Proxy Wars and The Tragedy of Syria

2016-12-18 23

Aleppo–not the only part of Syria in ruins

Syria is Turkey’s and Saudi Arabia’s disaster.

For years they have openly supported war in that embattled country.

What started as an uprising against Bashar Assad’s despotism was quickly hijacked by the outside world, especially Turkey, Saudia Arabia and Qatar.

Turkey provided the training and the invasion route into neighboring Syria, including for ISIS. Many of ISIS fighters from the U.S., France, Britain and other parts of the West, not by coincidence traveled through Turkey.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both Salafi Sunni states provided the billions of dollars in financing for the war on Syria. It appears that Saudi foreign policy is to finance havoc overseas to deter it from Saudi Arabia itself.

Turkey wanted to depose Bashar Assad and to destroy the Kurds in Syria believing that’s the way to crush Kurdish separatism within Turkey itself.

Turkey has failed in its objectives and instead empowered Kurds. As reward for helping defeat ISIS in parts of Syria, and in Iraq, respectively, the Kurds now have essentially a state of their own in both Syria and Iraq. They will eventually support their brethren in Turkey.

The Saudis and Qatar oppose Assad who is Alawi and affiliated with Shia Islam. Syria’s population is about 75% Sunni, which is also the dominant branch of Islam in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar also want to counter Iran, which is predominantly Shia.

The U.S. supported Turkey and Saudi Arabia, its traditional allies; even when it was clear ISIS was getting financing from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/11/leaked-hillary-clinton-emails-show-u-s-allies-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-supported-isis/

The Turks, the Saudis and Qataris failed in their regime-change objectives when Iran, Hezbollah and then finally Russia intervened. This dramatically shifted the tide in Assad’s favor.

Had the Saudi-, Turkey-, and Qatari- backed ISIS won, Syria would be exactly where Libya is today — a failed state.

The invasion of and destruction of Libya was financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and backed by its ally the United States, with diplomatic isolation of Libya then bombardment of the country. The extremists who seized power executed Muamar al-Quathafi.

Russia could not intervene in Libya because Dimitri A. Medvedev was President and Putin prime minister at the time. Putin denounced the invasion and said the UN resolution in 2011 permitting airstrikes on Libya was like “a medieval call for a crusade.”

Putin was not going to allow this conduct to be repeated in Syria. Assad was a brutal dictator; the Saudi-, Turkey-, and Qatar-backed ISIS were even far worse as they demonstrated early in the war, beheading their enemies and captured Syrian army soldiers. Any so-called “moderate” rebels are pure fiction in such a bloody theater of war.

The best decision President Obama made was not to order missile attacks on Assad when he supposedly crossed the red line by allegedly using chemical weapons.

This is because, even though major media outlets like The New York Times which was rooting for the rebellion ignored the story, there were credible evidence that the rebels were in fact the ones who used chemical weapons.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE94409Z20130505

The weapons are believed to have been provided by Saudi intelligence services. The objective was to draw the U.S. into a fullscale war to overthrow Assad.

What’s more Obama had observed the rebels brutality. Videos of beheadings of captives were posted on YouTube –the same MO as in the Libyan war. Obama was not about to repeat Libya and help install blood-thirsty killers into power.

So for the last three years Obama gave essentially lip-service and low level support to the rebels. The Saudis and Turks and Qataris stepped up their support. Then when the Russians entered with their airforces Assad gained the upperhand.

Today, as the world witnesses ruin, destruction and death in Aleppo, the major corporate media have developed amnesia on other phases of the war.

Media no longer recall the many victims killed during the six years brutal war by all sides. The entire Syrian calamity is cynically reduced to Aleppo and the victims killed by the brutal Russian and Syrian air force bombardments.

The brutal killings, including beheadings by the numerous rebel groups — including al-Qaeda, Nusra and ISIS — trained, armed and financed by outsiders
are whitewashed. The only “bad guys” are Putin and Assad according to this narrative.

The biggest losers as with all wars are the civilians. Tens or hundreds of thousands of children, women, and men have been killed and millions displaced as refugees.

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