Politics As Usual And The Push For War With Syria

Using terrorism and manipulating the situation in Syria - politics as usual - proving beneficial to the incorrigible US political leadership, aided and abetted the criminal action of the United Nation whose action allow the US government to do what it does best.
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 After more than fifteen months of violent protests against the brutal regime of President Bashar el-Assad and the slaughter of more than 12,000 people -- including untold numbers of women and children -- hundreds of Syrians being imprisoned under inhumane conditions, and tens of thousands other Syrians fleeing to Lebanon and Jordan, the situation in Syria has turned dire (link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/whats-going-on-in-syria_n_1564906.html). As the violence intensifies, the U.S. has been deceptively edged closer to entering into yet another illegal war in the Middle East based on fallacious media reports and carefully planned deceptions designed to goad an unsuspecting public into supporting it. With all the misinformation about Syria being strewn around by unreliable, conflicting media reports, separating fact from fiction (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30456.htm) can be cumbersome.

Using terrorism and manipulating the situation in Syria – politics as usual – is proving beneficial to the incorrigible U.S. political leadership, aided and abetted the criminal actions of the United Nations (UN), whose actions allow the U.S. government to do what it does best: use terrorism to instigate regime change and create enemies to subvert U.S. interests in the region. The UN brokered a Syrian peace plan and has monitors in the country to ease tensions, but those maneuvers have failed. The threat of a Syrian civil war is real as the country has become increasingly divided. A civil war in Syria would destabilize things in the entire region.

Like the fabricated crises in Yemen and Bahrain, the situation in Syria wouldn't happen without outside interference from the West and their allies. Like Syria, civilian deaths in Bahrain and Yemen, coupled with collusion between the U.S. and the existential enemies they create and manipulate -- think Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists -- are systematically under-reported or ignored by the mainstream media.

What happens next in the Syrian quagmire? A few scenarios examined by the Huffington Post include (link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/whats-going-on-in-syria_n_1564906.html) an ongoing stalemate which will continue increasing violence in the volatile Syrian region, action by the UN Security Council, international military intervention which could include air raids, the arming of opposition forces in Syria by the international community -- though Russia has already accused the U.S. of arming Syrian rebels (link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9329366/Russia-accuses-US-of-arming-Syrian-rebels.html) -- or striking a deal with Syrian President Bashar el-Assad allowing him to relinquish power while leaving his criminal regime intact. How it plays out remains to be seen.


Nothing Happening In Syria Is Accidental!

As noted by Jeremy Salt, outside governments have fastened on Syria's problems with the tenacity of leeches (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31766.htm) and there is nothing accidental or unwilled about what is happening in Syria, whose government in Damascus has been deliberately locked into a cycle of violence fed from the outside by self-styled "Friends of Syria." Both the Syrian government and their "friends" have been implicated in killing innocent civilians, yet mainstream media has fabricated tales blaming all the killings on the work of the Syrian army or the "regime loyalists" known as the Shabiha.

If the U.S. loses Syria, its empire will quickly unravel (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31781.htm). If the Baath government can be toppled, the strategic alliance between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah will collapse and because of all the unrest, Syria would not be able to respond if Iran is attacked. If civil war breaks out in Syria, Israel will be able to commit their infamous war crimes in both Iran and Syria without fear of resistance from either country.

Turkey, for their part, is helping edge its U.S. ally into another illegal war which cannot be won. Recently, after violating Syrian air space, a Turkish Air Force jet was shot down. The Syrian government says the plane was shot down while over Syrian air space, but the Turkish government claims its plane had already left Syrian air space and was hit in international air space (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31766.htm). There seems to be more confusion as to what the Turkish Air Force was jet was doing in Syria to begin with.

If you recall, Turkey, whose initial response to the "Arab Spring" was extremely slow, played a major role in bombing Libya when Muammar Gaddafi, its U.S.-appointed dictator was forcibly ousted by the U.S.-controlled UN. Turkey's government established the "Syrian National Council" (SNC) and the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), and for the first time in its “democratic” history, has committed itself to regime change in a neighboring country and sponsored an armed group operating across its borders to kill the citizens of a neighboring country. Like most U.S. allies, Turkey has a long history of other governments meddling in its affairs.

The Premeditated Terrorism Campaign And  Regime Change In Syria!

While the U.S. and its European partners threaten sanctions against Syria, a fractured and frustrated Syrian opposition is reported seeking military action instead (link: http://rt.com/usa/news/us-military-intervention-syria-045/). The U.S. is busily planning ground assaults on Syria but some in Washington favor endorsing Syrian rebels and getting weapons to them without the direct involvement of the United States, which is actually already heavily involved.

But recently the unhinged Syrian rhetoric reached a new level of absurdity when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly called on Western nations and their Arab proxies to "make it clear that Russia and China will pay a price because they are holding up progress" (link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/06/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120706) in regards to the U.S. government's premeditated campaign of terrorism and violent regime change in Syria (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31781.htm).

Since March of 2007, thanks to the key reporting of Seymour Hersh (link: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all), we've known that the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and others were gathering, funding, arming, and deploying groups -- some with ties to the CIA's Al Qaeda -- of violent extremists to intentionally undermine, destabilize and eventually overthrow the governments of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, offering yet more evidence that the "War on Terror" is nothing but a major fraud. Because of the West's manipulation of terrorism and the terrorist groups it creates, attempts to sway public opinion over Syria's "rebels" are met with extreme skepticism, doubt, of often indignation by the public, which allows nations like Russia and China the opportunity to defy Clinton's absurdity.

The global hegemony of Wall Street and London that manipulates Washington's puppet strings is panicking because its empire is imploding from its fraudulent actions and because the U.S. and their allies have lost virtually all credibility. If the U.S. fails to overthrow Syria's government, future empirical endeavors will be even more difficult to pull off. Trying to blame China and Russia for "holding up progress" in overthrowing Syria's government is laughable, especially when you look at the U.S. government's actions since the "terrorist" attacks of 9/11.

Wikileaks Publishing The Syrian Files!

Adding more fuel to the absurdity of Clinton's onerous bloviating is the fact that recently WikiLeaks began publishing the "Syrian Files" (link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/05-1) so we will soon have access to almost two and a half million emails, including 400,000 in Arabic and 68,000 in Russian, that will help shed light on the ongoing conflict in Syria with revelations about the Assad regime, Syrian opposition forces, and western influence in the ongoing Syrian crisis. These emails, which are dated from August 2006 to March 2012, include those from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies.

WikiLeaks claims the email data derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture and will shine a light on the inner workings of the Syrian government and economy, and reveal how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another (link: http://www.frontlineclub.com/blogs/theforum/2012/07/wikileaks-press-conference-on-release-of-the-syria-files.html).

After decades of militarizing the U.S., Washington still hasn't learned any lessons from its failures (link: http://www.tomdispatch.com/dialogs/print/?id=175564). As the National Security Complex has continued growing stronger -- albeit with illegal search, seizure and surveillance -- the U.S. and her citizens have continued growing weaker and less safe. To gain a better understanding of what is going on in Syria, all one needs to do is look at how the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were concocted -- with lies and deceptions (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31791.htm) -- and how they began under false pretenses. More than a decade later, the only change has been for the worse.

Civilian slaughter in the Middle East by the U.S. and its allies under the guise of fighting terrorism is nothing new. It's Neocon politics as usual. The truth about the Syrian crisis remains to be seen, but based on the duplicitous actions of the U.S. and its allies in pushing for war with Syria, the consequences of such actions will be disastrous and there will be hell to pay (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31805.htm).

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Islam Times

Thank You For Reading

Revolutionary chaos in the Arab world

 Unless the revolution moves swiftly towards a decisive victory,i.e, the takeover of the Egyptian state by the working classes and the people, there will remain serious doubts the future of the Arab revolution.

By Amjad Ayub Mirza.

The events that began in Tunisia and then quickly spread across the region from Egypt to Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen and to Libya have taken the political pundits by awe and surprise. The spectacular demonstrations have brought new life to the struggle against tyrants and authoritarian regimes throughout the Arab world.

The news of the rebellious population of Cairo taking control of traffic management and the disappearance of police from the streets and the formation of people’s militias in Benghazi and other towns in Libya are indicative of the nascence of a very basic administrative and military structure which reminds one of the formation of the Bolshevik-style 1917 soviets during the first successful workers’ revolution in the world. Perhaps, ultimately, such a process could lead to the birth of the first genuine workers’ state in the Middle East.

Although the protestors in Tahrir Square have managed to get rid of Mubarak, the thugs in uniform have taken over and have imposed a military government. This is suggestive of the beginning of a counter-revolution that could lead to the defeat of the revolution and to the replacement of the 30-year long permanent state of emergency by a brutal martial law.

Flailing with the events, which have unfolded with lightning speed, the US president and the British prime minister were begging first Mubarak and now Qaddafi to step down and make the transition as peaceful as possible. The British foreign minister had spoken to top Egyptian government officials during the uprising and voices that warn of dangers to ‘British interests’ in the region have echoed in the House of Commons. Similarly, talks are being held to find a way to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace and to send in troops to ‘help’ the rebels fighting the Libyan ruler who has been in power for 42 years and is perhaps fighting a life-and-death battle with his own people.

Israel’s prime minister has expressed the hope that whatever happens in Egypt, the new rulers of the country would respect the peace and other treaties between the two countries. On February 1, the Jordanian king dissolved his cabinet and thus nervously fulfilled a demand made by the Jordanian demonstrators. The 86-year-old ruler of the house of Saud, on his return from abroad after a long health holiday announced a $ 37 billion development and social uplift package for the nationals of his country. One has yet to see what becomes of the ‘Day of Anger’ that has been planned by those infected by the desire to be free.

The earth is moving from under the feet of the once all-powerful and arrogant rulers of the region as they try to use all means to cling on to power for as long as possible. But there is a dilemma. Unless the revolution moves swiftly towards a decisive victory, i.e. the takeover of the Egyptian state by the working classes and the people, there will remain serious doubts about the future of the Arab revolution. So far, Egypt has been the only country where the working class has played a significant role by calling strikes and taking over industrial complexes. No wonder the first decree of the military government in Egypt was to implement a ban on strikes with immediate effect. This decree has the echo of another similar decree imposed by another counter-revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who, in February 1980, ordered all strikes in Iran illegal. It was then that the striking workers who refused were gunned down and control of the oil refineries was transferred to Khomeini’s militia.

Faced with a life-and-death situation, the state always quickly abandons its support for the serving head of state and forces in a new one to save the interests of the army and big business plus the regional interests of the multinationals for whom the American, British et al act as godfathers. The Egyptian Army, like other armies of the region, has been receiving their salaries from the US. A total of $ 1.5 billion a year has been paid to Egypt to feed an anti-people army and to barter a ‘peace of subservience’ with Israel.

Today, the awakening of the people of Middle East has left these once-feared armies appear incapacitated by the sheer speed and intensity with which the events have unfolded. For the first time in history from the times of the Byzantines, the Ottomans, the British and the Americans, the Egyptian nation has overthrown the colonial and neo-colonial yoke. The Middle East will never be the same again provided they learn from their own history and remember that unless they are vigilant and armed, their revolution might meet the same fate as that of Nasser in the 20th century and Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 19th century who for a time was de facto ruler. The Egyptians have thrown off the yoke before, only to have it re-imposed.

One must not overlook the dangers that the incomplete revolution faces. The most worrying sign is the lack of a revolutionary party and leadership. This should not come as a surprise, since the western democracies were not concerned with the human rights of the people of Middle East. Their main concerns were to protect the neocolonial settler police state of Israel and to maintain the hegemony of their multinationals over the production and supply of oil, and to place and sustain puppet rulers in Muslim countries to facilitate both of these strategic goals. The only oppositional organisation that is available in Egypt is the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood which was also caught by surprise by the revolutionary uprising but which is now mobilising to take control of the situation.

The army has very cleverly taken up the role of the protector of the state and nation but let us not forget that the role of the army is to protect capital and the state. Once the threat of a people’s revolution becomes a matter of life and death for the old order, it will not take a big effort for the state to turn the barrels of the guns the other way. The masses must arm themselves to complete the revolution.

Today, the painful lack of a revolutionary party and leadership is manifest in the fact that the Egyptian state has fallen like a ripe fruit into the lap of the masses, but the masses do not know what to do with it. Unless the Egyptian people smash the state with the power of an armed insurrection and replace it with a democratic socialist government that guarantees to protect national assets from being privatised, the Egyptian revolution will be lost, with the contingent fear that an extremely brutal counter-revolution might be unleashed.

Let us hope that out of this revolutionary chaos, a true revolutionary leadership will emerge that will quickly form a revolutionary party, which could lead the people to their ultimate destiny. Now it is for the working classes and the people of the region and beyond to step up to the plate and offer their support for the Arab revolution.

The writer is a freelancer based in London. He can be reached at dr_amjad_mirza@hotmail.com