Over the weekend, the British media was awash with the blood-splattered Tony Blair’s self-serving attempts to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The coverage was sparked by a new essay in which Blair claimed that the chaos in Iraq was the ‘predictable and malign effect’ of the West having ‘watched Syria descend into the abyss’ without bombing Assad. Blair advocated yet more Western violence, more bombing
By any rational standard Tony Blair is a war criminal who, along with the other architects of the Iraq bloodshed, will one day stand in the dock at The Hague and be handed down the long sentence he so richly deserves. That we have to endure his preening presence on our mainstream news channels in the meantime is an insult to the mountain of innocent dead he is responsible for in Iraq and an indictment of the editors and journalists who helped him do it and who are still protecting him. Shame on them all.
The conflict is casually described as “sectarian warfare” between Radical Sunni and Shia without addressing “who is behind the various factions”. What is at stake is a carefully staged US military-intelligence agenda.
Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as “intelligence assets” since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.
When the inquiry does eventually comes out, and it could apparently ”criticize Blair.’ All I would ask is that we organize a 24-hour nonstop demonstration outside Blair’s house in Connaught Sq London W2..A demonstration like those in Tahir square Cairo that not only protest but, as Tony Benn would have said ‘Demands’ justice in a democracy. A criminal investigation must follow Chilcot’ and, Blair should be arrested,- for if as citizens we do not carry this through, then surely we will be as guilty as our establishment for turning a blind eye on these war crimes and for allowing this to happen in our name, tantamount to doing nothing. Which, as the notable Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said, is all it will take for ‘evil to triumph’
While powerful beneficiaries of war and military spending – major banks (as primary lenders to governments) and the military-security-industrial complex – thrive on war and international tensions, they nonetheless tend to prefer local, national, limited, or “manageable” wars to large scale regional or global wars that, in a cataclysmic fashion, could paralyze global markets altogether.
This goes some way to explain why in pursuit of regime change in Iraq and Libya, for example, the United States and its allies relied on direct military action/occupation; whereas in cases like Ukraine and Iran they have (so far) avoided direct military intervention and relied, instead, on “soft-power” tactics and color-coded revolutions.
The Syrian presidential election surprised both Syrians and their allies and enemies. The poll, which everyone agrees was legitimate, mobilized 73.42% of the electorate, despite the inability of some people to get to the polls because of the occupation of part of the country by foreign mercenaries. Bashar al-Assad won 88.7% of the vote and his mandate has been extended for 7 more years.
Obama refers to fighting “terrorism” yet his policies have encouraged and promoted terrorism. Washington armed the Islamist terrorists who overthrew the secular Gaddafi government and plunged that country into chaos. Obama backs the Islamist terrorists invading and attempting to overthrow the secular regime Syria. He provides 1.5 billion dollars in military aid to an Egyptian military dictatorship terrorizing its democratic, civilian political opposition, assassinating and imprisoning thousands of dissidents. In February, the US backed the violent overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine and supports the Kiev regime’s bombing of pro-democracy, pro-federation civilian populations in the Southeast, a majority of whom are ethnic Russians. Obama’s “anti-terrorism” rhetoric in nothing but a cover for state terrorism, closing the door on any peaceful resolution of overseas conflicts and spawning scores of violent opposition groups in its wake.
We cannot here in Sarajevo make a common peace programme, but we can commit to a common goal. If our common dream is a world without weapons and militarism, why don’t we say so? Why be silent about it? It would make a world of difference if we refused to be ambivalent about the violence of militarism. We should no longer be making scattered attempts to modify the military, each one of us would do our thing as part of a global effort. Across all divisions of national borders, religions, races. We must be an alternative, insisting on an end to militarism and violence. This would give us an entirely different chance to be listened to and taken seriously. We must be an alternative insisting on an end to militarism and violence.
Of course these Syrian presidential elections must be the ‘parody’ and ‘farce’ that Western officials and media are relentlessly claiming.
Because if Bashar Assad wins handily in the first multi-candidate presidential elections in Syria – which all evidence suggests will be the case – that would mean that a majority of Syrians support Assad, the army, the state and ‘the system’.
Which immediately calls into question the past three years of conflict: was there ever actually a widespread, popular uprising against Bashar Assad?
“Today the Syrian nation will decide who they want and only the Syrian nation can legitimize the next leader,” al-Muallem said, adding, “The aggressive states demonstrated that they failed and are stuck at an impasse. Today, Syria begins to take the route of a political solution.”
America is again fighting a multi-front war, this time managed by CIA and State Department contractors and fought by jihadists from around the world. The war is the same; nothing has changed since 9/11 or, were we to look back even further, 1991 and Operation Desert Storm. America is clearing the way for a “predictable” Middle East of corrupt right wing autocrats terrified of the United States and fully mindful that America will do the bidding of Israel “at the drop of a hat.”
When the majority of the Syrian population in Syria votes for Assad and openly sings his praise and holds banners and posters supporting him, it means he genuinely has popular support. Watch the spin doctors make all sorts of lies to reinvent what has happened. Go ahead New York Times and Washington Post, take your best shots.
