Syria, Yemen, WINEP and hypocrisy

A year ago, if you dared to say that the war on ISIS was a cover for a war on Bashar Assad, you were consigned to the fringe. A recent barrage of neocon propaganda has blurted out the truth: The real goal has always been Assad.

As this writer puts it:

On the brink of al-Qaeda’s defeat in Aleppo, the Washington Post’s Ignatius is furious that, “President Obama won’t approve military tactics that could actually shift the balance.” Yes, he wants to shift the balance toward al-Qaeda because like the other neocons he is so invested in the idea of regime change in Syria that he would even prefer turning the country into another Libya than to see government forces defeat his jihadist insurgents.

David Ross of WINEP (a proven AIPAC front, although our corrupt media almost never mentions that fact) is emerging as a leading spewer of neocon propaganda. He writes in the L.A Times:

If Russian President Vladimir Putin's priority had been the diplomatic process, he would have acted to promote the cease-fire, not increased the tempo of Russian military operations. He would have conveyed to us that he would stop Syrian President Bashar Assad from using barrel bombs and force him to open humanitarian corridors for food and medicine.

We've seen in previous posts that the jihadists, not Assad, have been using food as a weapon of war. This guff about "barrel bombs" is deeply hypocritical: WINEP doesn't call for the US or the Saudis to stop pummeling Yemen with far worse devices. (See below.)

The founder of WINEP, Jeffrey White, believes that the United States must openly support Al Qaeda. Ross does him one better: He argues that if we allow Putin to crush Al Qaeda in Syria, Russia will become a regional hegemon -- therefore, we must protect the jihadists even at the risk of nuclear war. That's what his argument comes down to.

Ross is using New Cold War fearmongering as a device to manipulate the Americans. As Bibi once said (with cameras rolling) "America is a thing that can be moved." Ross is one of Bibi's hired movers. 

Why are the Russians in Syria? To kick Al Qaeda's ass. It's that simple.

Let's explore the Yemen comparison a bit further...

Over 14 million Yemenis face food insecurity – a jump of 12 percent since June 2015. Out of these, three million children are malnourished. And across the country, an estimated 20 million people cannot safely access clean water.

The Saudi air force has systematically bombed Yemen’s civilian infrastructure in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. An official UN report to the Security Council leaked last month found that the Saudis have “conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects … including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sanaa, the port in Hudaida and domestic transit routes.”

US-made cluster bombs have been dropped on residential areas – an act that even the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon tepidly concedes “may amount to a war crime”.

In other words, Saudi Arabia is a rogue state. But make no mistake. This kingdom is our rogue state.

Airstrikes on non-combatants. Food as a weapon of war. Savor the hypocrisy: Our Saudi allies are guilty of the exact same charges we level against Russia.

But there is a difference: The Russians are fighting to preserve an elected, secular government from a terrorist onslaught. In Yemen, the Saudis are the terrorist onslaught.

The Islamic State (funded, in large measure, by Saudi Arabia) is a Wahabbi theocracy. So is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and ISIS are like snow and water -- two forms of the same substance -- which means that the heroic Yemenis and the heroic Russians are fighting the same evil.

Back to Syria. Our media keep giving us guff like this...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated accusations that Russia was hitting "legitimate opposition groups" and civilians with its bombing campaign in Syria and said Moscow must change its targets to respect the ceasefire deal.

As one of my readers recently noted of these "legitimate opposition groups":

They are rarely named or identified, and the propaganda memes suggest they are simply doctors, teachers, and fire fighters who yearn for democracy. When they are identified, they are invariably Islamist religious fanatics who have political and social views similar to the Taliban.

One group we consider "legitimate" is Ahrar al-Sham, another Al Qaeda outgrowth with direct ties to the parent organization. They murder Christians and despise the very concept of democracy. Yet we invited these terrorists to that "peace conference" in Geneva!

"The Dirty War on Syria" is the name of a new book by Australian Professor Tim Anderson. I have not read it yet, but this description of its contents is worth sharing...

The Dirty War on Syria has relied on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory. In seeking ‘regime change’ the big powers sought to hide their hand, using proxy armies of ‘Islamists’, demonising the Syrian Government and constantly accusing it of atrocities. In this way Syrian President Bashar al Assad, a mild-mannered eye doctor, became the new evil in the world.

The popular myths of this dirty war – that it is a ‘civil war’, a ‘popular revolt’ or a sectarian conflict – hide a murderous spree of ‘regime change’ across the region. The attack on Syria was a necessary consequence of Washington’s ambition, stated openly in 2006, to create a ‘New Middle East’. After the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, Syria was next in line.

Five years into this war the evidence is quite clear and must be set out in detail. The terrible massacres were mostly committed by the western backed jihadists, then blamed on the Syrian Army. The western media and many western NGOs parroted the official line. Their sources were almost invariably those allied to the ‘jihadists’. Contrary to the myth that the big powers now have their own ‘war on terror’, those same powers have backed every single anti-government armed group in Syria, ‘terrorists’ in any other context, adding thousands of ‘jihadis’ from dozens of countries.

This is what I have been arguing all along. Nice to know that my "fringe" views are backed by an academic.