By Mark Taliano
The U.S. Pentagon’s most recent best friend forever just identified itself, and it happens to be al Qaeda.
One of many Canadians who protested recently in front of a U.S. embassy office in Toronto
It turns out that Canada, too, has been supporting Al Qaeda by sending money for propaganda promotion, one of Harper’s specialties. The pro-war government of Stephen Harper has so far given $5.3 million to the Al Qaeda rebels for such purposes.
Despite the identity of this new “friend” that is being financed by the U.S, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey– to murder people in Syria, the drums of war continue to beat.
Fewer than 10% of American citizens support an invasion of Syria …. But the drums beat, as if by themselves.
Nobel Peace Laureate Maudie Maguire describes the Syrian tragedy in these words:
“In the last decade, the world has watched in horror such military intervention by USA/UK/NATO and western forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other countries. Now we have been promised by President Obama a military intervention on Syria ‘with teeth’,(in Iraq it was shock and awe). We have been promised that he will continue to support the armed opposition in Syrian (a majority of which are Jabhat al-Nusrah-Victory Front, and other such al Qaeda groups) and we have likewise been promised regime change in Syria. Such US military action, which will probably involve trying to destroy the Syrian army, will leave the civilian population unprotected from the onslaught of armed opposition forces, and will embolden and strengthen the thousands of Islamic extremists from all over the world who have poured into Syria, supported financially and trained by some western governments, and whose intent is to remove the Syrian Government and kill all those who oppose them.”
The plutocrats in Washington know that this criminal war is a hard sell, especially since the illegal invasion of Iraq continues to destabilize the mid-east. The invasion of Iraq — which by 2006 had already cost the lives of some 655,000 more people than would have died if there had been no invasion — is fresh in people’s minds. Shockingly, recent studies show that the rates of infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombed by the US with depleted uranium ordnances, are higher than those incurred after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Consequently, the US and its allies likely enabled false-flag terrorism to justify an invasion for what is essentially an engineered, but extraordinarily murderous war, in which over 100,000 people have so far perished.
The false flag that everyone has no doubt heard about was a chemical weapon attack. Evidence, and common sense, points to the “rebels” as the likely source of the attack, since it was launched the day UN inspectors were in Syria to determine culpability, and only the rebels would benefit from an American, anti-Bashar al-Assad invasion.
The foreign death squads had the means and the motive to launch the illegal weapons. The Assad government, on the other hand, (which is winning the war against these imported extremists) has no motive to precipitate an attack against itself from the lawless US war machine, and the profit-making corporations of the military-industrial complex.
A more comprehensive look at the background of this war reveals that it started innocently enough, and escalated, in a predictable fashion, when outside forces eager to exert their lawless hegemony in a geopolitically strategic location, become involved.
Before the war started, Syrians were peacefully protesting neoliberal economic policies – the same economic policies that are poisoning Canada—and the dictatorship of Assad. People were hoping for a stronger, more sustainable economic model, coupled with a more democratic form of government. Unfortunately, the popular Syrian movement
for democracy was hijacked by Al Qaeda and an assortment of terrorists supported by a diverse array of power-hungry countries, including the US, Saudi-Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar. Essentially, this coalition of background supporters is enabling death squads and murderous atrocities committed by their proxies.
If the aggressors succeed, they will further de-stabilize the country, and install a proxy government, chosen from the ranks of the extremist “rebels”.
And so it goes …. the executive branch of the US may order an illegal invasion of a sovereign country, despite the wishes of an overwhelming majority of American citizens. Plutocrat rule at its best.
More countries, including China and Russia, could be drawn in to protect their interests, and what started as peaceful protests for a better country, could escalate to catastrophic, world-wide proportions.
If common sense, international law, and a sense of shared humanity trumped imperial conquest, then the aggressors in this tragedy would work towards peaceful, diplomatic solutions. Currently, they are following trajectories towards increased violence and anarchy.
The world awaits the triumph of humanity’s better nature.
Mark Taliano is a Niagara, Ontario resident and contributor to Niagara At Large. Click on ‘Be A Contributor’ at the top of NAL’s home page at www.niagaraatlarge.com to find out how you can be a contributor too.
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Let’s stop these war criminals, try spending a little of that money at home to help out the people that elected you instead of going half way around the world to murder people.
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Excellent analysis, Mark.
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Things are happening so fast that Mark’s article is already somewhat out-of-date, as the U.S. scrambles to deal with the Russia-inspired Syrian offer that the UN be given control of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. Some of my sources are cheering this as an American victory, but I suggest that it is folly to underestimate the enemy. Russia has a plan up its sleeve, I’m sure. Suppose, for example, Syria really HAS no chemical weapons. Can you imagine what Obama’s credibility will be then? Regime change, you say? Aha. Two can play at that game…
The tragedy of this affair is that, to the big players, Syria is just the backdrop for a global game of chicken. The Syrian dead are only props in this Theatre of the Absurd.
You can always watch Obama address the American people on television this evening – if you have the stomach for it, that is.
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Al Qaeda has always been from its beginnings an arm of the CIA. It was central to the plans to drive the USSR out of Afghanistan in 1979. It was central to the operations against Russia again (indirectly: their ally Serbia) in the Kosovo conflict, and numerous other examples exist.
Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote this in the Guardian in 2005:
“Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden’s organisation would turn its attention to the west.”
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/08/july7.development
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Mark, why aren’t you out there protesting the use of chemical weapons that were used to slaughter innocent women and children?
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While I usually disagree (sometimes almost violently) with Mr Taliano, in this case I agree with him in some ways.
I disagree that our current federal government is pro-war.
I agree that western countries (ie: the United States, Canada, Britain etc) should keep out of Syria.
Further, I feel western countries should keep out of moslem/arab mid-east countries. There is an organization of Islamic/Arab nations. Those countries are the ones that should be working to resolve the tensions. If the leader of a mid-east country decides to gas his opponents, the other countries in the region (with similar religion/ethnic background/political systems) should deal with them.
We, the civilized countries of the west, have no right trying to impose our higher standards on these barbaric nations. They do not hold human life in the same high regard that we do. Let them deal with themselves. If they eventually make a direct attack, such as they did 12 years ago today, then, and only then should the western countries retaliate.
I know, I know, I sound like I am an islamophobe. Perhaps I am. But perhaps I am also sick and tired of being asked to “accept” their way of life, when they refuse to have any regard for our way of life.
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I know this will upset some people, and there’s no point to violent disagreement, but there are MANY unanswered questions about 9/11.
Another point: the lead up to the war in Iraq was based upon unmitigated lies. Healthy scepticism would be the order of the day.
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I think the British should have stayed out of World War Two because Hitler wasn’t slaughtering British Jews. Neville Chamberlain was right. Just appease them and everything will be okay.
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Hey Mark. What are the MANY unanswered questions leading up to 9/11.
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/09/obama-rogue-state-tramples-every-law
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
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I can agree with many of the above comments, but the world’s issues are very complex and we need to try to simplify our views. The crime is gassing to death millions of innocent victims. Why isn’t the international community joining together to vehemently protest this?
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“gassing to death millions of innocent victims”? That was Hitler, Pat. Assad is a horrible and bloody tyrant, but he’s not shown any inclination that world domination is his aim.
In my opinion, simplifying ones view in the face of complexity is almost guaranteed to produce a simplistic and possibly disastrous “solution” — as Obama has just tried to do. The very real complexity of the situation lies in the manipulation of the Syrian crisis by outside interests keen on dominating the Middle East – and those interests certainly include the U.S., among other players.
Western governments trying to take the high moral ground at this point in the conflict (where have they been over the last two years?) should begin by acknowledging the necessity to dismantle the incredibly profitable international arms trade that makes such appalling wars possible in the first place. (We don’t seem to mind the shareholder profits, so why are we surprised when the stuff is put to use?)
A dead Syrian is no less dead for having been murdered by something OTHER than gas. So let’s recognize propaganda for what it is, shall we?
We must pressure our governments to find some agreement on a way to bring this horrific conflict to an end before Syria becomes another “failed state”.
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To Nick Strugar: I am not suggesting appeasement the way Chamberlain did. I am saying “where the hell are the Arab and Moslem leaders?”
To Mark Taliano: my use of the term “violent” regard to my disagreement with you was more along the lines of me smashing my fist on my desk and swearing out loud at some of your past statements. Not intended to suggest I plan any form of violence against you. You do have the right to be wrong (tee hee).
To Pat Scholfield: Yes, where is the international community, particularly the Arab/Moslem portion of the international community?
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Pat, the number is not millions. War = lies, lies all the time. Countries need to blockade shipments of fuel and weapons to Syria, and then work on diplomacy. The US has no business funding Islamic extremists from all over to murder people. They need to pull al Qaeda out of Syria. Syria is a stepping block to Iran for the US warmongers, and the US needs to be stopped. Most Americans (over 90%) are sick and tired of the US invading countries , setting up proxy dictatorships, and destabilizing the Middle east. International rule of law needs to subordinate the rule of force.
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From Amy Davidson’s thoughtful commentary in today’s New Yorker: ‘Obama’s worst moments, in other words, have come when he ignores complexity, not when he embraces it. Last year, he narrowed his options by talking about the use of chemical weapons as a “red line.” His performance since has had a fly-by-night quality that has not inspired confidence. But, by belatedly turning to Congress and, now, to diplomacy, he has given the process more time and increased the number of possible outcomes. In a situation in which there are no good choices, that’s not a bad thing.’
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What about the people legitimately rebelling against a family that has violently held to power for decades? Not all Syrian rebels are Al-Qaeda and not all Al-Qaeda is Syrian rebels. This “Assad = Legitimate = Good; Rebels = Al-Qaeda = Bad” approach is incredibly short-sighted.
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