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The last post on Sparrow Chat dealt with the present unhappy situation in Syria. Western news media – particularly in the United States, and to a lesser extent the UK – seems hellbent on presenting a black-white image of the conflict: yet another uprising of the people against a brutal dictator.

“Bashar al-Assad must go,” were the recent words of Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of state.

The question we should be asking is, why is she so keen for regime change, when the result would undoubtedly be another failed Islamic state?

To answer that question, first, we must ask, “Who are al-Nusra?”

Al-Nusra has risen to prominence in Syria since the beginning of this year. They admit responsibility for many of the bombings since the start of the uprising in March 2011. They are a Muslim jihadist group almost certainly with links to al Qaeda.

According to a BBC report:

The bombings and al-Nusra’s statements have also caused many to believe the group is linked to al-Qaeda.

Evidence to support this include the fact that al-Nusra claimed in its first video that its members included Syrian jihadists who had returned from fighting on other battlefronts.

This might have been a reference to Iraq, given suspicions by Western officials during the height of the insurgency there that militants were being armed by Syria and allowed to pass through its territory.

The Iraqi interior minister said in February that he believed militants were now travelling from Iraq to Syria.

That same month, the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, encouraged Syrians and militants based in neighbouring countries to take up arms for the Syrian cause.

Additionally, al-Nusra’s media output has been distributed via online media outlets used by al-Qaeda.

However, neither al-Qaeda nor al-Nusra have mentioned one another in their propaganda, suggesting that if there are any links they are deliberately being played down.

Regardless of whether or not there is an al-Qaeda connection, al-Nusra’s ideology is clearly jihadist.

Although its primary target remains Syrian security forces and pro-government militia, it has referred to the US and Israel as enemies of Islam, and has attacked the beliefs of other religious groups in Syria, including the Alawites.

In a recent video that was filmed in a mosque, a cleric brandished an assault rifle and told his audience that jihad was a “house built upon blood, body parts and skulls”.”^[1]

Apart from a brief mention in the Huffington Post in May, to date there has been no mention of al-Nusra from any of the major US news media outlets. Is this because the US government prefers the American public remain unaware of jihadist groups operating in Syria? It might be embarrassing for the US Administration were it to become general knowledge that, at least with regard to Syria, the American government had the same aim as al-Qaeda – the overthrow of the regime.

Jon Williams is World News Editor for the BBC. Today, he posted a report from Damascus on the situation in Syria (the bold is mine):

…In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear. Whatever the cause, officials fear the attack marks the beginning of the sectarian aspect of the conflict.

In such circumstances, it’s more important than ever that we report what we don’t know, not merely what we do. In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it’s not clear who ordered the killings – or why.

Given the difficulties of reporting inside Syria, video filed by the opposition on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may provide some insight into the story on the ground. But stories are never black and white – often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as “brilliant”.

But he also likened it to so-called “psy-ops”, brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true…”^[2]

The massacres and assassinations being bandied about by Western news media as the acts of ‘a brutal dictator’, bear all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda operations. Indeed, if Assad were responsible, he must be a complete fool, rather than the intelligent, well-educated, individual he is known to be.

If al-Qaeda has moved its center of operations to Syria, then it means the US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen have been far less successful than the US Administration has suggested. It would also provide an answer to the question asked earlier: why is Hilary Clinton so stridently demanding that Assad must go?

If al-Nusra/al-Qaeda succeed in toppling the regime, the resultant chaos in the country would provide an ideal excuse for intervention by the West. The US has pledged to strike al Qaeda wherever it operates. To do so now, with Assad still in office, would be politically unacceptable, given the stance of Russia and China. With him and his regime overthrown, Arab states like Saudi Arabia would probably beg for Western assistance.

Meanwhile, the Western media paints a vivid, though somewhat less than accurate, scenario of the ‘brutal dictatorship’, to soothe the American public into acceptance of military intervention at a later date.

As Jon Williams states in his conclusion:

A healthy scepticism is one of the essential qualities of any journalist – never more so than in reporting conflict. The stakes are high – all may not always be as it seems.”

And, let’s not forget, the present regime in Syria is one of the few true allies left in the Middle East of America’s number one enemy, Iran.

^{[1] “Syria’s al-Nusra Front” BBC, May 15th 2012}

^{“Reporting conflict in Syria” BBC, June 7th 2012}

Here, at Sparrow Chat, if there’s one thing we don’t do it’s suffer fools gladly. Yesterday, in the US Congress, one of the biggest fools in the land once again proved the extent of his idiocy.

The senator from Arizona, John McCain, stood up and demanded the US bomb Syria.

No doubt there are plenty of other fools happy to support such a notion. Egged on by biased media reports based on poor-quality, one-sided, footage from cellphones, the US media is spreading its usual poisonous mix of information and misinformation to an equally ill-informed American public.

Just who is responsible for the situation in Syria today? Well, if you’re reading this in Paris, or London, or in any other part of a country that has one of those cities as its capital, then you hardly have to step out of your front door to know the answer.

At the end of World War I, the British and French carved up what was then Syria between them. It was split into six zones. Britain took the eastern zone – the British mandate of Iraq, and parts of Southern Syria: the kingdom of Transjordan and the mandate, Palestine*. Ataturk grabbed a piece in the north for Turkey, and the French took the rest, sub-dividing it into the modern day Syria and Lebanon. (Of course, in 1948 and 1967 the Israelis helped themselves to further slices of Syria while the West stood by and cheered them on.)

The French didn’t stop there. They drew Lebanon’s borders so the vast majority of the population, Sunni Muslims, were under the control of a minority, Maronite Christians, who happened to be allies of France, thus ensuring the factions would be at each other’s throats for evermore.

The population of what remained of Syria was made up of warring sects from every religious background, coupled with numerous local tribal factions vying for power. Added to this mix was the pan-Arabist movement in Damascus, whose sole aim was the undoing of all the borders the British and French had just created.

Freya Stark, the renowned British explorer and travel writer, wrote in 1928 of French-controlled Syria:

I haven’t yet come across one spark of national feeling: it is all sects and hatreds and religions.”^[1]

As was the case with Lebanon, in Syria the French gave power to a minority group – from Latakia, a mountain stronghold in the west, bordering on Lebanon. The Alawites were an oppressed minority claiming descendancy from Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, and as such, Shi’ites. Their strange rituals, drawing more on Phoenician paganism and Christianity (they celebrate Christmas and Easter, and their ceremonies utilize bread and wine) alienated them completely from Syria’s Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim population.

The country was a melting pot of religious discontent and the French encouraged Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and even Circassians (descendents of a people deported in the 19th century from what is now Russia) into their military for the purpose of harassing the beleaguered majority Sunni population in the heartland of the country.

Western governments would have us believe that all Syria needs is democracy. After all, hasn’t it worked well in America and Britain? They perpetuate the myth that dictators have always ruled the country.

The truth is free elections were held in Syria in 1947, and again in 1949 and 1954. Predictably, in 1947, the National Party won but could only form a minority government, as most of the votes were spread around various sectarian candidates. For the next two years there was bickering and infighting, much as there is in Iraq today. Humiliation by the Israeli army in the Arab War of Independence in 1948 further undermined the Syrian government, and in March 1949 a military coup set the population rejoicing in the streets.

There were three military coups in just one year. During the second one elections were again held. They didn’t work and anarchy reigned until 1954, during which time Ba’athism began to make inroads into Syria’s political scene. Free elections were again held, and the Ba’ath Party secured a fair number of votes, but again most were spread among the plethora of sectarian candidates.

After a further four years of political struggle and Western interference, Syria gave up altogether and formed the United Arab Republic with Nasser’s Egypt.

Even that didn’t last. In 1961 the United Arab Republic collapsed due to resentment of Egyptian Sunnis by non-Sunni Syrians, and in 1963 the Ba’ath Party finally gained power by a military coup.

The gradual infiltration of the Syrian military by the Alawites of Latakia, encouraged by the French many years before, meant that Alawites now controlled the military, even though the sect made up only 12% of the Syrian population. It wasn’t long before they also controlled the Ba’ath Party.

Another coup followed in 1966, but it was the coup of 1970, bringing Hafez al-Assad to power, that finally brought stability to Syria. Hafez al-Assad ruled as dictator of Syria for thirty years. Prior to his coup, there were twenty-one changes of government in twenty-four years.

To suggest that Hafez al-Assad was a benevolent ruler would be incorrect, but he did instigate many reforms during his rule, including a change in the Constitution to guarantee equal rights for women. His secular government drew support from many of the minority religious groups who feared the rise of Muslim fundamentalism.

In some ways his rule could be compared to that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, though the two hated each other. It’s not generally known, but Syrian ground troops formed part of the US led UN coalition that expelled the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1991.

Assad was responsible for a number of massacres of his countrymen. The most well known was the Hama massacre of 1982. Between 30,000 and 40,000 were killed to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. His reaction to any insurgency was swift and severe. His own brother, Rifaat, tried to wrest power in 1984, while Assad was recovering from a heart attack. The president left his sick-bed to regain control. Rifaat was head of the army at the time and oversaw the massacre at Hama. Assad had his brother exiled to France (though the ‘Butcher of Hama’, as Rifaat is known to Syrian survivors of the massacre, is now living a very comfortable life as one of the British elite in London. A fact not advertised by the British government).

On his death the present ruler, Bashar al-Assad, took over power. He never wanted it. His elder brother was originally expected to take control but he was killed in an automobile accident. For six years prior to his death, Hafez al-Assad groomed his younger son for the position, and there is no doubt Bashar continued in his father’s image. His reaction to the present situation in Syria and its attendant massacres and killings, bears a striking similarity to the response of his father to the uprisings in Hama in 1982.

The question of bombing Syria as demanded by McCain, or any form of Western intervention, will result in another Bosnia. The country will be torn apart from within. Is that really what the West wants?

In 1982, the West largely ignored Syria and the Hama uprising. The reason was obvious. The last thing the West wanted was another fundamentalist Muslim state in the Middle East. Hafez al-Assad was left alone to sort out his own problems, which he did with ruthless efficiency.

Today, the situation has changed very little. The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has not, as yet, produced any western-style democracies in the region. It certainly won’t do so in Syria.

While Cameron and Obama call for regime change in the country, it’s really no more than a sop to Western sensitivities. For them, the ideal solution would be similar to that which occurred in 1982.

In March this year, Robert Fisk, an expert on the region, had this to say when asked about UN intervention in Syria:

…If a U.N. force went in, it would need the permission of the Syrian authorities, and I think the Syrian Ba’ath party is a lot tougher, and the Syrian government is a lot tougher than we think it is. You know, when you’re in Syria, I was in Damascus just before Christmas, it doesn’t feel like a regime that’s about to collapse and, you know, Madam Clinton can huff and puff at the United Nations or the State Department. David Cameron can make pretty speeches at Mr. Sarkozy, but at the end of the day, the Syrian Ba’ath party is one of the original nationalist movements in the Arab world, but has very deep, sharp, hard roots. It took 25 years to get the Syrian government out of Lebanon. How long do you think it’s going to take to get them out of their own country, Syria. This is a country who’s minorities will fight brutally and ruthlessly to keep their own lives, because they’ve been protected by the Ba’ath party. I think that there may well be a civil war, if there isn’t already, in Syria, but it’s going to go on for a long time. The idea that you can just topple Assad by sending an international force, I think that’s a mirage…”^[2]

It’s a mirage being perpetuated by Senator John McCain and all the other warmongers of the Western alliance.

There is one certainty among all the doubts and misgivings presently surrounding Syria. Any decision by the West will not be based on humanitarian concerns. It will be made solely on whatever is considered economically and politically advantageous to the United States and its satellite allies.

^{* MANDATE: quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919.}

^{[1] “Letters from Syria” Freya Stark, Various dates.}

^{[2] “Syria: The Limits of Intervention” The World, March 8th 2012}

Today is Memorial Day in America; a day to remember those who have suffered and died because of war.

Today, I will pause and remember. I will remember the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens killed, maimed, tortured, and bereaved, because of the immoral and illegal invasion of that country by the United States and its satellite nation, the United Kingdom.

I will remember the five million children orphaned by that invasion. Five million young lives shattered forever at the whim of power-crazed politicians.

I will remember the innocent Pakistani people annihilated by the simple press of a button in some corner of a faraway nation. The US killing-machine drones delivering death from the sky to anyone ‘thought’ to be a potential enemy of that same distant superpower.

I will remember the hundreds of victims held in indefinite detention at the now infamous US military base at Guantanamo Bay, all of whom are innocent of any crime, if for no other reason than they have never been fairly tried and found guilty.

In particular, I will remember Shaker Aamer, a British resident detained in Guantanamo since February 2002. The Bush administration admitted they had no evidence against Aamer and cleared him for release in 2007. Five years later he is still there. The US won’t release him because they fear the story he has to tell about the hellhole that is Guantanamo.

Clive Smith, his lawyer, said in February 2010:

“I have known Shaker for sometime, because he is so eloquent and outspoken about the injustices of Guantanamo he is very definitely viewed as a threat by the US. Not in the sense of being an extremist but in the sense of being someone who can rather eloquently criticise the nightmare that happened there.”

I will remember Abu Zubaydah, another detainee in Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. Donald Rumsfeld described him as a: “…very senior al Qaeda operative.”

Former President George W Bush called him: “…one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States,” and, “…al Qaeda’s chief of operations.”

Abu Zubaydah was water-boarded eighty-three times and suffered unbelievably harsh interrogation techniques during four and a half years in secret CIA prisons, and finally in Guantanamo Bay.

The CIA have now admitted that Abu Zubaydah was never even a member of al Qaeda. He has never been charged with any offence, yet still languishes in Guantanamo’s infamous ‘Camp 7’.

I will remember the many innocent Afghan people caught up in yet another invasion. The women and children gunned down recently by an American soldier, supposedly there to protect them. How many Americans, if asked why they are at war in Afghanistan, could provide any definitive answer?

You may ask why, on this American Memorial Day, I am pausing to remember these people.

It is because, on this Memorial Day, out of three hundred million Americans, I am probably the only one who will.