“I think we have to understand first how we got here. We have been arming ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Syria. ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, has been collaborating with the Syrian rebels whom the Obama administration has been arming in their efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
The black-clad fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, sweeping a collapsing army and terrified Iraqis before them as they advance toward Baghdad, reflect back to us the ghoulish face of American empire. They are the specters of the hundreds of thousands of people we murdered in our deluded quest to remake the Middle East. They are ghosts from the innumerable roadsides and villages where U.S. soldiers and Marines, jolted by explosions of improvised explosive devices, responded with indiscriminate fire. They are the risen remains of the dismembered Iraqis left behind by blasts of Hellfire and cruise missiles, howitzers, grenade launchers and drone strikes. They are the avengers of the gruesome torture and the sexual debasement that often came with being detained by American troops. They are the final answer to the collective humiliation of an occupied country, the logical outcome of Shock and Awe, the Frankenstein monster stitched together from the body parts we left scattered on the ground. They are what we get for the $4 trillion we wasted on the Iraq War.
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.
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.
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.
The Presidential Election in Syria takes place next Tuesday, June 3. With a revised 2012 Constitution, Syria is no longer a one party state and there are multiple candidates for office. Running against Bashar al Asad are former communist and legislator Maher al Hajjar and business person Hassan al Nouri.
The liberation of Homs, the third largest city of the Syrian Arab Republic, is not just an event among others in the war waged by NATO and the GCC on Syria. For Thierry Meyssan, the agreement reached between the Republic and its attackers suggests a quick exit from the war. It will probably be accompanied by a redistribution of regional roles.
