The Western-backed assault on Syria was planned long before the war started. It is part of an organised attempt pursued by the British, French, US and Israeli governments to destroy any independent states in the Middle East, above all Iran.
British ministers strut around the world ludicrously calling for war, baiting other, more reluctant, countries to “do something”. Yet Syria as a country is no threat to Britain, and its internal affairs are nothing to do with us or with any other country.
Former French foreign affairs minister Roland Dumas recently told French TV station LCP that he met top British officials in England two years before the violence in Syria, while he was on other business. The officials told him they were preparing something in Syria. “Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria,” he said.
Who are these so-called rebels? Many are extreme Islamist jihadists. Even the warmongering French newspaper Le Monde says that many of the armed Syrian “opposition” are in fact al-Qaeda. They have been systematically targeting civilians from the start, and torturing and beheading captured civilians and soldiers.
In Jordan, British special forces and MI6 officers have been training and arming the jihadists. Since June 2012 the CIA has been helping US and British allies Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar to fly 3,500 tons of weapons so far to the insurgents (this estimate comes from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which monitors illicit arms transfers). As arms shipments to the insurgents have increased, so have the numbers killed.
At the G8 meeting in June, only Russian President Putin defended Syria’s independence and sovereignty. Putin said that Russia was supplying arms to the legitimate government of Syria in compliance with the norms of international law. Referring to the notorious video, he warned Cameron against arming people who “kill their enemies and eat their organs”.
Now Tony Blair is calling for a no-fly zone over Syria. That, NATO’s new Supreme Allied Commander pointed out, would be an act of war.
There are MPs in all parties who understand that we have no business arming these Islamist fascists, and no business fomenting war against the Syrian government. Many Conservative MPs oppose intervention.
Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander went so far as to admit that there is “unease” among MPs of all parties. But that’s as far as the timid and grovelling Labour Party will go. On past form it will back any attack on Syria, claiming “humanitarian” motives for intervention. It backed the wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya – among others – and has neither the courage nor the integrity to oppose this one.
NATO’s intervention is fomenting and prolonging conflict in Syria. This is a time of great danger, a time when the British working class must raise its voice against war. ■