic Sharia rule, and the most prominent scholar whose teachings influenced political Islam movements.

In the 18th century, Mohamad bin Abd Al Wahhab, the creator of modern Salafism, Wahhabism (after him), restructured Salafism in light of modern life, and established what will later be the ruling doctrine for all political Islam movements. The turning point in Wahhabism was the alliance with Ibn Saud, the founder of the Saudi dynasty still ruling the Kingdom of Saudi Arbia until today.

Meanwhile in Damascus

Damascus has always been a melting pot where various cultures and doctrines mixed to form a unique damascene form of Islam. It is worth mentioning that Ibn Taymiyyah was jailed several times in Damascus. Damascus Islamic scholars at that time did not agree with his extreme views, and they kept confronting him till he died in jail.

The damascene version of Islam was closely linked to Sufism, a mystical method that focuses on the spiritual aspects of the religion rather than the political ones. Damascus still has the tomb of Mohey El Din Ibn Arabi, one of the most prominent Sufi scholars in history, and the founder of the Akbari Sufi method. Unlike Ibn Taymiyyah and Abdul Wahhab, Ibn Arabi was a philosopher and researcher, not a salafi follower.

Damascus is also linked to the Ashaari method, a follower of which is Ibn Rushd, one of the most prominent philosophers in history of human kind.

So damascene or “Sahmi” Islam is historically different of that of Salafism and Wahhabism. This could help the western reader understand the conflict between Al Bouti and Salafi scholars. Al Bouti was not happy about the Muslim Brotherhood influence on the International Union of Muslim Sholars, headed by Aljazeera’s spokesperson, Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, so he established the Union of Sham Land Scholars.

Al Bouti vs the Muslim Brotherhood

In the late 70s and early 80s of the past century, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted toppling the Baath regime and late President Hafiz Al Assad. As confessed by their leader Riyad Al Shakfeh on the BBC, they used terrorism in their attempt. They were also backed by regional and international powers, from Saddam Hussein to the BBC itself back then. They used the media to portrait the events as a peaceful uprising (much like 2011), and a recently released CIA document revealed that the numbers of causalities in those events was extremely exaggerated.

Mohamad Saeed Ramadan Al Bouti, back then a young Muslim scholar, took the other side. The Brotherhood accuses Al Bouti of taking the side of the regime for beneficial purposes, but he explained several times that the disagreement with the Brotherhood is on the doctrine itself, not on politics.

Since then. Al Bouti became the icon of Shami Islam. He was given all the support by the Syrian regime to spread his version of moderate and fraternal Islam, to the extent that he used to appear on the national TV confronting secular researchers, like the televised debate with Dr. Tayeb Tizini in 1990. He also engaged in several debates with Syrian secular researcher Nabeel Fayyad. Those debates took the form of a book for a book, where Fayyad would write a book criticizing Islam, give it to Al Bouti in person, then Al Bouti would write a book in answer to that book*.

Therefore, Al Bouti was an example of a moderate scholar, who accepted criticism, and answered discussion with more discussion. He is known for never calling anyone infidel, and never claiming the right to judge people’s rights of life and freedom. This does not go well with the Salafi doctrine that calls for purification of the Muslim society by taking rid of all infidels. Infidels here referring not only to non-Muslims, but also to everybody who disagrees with Salafism.

The Syrian “Revolution”: A movement supported by Salafi scholarsMohamad Saeed ramadan Al Bouti

Since the events started in Syria, Salafi scholars played an important role in calling for people to revolt. They played on the sectarian string, and incited people to support the “revolution” with money and weapons. The most important Salafi roles came from Al Qaradawi, who has a carte blanche on Aljazeera, and a Syrian Shiekh named Adnan Al Arour. Both A Qaradawi and Al Arour attacked Al Bouti several times (See this montage where both Al Qaradawi and Al Arour say that Al Bouti should be killed, Al

On March 21st, coinciding with Nowruz day, a national Kurdish holiday, Sheikh Mohamad Saeed Ramadan Al Bouti (of Kurdish origin) was assassinated in his mosque, with 42 of his students. His death was celebrated by many revolutionary pages (see here, here, and here for example, or see the picture in the frame which shows him “wanted”. This picture was published by a revolutionary page). Moreover, They are now threatening Al Bouti’s son, Tawfeek.

To us in Syria Tribune, this is not an incident related to the Syrian crisis only. This commemorates a long struggle between Al Bouti and the Wahhabi scholars, and between the damascene version of moderate Islam an extremism.

* Fayyad wrote his book “Hiwarat” (Dialogues) in answer to Al Bouti’s book “Hazihi Moshkilatohom” (These are Their Problems). On his Facebook page, Fayyad testified that he took the book to Al Bouti before publishing it, but Al Bouti refused to read it before it is published, so it does not look like censorship.

By Nile Bowie

22 March, 2013

The pages of history tell us that beautiful civilizations emerged and prospered in the ancient cities of Damascus and Aleppo, some of the oldest continually inhabited cities on earth. The harrowing circus of brutality that is the Syrian conflict, now in its third year, will soil and blacken those pages indefinitely. No matter the political outcome of this horrible war, a once tolerant and diverse state has been shattered and terror itself has eaten into the destiny of Syria’s people, inexorably changing the courses of their lives forever. Children have been orphaned; parents have faced the loss of their children – and by uncompromising means. Infants have been beheaded, the fates of innocent men and women have been sealed through summary executions, and families have been torn apart or destroyed all together. Recent developments in Syria are alarming.

Spokesmen of the Assad government recently accused foreign-backed militants of launching scud missiles containing chemical weapons in the city of Aleppo, killing dozens. Witnesses claim to have seen powder emanate from the rocket, causing those who inhaled the substance to suffocate or require immediate medical attention. An unnamed chemical weapons expert cited by Al-Jazeera claimed that the causalities were not consistent with Syria’s reputed stockpile of chemical agents, stating, “If it’s a chemical warfare agent, it’s not working very well.” Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari, called on the UN Secretary-General to form an independent technical mission to investigate the use of chemical weapons by terrorist groups operating in Syria.

While on his first state visit to Israel, Barack Obama cast doubt and expressed deep scepticism toward the Assad government’s version of events, stating that if the government did indeed use chemical weapons, then it meant a “red line” had been crossed. Obama vowed not to make further announcements until concrete facts were established. What this essentially means is that Obama is now in a position to act on his statements and intervene more boldly and directly than the United States has already been doing since the beginning of the conflict. Additionally, NATO personnel have also indicated that they are prepared to employ a wide range of operations. US-European Command Admiral James Stavridis recently told media that the alliance was “prepared, if called upon, to be engaged as we were in Libya.”

Those who have critically monitored the situation from the beginning are under no illusions. The way in which mainstream media sources have covered the Syrian conflict, perhaps more so than any other topic in recent times, shows unequivocally how certain content providers have moved in step with the foreign policy of the Western and Gulf states who have enabled insurgent groups and provided diplomatic cover for opposition politicians who represent their economic and strategic interests. The Obama administration’s policy toward Libya and Syria eyes the same familiar endgame as what the Bush administration sought in its foreign policy adventures. The fact that many of those on the left who campaigned against Iraq and Afghanistan are now generally silent, or even supportive of Obama’s agenda, is proof that his policies have been packaged far more intelligently for mainstream consumption. The reality is that Syria is “Shock and Awe” by other means.

There are a myriad of reasons why Bashar al-Assad must go in the eyes of policy makers in Washington and Tel Aviv, and the destruction of his tenure could not have been possible without the financial muscle of Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s wretchedly opulent Sunni Monarchs. These glittering kingdoms of disaster-capitalism are not only responsible for supplying weapons and cash; a major incentive of theirs is exporting the Wahhabist and Salafist ideologies that many of Syria’s imported jihadists subscribe to, a warped and primal interpretation of Islam that has fueled the sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict and deepened social divisions to their most dangerous point – in a country that was once renowned for its tolerance of religious diversity. These Gulf kingdoms, which are more-or-less given a trump card to commit deplorable human rights violations institutionally, are also responsible for propping up the political arm of their militant foot soldiers, and that comes in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Syria’s opposition coalition, which is itself entirely a creation of foreign powers, has recently elected its own interim prime minister – enter, Ghassan Hitto, a virtually unknown political novice with a US passport and a computer science degree from Purdue University. Hitto is an Islamist Kurd with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has politically dominated the Syrian National Council since its creation, in addition to organizing tactical elements of the insurgency. The backbone of the Brotherhood’s relationship with the medieval monarchies of the Persian Gulf is grounded in a firm opposition to Shi’a Islam, as extolled by clerical leaders in Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah; Assad himself is also an Alawite, an offshoot of Shi’a Islam. It should be clear enough by now how enflaming sectarian divisions in the region was a prerequisite for those bank-rolling the insurgency, aimed at demolishing the secular Syrian state.

Several high-profile members of Syria’s opposition coalition boycotted the vote for interim prime minister, citing what they viewed as a foreign-backed campaign to elect Hitto. Kamal Labwani, a veteran opposition campaigner, was reported as saying, “We don’t want what happened in Egypt to happen in Syria. They hijacked the revolution.” Those who abstained from the vote accuse Hitto of being a puppet of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that the SNC’s decisions were being dictated from the outside. Walid al-Bunni, another senior figure in the opposition, stated, “The Muslim Brotherhood, with the backing of Qatar, have imposed their prime minister candidate. We will keep away if the coalition does not reconsider its choice.” Let’s just get this straight – Assad, a leader whose presence today is a testament to the fact that he continues to enjoy majority popular support, is considered to have lost his legitimacy. On the other hand, Hitto, a man with no political experience who received 35 votes out of 49 ballots cast during a Syrian National Coalition meeting, is supposed to be legitimate representative of the Syrian people?

These realities can only be interpreted as the boot of the so-called “International Community” squashing the face of the Syrian people, imposing on them a man who does not represent them, but the business interests of multinational corporations who seek to plant their flags in the soil of a post-Assad Syria. Let’s not humor ourselves by thinking John Kerry, William Hague, Laurent Fabius or Qatari Emir Khalifa Al Thani actually care about the people of Syria. However many casualties the Syrian conflict has incurred thus far can be attributable to the influx of foreign funds, foreign arms, and foreign fighters. It would be intellectually dishonest to deny that the tactics of Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Arab Army have also caused widespread civilian causalities and suffering. It is an enormous challenge for a state military to quell unconventional insurgencies of the sort carried out by militants in Syria when these battles take place in densely populated residential areas.

One should not cynically credit Syrian government forces with intentionally killing their own people; this does not serve the purposes of the state in anyway. Civilian deaths that have occurred as a result of government forces engaging the insurgency should more accurately be seen as a heinous by-product of a foreign campaign to topple the Syrian government. While the foreign ministries of Western capitals cite politically charged death-toll statistics to justify their campaign against “Assad the Butcher”, it is absolutely unconscionable that Paris and London have called for lifting the Syrian arms embargo, and for vowing to arm militant groups with or without the consent of the EU. Apparently some seventy thousand people have been killed in Syria according to the United Nations, and these cited European states, which allegedly are so concerned about terrorism, want to dump more guns into Syria – this is madness.

Western states want to install proxy leaders who will grovel to their multinationals and swallow IMF medicine, Gulf states seek unfettered hegemony in their own backyards, and they all want to see the Shi’a resistance smashed to pieces. Following the news of chemical weapons being used in Syria, the most immediate conclusion of this observer is that foreign-backed militants, who have used every opportunity to call for more material and support, employed the use of a smuggled chemical weapon of poor quality to bring about direct military intervention in their favor. Right on cue, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain are frothing at the mouth, urging President Obama to “take immediate action” and consider deploying troops. Graham was quoted as saying, “If the choice is to send in troops to secure the weapons sites versus allowing chemical weapons to get in the hands of some of the most violent people in the world, I vote to cut this off before it becomes a problem.” There is no surer sign of a pathological mind than when one credits others with the blood on their own hands.

Nile Bowie is an independent political analyst and photographer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com